WHITE HOUSE OVAL OFFICE
WASHINGTON, DC
APRIL 15, 1983
9:57 A.M.
Ronald Reagan is struggling. As he presides over a mid-morning meeting of his speechwriters, the president strains to hear the words they are saying. Age is taking its toll. Weakened physically since the assassination attempt, he continues to go deaf in his right ear. His left ear is only marginally better. Reagan tries to keep this a secret, but everyone in the room is well aware that the president’s hearing is impaired.
Seated in a cream-colored chair with his back to the fireplace, Reagan crosses his legs and pretends to listen as his six-person team sits on two couches in the center of the room. They are there to discuss the president’s upcoming speaking engagements, but the Oval Office’s poor acoustics are making it difficult for Reagan to decipher what is being said. To make matters even worse, the three men and three women often talk over one another.
Looking on silently, Reagan tries to follow the conversation by reading lips and watching body language to see if a direct question is aimed his way. The meeting is brisk and efficient, just fifteen minutes long. But during longer policy sessions with his senior advisers, Reagan has been known to grow so bored that he gives up all attempts to follow the proceedings, spending his time doodling on a yellow legal pad. This may not be normal behavior for most presidents, but the seventy-two-year-old Reagan knows he must husband his energy carefully in order to make it through the busy days.
Today, for example, began with breakfast. He dined with Nancy in the second-floor residence, eating his usual bran cereal, toast, and decaffeinated coffee. He said good-bye to Nancy with his usual gusto, pulling her to him as if they would be separated for months instead of mere hours. The president then took an elevator down to the first floor, where he was met by Secret Service agents. He then walked to the armored door of the Oval Office, via the West Wing Colonnade, where he began his workday.
After a series of morning meetings, Ronald Reagan will have a formal lunch with West German chancellor Helmut Kohl to discuss the growing Soviet threat.
By two thirty in the afternoon, his work will be done. This being a Friday, the Reagans will fly to Camp David for the weekend. But the time of their departure is always subject to change. As with all the president’s travel arrangements, an astrologer living in San Francisco must first approve. Nancy Reagan keeps the Vassar-educated socialite Joan Quigley, fifty-six years old, on a three-thousand-dollar-per-month retainer secretly to provide astrological guidance. Nancy remains deeply superstitious, making sure to sleep with her head facing north, and constantly knocks on wood. But her dependence on Quigley runs much deeper. Very few members of the White House staff know that Nancy’s astrologer controls much of the president’s calendar.
To make sure that White House operators do not eavesdrop on their conversations, Nancy has a private phone line in the White House, and another at Camp David, connecting her directly to the stargazer. “Without her approval,” Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver will one day write of Quigley, “Air Force One does not take off.”
But there is one item on today’s agenda so minor that Quigley has not been consulted, and Ronald Reagan’s personal assistant Kathy Osborne has not typed it into the schedule. Sometime during the day, Reagan will take a moment to affix his signature to a proclamation naming April 10–16 as National Mental Health Week. The purpose is “to seek and encourage better understanding of mental disorders” and to bring “welcome hope to the mentally ill.”
* * *
Eight miles away, in southeast Washington, DC, John Hinckley is finding that it pays to be mentally ill. Rather than suffer a heinous punishment for his attempted assassination of the president and near murder of three other men, Hinckley has been found not guilty of all crimes by reason of insanity. Thus, he spends his days in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, a century-old brick psychiatric facility. There, Hinckley has a soft life. He resides in a fourth-floor room, eats in the cafeteria, attends therapy sessions, shoots pool, plays his guitar, and watches TV. He can listen to any music he likes, and his hair remains long and shaggy. There are no shackles on his wrists or ankles. The only significant difference between this new life and his previous one is that Hinckley can no longer travel impulsively. His monetary woes are a thing of the past.
Shockingly, Hinckley still pines for Jodie Foster, telling the New York Times in a bizarre letter, “My actions of March 30, 1981 have given special meaning to my life and no amount of imprisonment or hospitalization can tarnish my historical deed. The shooting outside the Washington Hilton hotel was the greatest love offering in the history of the world. I sacrificed myself and committed the ultimate crime in hopes of winning the heart of a girl. It was an unprecedented demonstration of love. But does the American public appreciate what I’ve done? Does Jodie Foster appreciate what I’ve done?”
Hinckley continues: “I am Napoleon and she is Josephine. I am Romeo and she is Juliet. I am John Hinckley Jr. and she is Jodie Foster. The world can’t touch us.”
* * *
Ironically, one of the first things Ronald Reagan did when he came into office was slash federal funding for the treatment of mental illness, trimming the budget for the National Institute of Mental Health and repealing the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980. Yet, as the definition of mental impairment grows over time to include not just the insane or psychotic like John Hinckley but also those whose faculties are diminished by age, there are signs that the president himself may be sliding into this spectrum. The New York Times reported as early as 1980 that his “penchant for contradictory statements, forgetting names and general absent-mindedness” were considered by some to be a sign of Alzheimer’s disease. This very specific form of dementia displays itself as confusion, impaired thought, and impaired speech.
In truth, Ronald Reagan can be sharp at times. Often, he spins entertaining yarns, adding dialects and jokes to his presentations. But on other occasions, the president gets lost mid-story. Sometimes he will tell a tale about some event in his life, when in fact he is confusing it with a movie role he once played. His staff is fond of saying that Reagan “has his good days and his bad days,” and they know that the president tends to think more slowly in the evening than in the afternoon. In addition, Reagan has developed an “essential tremor,” a slight shaking of the hands and nodding of the head. Though not a sign of brain impairment, it will grow worse with age.
Ronald Reagan has admitted to journalists that his mother died of “senility” and said that should such a condition ever affect him, he will resign the office of president of the United States.
But today, as his speechwriters rise promptly from their seats at 10:10 and file out of the Oval Office, nobody is realistically suggesting that Ronald Reagan is senile.
Or that he should resign.
Not yet.