Speaker 1: Warning. The following episode contains discussion of Ronald Reagan, pro wrestlers,
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan talking to pro wrestlers Johnny Carson, and a
Speaker 1: disastrous late night pizza party. Also astrology sensitive listeners. Keep
Speaker 1: your tones handy.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I got games.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm mad shot, Sometimes I'm mad lame.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I'm mad flying.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm so flying the bay.
Speaker 4: I'm hellafly.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'll get fraud and.
Speaker 1: It'll be televised.
Speaker 4: Okay, we're gonna start this out with another slideshow, and
Speaker 4: this time it's about hul Cogan. This is hul Cogan's
Speaker 4: Rock and wrestling. As a kid, I knew everyone was
Speaker 4: supposed to like Haulkogan, and sometimes I even pretended to
Speaker 4: like Hulkogan, even though I was not a fan, but
Speaker 4: I often watched his cartoons on Saturday mornings because they
Speaker 4: were on. This is the only rock and wrestling episode
Speaker 4: I remember. The President wants to speak with you.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, your country is depending on you, Holster.
Speaker 4: Don't let us down in it. The President like this cartoon.
Speaker 4: Ronald Reagan asked Hulkogan to go to space to rescue
Speaker 4: astronauts before a shuttle explodes. The cartoon is seared in
Speaker 4: my brain because it aired not long after the Challenger disaster. Well,
Speaker 4: I'll what was it like being the first wrestler in space?
Speaker 5: I tell you, bang, it was more awesome than a
Speaker 5: combat zong.
Speaker 4: I also remember thinking, why do they think Hulkogan can
Speaker 4: probably open a cargo bay door? Because I mean, I
Speaker 4: know he's strong, But even in cartoon form, this seemed dumb.
Speaker 4: And I was seven at the time. But maybe the
Speaker 4: makers of Rock and Wrestling thought they were doing something
Speaker 4: to help calm kids' nerves.
Speaker 6: And I want to say something to the school children
Speaker 6: of America. I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes
Speaker 6: painful things like this happen.
Speaker 4: That's the actual Ronald Gray again. The day after the
Speaker 4: Challenger exploded, our first grade teacher wheeled a TV into
Speaker 4: our classroom so the President could talk to us directly.
Speaker 6: It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery.
Speaker 6: It's all part of taking a chance of expanding man's horizons.
Speaker 6: The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted belongs to the brave.
Speaker 4: The future belongs to the brave. Those words embody America
Speaker 4: right and to preserve hope in the face of something
Speaker 4: so devastating, so visible. Anyway, what does any of this
Speaker 4: have to do with us? Well, the Challenger wasn't the
Speaker 4: only time Reagan was thinking about the intersection of space
Speaker 4: and the future. That's right, I'm talking about astrology. And
Speaker 4: it turns out in the nineteen eighties there was a
Speaker 4: full on astrology scandal in the Reagan White House.
Speaker 7: I don't mean to offend anyone who does, but believe
Speaker 7: in it, or engage you believe in it.
Speaker 4: From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts, I'm Mongay's Shittiku. Welcome to
Speaker 4: Skyline Drive, chapter one. When God's powerful word came.
Speaker 8: Let's start with the part that is the most controversial.
Speaker 8: A few months ago I told the American people I
Speaker 8: did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my
Speaker 8: best intentions still tell me that's true, But the facts
Speaker 8: and the evidence tell me it is.
Speaker 6: Not.
Speaker 4: Thing about Ronald Reagan is that he was unknowable, like
Speaker 4: frustratingly unknowable. When the famed biographer Edmund Morris got three
Speaker 4: million dollars to do an official biography, he spent fourteen
Speaker 4: years interviewing and shadowing Reagan, but when he turned in
Speaker 4: his book, he switched it from a biography to fiction.
Speaker 4: And when he was asked why he did that with
Speaker 4: his manuscript on sixty Minutes, Morris said, he was truly
Speaker 4: one of the strangest men who ever lived. Nobody around
Speaker 4: him understood him. I every person I interviewed, almost without exception,
Speaker 4: eventually would say, you know, I could never really figure
Speaker 4: him out. Think about that. Fourteen years of access and
Speaker 4: Morris couldn't figure out how to accurately write about the
Speaker 4: man and what he stood for. And maybe that's why
Speaker 4: my mom and dad had such different opinions of Reagan.
Speaker 4: To my dad, a newly minted American, Reagan was proof
Speaker 4: that anyone could make it in America, an actor becoming president.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's the optimism of an immigrant, someone who
Speaker 4: genuinely believed his son's potential was limitless in this new land.
Speaker 4: But to my mom, who was not a fan of
Speaker 4: his policies, Reagan's supposed an interest in astrology made her
Speaker 4: like him more because it made him more like us.
Speaker 4: And Reagan's interest in astrology was just this thing I
Speaker 4: always knew about growing up, but as I grew older,
Speaker 4: I began to question it, like it kind of seemed
Speaker 4: too outlandish. To be true. So I asked my pal
Speaker 4: Mary if she could find anything more concrete about this
Speaker 4: whole story. Actually, before we dive into the controversat I
Speaker 4: just wanted to ask you. I feel really lucky to
Speaker 4: have you in this project, but I'm curious why you
Speaker 4: did it, because you don't believe in astrology.
Speaker 2: Well, you're very persuasive.
Speaker 4: I guess We're sitting in a studio in Midtown and
Speaker 4: I'm laughing because it's true. Mary was not convinced when
Speaker 4: I pitched this tour, but I can.
Speaker 2: I can learn about things without believing in them. I
Speaker 2: figure it's an opportunity to go down a path I
Speaker 2: would not ordinarily go down.
Speaker 4: Do you know what your sign is?
Speaker 2: I found out I'm a cancer. I thought I was
Speaker 2: a Gemini. Oh really, turns out I'm a cancer.
Speaker 4: So I wroped you into this thing with astrology, and
Speaker 4: then I said, hey, I really want to look into
Speaker 4: Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 2: You did, and I like Ronald Reagan about as much
Speaker 2: as I like astrology. I grew up being terrified of
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan. I remember being like three years old and
Speaker 2: seeing him on the TV and being genuinely frightened. My
Speaker 2: parents were dragging me to defense spending protests during the eighties,
Speaker 2: so I had a very different experience. So it didn't
Speaker 2: seem to really add up my understanding of Ronald Reagan
Speaker 2: and my understanding of astrology. That didn't really make any sense.
Speaker 2: And so that was why I figured it would be
Speaker 2: really interesting to find out what actually happened.
Speaker 4: So, like, what was the sort of controversy that made
Speaker 4: everyone suddenly start talking about it?
Speaker 2: So this is really juicy. There's this guy Don Reagan
Speaker 2: who had been chief of staff for Ronald Reagan, and
Speaker 2: he had been the chairman of Merrill Lynch for a
Speaker 2: long time. He was Treasury Secretary. He was like the
Speaker 2: architect of Reaganomics. And then he became chief of staff
Speaker 2: and he left the White House. He got kicked out,
Speaker 2: and he basically was thrown out in disgrace from his job.
Speaker 2: And so he turned around and wrote a tell all
Speaker 2: book in nineteen eighty eight, called for the record, and
Speaker 2: apparently he got a million dollar advance, which was huge
Speaker 2: money at the time.
Speaker 4: Million dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he made this huge revelation that while he
Speaker 2: was in the White House, Nancy Reagan was asking him
Speaker 2: to change the president's schedule based on astrological advice from
Speaker 2: a friend, quote quote. He even said he had to
Speaker 2: keep a color coded calendar of like good days, auspicious days,
Speaker 2: bad days, if he days for the president's travel. His
Speaker 2: public appearance says all of this, and the press went crazy.
Speaker 3: The Reagan's and their stars. Astrologically speaking, did Donald Reagan
Speaker 3: get his ex bosses Capricorn? That is goat? Or is
Speaker 3: it all a load of Taurus?
Speaker 1: If President Richard Nixon?
Speaker 4: Towards the end, the claim was I am not a
Speaker 4: crook with Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 1: Last week it was more like I am.
Speaker 4: Not a nut?
Speaker 3: Is that like a gift from heaven for a cartoon?
Speaker 3: It's a story like.
Speaker 4: That, Yeah, it is. I consider that.
Speaker 8: It's just it's too good, too good to be true.
Speaker 2: There's a Reagan library. They have archives, and I thought, well,
Speaker 2: maybe there's something in there about astrology. Turns out they
Speaker 2: actually have a finding aid labeled astrology. Oh really, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: because they have files that are, you know, touch on
Speaker 2: the scandal. I asked them if I could see them,
Speaker 2: and they said that they would have to take some
Speaker 2: time to take all the staples out, but then they
Speaker 2: could scan them and send them to me, and a
Speaker 2: lot of it was just newspaper clippings, you know, cartoons
Speaker 2: when it came out. Yeah, And there were transcripts of
Speaker 2: press conferences where the White House spokespeople were just getting slammed.
Speaker 2: All the reporters wanted to talk about was astrology.
Speaker 4: What is the deal?
Speaker 2: You know, are they just deciding everything based on this?
Speaker 2: You know, what can you tell us? And they didn't
Speaker 2: want to answer. But what I thought was really fascinating
Speaker 2: was they had saved all of this correspondence from the
Speaker 2: religious right, basically evangelical Christians who had helped elect Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 2: Evangelical Christians do not like astrology. This is May twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight, at the height of the controversy from
Speaker 2: Don Reagan's book. This radio preacher named George Otis, who
Speaker 2: was a friend of the Reagans, wrote directly to the
Speaker 2: White House. Dear mister President, you've been a great chief
Speaker 2: of state. You will recall how in October nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: God spoke directly to you through myself there in your
Speaker 2: Sacramento home. When God's powerful word came you were to
Speaker 2: become president of the United States. This May have been
Speaker 2: the most remarkable visitation from the Lord of any president
Speaker 2: in history. You were handpicked for leadership in one of
Speaker 2: our nation's most pivotal hours. Wow, no pressure, right, And
Speaker 2: so he was saying, I beg you to renounce the
Speaker 2: practice of astrology in the White House. To make a
Speaker 2: statement now would be an act of courage and pleasing
Speaker 2: to God. But if you fail to do so, you
Speaker 2: legitimize astrology and the occult and set our nation on
Speaker 2: a collision course with God.
Speaker 4: I don't know why, but I always sort of bristle
Speaker 4: when I hear things like this. There is such hypocrisy
Speaker 4: on what sort of magical thinking we're okay with as
Speaker 4: a country. Like if a televangelist goes into tongues and
Speaker 4: prophesizes that Reagan has to be the next president because
Speaker 4: God told him, that is totally okay. Western miracles don't
Speaker 4: bother the base, But if an astrologer makes a prediction
Speaker 4: that's blasphemy. It just feels silly that a president should
Speaker 4: be lauded for believing in one of those ideas but
Speaker 4: threatened for believing in the other. It reminds me of
Speaker 4: this feeling I had as a kid. Totally the opposite
Speaker 4: of my dad's optimism about who was allowed to be president.
Speaker 4: The fact that I was born brown and Hindu, that
Speaker 4: I had a name that was unpronounceable, it seemingly crippled
Speaker 4: my chances from the start. I mean, the Indian kids
Speaker 4: who were ten years older than me and wanted to
Speaker 4: be politicians, the Bobby Jindles and Nicky Hayley's, they always
Speaker 4: seem to convert to Christianity and change their names along
Speaker 4: the way.
Speaker 5: You know, I wish I could tell you I had
Speaker 5: this son to epiphany.
Speaker 8: There was no moment on that road to Damascus was
Speaker 8: that easy for me.
Speaker 9: Christianity spoke to me at a time where I needed
Speaker 9: a connection, and so no political pressure should never change
Speaker 9: a person.
Speaker 4: I am my parents' daughter. Maybe that's why I'm so
Speaker 4: interested in Ronald Reagan, because even though he's seen as
Speaker 4: this ultimate American, this American mascot for.
Speaker 8: Those who have abandoned the whole, we'll restore hope and
Speaker 8: we'll welcome them into a great national crusade to make
Speaker 8: America great again.
Speaker 4: By dabbling in astrology, he got away with something that
Speaker 4: doesn't feel American at all.
Speaker 2: So right after Don Reagan's book came out and broke
Speaker 2: this story of astrology. In the White House, Ronald Reagan
Speaker 2: and George Bush, who was then Vice President, were walking
Speaker 2: to a press conference in the Rose Garden.
Speaker 5: Look, the President, will you continue to allow astrology to
Speaker 5: play a part in the makeup of your old ChEls?
Speaker 3: Knock it off?
Speaker 8: There?
Speaker 6: You asked for it. I can't because I never did.
Speaker 4: This is not the man I watched in first grade
Speaker 4: reminding us that science can be heartbreak but is always progress.
Speaker 4: I mean, this man is struggling. Like, listen to this
Speaker 4: from May seventeen, nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 7: This was all once again smoke and mirrors, and we
Speaker 7: made no decisions on it, and we're not binding our
Speaker 7: lives to this. And I don't mean to offend anyone
Speaker 7: who does but believe in it.
Speaker 4: So right there, he takes a moment to make sure
Speaker 4: he's not offending anyone who believes in astrology, and then
Speaker 4: a reporter pounces you.
Speaker 7: I don't guide my life by it, but I won't
Speaker 7: answer the question the other way because I don't know
Speaker 7: enough about it to say is there something to it?
Speaker 4: Or belief is hard to talk about. It's confusing sometimes
Speaker 4: belief is just the collective sway of these tiny tendrils
Speaker 4: of influence. Like it's not some hard and fast tenets.
Speaker 4: I mean, you hear it in Reagan's words, right, Like
Speaker 4: talking about belief is so hard that one of the
Speaker 4: most gifted politicians stumbles through his answer and he twists
Speaker 4: his words into some thinks so convoluted it barely has
Speaker 4: meaning anymore. Except Reagan is not being honest here, because
Speaker 4: astrology had definitely played a role in his daily and
Speaker 4: his political life. And you don't have to take our
Speaker 4: word for it, you can take his straight from his
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty five autobiography. So let's turn back the clocks
Speaker 4: and investigate right after this break.
Speaker 5: About the hearty got chum head.
Speaker 4: Chapter two, what would Nancy do? The strange thing is,
Speaker 4: for decades, Ron and Nancy's interest in astrology was an
Speaker 4: open secret, or at least it had been. Astrology was
Speaker 4: this California thing, and it was also a showbiz thing,
Speaker 4: and the Reagans and their friends they enjoyed rubbing shoulders
Speaker 4: with people like La Times astrologer Carol Ryder because, like
Speaker 4: People Magazine put it, writer was the confidante of the
Speaker 4: rich and famous who saw him less as a backdoor
Speaker 4: suitsayer than as social equal. His zodiac parties in the
Speaker 4: fifties were highlights of every season. Fish for swimming in
Speaker 4: his pool for the Pisces party, and he rented a
Speaker 4: live line for a Leo party. As Ronald wrote in
Speaker 4: his nineteen sixty five autobiography Where's the Rest of Me,
Speaker 4: every morning Nancy and I turned to see what he
Speaker 4: has to say about people of our respective birth signs, horoscopes,
Speaker 4: and astrology. It was no big deal and a part
Speaker 4: of their daily morning routine. They liked to check in
Speaker 4: and contemplate how the stars might affect their day, and
Speaker 4: they embraced the culture. Around that same time, Nancy started
Speaker 4: paying writer for his astrologically. Then came the election in
Speaker 4: late nineteen sixty six. After Ronald Reagan won the governor's race,
Speaker 4: he scheduled his oath to take place, specifically at twelve
Speaker 4: sixteen am on January second, nineteen sixty seven. The timing
Speaker 4: of this did not make any sense unless you were
Speaker 4: looking at the stars. It turns out that exact time
Speaker 4: corresponded to Jupiter rising, and if you're a believer, starting
Speaker 4: your term at that moment would make it blessed prosperous.
Speaker 4: When the outgoing governor, Edmund Brown got wind of the story,
Speaker 4: he leaked it to the press, and Reagan's team immediately
Speaker 4: went into spin mode. Right, so, Reagan had a spokesperson
Speaker 4: tell reporters that he didn't believe in astrology. The staffer
Speaker 4: even took it further. He said Reagan was so averse
Speaker 4: to astrology that he had only ever seen a horoscope
Speaker 4: by accident, which obviously wasn't true. But the craziest part
Speaker 4: of all this, like the reason we're talking about this,
Speaker 4: It means that Don Reagan's book wasn't even the president's
Speaker 4: first astrology related scandal. But let's talk about Nancy.
Speaker 2: When I started looking into this, the first place I
Speaker 2: looked was Nancy Reagan's memoir because I wanted to hear
Speaker 2: her side of the story. It's called My Turn, and
Speaker 2: it was very pointedly a rebuke to Don Reagan's book
Speaker 2: the year prior, and she basically disputed everything he said
Speaker 2: and down played the role that her astrologer friend played
Speaker 2: in the president's life, in her life, in everything, and
Speaker 2: she said it was only minor schedule changes and it
Speaker 2: only came about because she was so worried for her
Speaker 2: husband's safety after the assassination attempt in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 2: and that she was driven to do this out of
Speaker 2: a sense of duty and guilt.
Speaker 4: If you really want to trace the influence of astrology
Speaker 4: on the White House, this is the moment that Nancy
Speaker 4: Reagan started casting about for help. And it was her
Speaker 4: friend MERV Griffin.
Speaker 9: Good morning everybody, and welcome to We Report you. I'd
Speaker 9: like her.
Speaker 2: I know Susan Stafford, our host.
Speaker 6: Is got.
Speaker 4: Yes game show legend MERV Griffin who introduced her to
Speaker 4: Joan quickly.
Speaker 2: Joan quickly was this Vasser graduate. She was very smart.
Speaker 2: She came from a very wealthy knob Hill, San Francisco family. Initially,
Speaker 2: Joan really tried to downplay her role in the Reagan's
Speaker 2: lives because Nancy had asked her to do that. As
Speaker 2: all of this controversy was boiling over, Joan really stuck
Speaker 2: to the party line that well, no, I didn't have
Speaker 2: that much influence. But when Nancy's book came out, I
Speaker 2: think at that point Joan was like, screw you, Nancy.
Speaker 2: You know it's me time now.
Speaker 4: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: She became briefly the most famous astrologer in the world right,
Speaker 2: she was going to take advantage of it, and so
Speaker 2: she started telling the story that in fact she had
Speaker 2: controlled everything.
Speaker 4: It's true Nancy's astrologer would take credit for helping to
Speaker 4: appoint some justices, keeping the president safe, and even thawing
Speaker 4: the Cold War. But the question in just how influential
Speaker 4: was she and how much did she have the president's
Speaker 4: ear on foreign policy. But before we talk about Nancy's friend,
Speaker 4: Chapter three a short and incomplete list of modern politicians
Speaker 4: who used astrology. If Joe Biden was consulting an astrologer
Speaker 4: on major American issues, how would you feel would you
Speaker 4: vote for an astrology believer? We interrupted the New York
Speaker 4: City dinner party to ask that very same question.
Speaker 5: It would feel more like the president was just rolling
Speaker 5: the dice if that was how he was making decisions.
Speaker 4: Yes, I would vote for a presidential candidate that used
Speaker 4: astrology to guide their decision making, and I would think
Speaker 4: that they were very wise.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
Speaker 3: I think that is absolutely no connection between being a
Speaker 3: great president and reading d the stars.
Speaker 9: It's just not politically correct.
Speaker 4: But the truth is, Reagan's interest in astrology does not
Speaker 4: make him an outlier here's a list of modern politicians
Speaker 4: who read their horoscope and checked it twice.
Speaker 3: Why where.
Speaker 4: Nixon was a quirky guy. Not only did he band
Speaker 4: soup in the White House and eat cottage cheese with ketchup,
Speaker 4: but he also valued the advice of astrologer Jene Dixon, who,
Speaker 4: to be fair, also gave advice to Franklin Roosevelt, JFK
Speaker 4: and the Reagans. But Nixon called her his soothsayer. And
Speaker 4: not only did Jean visit him in the White House,
Speaker 4: but she sent the president copious letters on national security predictions.
Speaker 4: In fact, in nineteen seventy two, when she warned of
Speaker 4: a threat on American soil to the munich Olympics, Nixon
Speaker 4: used her intel to alert Kissinger and to assemble a
Speaker 4: counter terrorism unit.
Speaker 7: For esay.
Speaker 4: The only thing I remember about Boris Yelson is that
Speaker 4: one time when he was visiting Washington, he almost caused
Speaker 4: this international incident because he left the White House grounds
Speaker 4: drunk in just his underwear, desperate to find some late
Speaker 4: night pizza. This is true, which I can respect. But
Speaker 4: Yeltsin was also an astrology head during his presidency. A
Speaker 4: naval captain revealed to the economists, that Russia had a
Speaker 4: secret institute that employed quote military astrologers, three friends when
Speaker 4: the French president's wife made accusations that Midrand was only
Speaker 4: interested in his astrologer because he was sleeping with her.
Speaker 4: The astrologer a former model and actress. Really, these tapes
Speaker 4: of their conversations show that they had a purely professional relationship,
Speaker 4: And on these tapes were incredible things like Mitteran trying
Speaker 4: to understand the power struggles in Russia through astrology. He
Speaker 4: was using the stars to vet cabinet members, and most curiously,
Speaker 4: he was taking astrological advice on how to handle France's
Speaker 4: role and entry into the Gulf War. Anyway, all that's
Speaker 4: to say that a handful of astrologers have had way
Speaker 4: more sway on world events than any of us would
Speaker 4: like to think.
Speaker 2: You know, I know, you know, you know.
Speaker 4: Chapter four, What would Joan do? If we're to believe Joan? Quickly?
Speaker 4: What are the many thing she helped make happen was
Speaker 4: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's appointment. She also claims to
Speaker 4: have planned the president's debate times and delayed the timing
Speaker 4: of Reagan's cancer surgery. But perhaps most importantly, quickly takes
Speaker 4: credit for changing the president's opinion about Soviet leader Mikyle Gorbachev,
Speaker 4: as reported in The New York Times, quickly battled to
Speaker 4: the mat for three hours to convince Nancy Reagan that
Speaker 4: her husband could trust Gorbachev. As Quigley said, quote, the
Speaker 4: placement of his ruler Mercury symbolizes to me that despite
Speaker 4: his Russian training and origins, Gorbachev has the instincts of
Speaker 4: a humanitarian. Joan also commitced the President to work towards
Speaker 4: disarmament and to extend his trip in Europe to hammer
Speaker 4: out in agreement.
Speaker 2: The one thing everybody agrees on is that Joan Quigly
Speaker 2: actually did help decide when the president traveled, because that
Speaker 2: was Nancy's big fear after the assassination attempt. And so
Speaker 2: I think everybody is pretty much an agreement that, yes,
Speaker 2: Joan quickly helped identify days where maybe it wouldn't be
Speaker 2: a good idea to go anywhere that for safety's sake,
Speaker 2: you might not want to fly on that day. Maybe
Speaker 2: fly the next day, or fly a couple hours later,
Speaker 2: and that'll be safer for you. And nobody really had
Speaker 2: a problem with that. Then it kind of shades into
Speaker 2: this thing of like, well, if he's not making a
Speaker 2: public appearance for a week, that's a big deal, right
Speaker 2: because that affects what he's able to do as president.
Speaker 2: And certainly Joan coming out and saying that she literally
Speaker 2: told him that, based on his chart and Gorbachev's chart,
Speaker 2: that they should sit down and talk.
Speaker 4: I mean that's really explosive. Well, especially at the time,
Speaker 4: right like where height of the Cold War, there's like
Speaker 4: nuclear proliferation on both sides in a massive way, and
Speaker 4: people are worried that someone will hit a button and
Speaker 4: cause the end of the earth. Like that's the idea
Speaker 4: of talking with your enemy at that time was pretty significant.
Speaker 2: People were very upset at the idea that this random
Speaker 2: astrologer was influencing such big decisions when there was so
Speaker 2: much at stay.
Speaker 4: Do you think Reagan was actually using this advice? Was
Speaker 4: this just going to his wife? What's the deal here?
Speaker 2: So that was sort of the other question. Was this
Speaker 2: Nancy's fault? Because everything back then was Nancy's fault. She
Speaker 2: had this image of being this evil puppeteer of her
Speaker 2: hapless husband who loved her so much he would just
Speaker 2: do whatever she wanted.
Speaker 4: Just to quick aside. Nancy Reagan was indeed ambitious for
Speaker 4: her husband, incredibly ambitious. Jimmy Stewart once said that had
Speaker 4: Ronald been married to Nancy earlier, he would have won
Speaker 4: an Academy award, and Reagan's aides admit this too. They
Speaker 4: say that without Nancy there would have been no Governor Reagan,
Speaker 4: no President Reagan.
Speaker 2: She absolutely took a lot of heat for allegedly being
Speaker 2: the power behind the throne, and so when this came
Speaker 2: out that it was Nancy's friend making these calls, that
Speaker 2: was more evidence that she was actually controlling him.
Speaker 4: Chapter five, Sympathy for the Devil. Earlier in the show,
Speaker 4: we skimmed over the fact that there was an assassination
Speaker 4: attempt on Ronald Reagan. As he was leaving a speech
Speaker 4: and walking to his limo, John Hinckley Junior, a delusional
Speaker 4: individual who was trying to impress Jodi Foster, pulled out
Speaker 4: a Rome RG fourteen twenty two caliber and he shot
Speaker 4: it six times in less than two seconds. The first
Speaker 4: five shots missed their mark. One hit Reagan's press secretary
Speaker 4: Jim Brady in the head, another hidden agent in the stomach.
Speaker 4: As he put his body on the line. But as
Speaker 4: the Secret Service pushed the President into the limo, final
Speaker 4: bullet bounced off the car, ricocheting into the President's lung
Speaker 4: and lodging just twenty five millimeters from his heart. A
Speaker 4: few people would know just how close he'd come to death.
Speaker 3: As the President.
Speaker 4: Left side Hotel Regan. It's currently where the president.
Speaker 9: At as.
Speaker 4: It happened early in his presidency, on March thirtieth, nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty one. And the truth is, in most discussions of
Speaker 4: Reagan's legacy, it's glossed over. In his obituary in the
Speaker 4: New York Times, the shooting isn't even mentioned until the
Speaker 4: twenty fifth paragraph. So in the scope of things, it
Speaker 4: just isn't thought about that much. But for Nancy Reagan,
Speaker 4: it was something entirely different. Right, This was something she
Speaker 4: could ever ever forget. As I was trying to sort
Speaker 4: through all of this and put Nancy in context, Mary
Speaker 4: sent me one more clip Nancy's appearance on The Tonight
Speaker 4: Show with Johnny Carson.
Speaker 6: Can I ask you about the astrology? You get tired
Speaker 6: of answering that question.
Speaker 1: No, that's one of the things you know.
Speaker 7: That when to hit the papers.
Speaker 4: Wow, I know, if you're looking at the video, Nancy
Speaker 4: so clearly doesn't want to talk about this, but she will.
Speaker 4: I know she's a trained actor. I know she's good
Speaker 4: at playing the role of first lady. But still hearing
Speaker 4: her say why she put faith in astrology, why she
Speaker 4: needed to put faith in it, Well, it breaks your
Speaker 4: heart where it breaks mine.
Speaker 9: You can't really describe what you go through, uh, when
Speaker 9: your husband is shot and almost dies, and most people
Speaker 9: didn't know that there were there were there were two
Speaker 9: times that they came to me and said they couldn't
Speaker 9: find his pulse. He was very close to going in
Speaker 9: to shock and if he had, and that would have
Speaker 9: been it. Now, everybody has their way of handling that
Speaker 9: particular kind of trauma, and that particular kind of trauma
Speaker 9: is it's is very special. And I talked to my minister,
Speaker 9: I talked to friends, and then I had a friend
Speaker 9: call me and say, gee, they she he had talked
Speaker 9: to this girl and woman and she could have told
Speaker 9: me that Ronnie shouldn't have done a thing on that day.
Speaker 3: And I thought, my lord, I could have.
Speaker 9: Prevented it, you know, And so I called her. I
Speaker 9: didn't think I was doing anything, so wrong, and I
Speaker 9: still don't think I did anything so wrong. It helped
Speaker 9: me through a very really a very rough time, very
Speaker 9: tough time.
Speaker 4: There's so many things about the ways the Reagans tell
Speaker 4: their story, the way they talk about astrology that doesn't
Speaker 4: really add up, from the governor's oath to the idea
Speaker 4: that Ronald had never seen his horoscope except by accident,
Speaker 4: to dozens of other inconsistencies. Quickly had met the Reagans
Speaker 4: before she actually worked on Ronald Reagan's governor's campaign. But
Speaker 4: none of that stops this part from being true. Nancy
Speaker 4: was desperately trying to keep her husband safe. That same year,
Speaker 4: there would be an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul
Speaker 4: the Second's life. Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat would be killed,
Speaker 4: and world leaders really were under threat. Nancy's guilt it
Speaker 4: kicked in because of all this, like why wouldn't she
Speaker 4: try everything in her power to do that?
Speaker 9: But the changes there were may were things like would
Speaker 9: be better to leave that two o'clock or I mean,
Speaker 9: you know, there wasn't any great and there were no
Speaker 9: political decisions ever made on astrology. I didn't hurt anybody
Speaker 9: except I embarrassed Ronnie that was sorry for that.
Speaker 4: It's not that I'm enamored with Nancy Reagan all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, but I don't laugh at her anymore because
Speaker 4: faced with the option to do nothing or do something,
Speaker 4: Nancy picked up the phones and work. Then she found
Speaker 4: the best astrologer she could. She color coded her husband's calendar.
Speaker 4: She feuded with Reagan's chief of staff over the details
Speaker 4: of his schedule, and she fought fiercely to keep her
Speaker 4: husband out of harm's way. And seeing the love she
Speaker 4: poured into protecting him, it makes me feel guilty because
Speaker 4: I didn't do everything I could for my dad. I
Speaker 4: really didn't sure. I raced to see him. I tussled
Speaker 4: his hair, I kissed his head, I dressed and shaved him.
Speaker 4: I walked him to him from the bathroom. When he
Speaker 4: was too weak to lift himself up from his chair,
Speaker 4: I helped his frail body in and out of bed
Speaker 4: and stuffed a pillow under his knees. I pulled his
Speaker 4: socks off his shiny, hairless legs to keep him warm
Speaker 4: when he napped, and I fetched his pulp mystery books
Speaker 4: and refilled his bowl of shelled pistachios. I sat in
Speaker 4: the hospital trying to decipher his mumbles and his moans,
Speaker 4: and I put chips of ice into his mouth just
Speaker 4: to watch him crunch at it and then smile. And
Speaker 4: when he could barely respond anymore and the treatments weren't working,
Speaker 4: I signed his life away. I ordered the morphine and
Speaker 4: brought him home in an ambulance so he could breathe
Speaker 4: his last breadth at home. I tried, I really did.
Speaker 4: I didn't do enough. I didn't pray, not the way
Speaker 4: my mom and sister. I didn't hunt for an ira
Speaker 4: A cure or research alternative medicines. I didn't place a
Speaker 4: bet on the magical because my belief is limited to
Speaker 4: what I understand, and I'll live with that. Gil not
Speaker 4: that there's any logic to it, because even if I
Speaker 4: didn't believe, my dad did and couldn't, I have put
Speaker 4: aside my pride to give him everything, because everything is
Speaker 4: what he gave me. Next week on Skyline Drive more
Speaker 4: Being Sad next week is one hundred percent fun. We
Speaker 4: are talking to moneyball statisticians who use astrology CNN's house astrologer.
Speaker 4: They used to have a house astrologer.
Speaker 3: Astrology in law school and BTS. That's right, We're going
Speaker 3: to use astrology to figure out Korean supergroup BTS's next steps.
Speaker 3: Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 4: I can't see into the future, but I can promise
Speaker 4: it will be fun.
Speaker 3: Bonetta Pictures, maybe Jovo Sadi Kendrick Becker.
Speaker 4: To thank you so much for listening. This show is
Speaker 4: written by Taffy Brodesser Achner Executive produced by Taffy prodess
Speaker 4: Or Akner, based on a book by Taffy Brodesser. I'm
Speaker 4: so sorry these are credits for Fleischman is in trouble
Speaker 4: and reading the wrong credits.
Speaker 3: That's a fantastic show. Go stream it after this.
Speaker 4: This show, Skyline Drive is a production of Kaleidoscope and
Speaker 4: iHeart Podcast. It's hosted and written by me Mongish particular.
Speaker 4: But you would not have made it to the third
Speaker 4: episode if.
Speaker 3: It wasn't for all these lovely people.
Speaker 4: Mary Philip Sandy is our Kanji loving supervising producer, and
Speaker 4: she's now.
Speaker 3: Read every book in the world about the Reagans. Go Quizzer.
Speaker 3: Mitro Bunschai is our delightful senior producer and gets the
Speaker 3: best wild tape seriously.
Speaker 4: Mark Lotto is our story editor.
Speaker 3: And made me move Nancy Reagan from a single paragraph
Speaker 3: in episode one to her own episode, and this show
Speaker 3: is so much better for it. This episode was mixed
Speaker 3: and mastered all the way in Bangalore by the talented
Speaker 3: groove Shiva Rau, with scoring as always from Botany.
Speaker 4: Check out his SoundCloud.
Speaker 3: The insane music in between his courtesy of the dopest
Speaker 3: Indian record label, Azabi Records, and my pal Jimanchu Suri
Speaker 3: and so many other musicians. If you want to hear
Speaker 3: all of this music, you linked to a mixtape in
Speaker 3: the show notes, go listen In the kids, The kids
Speaker 3: were so great, right Numbers and politicians voiced by my
Speaker 3: Dean Street neighbors Reese, the resident pizza expert, Leev, the
Speaker 3: resident panda expert, Miriam who does the best Broadway show
Speaker 3: tunes in my backyard, and Yuki, who is very very
Speaker 3: good at pointing out snails.
Speaker 4: Also my very sweet and very noisy roommates, Henry and Ruby.
Speaker 4: Special thanks to my remarkable neighbor and counsel Rachel Strom
Speaker 4: for vetting this episode, and the Reagan Library, the four
Speaker 4: Your Ears Only Newsweek on Air collection, and Carson Entertainment
Speaker 4: Group for all of their incredible archive.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Additional production and research support from
Speaker 3: the wonderful Anna Rubanova soundboard, Lizzie the Natural, QB Jacobs,
Speaker 3: my talented aunts Simon Buckshee and notorious snooker Hustler are
Speaker 3: June Bucksheet. This show is executive produced from iHeart by
Speaker 3: my good good friends Nicki Tour and Katrina Norvel. Also
Speaker 3: all my brilliant Power else Like Kaleidoscope, Ozwa Lishan, Kate Osbourne,
Speaker 3: Costos Linos Bahmi Shori, and also Cheesy it feels like
Speaker 3: Cheesy needs a shout out right okay special thanks to
Speaker 3: all my friends at iHeart, Shanta and Soros, my family everywhere,
Speaker 3: Dan Tabirsky Dan Tibirski read this episode's warning. Today I
Speaker 3: got into podcasting true story. I binged all four episodes
Speaker 3: of Missing Richard Simmons because there were only four out
Speaker 3: at the time, and I've binged every one of his
Speaker 3: other shows to Running from Cops, Surviving Y two, k
Speaker 3: the Line. It is all so incredibly good and just
Speaker 3: one last thank you as always to my Amma and
Speaker 3: my dad, Lalifa and Umesh who I have to thank
Speaker 3: my lucky stars for thank you so much for listening