Reagan was always selling. In fact, Mike Deaver, his closest aide, always said Reagan would have made a great shoe salesman. But as President, just like a purveyor of footwear, he also had to have a quality product to sell. In 1980, by the time of Reagan’s inauguration, he had told the American people repeatedly what he would do if he were elected President. This was the product he sold them: a platform of positions, policies, and initiatives he would undertake for the country—all with the underpinning of his unique conservative belief system.
However, as soon as he unpacked his bags at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he had to start all over again, just as every newly elected President does, and restate to the public and important members of Congress the details of his political platform. For the voters with whom he entered a new type of relationship, he was no longer candidate Reagan but the chief executive. That meant a whole new round of scrutiny of the man and learning the way he would govern.
His initial selling job was interrupted by the assassination attempt a little more than two months into his first term. But this unexpected and unimaginable incident also provided an unplanned sympathetic lift to his legislative agenda and strengthened both his resolve and his ability to sell it. With Reagan the salesman, everything was symbolic as well as practical, and his appearance before an unusual joint session of Congress twenty-nine days after the shooting was designed to regain the upper hand of the presidency through the symbolism of a healthy body (his) and the productive relationship he sought with a healthy body politic (the Congress).
When he strode into the House chamber on April 28, 1981, and finally began his speech, after ten minutes of sustained applause and very few dry eyes, on either side of the aisle, his survival had a special meaning to these legislators and in some way united them. At that moment Reagan was not a partisan. He was just an American—as were they. Reagan began his address by thanking his fellow Americans for their support, prayers, and love during his recuperation, but he lost no time getting to the heart of his plan. He renewed his call for Congress to pass his agenda, which included tax reform and cuts, curbs on federal spending, and a stimulus for the economy.
From the time in 1962 when he turned to the right politically and became a Republican, Reagan always had to justify his views, run a little harder, explain a little more, and sell more ambitiously than when he was a card-carrying Democrat. You could say that the full debut of Reagan’s platform and program, which he would begin to sell as President in 1981, had a much earlier unveiling in Phoenix at the 1964 Republican National Convention, when Barry Goldwater was nominated for President. It was Reagan’s first major exposure as a politician on the national scene, and he made a big impression with his electrifying “Time for Choosing” speech (or “Rendezvous with Destiny,” as it was also dubbed).
After that, he never looked back, never gave up selling his principles and beliefs, until he was in effect silenced by the degrading disease and disability that took his voice. In this speech, delivered in Goldwater’s home town of Phoenix, Arizona, the expectations for Reagan’s performance were not high, to say the least, and there were questions about why he was even selected to give this key endorsement. But this was an ideal situation for him to be in at that convention.
Reagan would frequently remind us on the staff of this precept—to always surprise an audience with greatness, and this became a sort of mantra in the West Wing. Do not promise anything before you can deliver it. Do not preempt yourself with immodesty. Do not overpromise in quantity or quality. Go in to the audience with lower expectations and come out surprising them with an impressive achievement so that they sit up and take notice, where they had expected not to be moved or impressed, or even to remember anything you said or did. This attitude, practiced by Reagan, sometimes even in an “aw shucks” manner, put him in a position to say, in part, at that national debut speech in Phoenix:
“You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it’s a simple answer after all.
“You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, ‘There is a price we will not pay.’ ‘There is a point beyond which they must not advance.’ And this—this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s ‘peace through strength.’ Winston Churchill said, ‘The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits, not animals.’ And he said, ‘There’s something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty. You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.”
The interesting thing about this speech is not the effect it had on the Goldwater campaign—$1 million came pouring in the very night of the speech. Nor was it the effect on Reagan’s political prospects—which advanced rapidly from this point. It was that this speech provides evidence Reagan was talking, selling, and sermonizing to huge crowds long before he had a stable of speechwriters in the White House. This is definitive proof that his public speaking skills as President did not accrue principally to the extraordinary skill of brilliant speechwriters but to Reagan himself. Reagan wrote these things, this entire speech, himself from a boyhood of learning from sermons, a profession of talking to millions on the radio, acting on the big screen, and by imagining the possible and describing what he understood as a nation’s destiny.
Few men or women ever have the opportunity or courage to say the things Reagan did to such extraordinarily large audiences. He was never called a preacher’s son publicly, and I am not sure why, because he was. He was Nelle Reagan’s son. Preachers have something to sell—be it fire and brimstone, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, or redemption and restoration. Reagan was patterning himself and his leadership style on this—the selling leadership style of the church. The only difference was that the platform was secular and the results were open to anyone. Reagan, as national political leader, had to sell the redemption of a governmental system he thought to be broken, and he had to sell military rearmament, a regaining of American power and stature in the world, and a long list of domestic policy proposals.
Because Reagan was elected President on a platform that included tax relief and economic reform and he had innovative ideas about how to achieve them, he was frequently put in a position of explaining and proving his big ideas—and then having to defend the details before he could roll them out more broadly and sell them to the public. This was how he described the situation he found in Washington a month after he took office:
“A few days ago I was presented with a report I’d asked for, a comprehensive audit, if you will, of our economic condition. You won’t like it. I didn’t like it. But we have to face the truth and then go to work to turn things around. And make no mistake about it, we can turn them around…
“Regulations adopted by government with the best of intentions have added $666 to the cost of an automobile. It is estimated that altogether regulations of every kind, on shopkeepers, farmers, and major industries, add $100 billion or more to the cost of the goods and services we buy. And then another $20 billion is spent by government handling the paperwork created by those regulations.
“I’m sure you’re getting the idea that the audit presented to me found government policies of the last few decades responsible for our economic troubles. We forgot or just overlooked the fact that government—any government—has a built-in tendency to grow. Now, we all had a hand in looking to government for benefits, as if government had some source of revenue other than our earnings.”
In this talk, Reagan was laying the groundwork for his sales initiative. He reminded people repeatedly what the situation was like when he arrived in Washington. He was setting the baseline record straight, as he saw it, and drawing a line in the sand against which he would be judged for the actions he took to improve economic conditions. These were the “starting block” statements and the beginning of this big sales push. He had to state plainly his assessment of the situation he inherited in order to make his projections about the future and have them heard. He set a perfect pattern for any salesman to follow: Articulate the conditions on arrival, then lay out the plan to fix them, just as any general called to battle would also do. After this opener, he turned the oratorical corner with a more detailed statement of the problem and then started a turn to the future in these words from his April 1981 speech to Congress:
“It’s been a half a year since the election that charged all of us in this government with the task of restoring our economy. And where have we come in these six months? Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, has continued at a double-digit rate. Mortgage interest rates have averaged almost fifteen percent for these six months, preventing families across America from buying homes. There are still almost eight million unemployed. The average worker’s hourly earnings after adjusting for inflation are lower today than they were six months ago, and there have been over 6,000 business failures.
“Six months is long enough! The American people now want us to act, and not in half measures. They demand and they’ve earned a full and comprehensive effort to clean up our economic mess. Because of the extent of our economy’s sickness, we know that the cure will not come quickly and that even with our package, progress will come in inches and feet, not in miles. But to fail to act will delay, even longer and more painfully, the cure which must come. And that cure begins with the federal budget. And the budgetary actions taken by the Congress over the next few days will determine how we respond to the message of last November 4. That message was very simple: Our government is too big, and it spends too much.”
This part of the sales pitch stakes a claim and makes a warning. “Six months is long enough!” Change is coming. Get ready for the rest of the story and to take action on the proposals we will make. This is the turn from the statement of the problem to the statement of the solution. Reagan knew what he had to do—as much as if he were the shoe salesman. He restated it from the Oval Office on July 27, 1981, this way:
“In a few days the Congress will stand at the fork of two roads. One road is all too familiar to us. It leads ultimately to higher taxes. It merely brings us full circle back to the source of our economic problems, where the government decided that it knows better than you what should be done with your earnings and, in fact, how you should conduct your life. The other road promises to renew the American spirit. It’s a road of hope and opportunity. It places the direction of your life back in your hands where it belongs.
“I’ve not taken your time this evening merely to ask you to trust me. Instead, I ask you to trust yourselves. That’s what America is all about. Our struggle for nationhood, our unrelenting fight for freedom, our very existence—these have all rested on the assurance that you must be free to shape your life as you are best able to, that no one can stop you from reaching higher or take from you the creativity that has made America the envy of mankind. One road is timid and fearful; the other is bold and hopeful.”
Finally in this last section he is calling for action, participation from the audience. Reagan was selling his remedy for the idea that America had lost its strong standing in the world. That prospect was intolerable to Reagan, and he knew if he were to be effective on the global scene that had to change. He put America on notice that he would launch a campaign to spread democracy and freedom wherever he could find a predisposition or a desire for it—and even where he did not.
When he ordered American forces into tiny, nearby Grenada to stop a Marxist coup in Operation Fury in March 1983, he explained his decision to intervene with military force this way, just like any salesman would:
“Grenada, we were told, was a friendly island paradise for tourism. Well, it wasn’t. It was a Soviet-Cuban colony, being readied as a major military bastion to export terror and undermine democracy. We got there just in time… Sam Rayburn once said that freedom is not something a nation can work for once and win forever. He said it’s like an insurance policy; its premiums must be kept up to date. In order to keep it, we have to keep working for it and sacrificing for it, just as long as we live. If we do not, our children may not know the pleasure of working to keep it, for it may not be theirs to keep.”
Reagan understood the need for any leader to explain himself, explain his actions and their consequences. This makes the leader stronger and broadens his base of support. This was not only a selling proposition but an educational one for his electorate.
Reagan’s 1983 show of force in Grenada was heard throughout the world and noticed as Reagan’s willingness to go to war to defend freedom. Action like that, not to occupy but to ferret out and destroy a Marxist cell on the island, helped in a small way to rebuild the strength of America overseas, and it may have helped to bring some reluctant leaders to a more serious place at the bargaining table. This was an example of Reagan’s pledge of seeking peace through strength. Successes like the one in Grenada also helped Reagan in selling his next piece of business with the American people.
Reagan came to office with an ambitious and detailed plan, as every President does, that was vetted through the electoral process. Because of his overwhelmingly positive election results, he had a mandate to shift the nation’s priorities. As a result, the selling started in earnest at the beginning of his Administration and was an endless rotation of explaining and gaining the ear of the majority who would hear it—and then starting all over again. Selling is like advertising—the key is repetition. Successful political salesmanship is no different. Reagan was repetitive—often to the complaints of journalists who had to record yet another defense of the virtues of limited government and supply-side economics. If he had lost the leading edge of effective salesmanship, he could have lost his considerable political capital.
To expand, solidify, and keep the sales advantage, Reagan took his message directly to the American people. He did this as often as possible in an attempt to influence what might have been the media’s own interpretation of his proposals. He didn’t want a middleman describing his initiatives. He was confident in his own message, his delivery, and his audience. He did not shortchange them; he respected them. He had the idea that if he could get in front of his audience, physically or virtually, he would have a better chance of convincing them of his sincerity and the value of his proposals. He thought this was the only way to enlist them in an unbiased way and also to move them to take the action he was proposing—the action he was actually urging they take. These tactics are reminiscent of the work he did for General Electric in the 1950s, traversing the country talking about and selling management issues at the factory gates—and finding attentive audiences.
Reagan wanted to reason with Americans and show them why it was important for them to fight to reduce the size and scope of government and to stimulate them to make government their servant rather than their master. Reagan always said, as had Presidents before him, that he had command of the “bully pulpit”—a term coined by President Theodore Roosevelt in reference to the White House and its ability to draw in and compel listeners to hear its message. This bully pulpit was an especially comfortable place for Reagan to occupy because of his natural, son-of-a-preacher training and his predisposition to evangelize on issues important to him and to his political platform. Here is an example of a message to promote his policies, delivered on August 16, 1982:
“There’s an old saying we’ve all heard a thousand times about the weather and how everyone talks about it but no one does anything about it. Well, many of you must be feeling that way about the present state of our economy. Certainly there’s a lot of talk about it, but I want you to know we’re doing something about it. And the reason I wanted to talk to you is because you can help us do something about it…
“I know you’ve read and heard on the news a variety of statements attributed to various ‘authoritative government sources who prefer not to have their names used.’ Well, you know my name, and I think I’m an authoritative source on this, since I’m right in the middle of what’s going on here. So, I’d like to set the record straight on a few things that you might have heard lately… You helped us start this economic recovery program last year when you told your representative you wanted it. You can help again—whether you’re a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent—by letting them know that you want it continued, letting them know that you understand that this legislation is a price worth paying for lower interest rates, economic recovery, and more jobs.”
Here Reagan is talking more like a candidate attempting to win votes than a President stating a policy. His tone is eager, his demeanor folksy, his attitude confident and assertive, right out of the once-popular Dale Carnegie book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Reagan remained in charge and true to his character, but he was willing to do what it took to win a point or two in public opinion about his programs. This is what it takes for any leader to expand his base of support for an idea, an invention, legislation, a strategy, or a plan—winning points, speech by speech, interview by interview.
He was a “Chairman of the Board” President rather than a “Chief Operating Officer” officeholder. Reagan took a broad stroke in his management style and is remembered less for his specific policies than for his basic beliefs and larger accomplishments. Some chief executives fail to make a clear distinction between management and leadership. Reagan did not. He was not a manager and he knew it. He also knew it required a big-picture thinker, strategist, and leader to earn significant respect and consolidate power, especially in a role like this.
This was precisely what the American people were seeking by rejecting Jimmy Carter for a second term and electing Reagan. Then they sent Reagan back to the White House in 1984 for a second term after he won a landslide victory, taking forty-nine states in his election bid against Democrat Walter Mondale. When voters were asked in exit polls in the 1984 election what they liked most about Reagan, 40 percent said they liked Reagan because he was a “strong leader”; only half that many said they liked any particular position he took. ABC polling director Jeffrey Alderman said at the time that Reagan’s early showing of strong leadership in his first term “was enough by itself to buy Reagan the time he needed. It allowed him to survive the worst recession since World War II with much of the public [behind him].”
One powerful sales tool uniquely available to any U.S. President is to talk to the American people from the massive antique desk in the Oval Office. From there Ronald Reagan could look them straight in the eye, through the camera lens, without interference or interruption. Reagan set the record for the greatest number of presidential talks televised from the Oval Office. He addressed the nation twenty-nine times from that iconic room, which had been added to the White House complex during the William Howard Taft Administration. It is the most powerful and well-recognized office in the world. Reagan was aware of that and treated it reverentially. These were prime-time major network events that interrupted people’s favorite nightly TV shows. The White House received complaints about taking time away from regularly scheduled programs, but millions listened, and many who did valued this chat with their President.
Whether you agreed with what he said or not, the power of the Oval Office talk was undeniable. It was an effective and productive way for him to reach people, and there was a kind of comfort in Reagan’s presentation. We made every attempt to associate these particular talks with the most serious issues. I would characterize these talks by Reagan as a very serious discussion you might have had with your dad, grandfather, or mentor, where you gave him the courtesy of listening carefully to what he said. At the same time, Reagan was conscious of not overdoing the number of talks from his office, which could have diminished their importance.
Some Oval Office talks attracted larger audiences than others—and this depended upon the viewing competition from other television shows in the same time block and also the subject of the presidential talk. The largest audience tuned in for his farewell address on January 19, 1988. Being in the Oval Office a couple of times during these live productions was a big deal, and I observed that Reagan was focused and scripted and came across as the polished actor he was. When he signed off with his signature “God bless America,” you had a feeling that he really did want God to bless America. The reason an observer might have felt that way is because Reagan felt it in his heart. He had more respect for his country and for the Oval Office than he did for himself.
Reagan wanted to build up the power, prestige, and stature of the American presidency as an institution itself—not for his own personal benefit, but to enhance respect for the office throughout the world. He wanted this for political purposes and to uphold one of the most solid, successful, and durable institutions of democracy as an example. The Oval Office talks played into that strategy and enhanced it, because they had a worldwide audience as well as the one at home. He felt that the level of regard accorded the office of the U.S. President was a support to what he could accomplish in promoting democracy and freedom around the world. He cared about what would happen to the office once he left, and he wanted it to be in a better place than when he first occupied it. He wanted a powerful presidency, because of what it would enable him to accomplish globally.
Reagan’s ability to talk directly to the American people rested on his ability to gain and retain their interest and confidence. Reagan felt this was linked to the esteem his constituents had for the office as much as their approval of him personally. This was a critical point to him, and it was not lost on his treatment of the symbols of the office. So, for example, when Reagan was in the Oval Office working, you had a sense that he felt awed by his temporary job. I do not think we would be able to find a picture of Ronald Reagan with his feet hoisted up on the edge of the extremely rare, intricately carved, and valuable Resolute desk that he used—something several other Presidents had done. He would have considered that crass and symbolically degrading to the office, and that it would contribute to a disrespect of the office and its role in the world. Reagan relished the pomp and circumstance of the office, the marching bands on the South Lawn, the military color guards, the cannon salutes, the choreographed formal arrivals of heads of state. It was all a part of the montage of a strong presidency, a part of the American fabric—a kilowatt in the shining city metaphor.
Kathy Osborne, the President’s longtime secretary, told me that Reagan always felt awed by working in the office where so many epic decisions had been made and so much history created and witnessed. He never lost the thrill of walking into the Oval Office or making his daily commute from the family quarters, through the lower cross hall, and out the West Garden Room to the West Wing. The bust of Churchill, and the handsome Western bronze sculptures by celebrated artist Frederic Remington, as well as the historic George Catlin Indian Chief paintings, were all prominent features of Reagan’s office and conveyed a feeling of power, order, and respectability.
There was a running joke around the White House (and this is probably true of any presidential administration) that whenever we were having a bad news day in Washington, we needed to take the President out to Andrews Air Force Base, hop on Air Force One, and take a trip. Anywhere. Locating a receptive and supportive audience to talk to can do wonders to demonstrate to the rest of the world that there is robust support for your ideas—somewhere. For Reagan this was usually in the heartland of America, where conservative values were more appreciated than on the East Coast.
Following almost every annual State of the Union address or Oval Office talk, trips to key states and localities were planned to have the message delivered directly to the people by the President or by Cabinet-level officials acting as surrogates. These were handled like campaign trips to sell a new platform of ideas or a legislative agenda. Sometimes the President would be accompanied by the Congressman whose district he would visit or by the Governor of the state. This was also an opportunity for small media outlets to capture and distribute the message, and for Reagan again to talk plainly to his fellow countrymen about the specifics of the proposals presented in the usually ambitious, lengthy State of the Union speech or in an Oval Office talk. On trips to speak about tax reform, he reached out to the heartland. First, from Williamsburg, Virginia:
“Two nights ago I unveiled our proposal to revolutionize the Federal tax code. I spoke of the system as it is now, and as we wish it to be. But just for a moment today I want to note how our modern tax system evolved from a modest attempt to raise modest revenues to the behemoth to which we are currently beholden… Our Federal tax system is, in short, utterly impossible, utterly unjust, and completely counterproductive… It’s earned a rebellion, and it’s time we rebelled.”
Then from Oshkosh, Wisconsin:
“The night before last, television networks were kind enough to give me a few minutes to talk about our system of taxation. I announced our plan to put more resources into the hands of the American people by making our tax code more simple, fair, and efficient and the most sweeping change in our tax laws it would be in more than seventy years. I knew we were on the right track when the high-priced tax attorneys started shedding tears after I spoke. And now that I’ve come to Main Street, America, and now that I have seen a smile on the face of Oshkosh, I know we said the right thing.”
And from Malvern, Pennsylvania:
“For too long our tax code has been a damper on the economy. Steeply rising tax rates punish success, while tangled and needlessly complicated rules of compliance can booby-trap any new enterprise that can’t afford high-priced lawyers and tax consultants to protect itself from the tax man. April 15th wasn’t so long ago. And I’m sure many still remember that mounting feeling of frustration and resentment as you worked late into the night trying to make sense of the maze of bureaucratic rules and regulations. Nearly half of all Americans threw up their hands in dismay and went to get professional help on their taxes this year. Well, paying someone to figure out how much you owe the government in taxes just adds insult to injury. Don’t you think America’s had enough?”
In these regional or local talks, Reagan could break down his agenda into digestible and simple messages. Talking directly to people on these road trips did not have to be grand in the way that an Oval Office or State of the Union talk would have to be. It could be smaller and more intimate, and he could be more accessible. It could also embrace issues confronting the local community. It gave Reagan more face time with Americans as well.
An American incumbent President is the head of his own political party, and he needs to focus on expanding and solidifying its base as well as its current or hoped-for majority. The President should leave his party in better shape than he found it. Not all American Presidents have understood this obligation, and many have failed at it. Reagan adhered to this rule, and it was a central part of his strategy to get out of the White House, to talk with Americans directly and also to fund-raise for his party.
I will never forget accompanying Margaret Thatcher on one of her own road trips—during her 1987 reelection bid—when she returned to her constituency, or electoral district, in Finchley, a London suburb. It was an enlightening experience. As magnificent as the Iron Lady had become globally, she still had to face the local voters in a humble school hall in order to secure her reelection and keep her post at Number 10 Downing Street. She had to return in every election cycle to the very place that had given her political breath and the right to lead. They held the key to her future, and while she was larger than life on the world stage, I saw her assume a much more attentive and modest version of herself on the local stump. She had to secure the vote from her constituents, or she would be packing her bags at the Prime Minister’s residence.
Reagan, while serving under a different electoral process, nevertheless did not forget what he owed to the people who voted for him and even to those who did not. They were always his boss, and he respected that. Reagan knew he was President for all American citizens. He relished his responsibility to unite and not to divide along partisan lines or special-interest groups. His ability to unite was one of his most prominent attributes. He was aware that this did not mean he would be personally and uniformly liked nor that his political standing would always ride high. For him it meant to bring together a community of citizens who loved and honored their country regardless of politics.
Reagan saw his role as an orchestra leader, setting the pace and the tempo, and selecting the compositions to be played. Beyond that, managing the minutiae and details of a large federal bureaucracy was not something in which he would become deeply involved on a day-to-day basis. He did create the template for what we called “cabinet government” and made ambitious attempts to maintain strong working relationships with his Cabinet secretaries. He was aided in this by a very effective Cabinet office staff headed by my friend Craig Fuller.
After observing this up close, I had to admit that there is actually no overall Chief Operating Officer for the vast U.S. Government as a singular entity. Any President is held accountable for developments in the U.S. government during his time in office, but he is rarely involved directly in its operations. Cabinet officials and agency heads become the closest to acting like Governors of the states with responsibility for their own territories or agencies. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget position comes closest to assuming the Chief Operating Officer role.
Reagan’s “Chairman of the Board” leadership style was put on full display at the annual staff gathering, held at the massive DAR Auditorium a few blocks’ walking distance from the White House. Reagan, like any President, had an opportunity to personally appoint approximately 2,500 government employees to carry out his platform and policies, and this gathering was always an impressive collection of Reaganites—as we were called. Every year there was a unique theme to the meeting, which included talks by Cabinet officials and was capped by the President’s address itself. I always found these events well-intentioned and effective ways to assemble, unify, and energize a large group of employees. Reagan was in his element at these “family” gatherings. It also provided all these political appointees an ability to return to their individual agencies and share the President’s message with all federal employees.
Although Reagan was willing to and did compromise when needed, especially on his legislative agenda, he had a highly developed intuitive sense that he was right on most issues. Whenever I was briefing him, he looked me directly in the eye and he listened intently. You could see the wheels turning. If he agreed with you, he just took your advice and followed what you suggested or outlined. If he did not, he would review his options, usually at a later time.
I remember the contrast between Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in personal briefings. Bush, for whom I also had enormous respect, wanted to be more engaged, was less formal, and would provide feedback on whether or not he agreed with what you were telling him right on the spot, and then he would proceed according to the way he thought best. Reagan would usually proceed along the lines that you thought were best at least for tactical matters. Reagan was the type of leader who hired the best people to work for him and then expected them to perform to their highest capacity. You did not want to disappoint him, and most did not. His backup was a sophisticated personnel office and a highly focused political operation that thoroughly vetted every appointee for their commitment to conservative values and practices.
I learned about this process firsthand when I ran into the buzz saw of an unyielding political clearance process myself. I remember, after having already joined the staff, being asked to meet with Lyn Nofziger, the President’s longtime political advisor, and told I did not pass the political litmus test. As a lifelong Republican from a Republican family and as an ardent supporter of Reagan, I was both curious and piqued. When I asked him to explain his complaint in detail, I discovered that he had mistakenly associated me with having worked for a well-known liberal. I laughed out loud with relief while explaining to him his error. He had linked me with someone I had never met but who had the same name as my previous boss—who was in fact a stalwart conservative. That matter was cleared up and the subject closed, but I learned a lesson in the degree of political vetting the White House conducts.
With political protectors surrounding him, the President was, in principle, shielded from prospective infiltrators who might not be people the Leader of the Free World could trust and depend on. However, Reagan was compact in his decision making and restrained in the number of people he let into his thought process, and he had less of a need to listen to and trust advisors. His instincts were most important to him, and together with his closest advisors—who managed day-to-day events, his schedule, and policy decisions—he was removed from personnel skirmishes that could distract him. As Chief of Staff, Jim Baker was superb at protecting Reagan from unwarranted challenges from Administration players who might make a misstep that would reflect adversely on his boss.
There were officials who did veer off the Reagan reservation, such as David Stockman, the disenchanted budget director; Col. Oliver North, the overly-ambitious engineer of the Iran-Contra deal; and Donald Regan, who as Reagan’s Chief of Staff earned the fatal ire of the First Lady. But Reagan’s eight years were largely free of the amount of internal political intrigue experienced by the Nixon or Clinton White Houses. This is not to say there was no competition at the staff level. Competition was in play, for example, in the movement of one of Reagan’s closest friends, Bill Clark, to his position as Secretary of the Interior from his perch as National Security Advisor—where he had an office one floor below his friend the President—as well as in the scuttling of Secretary of State Al Haig completely from the Cabinet; he was replaced by George Shultz early in the first year.