Just Say No
The First Lady
launched the "Just Say No"
drug awareness campaign in 1982, which was her primary project and major
initiative as First Lady. Reagan
first became aware of the need to educate young people about drugs during a
1980 campaign stop in Daytop Village, New York. She remarked in 1981 that "Understanding what drugs can do to
your children, understanding peer pressure and understanding why they turn to
drugs is ... the first step in solving the problem." Her campaign
focused on drug education and informing the youth of the danger of drug abuse.
In 1982, Reagan was asked by a schoolgirl what to do when
offered drugs; Reagan responded: "Just
say no." The phrase proliferated in the popular culture of the 1980s and was eventually adopted as the name of club organizations and school
anti-drug programs. Reagan became actively involved by traveling more than
250,000 miles (400,000 km) throughout the United States and several nations,
visiting drug abuse prevention programs and drug rehabilitation centers. She
also appeared on television talk shows, recorded public service announcements,
and wrote guest articles. She appeared in an episode of the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes to underscore support
for the "Just Say No"
campaign, and in a rock music video, "Stop
the Madness" (1985).
In 1985, Reagan expanded the campaign to an international
level by inviting the First Ladies
of various nations to the White House
for a conference on drug abuse. On October 27, 1986, President Reagan signed a drug enforcement bill into law, which
granted $1.7 billion in funding to fight the perceived crisis and ensured a
mandatory minimum penalty for drug offenses. Although the bill was criticized,
Reagan considered it a personal victory. In 1988, she became the first active
first lady invited to address the United
Nations General Assembly, where she spoke on international drug interdiction
and trafficking laws.
Critics of Reagan's efforts questioned their purpose, labeled
Reagan's approach to promoting drug awareness as simplistic, and argued that
the program did not give adequate attention to various social issues associated
with increased rates of drug use, including unemployment, poverty, and family
dissolution.
Her husband's
protector
Reagan assumed the role of unofficial "protector" for her husband after the attempted assassination
of him in 1981. On March 30 of that year, President
Reagan and three others were shot by the attempted assassin 25-year-old John Hinckley, Jr as they left the Washington Hilton Hotel. Nancy was
alerted and arrived at George Washington
University Hospital, where the President was hospitalized. She recalled
having seen "emergency rooms before,
but I had never seen one like this – with my husband in it." She was
escorted into a waiting room, and when granted access to see her husband, he
quipped to her, "Honey, I forgot to
duck", borrowing the defeated boxer Jack Dempsey's jest to his wife.
An early example of the First
Lady's protective nature occurred when Senator
Strom Thurmond entered the President's hospital room that day in March,
passing the Secret Service detail by
claiming he was the President's "close
friend", presumably to acquire media attention. Nancy was outraged and
demanded that he leave. While the President recuperated in the hospital, the First Lady slept with one of his shirts
to be comforted by the scent. When Ronald
Reagan was released from the hospital on April 12, she escorted him back to
the White House.
Press accounts framed Reagan as her husband's "chief protector", an
extension of their general initial framing of her as a helpmate and a Cold War domestic ideal. As it
happened, the day after her husband was shot, she fell off a chair while trying
to take down a picture to bring to him in the hospital; she suffered several
broken ribs but was determined to not reveal it publicly.
Astrological consultations
During the Reagan administration, Nancy Reagan consulted a San Francisco astrologer, Joan Quigley, who provided advice on
which days and times would be optimal for the president's safety and success.
Quigley began her work at the White
House after the assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981. Nancy
Reagan was told by Merv Griffin
that Quigley had predicted that day would be dangerous for President Reagan, causing her to become a regular astrological
consultant for the administration. Quigley previously worked on the Reagan
campaign before serving as their astrological consultant. She volunteered for
their campaign in 1980, as she was impressed by his astrological chart. Private
lines were set up in the White House
and Camp David to assist in phone
calls between Nancy Reagan and Joan Quigley, which occurred multiple
times a day, and she was paid $3,000 a month for her work.
White House Chief of
Staff Donald Regan grew frustrated with this regimen, which created
friction between him and the First Lady.
This friction escalated with the revelation of the Iran–Contra Affair, an administration scandal, in which the First Lady felt Regan was damaging the
president. She thought he should resign, and expressed this to her husband,
although he did not share her view. Regan wanted President Reagan to address the Iran-Contra matter in early 1987 using a press conference,
though the First Lady refused to
allow her husband to overexert himself due to recent prostate surgery and
astrological warnings. She became so angry with Regan that he hung up on her
during a 1987 telephone conversation. According to the recollections of ABC
News correspondent Sam Donaldson, when
the President heard of this treatment, he demanded—and eventually
received—Regan's resignation. Vice
President George H. W. Bush is also reported to have suggested to her to
have Regan fired.
In his 1988 memoir, For
the Record: From Wall Street to Washington, Regan wrote the following about
Nancy Reagan's consultations with an
astrologer:
Virtually every major
move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with a woman in
San Francisco [Quigley] who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets
were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise.
Donald Regan's memoir went on to cause political discourse,
as well as scrutiny of the astrological community, as he exposed the "most closely guarded secret" of
the Reagan administration. Although he did not know Quigley's name at the time,
he wrote extensively on her role in the White House. Regan further claimed that
Quigley selected the date of the 1985 Geneva
Summit. For her part, Quigley stated in 1998 that she had "'absolutely nothing'" to do
with arranging the summit and added that others were "'overemphasizing'" her role; however, in 1990, she
released a book in which she asserted that she was "in charge" of the President's scheduling during the
Reagan administration.
Reagan acknowledged in her memoirs that she altered the
President's schedule without his knowledge based on astrological advice, but
argues that "no political decision
was ever based [on astrology]". She added, "Astrology was simply one of the ways I coped with the fear I felt
after my husband almost died ... Was astrology one of the reasons I don't really believe it was, but I don't
really believe it wasn't."
Influence in the
White House
Nancy Reagan
wielded a powerful influence over President
Reagan. In her memoirs, Reagan stated, "I
felt panicky every time [Ronald Reagan]
left the White House". Following
the assassination attempt, she strictly controlled access to the president;
occasionally, she even attempted to influence her husband's decision-making.
Beginning in 1985, she strongly encouraged her husband to
hold "summit" conferences
with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev and suggested they form a personal relationship beforehand. Both
Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev developed a productive relationship through their summit negotiations. The
relationship between Nancy Reagan
and Raisa Gorbacheva was anything
but the friendly, diplomatic one between their husbands; Reagan found
Gorbacheva hard to converse with and their relationship was described as "frosty". The two women
usually had tea and discussed the differences between the USSR and the United
States. Visiting the United States for the first time in 1987, Gorbacheva irked
Reagan with lectures on subjects ranging from architecture to socialism,
reportedly prompting the American president's wife to quip, "Who does that dame think she is?"
Press framing of Reagan changed from that of just a helpmate
and protector to someone with hidden power. As the image of her as a political
interloper grew, she sought to explicitly deny that she was the power behind
the throne. At the end of her time as First Lady, however, she said that her
husband had not been well-served by his staff. She acknowledged her role in
reaction in influencing him on personnel decisions, saying "In no way do I apologize for it." She wrote in her memoirs,
"I don't think I was as bad, or as
extreme in my power or my weakness, as I was depicted," but went on, "However the First Lady
fits in, she has a unique and important role to play in looking after her
husband. And it's only natural that she'll let him know what she thinks. I
always did that for Ronnie, and I always will."
Breast cancer
In October 1987, a mammogram detected a lesion in Reagan's
left breast and she was subsequently diagnosed with breast cancer. She chose to
undergo a mastectomy rather than a lumpectomy, and the breast was removed on
October 17, 1987. Ten days after the operation, her 99-year-old mother, Edith Luckett Davis, died in Phoenix,
Arizona, leading Reagan to dub the period "a
terrible month".
After the surgery, more women across the country had
mammograms, which exemplified the influence that the First Lady possessed.
Later life
Though Reagan was a controversial First Lady, 56 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of her
when her husband left office on January 20, 1989, with 18 percent having an
unfavorable opinion, and the balance of not giving an opinion. Compared to fellow First Ladies when their husbands left
office, Reagan's approval was higher than those of Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Clinton, and Melania Trump. However, she was less popular than Barbara Bush and Michelle Obama, and her disapproval rating was double that of
Carter's.
Upon leaving the White
House, the couple returned to California, where wealthy friends purchased
them a home at 668 St. Cloud Road in the wealthy East Gate Old Bel Air
neighborhood of Bel Air, Los Angeles, dividing their time between Bel Air and
the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara,
California. Ronald and Nancy regularly attended the Bel Air Church as well. After leaving Washington, Reagan made numerous
public appearances, many on behalf of her husband. She continued to reside at
the Bel Air home, where she lived with her husband until he died on June 5,
2004.
Early post–White
House activities
In late 1989, the former First Lady established the Nancy
Reagan Foundation, which aimed to continue to educate people about the dangers
of substance abuse. The Foundation teamed with the BEST Foundation for a Drug-Free Tomorrow in 1994 and developed the
Nancy Reagan Afterschool Program.
She continued to travel around the United States, speaking out against drug and
alcohol abuse.
Ronnie's long journey
has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him. — Nancy Reagan (May 2004)
Her memoirs, My Turn:
The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan (1989), are an account of her life in the White House, commenting openly about
her influence within the Reagan administration, and discussing the myths and
controversies that surrounded the couple. In 1991, the author Kitty Kelley wrote an unauthorized and
largely uncited biography about Reagan, repeating accounts of a poor
relationship with her children, and introducing rumors of alleged sexual
relations with singer Frank Sinatra.
A wide range of sources commented that Kelley's largely unsupported claims are
most likely false.
In 1989, the IRS
(Internal Revenue Service) began investigating the Reagans over allegations
they owed additional tax on the gifts and loans of high-fashion clothes and jewelry
to the First Lady during their time
in the White House (recipients
benefiting from the display of such items recognize taxable income even if they
are returned). In 1992, the IRS determined the Reagans had failed to include
some $3 million worth of fashion items between 1983 and 1988 on their tax returns;
they were billed for a large amount of back taxes and interest, which was
subsequently paid.
After President
Reagan revealed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in
1994, she made herself his primary caregiver and became actively involved with
the National Alzheimer's Association
and its affiliate, the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Institute in Chicago,
Illinois.
In April 1997, Nancy
Reagan joined President Bill Clinton
and former Presidents Ford and Bush in signing the Summit Declaration of Commitment in
advocating for participation by private citizens in solving domestic issues
within the United States.
Nancy Reagan was
awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, by President George W. Bush on July 9, 2002. President Reagan received his own Presidential Medal of Freedom in January 1993. Reagan and her
husband were jointly awarded the Congressional
Gold Medal on May 16, 2002, at the United
States Capitol building, and were only the third president and First Lady to receive it; she accepted
the medal on behalf of both of them.
Funeral for President
Reagan
Ronald Reagan
died in their Bel Air home on June 5, 2004. During the seven-day state funeral,
Nancy, accompanied by her children and military escort, led the nation in
mourning. She kept a strong composure, traveling from her home to the Reagan Library for a memorial service,
then to Washington, D.C., where her husband's body lay in state for 34 hours
before a national funeral service in the Washington
National Cathedral. She returned to the library in Simi Valley for a sunset
memorial service and interment, where, overcome with emotion, she lost her
composure and cried in public for the first time during the week. After
receiving the folded flag, she kissed the casket and mouthed "I love you" before leaving.
During the week, CNN journalist Wolf
Blitzer said, "She's a very,
very strong woman, even though she looks frail."
She had directed the detailed planning of the funeral, which
included scheduling all the major events and asking former President George H. W. Bush, as well as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former Soviet
Union Leader Mikhail Gorbachev,
and former Canadian Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney to speak during the National
Cathedral Service. She paid very close attention to the details, something
she had always done in her husband's life. Betsy
Bloomingdale, one of Reagan's closest friends, stated, "She looks a little frail. But she is very strong inside. She is.
She has the strength. She is doing her last thing for Ronnie. And she is going
to get it right." The funeral marked her first major public appearance
since she delivered a speech to the 1996
Republican National Convention on her husband's behalf.
The funeral had a great impact on her public image.
Following substantial criticism during her tenure as First Lady, she was seen somewhat as a national heroine, praised by
many for supporting and caring for her husband while he suffered from Alzheimer's
disease. U.S. News & World Report
opined, "After a decade in the
shadows, a different, softer Nancy
Reagan emerged."
Widowhood
Following her husband's death, Reagan remained active in
politics, particularly relating to stem cell research. Beginning in 2004, she
favored what many consider to be the Democratic
Party's position, and urged President
George W. Bush to support federally funded embryonic stem cell research, in
the hope that this science could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's disease.
Although she failed to change the president's position, she did support his campaign
for a second term.
In 2005, Reagan was honored at a gala dinner at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington,
D.C., where guests included Dick Cheney,
Harry Reid, and Condoleezza Rice.
In 2007, she attended the national funeral service for Gerald Ford at the Washington National Cathedral. Reagan hosted two 2008 Republican
presidential debates at the Reagan
Presidential Library, the first in May 2007 and the second in January 2008.
On March 25, she formally endorsed Senator
John McCain, then the presumptive Republican
Party nominee for president, but McCain would go on to lose the election to
Barack Obama.
Reagan attended the funeral of Lady Bird Johnson in Austin, Texas, on July 14, 2007, and three
days later accepted the highest Polish distinction, the Order of the White Eagle, on behalf of Ronald Reagan at the Reagan
Library. The Reagan Library
opened the temporary exhibit "Nancy
Reagan: A First Lady's Style", which displayed over eighty designer
dresses belonging to her.
Reagan's health and well-being became a prominent concern in
2008. In February, she suffered a fall at her Bel Air home and was taken to Saint John's Health Center in Santa
Monica, California. Doctors reported that she did not break her hip as feared,
and she was released from the hospital two days later. News commentators noted
that Reagan's step had slowed significantly, as the following month she walked
in very slow strides with John McCain.
In October 2008, Reagan was admitted to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center after falling at home. Doctors
determined that the 87-year-old had fractured her pelvis and sacrum, and could
recuperate at home with a regimen of physical therapy. As a result of her
mishap, medical articles were published containing information on how to
prevent falls. In January 2009, Reagan was said to be "improving every day and starting to get out more and more".
In March 2009, she praised President Barack Obama for reversing the ban on federally funded embryonic
stem cell research. She traveled to Washington, D.C. in June 2009 to unveil a
statue of her late husband in the CapitolRotundaa. She was also on hand as President Obama signed the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act,
and lunched privately with Michelle
Obama. Reagan revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair that Michelle
Obama had telephoned her for advice on living and entertaining in the White House. Following the death of Senator Ted Kennedy in August 2009, she
said she was "terribly saddened ...
Given our political differences, people are sometimes surprised how close
Ronnie and I have been to the Kennedy family ... I will miss him." She
attended the funeral of Betty Ford
in Rancho Mirage, California, on July 12, 2011.
Reagan hosted a 2012 Republican presidential debate at the Reagan Presidential Library on
September 7, 2011. She suffered a fall in March 2012. Two months later, she
endured several broken ribs, which prevented her from attending a speech given
by Paul Ryan in the Reagan Presidential Library in May
2012. She endorsed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on May 31, 2012, explaining that her husband would have
liked Romney's business background and what she called "strong principles". Following the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
in April 2013, she stated, "The
world has lost a true champion of freedom and democracy ... Ronnie and I knew
her as a dear and trusted friend, and I will miss her."
Death and funeral
On March 6, 2016, Nancy
Reagan died of congestive heart failure at her home in Los Angeles at the
age of 94. On March 7, President Barack
Obama issued a presidential proclamation ordering the flag of the United
States to be flown at half-staff until sunset on the day of Reagan's interment.
Her funeral was held on March 11 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
Representatives from ten first families were in attendance, including former
president George W. Bush and First Ladies Michelle Obama, Laura Bush,
Hillary Clinton, and Rosalynn
Carter. The other representatives were presidential children Steven Ford, Tricia Nixon Cox, Luci Baines
Johnson, and Caroline Kennedy,
and presidential grandchild Anne
Eisenhower Flottl.
Other prominent individuals in attendance included
California governor Jerry Brown and
former governors Arnold Schwarzenegger
and Pete Wilson, then-former HouseSpeakerr Nancy Pelosi, and former
House speaker Newt Gingrich, and
former members of the Reagan administration, including George P. Shultz and Edwin
Meese. A sizable contingent from the Hollywood entertainment industry
attended as well, including Mr. T, Maria
Shriver (Schwarzenegger's then-wife), Wayne
Newton, Johnny Mathis, Anjelica Huston, John Stamos, Tom Selleck, Bo Derek,
and Melissa Rivers. In all, there
were some 1,000 guests.
Eulogies were given by former prime minister of Canada Brian Mulroney, former secretary of
state James Baker, Diane Sawyer, Tom
Brokaw, and her children Patti Davis
and Ron Reagan. After the funeral, Nancy Reagan was interred next to her
husband.
Historical
assessments
Since 1982 Siena
College Research Institute has conducted occasional surveys asking
historians to assess American First Ladies
according to a cumulative score on the independent criteria of their
background, value to the country, intelligence, courage, accomplishments,
integrity, leadership, being their own women, public image, and value to the
president. In terms of cumulative assessment Reagan has been ranked:
36th-best of 37 in 1993
28th-best of 38 in 2003
15th-best of 38 in 2008
15th-best of 39 in 2014
In the 1993 Sienna
Research Institute survey, the first conducted after Reagan left the White House, Reagan was assessed very
poorly by historians, ranking the second-worst, with only Mary Todd Lincoln being given a worse assessment. Reagan was ranked
the lowest in half of the criteria (background, value to the country,
intelligence, courage, and integrity). The regard for Reagan has improved in
subsequent iterations of the survey. In the 2008 Siena Research Institute survey, Reagan was ranked the
4th-highest in value to the president but was ranked the lowest in integrity.
In the 2003 survey, Reagan ranked the 5th-highest in value to the president. In
the 2014 survey, Reagan and her husband were ranked the 16th-highest out of 39 First Couples in terms of being a "power couple". In the 2014
survey, historians ranked Reagan among 20th and 21st-century American first
ladies as being the 5th greatest in terms of being a "political asset" and the 5th greatest in terms of being a strong
public communicator.
Reagan and her husband have each posthumously experienced
continued criticism for having, during their time in the White House, spent years publicly ignoring the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which began during her husband's presidency. The
epidemic had initially predominantly impacted the male homosexual community.
Reagan's great extended public silence on this matter has been contrasted with
her coinciding vocalness against drug use. Reagan's extended failure to give
significant public acknowledgment of this epidemic has been seen as one of the
greatest detractions in her retrospective public regard. However, there has
been reporting to suggest that, privately, Reagan did unsuccessfully urge her
husband's administration to address the epidemic.
Awards and honors
As noted earlier, Nancy
Reagan was awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom in 2002 and the Congressional
Gold Medal, in the same year. In 1989, she received the Council of Fashion Designers of Lifetime Achievement Award.
As First Lady, Nancy
Reagan received an Honorary
Doctorate of Laws degree from
Pepperdine University in 1983. Later, she received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Eureka College in
Illinois, her husband's alma mater, in 2009.
Filmography
The Crippler (1940)
(Short)
Portrait of Jennie
(1948)
The Doctor and the
Girl (1949)
East Side, West Side
(1949)
Shadow on the Wall
(1950)
The Next Voice You
Hear... (1950)
Night into Morning
(1951)
It's a Big Country
(1951)
Talk About a Stranger
(1952)
Shadow in the Sky
(1952)
Donovan's Brain (1953)
The Dark Wave (1956)
(Short)
Hellcats of the Navy
(1957)
Crash Landing (1958)
As Nancy Davis,
she also made several television appearances from 1953 to 1962, as a guest
star in dramatic shows or installments of anthology series. These included Ford Television Theater (her first
appearance with Ronald Reagan came
during a 1953 episode titled "First
Born"), Schlitz Playhouse of
Stars, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater (appearing with Ronald Reagan in the 1961 episode "The Long Shadow"), Wagon
Train, The Tall Man, and General
Electric Theater (hosted by Ronald
Reagan).
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