I believe the Republican party has a platform
that is a banner of bold, unmistakable colors,
with no pale pastel shades!
[cheering]
[narrator] They call it "the Gaze"...
a look of adoration so compelling,
even the cameras can't break away.
[Sally Quinn] Do I remember the Gaze, you know?
[laughs]
Yeah, it was a talent,
because she looked at him as though he were a god.
[Kati Marton] It was almost hypnotic, that gaze.
[cheering, applause]
[Karen Tumulty] She just saw in her husband
somebody who should be president.
Thank you very much.
Her husband's glory was gonna be their glory.
[narrator] The Reagans were the first show-business family
to inhabit the White House.
But Nancy was more than just Ronald Reagan's co-star.
[Ron Reagan] She wanted him to be the front-man,
and she wanted to be the producer/director
behind the scenes.
[reporter] How do you feel about that, Mrs. Reagan?
I agree with everything he says, I always do. [laughs]
[Stuart Spencer] He would've never been elected Governor
without Nancy.
He'd have never been elected president without Nancy.
They were a team.
She gave him strength.
She gave him encouragement.
She gave him hell.
-Are you asking me or...? -[reporter] Well, you first.
[Kati Marton] I consider Nancy to have been in some ways
the most powerful, the most influential,
the most indispensable partner
in the modern presidency.
Why don't you ask him first?
[reporter] You wanna get your stories straight?
[laughs] Yeah.
[theme music plays]
[interviewer] We're talking to Mrs. Ronald Reagan,
and we have just two more quotes here.
Would you be a forceful first lady, in your opinion?
Oh, I...
Depends on what you mean by forceful.
[narrator] It's 1980,
and with her husband running for president,
Nancy Reagan is in the spotlight.
I have a feeling President Carter
doesn't have a foreign policy.
[interviewer] "Nancy is tough, more than an adoring wife."
Well, I don't think I'm tough.
[narrator] Where some see a good wife standing by her man...
She was always pushing to make sure that he succeeded,
as any good wife would do.
[Ronald Reagan] We can make America great again!
[narrator] ...others see her as the power broker
in the relationship.
[interviewer] All right, we'll go on.
“The brains behind her husband”" You've read that?
No, no. My husband is the brains of the family.
[Karen Tumulty] Nancy Reagan was seen as a retrograde,
traditional figure.
Yet, it is hard to think of someone
who was just so comfortable with her own power,
and so unafraid to use it.
[Ronald Reagan] Speaking of Nancy,
she's been the first lady in my life for a long time.
[cheering]
[narrator] Nancy Davis and Ronald Reagan
met in Hollywood in 1949.
Nancy was an ambitious young actress.
Nancy arrived in Hollywood
during the time of the Red Scare.
There was a lot of concern
that the communists were infiltrating Hollywood.
[Karen Tumulty] She sees the name Nancy Davis
on a list of supposed communist sympathizers.
I mean this-- this is a career killer.
[Bob Colacello] So she went to her director, Mervyn LeRoy,
and he said, "Well, look, I'm going to have
my good friend, Ronnie Reagan,
the president of the Screen Actors Guild,
look into this for you."
[Karen Tumulty] Reagan says, "No, it's another Nancy Davis.
tell her not to worry, we'll stand behind her."
But Nancy says, "You need to
engineer a chance for me to meet him face to face."
[narrator] Ronald Reagan, ten years Nancy's senior,
was a well-known actor and a staunch anti-communist.
I think that the list was really a pretext
to get to know Ronald Reagan, who was now a divorcee.
[Bob Colacello] They make it sound
as if they got married, like, a week later.
But he was still playing the field
after his disastrous divorce from Jane Wyman.
It was really three years later
before they actually tied the knot.
[Karen Tumulty] Their wedding was also hastened
by the fact that she discovered that she was pregnant.
[narrator] On that spring day in 1952,
Nancy set aside her Hollywood dreams...
to take on the role of Mrs. Ronald Reagan.
[Gahl Burt] They needed each other,
they made each other possible
and they played on the world stage together very well.
[Ronald Reagan] I, Ronald Reagan,
do solemnly swear that I will...
[narrator] Almost 30 years later,
Nancy holds the bible as her husband is sworn in.
It's the first inauguration to be held
on the west side of the capital, closer to California.
[Ronald Reagan] ...and will to the best of my ability.
[Gahl Burt] It was very glamorous, and very Hollywood.
[Bob Colacello] All these social people in their fur coats
and their big jewelry,
I think something like 700 corporate
and private jets landed over the weekend.
[Jim Kuhn] She wanted him in a morning suit.
And then she was in a very expensive dress.
So, yeah, it might have been a little overdone.
But Nancy did it her way.
[narrator] Watching the new first lady,
so comfortable and elegant on the world stage,
few would imagine just how far she had traveled to get here.
[Bob Colacello] Nancy was born in 1921 in Flushing, Queens.
[Karen Tumulty] Her mother was an actress named Edith Luckett.
Her father was Kenneth Robbins,
a sort of aimless car salesman.
They divorced when she was quite small.
And the mother struggled for two years.
Nancy would literally be in a bassinet backstage.
And, finally, she realized this wasn't working.
So, she leaves Nancy with relatives
in Bethesda, Maryland.
And thus begins a six-year period
where her mother essentially abandoned her.
[Ron Reagan] Three years old is not the age
when you want to see your mother
driving off to the big city leaving you behind.
[narrator] When Nancy was eight, her mother settled down
and married Loyal Davis, a distinguished neurosurgeon.
Nancy joined the couple in Chicago.
[Karen Tumulty] There, for the first time in her life,
she does get a sense of security.
[narrator] She also learned to navigate the social elite.
[Bob Colacello] Nancy's mother loved social life.
She would organize a dinner party with the top doctors,
the Mayor of Chicago who was always a Democrat,
the Governor of Illinois, who was always a Republican.
This couple comes out of nowhere
and becomes a couple
that everyone in Chicago has to pay attention to.
She always said to me,
"A lot of things happen at dinner parties, Bob."
That was the lesson that I think she carried to Washington.
[announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
the president of the United States and Mrs. Reagan.
[applause]
[newscaster] President Reagan and First Lady Nancy
made the rounds in Washington tonight
at a series of inaugural balls.
-There are ten of these. -[laughter]
You're number seven...
And we're gonna get to all of them.
-No, number eight! -[applause]
[narrator] After dancing their way
through nine VIP balls,
the Reagans finally make it back to their new home.
Nancy recalls that night in her memoir,
"As I closed my eyes, I remember thinking,
My Lord, here we are, sleeping in the White House.
And here I am,
sleeping with the president of the United States.
But I found out the hard way that nothing,
nothing prepares you for being first lady."
[narrator] The Reagans now live
in one of the most famous homes in the world,
their every move under scrutiny.
Fortunately, this is something they've both trained for.
Good evening, I'm Ronald Reagan speaking for General Electric.
[narrator] In 1954, two years into their marriage,
Reagan signed on to host
a new TV show called General Electric Theater.
[Ronald Reagan] Once upon a time, there was a girl.
And, of course, there was a boy who fell in love with her.
[Ron Reagan] General Electric built them a house...
You know, Nancy. We'll see Patti later on.
Hello.
...which was meant to be the show house...
for General Electric appliances and lights and everything.
We had more switches and gadgets in that house
that you could shake a stick at, most of which we never used.
Well, it's too complicated for me.
But I do know that our heat pump is amazing and wonderful.
[Ron Reagan] My sister had more of the GE commercials.
Here's another one you ought to know.
Waffle iron!
I got a little more of the Crest Toothpaste commercial.
Come and meet the younger members of the Reagan clan.
I'm Patti.
I'm Ronnie Reagan.
[narrator] Now, the Reagans have a new family home.
But Nancy is disappointed to find
that it needs a little work.
[Nancy Reagan] Floors and doors needed refinishing,
the plumbing system required repair...
There was a lot of mold on the walls,
in the private residence.
Some of the curtains were rotted through from the sun...
[Jim Kuhn] It was shameful.
Carters wouldn't spend any money on it.
And she knew how to make it right.
[narrator] Nancy turns to private donors,
seeking tax-deductible contributions
to fix up the White House.
But she caught a lot of flak for it.
[Kati Marton] Nancy tried to be Jackie Kennedy
in the White House.
And the '80s were not the '60s.
[Karen Tumulty] Nancy Reagan did all of this
against the backdrop of a country
that was plunging into a recession.
Names like Annenberg,
Sinatra and Sasol are on the list of donors.
[narrator] The biggest checks
come from people Nancy has known
since the Reagans first entered politics.
[Gahl Burt] They were all from California.
And they were all her friends.
[Bob Colacello] She knew what she was doing!
These women all had husbands who were not only powerful,
but conservative Republicans.
[Karen Tumulty] She'd become a queen bee of this set,
and that becomes very important
when her husband starts to launch a political career.
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny...
[narrator] Nancy's new friends were impressed
by her husband's political views.
[applause]
They come to Reagan and say, "You've gotta run for Governor."
Vote for me if you believe in yourself!
If you believe in your right to control your own destiny.
[Bob Colacello] She was involved
in every campaign meeting from the first,
and Stuart Spencer said she had, in a way,
better political instincts than him.
[Stuart Spencer] Her modus operandi was this:
We do a day of campaigning,
and let's say eight o'clock the next morning
she'd call her friends, and she'd get all their feedback.
"You gotta do this, Nancy, you've gotta do that."
"Ronnie's gotta do this Ronnie's gotta do that."
[Nancy Reagan] Women have more time
to devote to politics.
Obviously, their husbands are working,
they have more time...
[Stuart Spencer] In some ways, I think she wanted to win
more than he wanted to win.
[narrator] Nancy's work paid off.
The Hollywood power couple become governor
and first lady of California.
[Kati Marton] He was not a great actor
but he sure became a hell of a politician with her help.
[narrator] To show how well
they're settling into Washington,
the Reagans take a stroll across Lafayette Park.
[Jim Kuhn] I remember I had the news on,
and I thought, this is great, the Reagans are gonna get out,
they're not going to be in a bubble,
we're off to a great start.
And then low and behold, the next day...
[reporter] There's the president.
[gun shots]
There's the shots.
[Sheila Tate] We were at that hospital
in three minutes.
And she went racing towards the door.
[narrator] In her memoir, Nancy recalls confusion and fear.
"I stammered, 'Where? Where was he hit?'
'They don't know, they're looking for the bullet.'
'Looking for the bullet? I've got to see him!' I said.
'Wait. They're working on him.'"
[Sheila Tate] I was holding her hand.
I kept saying, "It's gonna be all right.
It's gonna be all right."
She was just lost somewhere. She was in shock, I guess.
[Ron Reagan] The Secret Service came and told us
that shots had been fired.
Go upstairs, turn on the TV,
and there's the scene being played out.
[reporter] The president has gone
to George Washington University Hospital,
as has First Lady Nancy Reagan.
[Ron Reagan] We got in a Learjet and flew back to DC
and went right to the hospital.
Nobody's really telling anybody anything.
She's, of course, terrified
that she's about to lose her husband.
And then they wheel him out...
and he looked pretty good for a guy
had just been shot nearly in the heart.
[reporter] In our top story,
President Reagan's temperature is back to normal today.
He continues to make satisfactory progress
towards recovery.
[narrator] The president recovers,
but the scars will stay with Nancy for years to come.
[Fred Ryan] The impact of the shooting
never left Nancy Reagan.
Having seen how close he came to dying,
she was determined
she was not going to let that happen again.
[Sheila Tate] It then became a problem
whenever he went out.
[David Gergen] Somebody could come out of nowhere,
bullets could fly out of nowhere.
Washington seemed a darker place.
This, of course, leads to the famous,
you know, astrology business,
which I'm sure you would have gotten to, eventually.
[telephone rings]
This astrologer calls her up or lets her know that,
"Well, I could have predicted this.
I knew that that wasn't a good day
for him to be out of the house."
[Karen Tumulty] Is the plane going to take off for Europe
at 3:00 a.m. Sunday or 7:00 p.m. Saturday?
Those kinds of decisions were put to the astrologer.
[Sheila Tate] And the problem, of course, was, in retrospect,
she was telling someone
who didn't have security clearance
about his schedule.
She was very scared.
And she had some crutches that she needed.
[narrator] Nancy's consultations with her astrologer
are kept secret from all but her innermost circle.
They would continue for many years.
[Sheila Tate] In all the time I worked with her
I never ever knew about the astrologer.
None of us did.
[telephones ringing]
[narrator] But the astrologer wasn't the only person
Nancy was calling.
[Gahl Burt] I learned early on that I needed
to keep her informed about everything,
because somehow, through her network,
and her network was extensive, she would hear.
[telephone rings]
[Bob Colacello] She was the classic old-fashioned
almost corporate wife
who did everything behind the scenes.
And the telephone was her sort of weapon of choice.
She once joked to me that she wanted
to be buried with the phone, just in case.
[Jim Kuhn] She didn't go down to the cabinet room
and sit in on meetings.
She didn't go into the Oval Office
and take part in a dialogue.
But she was watching from above.
[Fred Ryan] She would ask questions.
"What happened here?
What went wrong here? What are we doing about this?"
She stepped up when she saw
that things were going the wrong direction
for her husband.
[David Gergen] And if you valued your life...
[scoffs]
...you didn't want Nancy Reagan coming after you with a hatchet.
You might lose something.
[Bob Colacello] She, basically, started calling me
about two things. One, to discourage Ron
from giving up his Secret Service detail,
'cause she said Gaddafi
and the Puerto Rican Liberation Front
were both trying to kidnap him.
[chuckles]
And the other thing she wanted to talk about was,
"Why does the press hate me so much?"
[narrator] Nancy knows how to keep
the people around her husband in line,
but journalists in Washington are a whole other beast.
During her first year in the White House,
Nancy seems to be
in a constant battle with the press.
[Ron Reagan] They were used to getting attention,
Hollywood attention.
Politics, though, brings a different kind of attention,
and a different kind of scrutiny.
The White House disclosed today that the president's wife
does not own all of her clothing.
[Kenneth Duberstein] I got a heads up
that the story was coming,
and I walked down the Oval Office,
and I explained to the president,
"You might wanna give Nancy a heads up."
The president looked at me and said,
“Why don't you tell her?” [laughs]
And she was livid, and I said,
"You have to go through your wardrobe,
and pick out some of these dresses, and return them."
[reporter] For the inaugural ball,
Mrs. Reagan borrowed, and still has not returned,
more than 100,000 dollars' worth of diamond jewelry.
There are very strict regulations
over reporting gifts.
And Nancy really didn't feel
like she always had to follow the rules.
[reporter] The camera's eye focused
on her lavish redecoration of the family living quarters
and her $209,000 set of china.
It was, "Nancy's gotta have this, Nancy's gotta have that,"
and she took a real beating. She did.
[Gahl Burt] I would get to work in the morning
and I would read some dreadful piece
on the front page of The New York Times
or The Washington Post about Mrs. Reagan.
And I would be almost sick to my stomach.
[Kati Marton] The president and the first lady
generally don't both get bad press simultaneously.
They kind of take turns.
And Nancy really was the lightning rod.
And that enabled Ronnie
to play the doting protective husband,
which played well in the media.
[reporter] No one would say how many items
Mrs. Reagan received, or their worth...
[narrator] In her memoir, Nancy admits
that the attacks got to her:
"Everything I did or said
was instantly open to criticism."
[reporter] Mink coats, limousines,
thousand-dollar-a-plate china at the White House...
[narrator] "My clothes, my friends,
my taste in decorating, the way I looked at my husband."
Let's set that straight once and for all,
because Nancy's taken a bit of a bum rap.
[narrator] "These stories not only hurt,
they also made me damn mad."
[reporter] She was turning into a political liability.
[rustling, ripping]
[Sally Quinn] Nancy was never popular with the press
because she didn't trust the press.
She didn't like the press.
She was very controlled.
And that's not unusual for someone from Hollywood.
They learn very early on not to say anything.
You're really hurt by some of the press
that you've been getting.
I mean, hurt.
Yes.
I guess what you really want for Christmas
is for the press to take a fresh look at you.
That would be nice. [chuckles]
[narrator] To turn the tide of hatred,
Nancy tries a new tactic.
She was scheduled to speak
at the Al Smith Dinner back in New York.
[Nancy Reagan] There's now a picture postcard
of me as a queen.
Now, that's silly, because I'd never wear a crown.
[laughter]
It messes up your hair!
[louder laughter]
And the room went nuts. They just had a ball.
[Sally Quinn] She had seemed so icy
and so unapproachable. That was a brilliant move.
It demonstrated that she had a sense of humor about herself,
which I don't think she did.
But it did the trick.
[narrator] Now she needs a cause to get behind.
[Sheila Tate] I asked her what she was interested in
being involved in, and she said,
"Youth drug abuse."
And I remember at the time thinking,
"That's a sort of a downer," you know. [laughs]
I'm saying that if you're a casual drug user,
-you're an accomplice to murder. -[applause]
[Ron Reagan] For them, it was a way
to push back against the '60s.
Feminism, rock and roll and smoking pot.
Clearly, something is very wrong here...
and needs to be put right.
Tonight, there's something special to talk about,
and I've asked someone very special to join me.
-Nancy? -Thank you.
Today, there's a drug- and alcohol-abuse epidemic
in this country, and no one is safe from it,
because it's aimed at destroying the brightness
and life of the sons and daughters
of the United States.
Did all of you start first on pot?
There's no moral middle ground.
[reporter] She is making drug abuse
her personal crusade.
Indifference is not an option.
We're telling the kids to stay off drugs, stay in school.
[Nancy Reagan] Say yes to your life.
What should you do when someone offers you drugs?
And when it comes to drugs and alcohol...
[kids] Just say no!
...just say no.
[Sally Quinn] It's almost like saying,
"If you remain celibate,
you won't get a venereal disease." [laughs]
It just seemed a little bit too simplistic.
[Ron Reagan] "Just say no."
And throw people in prison.
[Nancy Reagan] What a waste. What a wasted life.
[Ron Reagan] There was, of course, the irony
that her two kids certainly had smoked pot.
So, none of that was particularly popular with me.
[Kati Marton] Though it's true that every first lady
needs to have a cause,
in my view, Nancy's chosen cause was her husband.
[camera shutters click]
Good morning.
[David Gergen] Reagan had to go out and talk to the press
about something that was very, very difficult.
And we'd worked out with Nancy to get a birthday cake.
And when he got to a point,
we're in deep water, let's get him out of here.
We're holding it to seven percent.
[crowd singing "Happy Birthday"]
[Ronald Reagan] And two days early!
Aren't they coming fast enough without moving it up?
Blow the candle out. Make a wish.
[narrator] Two years into his first term,
the question of whether the 72-year-old president
should run again is on everyone's mind.
[Sam Donaldson] Well, maybe this would be a good time
for you to tell him whether you think he should run again?
[all laugh]
Oh, no.
[narrator] Nancy, the protector-in-chief,
won't show her hand.
[Sam Donaldson] You're not getting too old
to run again, are you, sir?
How'd you like a piece of cake, Sam?
[laughter]
Huh? Right in the...
[Ron Reagan] She was worried about his physical safety.
He was in his mid-70s.
He had been shot and nearly killed.
I asked him not to run.
That one's smaller. Here, take mine and I'll trade.
No, no, no, that's bad luck!
[Fred Ryan] My view is, Nancy Reagan
would have been very happy to go home after one term,
think back on their successes and look ahead to the future.
I have learned not to argue with her superstitions.
[Ron Reagan] But I think she also realized
that President Reagan's work was not done.
Of course, he's gonna run.
And he's gonna win.
And she's not going to take that away from him.
[narrator] It's the summer before the 1984 election,
and the Reagans are on vacation at their ranch.
A reporter asks the president
about a potential meeting with the Soviets.
[reporter 1]
We're doing everything we can.
[reporter 1] Thank you.
[reporter 2] And it took some prompting
from wife Nancy for the president to acknowledge...
[Gahl Burt] That was her being his protector.
Him stumbling for the right words,
and taking a pause,
and her feeling that the pause was uncomfortable.
[narrator] With the election in full swing,
the president's age has become a major issue.
He was the oldest president ever at that point.
[Gahl Burt] He was slowing down and she was right by his side
trying to, you know, keep it all afloat.
[applause]
[narrator] President Reagan's challenger
is former vice president, Walter Mondale,
a relative youngster at 56.
[Ron Reagan] Famously, his first debate
with Walter Mondale did not go well.
To try and say that we were taxing the rich
and not the other way around...
He seemed kind of out of sorts, slow.
The system is still where it was with regard to...
uh...
the...
[Jim Kuhn] He stumbled and he fumbled.
And that was because his debate preparation
was just too detail-oriented:
too many numbers, too many facts.
[Stuart Spencer] He didn't do his homework.
Did not do any of his homework.
So, he stunk.
[Jim Kuhn] I thought, boy, I'm glad I'm not in Louisville,
because somebody's gonna
have to deal with Nancy Reagan tonight.
[Stuart Spencer] She wanted heads, she wanted bodies,
she wanted it all.
[narrator] Nancy describes her reaction in her memoir.
[knocks]
"There was no way around it.
The debate was a nightmare.
'What have you done to my husband?'
I said to Mike Deaver, back at the hotel.
'Whatever it was, don't do it again.'"
[Gahl Burt] As she would say all the time,
"You need to let Ronnie be Ronnie.
Just let Ronnie be Ronnie. He knows what to do."
[Fred Ryan] The second debate came around,
he'd done some reading, he'd rested up,
he walked in and he mastered it.
[Ronald Reagan] I will not make age
an issue of this campaign.
I am not going to exploit, for political purposes,
my opponent's youth and inexperience.
[laughter]
[Fred Ryan] And at that point, the debate was over.
And in many ways, the election was over.
[narrator] Reagan carries an unprecedented 49 states
in the '84 election...
[cheering]
...and Nancy's eye turns towards securing his legacy.
[crowd] Nancy! Nancy!
[Bob Colacello] In 1997, I asked her,
"Was there some area that you felt you had an effect?"
And she said, "Oh, no, no,
Ronnie knew exactly what he wanted to do
from the moment he was elected."
And then she paused and very, very softly added,
"Well, maybe the whole Russian thing."
And I was like, "The whole Russian thing?
You mean the main thing of his administration?"
[Ronald Reagan] We will meet with the Soviets,
hoping that we can agree...
on a way to rid the world
of the threat of nuclear destruction.
[David Gergen] He had a lot of people on his right
saying arms control is only for fools,
don't get into negotiation with the Soviets,
because they will always cheat on you.
She was much more mainstream.
She didn't want her husband going down in history
as a man who built this huge new nuclear arsenal
and possibly touched off a war.
[Bob Colacello] She believed very much in Reagan's slogan
of peace through strength.
She just felt that they had done the strength side,
it was time to do the peace side.
[narrator] In November 1985, the moment finally arrives.
The US and Soviet Leaders are to meet for the first time
since the start of the Cold War.
[Jim Kuhn] Reagan had his team on his side of the table
and Gorbachev on the other side, and that's fine,
but Nancy knew that that wasn't enough.
She knew that Ronnie was gonna be best one-on-one
alone with Gorbachev as much as she could get him.
So, she said, "Honey, what you really ought to do
is take Gorbachev for a walk."
[reporter] President Reagan proposed the two leaders walk
from the 18th-century villa they were meeting in
to a pool house on the edge of Lake Lamont.
[Jim Kuhn] Reagan and Gorbachev decided
they didn't even need to go into the group meeting
'cause they had made so much headway alone.
[Fred Ryan] Geneva was an incredible breakthrough,
on the policy but also on the personal relationship.
You could tell there was a chemistry
between the two of them that began that day.
[Jim Kuhn] Everything happens the way
Nancy Reagan had planned it.
It was a great summit
and she had her fingerprints all over it.
[narrator] The bond forged in Geneva will lead to
a treaty banning two entire classes of nuclear weapons
and effectively ends the Cold War,
just the legacy Nancy was after.
But this diplomatic triumph is about to be eclipsed
by a major scandal.
In November 1986, a story breaks...
[reporter] Mr. President, do we have a deal going with Iran?
[Ronald Reagan] No comment.
[narrator] The US government has been selling arms to Iran,
apparently in exchange for the release of American hostages.
[Jim Kuhn] Reagan never felt
it was trading arms for hostages.
It was just, "We'll send these arms,
and, oh, by the way, if we get our hostages back same time,
wouldn't that be good?"
[reporter] The president said that no law has been
or will be violated.
[narrator] Then, it is revealed that money from the arms sales
was used illegally to send weapons
to a right-wing rebel group in Nicaragua.
The Reagan presidency was on a death watch.
I deeply believe in the correctness
of my decision.
[Fred Ryan] Nancy Reagan felt
that the president had not been served well.
[Jim Kuhn] She took it the hardest.
"Are they going to impeach my husband?
Is this an impeachable offense?"
[Karen Tumulty] That is where you see Nancy Reagan
spring into action to rescue her husband.
[Jim Kuhn] She knew that a head had to roll,
it wouldn't be Ronnie's,
and she had to go after somebody and that somebody was Don Regan.
[narrator] Donald Regan had replaced
Nancy's good friend James Baker
as chief of staff at the start of the second term.
He and Nancy did not get along.
[Stuart Spencer] I honestly was trying to help Donald Regan
be a good chief of staff.
You know, like, lesson number one:
how you handle Nancy.
Anyone that wasn't an egomaniac like he was
would have at least said, "Well, I better listen to something."
Nancy Reagan had a certain antenna,
a certain radar.
[Kati Marton] If she sniffed out
that there was someone in his circle
who wasn't a thousand percent loyal to Ronnie,
they were toast.
[Jim Kuhn] She said, "You know, Jim,
we're gonna have to make a change here.
Don Regan is gonna have to go.
And, you know, Ronnie can't fire anybody."
[David Gergen] He did not like to get rid of people.
But she did.
She had no hesitation about that whatsoever.
It didn't go well.
[reporter] The first lady was asked
if the president had demanded she get off his back
about firing Donald Regan.
How can the president deal with the Soviets,
if he cannot settle a dispute between his wife
and the chief of staff?
She called me ten times a day to talk about it.
[Jim Kuhn] One day, Don Regan came down to my office,
and he looked at me and he said, "I think I made a big mistake."
And I said, "Well, what was that?"
He said, "Well," he said, "I was talking to the first lady
and she was really pushing me,
and I lost my cool and I hung up on her."
And I said, "Don, you what?"
[Ron Reagan] You don't cross her like that,
because at the end of the day,
the president goes back to the living quarters
and gets into bed with this person
you just hung up on, and... [laughs]
She gets the last word, you know.
[news anchor] Chris, what's the latest on the strain
reported between Mrs. Reagan
and White House chief of staff Donald Regan?
Well, Tom, a source very close to Mrs. Reagan...
[Karen Tumulty] Chris Wallace is leaving the White House one day
and Nancy Reynolds, who's close to Nancy Reagan,
comes up to him and tells him,
"Do you know Don Regan hung up on the first lady today?"
knowing that Chris Wallace, then at NBC,
is going to go right on the air that night in the newscast...
and say that.
And two sources tell me
that the chief of staff again hung up on the first lady.
You didn't hang up on Ronald Reagan's women.
That is a bad mistake.
That was curtains for Don Regan.
[reporter 1] After clinging tenaciously
to his job for months,
Donald Regan finally bowed to intense pressure...
[narrator] Regan is out.
But a year later, he gets his revenge.
Regan reveals Nancy's best kept secret:
the astrologer she's had on her payroll
since the shooting.
[Sheila Tate] So I called the press office right away
and I said, "What's going on?"
and she said, "We think it's a one-day story."
I said, "Are you out of your mind?" [laughs]
[reporter 2] Reagan was asked if he still allows astrology
to play a part in the make-up of his schedule.
I can't, because I never did!
[narrator] The president's approval ratings
are sinking, fast.
[reporter 3] His overall approval rating
has down 17 points in less than two months.
[narrator] Nancy believes that to win the country back,
her husband must apologize for Iran Contra.
[Karen Tumulty] He is resisting admitting the obvious,
which is that he has been trading arms
for hostages.
She knew she had to get him to this place
where he could say what he needed
to say to rescue his presidency.
[Kenneth Duberstein] So many people walk
into the Oval Office and tell the president
what he wants to know, not what he needs to know.
You have very few people
who are willing to be the reality therapist.
And Nancy was willing to do that.
[Ronald Reagan] A few months ago I told the American people
I did not trade arms for hostages.
My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true,
but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.
He gives the speech,
he gives it the way Nancy wants it.
You take your knocks, you learn your lessons,
and then you move on.
And all of a sudden, you saw the American people
going... "That's our president."
And his approval ratings just skyrocket overnight.
[narrator] The nation's faith in President Reagan is restored.
It's been a difficult term for Nancy,
and she has one year left
to bring the show to a rousing finale.
I've been awfully busy with arms control
-and... the INF treaty, -[laughter]
the Russians...
[Kati Marton] I actually covered their 1988 visit to Moscow.
There was a sense of hope that that had been missing
since the Second World War ended.
[applause]
[narrator] In Moscow, the two leaders
finalize their nuclear treaty.
But the highlight of the trip
is a dramatic piece of street theater,
orchestrated by Nancy.
[Kenneth Duberstein] When we invited Gorbachev
to Washington,
he stirred everybody by walking down Connecticut Avenue
to throngs of people.
[man] I wanna say hello to you.
It was great footage,
the Soviets just took the show that day.
The guy is a PR genius.
Nancy vowed then that when we go to Moscow,
we were going to even the score again.
[narrator] Once in Moscow, Nancy reveals her plan.
[Kenneth Duberstein] When we got to Spaso House,
the ambassador's residence,
Nancy and I shared with the president an idea.
And his answer was, "It sounds good to me,
but let's run it past the Secret Service,"
and the Secret Service said, "Absolutely not."
[Jim Kuhn] So, I went to the president
and Mrs. Reagan in the bedroom.
Nancy is lying on the bed...
with her feet on the pillows propped up.
Reagan's walking around the bedroom.
Secret Service, they're making their case.
And I said, "Are you saying that if the Reagans go
where we wanna go, that you cannot protect them?"
And the lead person said, "No, that's not what they're saying."
And Nancy sat up, said, "Fine, let's go."
We went to this place called the Arbat,
a little shopping area.
And all of a sudden, the Arbat was full of people.
Applauding, cheering.
[Jim Kuhn] They all wanted to touch him,
they all wanted to see him.
[man] Do not push these people. Do not push these people!
[Kenneth Duberstein] The KGB was nervous as all get out.
[Jim Kuhn] Nancy spotted some old carriage
that was sitting there,
and she grabbed Reagan's hand
and pulled him up onto the carriage.
[Kati Marton] After decades of this frozen relationship
between these two armed-to-the-teeth superpowers,
to see this American president,
arms held out for the poor Soviet people,
who've never been anywhere near an American president,
much less one that looked like Ronald Reagan,
it made the Cold War seem like ancient history.
[man] One more time.
And we got our photos, we got our footage.
Nancy just took over
and I thought, wow, she never ceases to impress me.
[reporter] Are you anxious to get away from Washington
and put all this behind you?
[Nancy Reagan] Some things I'll be glad to get rid of.
[laughter]
I'll miss... I really will miss you.
[Sam Donaldson] Well, we'll miss you.
Well, I thought you'd never say it, Sam!
-[laughter] -My gosh.
[narrator] And just like that, eight years are over.
The Reagans leave the White House flying high.
The oldest US president
has survived an assassination attempt
and a major scandal.
He will go down in history as a peacemaker,
all under the vigilant eye of the first lady.
[Kenneth Duberstein] On the last trip
of the administration, back home to California,
on the floor of Air Force One:
Sam Donaldson, Lou Cannon,
Bill Plante of CBS,
were all three collaborating to write...
the last full report of the Reagan years.
And who is overseeing it,
looking down as they were typing on the floor?
Not the president, Nancy!
[Ron Reagan] It's been eight years,
it's been a big chunk of your life
that you've been the first couple...
in the White House.
All this important stuff swirling around you every day.
And now that's going to go away.
And you will leave the stage.
She said, "We thought we'd have our golden years,"
and we would reminisce about, you know, our lives.
Sorry.
So then, they leave,
and within four... Yeah, four years or so,
he's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's,
and he now has dementia, you know.
That's a whole different phase of their life, of course.
Now she's not going to be "Fancy Nancy" anymore,
she's going to be this new character.
And so that just continued...
through the rest of her life.
[narrator] When Nancy Reagan died on March 6, 2016,
tributes came from all corners.
Her support for her husband through his illness
and her work to legalize stem cell research
had softened her image.
But her greatest legacy remains...
the protective power she wielded for eight years
as a formidable first lady.
[Ron Reagan] When I think of her,
I often think of her as a child, and frightened.
She could be fierce when she wanted to be.
But, yeah, I think...
there was still a little three-year-old girl...
whose mother was going away.
People who are frightened and go ahead anyway,
that's a certain kind of courage, too.