The First Lady Hits the Road

By Laurence I. Barrett

Dismissing rumors of illness, she says she is up for '84

It is just moments to air time on the set of ABC's Good Morning America and David Hartman, the program's king-size star, lays a reassuring caress on the clenched hands of his diminutive companion. "We're going on," he murmurs. The woman in red whispers back in the stage argot of her generation: "Break a leg, David." Alexis Caydom, a TV makeup specialist retained for the occasion, makes one more pass at his client's high cheekbones, then retreats. All is ready for Nancy Reagan to record a minor "first" in the history of First Lady crusades.

She is to serve as "cohost" of a two-hour morning program. Still on the rolls of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the former actress will collect minimum scale for her appearance, $701. The money will go to charity. Nancy Reagan's real reward is the opportunity to promote her favorite cause--the fight against drug and alcohol abuse among the young. The timing of the broadcast, which had been planned for months, turns out to be advantageous. Washington has been buzzing about Nancy Reagan's health, tying rumors of illness and low morale to her husband's re-election plans. There is no better antidote for the speculation than 26 hours in the New York media glare.

She swooped in on Tuesday to attend a promotion session for a new public service ad campaign against drugs. Later she participated in a detailed planning session with Hartman and the G.M.A. staff. The questions Nancy would ask were neatly typed in capital letters on index cards, a prompting technique the President often uses. Meanwhile, the visit allowed Nancy's press secretary, Sheila Tate, to remind reporters that the First Lady would soon tape a promotional piece for the Public Broadcasting Service's upcoming program The Chemical People, which also deals with the drug problem and for which Nancy had already provided the narration.

Taping a program under controlled conditions is one thing. Going live before breakfast with set changes and a revolving cast of guests is something else. At 5:35 Wednesday morning, wearing large sunglasses in the dark, Nancy left her hotel in a heavy rain. Now, on the set, she acknowledges being tense. ("I've never done this before," she says.)

The guests are a mix of experts, worried parents and addicts who have gone straight. Though Nancy has been pursuing this cause for two years, she does not pretend to scientific expertise. Her role is to draw attention to the dangers, to persuade parents and teen-agers to get professional help quickly. Her questions this morning are simple. "When was it," she asks a former N.F.L. player who finally conquered the habit, "that you realized that you had to do something?" Over and over again she gets youngsters to acknowledge that peer pressure started them on the road to addiction.

Between segments, Nancy methodically tears up the index card just used and studies the next one. Caydom darts out to subdue a rebellious curl or apply powder to a shiny spot on the forehead. "Oh," Nancy complains as the clock runs down, "I wish we had more time."

Afterward she is satisfied with the morning's work. She breezes through an interview with two local reporters, enjoys a private lunch with personal friends and seems elated on the plane going home. Bad weather makes the flight bumpy, but Nancy stands most of the way, kidding with her assistants.

The mood is still cheerful the next morning, when she sits down for an interview in the family quarters of the White House. The ten pounds she lost between the spring of 1981, when Reagan was shot, and the summer of 1982, when her father's lengthy illness ended in his death, are still missing. Now a size four at 105 Ibs., she appears more fragile than ever. But these sessions no longer make her tense. Now the laugh is genuine rather than defensive, and she spars with ease. When the subject turns to her husband's re-election plans, she says sweetly, "Would you like some jellybeans?"

All along she has talked an ambivalent line about 1984, advertising her "mixed emotions" about public life's invasion of privacy. But today the emphasis is different. Her large hazel eyes grow even wider when she talks about how much "Ronnie" likes his work: "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes--absolutely, he is enjoying himself!" Her own satisfaction in the White House was slower in coming. "It took me a while to get into it. And, oh, everything was delayed--insofar as getting into it--because of the shooting. So maybe I was a late bloomer."

She turns more serious when talking of her personal grief. "I was in a sort of period of shock for longer than I realized" after the assassination attempt, she says in a matter-of-fact tone. When that was wearing off, her father, Dr. Loyal Davis, to whom she was always close, became ill. She hugs herself with thin arms at the recollection: "I'd never had anyone close to me die. I'd never been with anybody when they died, certainly not anyone close. Then, I had to go tell my mother, which was probably the hardest thing I'd ever had to do in my whole life. And now she's sick."

When asked if the pain has slowed her down, she is emphatic. "No, no. These are things that happen to everybody." Well, not quite. Not everyone has had a tiny malignancy removed from her lip, as Nancy did last December. But there has been no recurrence, she points out, "and you can hardly see it."

She surrenders to some badgering and admits that she and Reagan have been discussing 1984, though she refuses to characterize their conversations on that subject in any way. Trying to close out this phase of the talk, she says, "That's usually been what our marriage has been about. I will support anything that Ronnie wants." Enthusiastically? "Of course, enthusiastically. Yes. If he's up for it, I'm up for it." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.