President Harry Truman supposedly said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” There’s scant evidence he actually spoke those words, but it’s sound advice for President Trump.
A White House that seemingly courts adversaries from its ranks due to its West Wing revolving-door policy has found an enemy extraordinaire in John Bolton. The former national security adviser’s new book burns Trump so badly, its cover should warn readers to wear oven mitts while holding it.
Tell-all books are a Washington staple. The tradition started 32 years ago with an ousted presidential adviser bent on settling a score with the White House resident who drove him from power.
Having a president named Ronald Reagan and a senior staffer named Donald Regan was one of Fate’s little jokes. But the two men made their mark on Washington and got along well — at first.
A working-class kid from Cambridge, Massachusetts, Regan’s combative personality was a perfect fit for the U.S. Marine Corps. Regan fought with distinction in the Pacific during World War II, leaving a lieutenant colonel. He then rose through the ranks of brokerage giant Merrill Lynch to become CEO until Reagan tapped him for secretary of the Treasury.
The Reagan-Regan partnership produced a monumental tax cut package in 1981 and eventually secured a sweeping tax reform act in 1986.
Then, Regan had an idea. After Reagan’s 49-state reelection romp over Democrat Walter Mondale, the Treasury secretary asked White House chief of staff James Baker III, “Want to swap jobs?” They pitched the idea to their boss, with the president giving his blessing.
So Reagan’s second term commenced in January 1985, with Regan running the shop at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Things went smoothly at first, until the train jumped the tracks.
Starting with the space shuttle Challenger explosion in January, 1986 rapidly went from bad to worse. A Berlin disco frequented by American GIs was bombed by Libyan-backed terrorists. The United States bombed Tripoli in retaliation. A top U.S. intelligence analyst was caught spying for Israel in a major security breach. A summit meeting between Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev collapsed without progress on easing nuclear tensions. Democrats recaptured the Senate.
Then the bottom fell out when Iran-Contra, the biggest scandal of the 1980s, broke. It was so serious, Reagan’s presidency was at risk.
On top of everything else, Regan had made an enemy of first lady Nancy Reagan.
Every presidential spouse is highly important inside the White House. But the Reagan marriage truly was a partnership. Mrs. Reagan safeguarded her husband’s interests with the ferocity of a mama grizzly defending her cubs.
Baker had recognized the first lady’s special importance during his tenure as chief of staff and had treated her with kid gloves. But Regan wasn’t Baker; he didn’t have the patience to tolerate the many demands of a mere wife. And it proved his undoing.
With the White House in disarray in early 1987, Nancy Reagan eventually persuaded her husband that Regan should take the fall. And so he was forced to walk the plank at the end of February. But his limo had barely pulled out of the White House driveway before Regan began plotting his revenge.
It came on May 1, 1988, when his memoir For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington was released. Like Bolton’s book is doing today, it triggered an earthquake inside the Beltway. Like Bolton, Regan dropped a bombshell: “Virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise.”
The “woman in San Francisco” was astrologer Joan Quigley. Nancy Reagan, it turned out, had been using Quigley’s services since 1981, shortly after her husband almost died in an assassination attempt. (The president, it seems, humored her about it, much the way an earlier president had humored his wife for holding White House seances following young Willie Lincoln’s death.)
The date of the book’s release isn’t lost on political junkies, who will recall May 1988 was in the heat of that year’s presidential election cycle. Publication was timed to maximize Nancy Reagan’s humiliation. For weeks, the first lady’s intermingling of astrology with state functions provided fodder for stand-up comedians.
Regan had the last laugh. But For the Record did something else: It launched a new era in Washington political paybacks. The goal of an aggrieved party’s tale was no longer to tell-all but to get the last word.
Regan got his. Will Bolton succeed this time? We’ll have to wait until Nov. 3 to find out.
J. Mark Powell (@JMarkPowell) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He’s vice president of communications at Ivory Tusk Consulting, a South Carolina-based agency. A former broadcast journalist and government communicator, his “Holy Cow! History” column is available at jmarkpowell.com.
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, Tad Lincoln’s death was mentioned when, in fact, the seances were held after Willie Lincoln died. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
