Mrs. Reagan's Legacy

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Townhall:

Linda Chavez

Mar 11, 2016

 

She had her critics -- most notably former White House chief of staff Donald Regan, who accused her, unfairly in my view, of meddling and using astrology to try to steer the president's course -- but her only priority was protecting the president. I served on the senior staff of the White House in Ronald Reagan's second term as director of public liaison, at the time the highest job held by a woman. My interaction with Mrs. Reagan was minimal -- a few social occasions -- but I was close enough to witness the bond that existed between them.

 

President Reagan always seemed to me a very private man, despite his outward ease with people. As his published love letters to Nancy made clear, she was the one person whom he trusted completely. She was his rock. "There would be no life without you nor would I want any," the president once wrote her. When you saw them side by side, you could feel their connection. It wasn't just the way she looked at him, a gaze that drew much snide ridicule from their detractors. If you looked at the president with Mrs. Reagan next to him, you felt as if she was his guardian angel. There was an invisible wall around them that kept everyone else at bay.

 

The only time I glimpsed them in a private moment was during a Christmas party for the White House staff. It was late in the evening, and I had slipped out into the grand hallway on the second floor of the White House. The Reagans were known to retire early, and sure enough, as I looked down the long red carpet, I spied Mrs. Reagan, a glass of wine in her hand, gently kicking up her high heels in rhythm to the music emanating from the next room, the president at her side. Their backs were to me, but I imagined her smiling, maybe humming along, when the president gently took her elbow and steered her toward the elevator to their private residence on the third floor. She seemed to be having such a grand time, and he seemed to be her steady hand.

 

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