Transcript: Chapter 21

Narrator: In the next four years Reagan would see his best days as president and his worst, without the help of his oldest advisers. His troika was burned out. Michael Deaver who had been with Reagan since he became governor would soon leave government. Edwin Meese who had been with him just as long left to became Attorney General. Chief of staff James Baker became treasury secretary switching jobs with Don Regan who became the new chief of staff.

Rollins: Everybody else that was left in the White House had no history with Reagan. They hadn't been in his campaign. They hadn't been from California. They hadn't been, most of them hadn't been on the first term and Don Regan had his staff from Treasury, ah, so it was sort of like you know I was always convinced that the president would wake up someday and say where have all my friends gone. His friends were still around government. They weren't in the White House day in day out controlling what he saw or the information flow that he had.

Narrator: The little boy who could not form attachments simply let his old friends go. He did not seem to realize how well they'd taken care of him.

Nofziger: When Don Regan became chief of staff, one of the pieces of advice I gave him was Don go out and get your own Mike Deaver. Somebody who will listen to Nancy and take care of her needs and so forth because if you don't then she will call you all the time and, it's hard to get your work done when you're talking to Nancy all the time and so he said fine but he didn't do it. He thought he could separate the two of them, and he couldn't.

Narrator: The "Mommy watch" would fall to Don Regan. Regan would try to do alone what a staff of three had done in the first term. And do it in a style many thought was too imperious.

Rollins: I mean Don Regan was a tyrant. And he was miscast as a chief of staff and never thought of himself as staff. He thought of himself as deputy president. Said to me one day, I can make 85 percent of the decisions the president makes and I said to him, I said, "Don, I just ran a campaign in 50 states. I didn't see your name on the ballot anywhere."

Donald T. Regan, Chief of Staff: Oh, come on. That is absolute balderdash. I could think of a couple of other words to use, but since this might be a family program, I won't use them. The president of the United States is the president of the United States. And as chief of staff, you carry out whatever it is that the man wants to do. Now sure, I had been a CEO, myself, of a company with 25,000 or more people. I had been secretary of the treasury which had hundreds of thousands of people. I knew something about administration, how to command. But I also knew that I was chief of staff.

Narrator: The president embraced his new chief of staff and never challenged his take-charge style. The problems would come later. But the opportunities of the second term were apparent within weeks. Reagan had written to Leonid Brezhnev in 1981 suggesting they meet when the climate was better. Brezhnev died the next year. In 1983 he had written Yuri Andropov of his interest in eliminating "the nuclear threat"; that year ended with a heightened threat. Then Andropov died. At 4am on March 11, 1985, Reagan was awakened to be told that Konstantin Chernenko had died. "How am I supposed to get any place with the Russians, I asked Nancy, if they keep dying on me?"

The new man in the Kremlin, Mikhail Gorbachev, was not about to die on anyone. He was 54 years old, vital, alert, intelligent, and a reformer. He would try to make the Communist economy more productive and the political system more open. Margaret Thatcher had met Gorbachev and had been impressed.

Thatcher: I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together. We both believe in our own politician systems. He firmly believes in his. I firmly believe in mine. We're never going to change one another. But we talked, and we discussed freely. Now that was what we wanted. This was what President Reagan had been wanting in the battle of ideas. So I said, "Look, this man is prepared to meet argument with argument. That's a totally new phenomenon. So we really can do business and perhaps get somewhere."

Narrator: As soon as Gorbachev came to power in March, Reagan proposed a meeting. It would lead to his greatest achievements. In June he confronted terrorism. His response would threaten his presidency.

Pilot: They are beating the passengers. They are beating the passengers. They are threatening to kill them now.

Narrator: Terrorists hijacked a plane and murdered an American passenger. This crisis was resolved. But it heightened Reagan's concern for seven other Americans held hostage in Beirut. They had been kidnapped by followers of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini who had held American diplomats hostage and helped undermine Jimmy Carter's presidency. Reagan took a firm stand on not dealing with terrorists.

Reagan: Let me make it plain to the assassins in Beirut and their accomplices wherever they may be that America will never make concessions to terrorists. To do so would only invite more terrorism.

Narrator: But Reagan heard how William Buckley, his CIA station chief in Beirut, had been beaten by his captors. As he personalized the plight of the hostages, the importance of his policy tended to fade.

Reagan: I don't think anything that attempts to get people back who have been kidnapped by thugs, murderers and barbarians is wrong to do. And we're going to do everything we can to get all of them back that are held in that way.

Will: This is the soft side of Ronald Reagan. He was really bothered by the hostages. It would take a harder man than Ronald Reagan to say what a president ought to say which is, sorry, this is a big country and big countries have casualties if you will and we just have to regard those people as for the moment casualties, put them out of your mind. Ronald Reagan had a hard time being hard.

Narrator: In July 1985 five days after an operation for colon cancer, Reagan was asked by his National Security Adviser Bud McFarlane to approve a secret plan. It was time to improve relations with Iran by courting moderates who might succeed the Ayatollah Khomeini. And who might influence their followers in Beirut to release the seven captive Americans.

McFarlane: His reaction was that yes, if we could open a dialogue with people who might succeed Khomeini, that would be good. When the possibility of the release of the hostages was added, he was even more enthusiastic.

Narrator: Reagan soon approved a shipment of arms to Iran which he would later deny was a trade for hostages. That wasn't all he would deny.

"I didn't have cancer," he later told reporters. "Something inside of me had cancer, and it was removed." The next month Reagan was at the ranch, ready to saddle up.

Nancy Reagan: (laughs) There was a constant argument to try to convince him, no, he could not ride, as he wanted to ride.

Dr. John Hutton, Physician to the President: Finally the elapsed time is over and the first lady protectively says well let's start off gently and we'll just walk our horses around the ranch. The next day he went out to ride and there's a stretch where you have a nice straight-away.

John Barletta, U.S. Secret Service: The doctor would be in a vehicle behind us and a lot of places we'd go the vehicle couldn't be in eyesight, so he'd kind of, well, if he's not looking we can do it. I won't tell, will you?

Dr. Hutton: And I heard this yell up in front from several people and I, so we put it into gear and rode up closer. And all we could see was the dust from the hoof beats in the distance as, as the president galloped away from the crowd.

Barletta : (laughs) Well, he was something. No way in hell were you going to stop that man from riding. And it was fine.

Dr. Hutton: One of the agents next to me says, "Doc, the first lady wants you down in the barn." And as I walked down there, everybody else is walking away. Ah, ha, ha, which wasn't customary and I said, gee, what's in store. She says, now John, she says, you stand here. We're going to have a little meeting, but we're not all here yet.

Nancy Reagan: (laughs.) Yup. Ever the protector.

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