First Ladies (22 page)

Rosalynn Carter rivaled Eleanor Roosevelt as our most energetic First Lady. Here she visits a refugee camp in Cambodia. She tackled a staggering range of issues and problems as our first public presidential partner.
(Carter Library)

Rosalynn was also far more thin-skinned than Eleanor Roosevelt, who sailed serenely above the ferocious epithets and accusations flung at her. In a 1984 panel on life in the White House at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library, Rosalynn confessed that the hardest thing for her to do each morning was read the newspapers, with their inevitable criticisms of Jimmy and often of her. She berated the press—always a mistake—when they sniped at her grown children’s conduct in and out of the White House. Her son Jack, who steered clear of the Washington publicity maelstrom, said: “Mom [has] always taken every affront to Dad personally. She’s a lot worse now.” One historian of the Carter presidency criticized Rosalynn’s judgment of people because it was based almost entirely on their loyalty to Jimmy—not on an objective estimate of abilities or liabilities.

Enough minuses. Partner Rosalynn can justly claim a lot of the credit for the Carter administration’s remarkable record on woman’s rights and opportunities. Jimmy appointed three women to his cabinet and named no fewer than forty-one women to lifetime jobs as federal judges. Rosalynn also fought hard—but in vain—for the Equal Rights Amendment, and frequently spoke out on women’s issues.

This pioneering First Lady can also claim some of the credit for the biggest foreign policy triumph of the Carter administration, the Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel. This act of daring perfectly suited the Carters’ outsider role. An insider might have wavered at the possibility of alienating the millions of Jews who are
among the major vertebrae, if not the backbone, of the Democratic Party. Rosalynn told me how, one day when she and Jimmy were alone at Camp David, she suggested inviting Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt to confer there. “I said the place was so peaceful and beautiful, if they could not reach an agreement here, they couldn’t do it anywhere. A few days later, Jimmy decided it was a good idea.”

In spite of her ceaseless efforts on so many fronts, Rosalynn Carter never made it to the top of the lists of most admired women, like some of her far less activist predecessors, such as Pat Nixon and Mamie Eisenhower. One writer who studied her style with the Mental Health Commission blamed it on her “cool” personality—and on the mixed political signals she sent. People found it hard to decide when she was speaking as the compassionate First Lady and when she was being a White House political operator.

Historians, on the other hand, rate Rosalynn highly, in one poll putting her third, behind Eleanor Roosevelt and Lady Bird Johnson, in the top ten of most effective First Ladies. On
another
hand, at a 1993 panel about First Ladies and the Media held at the Smithsonian, the panelists, all women, remarked somewhat ruefully (they obviously wished it were otherwise) that Rosalynn was the least memorable of recent First Ladies.

Whether this tells us something about the American public or about Rosalynn Carter is a tough call. Whether it adds up to more than a hill of beans is also a good question. But as a politician’s daughter, I see a connection between being a public partner and the public’s perception of a First Lady. The more public the partnership, the more identified the First Lady becomes with all the imbroglios, scandals, and problems of her husband’s administration. If the public’s perception of his presidency bleeds into the failure zone, the First Lady’s popularity sinks with the President’s.

This is, to some extent, what happened to Rosalynn Carter. I am not trying to sit in political judgment on the Carter administration here. I am only trying to assess what happened to their presidential partnership. The same historians who rated Rosalynn third among
effective First Ladies of modern times rated President Jimmy Carter next to last, barely above Warren G. Harding. Maybe they were trying to confirm the adage that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics—especially polling statistics. But it is a judgment that is hard to ignore.

Unquestionably, the Carters had the best intentions, and they tried to do a great many things. Too many, in the opinion of several recent historians. Seamy friends and relatives, notably banker Bert Lance, who inspired the appointment of a special prosecutor, and Jimmy’s brother, Billy, with his off-the-wall attempt to represent Libya’s terrorist regime, created disillusioning headlines. The Carters were also unlucky. Inflation soared, the economy stalled. International events, such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, gave them rude shocks, to which their responses seemed inadequate.

The coup de grace was the Iranian seizure of the American embassy and its staff in Tehran. No President could have done more to cut this Gordian knot—but it seemed the ultimate proof, piled on top of Afghanistan and the all too recent memories of Vietnam, that America had lost its place as a strong, resourceful world leader. One old Washington hand reportedly said to Jimmy in the middle of this crisis: “I think maybe you’ve used up all your luck getting here!”

Finally, when they submitted their four years to the judgment of the American people in 1980, the Carters found themselves face to face with Ronald Reagan, one of the greatest vote getters in presidential history. In this final struggle, many people felt Rosalynn damaged her image as First Lady and exposed yet another vulnerability of the public partnership. She abandoned mental health and her other good causes to hit the campaign trail for Jimmy again. Grappling with the Iranian hostage crisis, the President felt he had to stay close to the White House. The First Lady’s sudden switch from altruism to ambition troubled many people.

The ferocious intensity of Rosalynn’s reelection effort was visible in her comment after they lost to Ronald Reagan. Someone remarked that Jimmy did not seem in the least bitter about the defeat. “I’m bitter enough for both of us,” Rosalynn said.

I fear that both Jimmy and Rosalynn came to Washington with an exaggerated idea of the power of the offices of the President and the First Lady. These offices can make some things happen, but my father frequently commented on how little even the President can do to get his own way on a dismaying variety of problems. This is even more true for the First Lady. Things are changed in politics not merely by the naked power of the office but by working within the system, having influential friends both inside and outside Washington. Jimmy and Rosalynn painfully lacked these connections. Rosalynn in particular suffered from the lack of a network of powerful women ready to defend, support, and promote her. These hidden but by no means silent backers were among the prime secrets of successful First Ladies such as Eleanor Roosevelt and Lady Bird Johnson.

I know some people want to see a coequal First Lady up to her eyes in politics. But Rosalynn Carter’s experience—and Edith Wilson’s and Helen Taft’s—makes me wonder if this is the best way for every First Lady to achieve maximum effectiveness in her peculiar job. Becoming First Lady does not, after all, endow a woman with magical qualities, enabling her to deal expertly with any and every problem that floats into the modern White House. While I am heartily in favor of women achieving maximum opportunities and power, I doubt that the First Lady is the ideal symbolic vehicle for this ascent. There are too many ambiguities and complexities in her role. To narrow the test of her success or failure to her ability to acquire and wield political power is, in my opinion, a serious mistake.

Again, I am coming down on the side of maximum laissez-faire. First Ladies should all be allowed to do their impossible job their own ways and take their chances with the results. That thought is a good transition to a political partnership as different from the Carters’ as the rural roads of Plains, Georgia, are from the elegant streets of Beverly Hills.

—

N
ANCY
R
EAGAN HAD A FAR MORE DIFFICULT TIME THAN
J
ACQUELINE
Kennedy when she tried to bring a touch of class to the White House. She was assailed as a coldhearted snob and an egotistic playgirl by a mélange of critics with a ferocity that must have made her sympathize with Marie Antoinette—and occasionally wonder if she might suffer a similar fate. Seldom has so much vitriol been flung at a First Lady who saw herself as nonpolitical.

Like Jackie Kennedy, Nancy’s first reaction to her new job was panic. She called old friends such as the silent film star Colleen Moore and confessed to being “scared and lonely.” This anxiety may explain some of the unfortunate remarks and decisions Mrs. Reagan made in her first few months in the White House.

When she was asked if she was going to espouse a cause, like many recent First Ladies, Nancy disdainfully announced she did not have one. For those who knew her, these were strange words. When Ronald Reagan was governor of California, Nancy had been the guiding spirit
of the Foster Grandparents Program, which urges older Americans to “adopt” poor children and let them know someone cares.

As First Lady, Nancy Reagan decided to devote her energies to making the White House a “special place.” Americans, she said, “wanted it that way.” She intended to bring “the best of everything” to the mansion. It helps to put this passion into political perspective. Ronald Reagan had become President at a low point in America’s international prestige. Both Reagans felt an intense need to restore American pride.

As Nancy saw it, the Carters’ down-home White House style, with its emphasis on informality and cost cutting, seemed part of this negative American image. While the President was telling the American people it was morning in America again, the First Lady decided to remind them that their afternoons and evenings could be wonderful too. All that was needed was some good old Hollywood glamour.

Nancy was trying to help define the Reagan administration’s tone by doing what came naturally. Even before the inauguration, contemplating her job, she had told a reporter, “You can only be yourself. If you try to do anything else, it’s phony.” She was the daughter of an actress who had palled around with the likes of Spencer Tracy and George Cukor. She had been a moderately successful screen star in her own right and had married an even more successful one. Hollywood’s lavish style was as natural to her as California sunshine.

Nancy should have seen omens of trouble to come in the criticism of the Reagans’ sixteen-million-dollar inaugural. The extravagance had been funded by friendly Republican millionaires, but the Antifeds of 1980, now equipped with press credentials, made Nancy target number one for their aversion to displays of wealth and power. They contrasted the six-year-old blue chiffon gown Rosalynn Carter had worn to her inaugural ball to the one-shoulder white satin sheath by James Galanos that made Nancy the center of attention. “Limousines, white ties, and $10,000 ball gowns are in, shoe leather, abstemiousness, and thrift out,” wrote one almost incoherent scribe.

The critics found even more fault with Nancy’s White House redecorating. She raised over $800,000 from another batch of rich Republicans to redo the private rooms on the second floor. This too was denounced as outrageous extravagance. Then she decided the White House needed new china, and contracted for a $220,000 order. The Queen Nancy image was born.

By December of 1981,
Newsweek
was telling people that the First Lady appeared to be an “idle rich, Queen bee figure” who was “obsessed with fashion and society.” Pollsters reported that sixty-two percent of the American people thought she put “too much emphasis on style and elegance.” Megagallons of ink were spilled on how much she spent on her wardrobe. She was roasted for accepting gowns from top designers free of charge. Her plea that she was trying to help the American fashion industry was dismissed with hoots and hisses. Even Republican supporters like Bob Hope joked that when Nancy’s childhood nursemaid tickled her, she had said: “Gucci, Gucci, goo.” Johnny Carson said she snacked on caviar.

I happened to have lunch with Elliott Roosevelt and Nancy Reagan in the middle of this fusillade. Nancy was extremely upset and bewildered by the media’s unrelenting hostility. “Ronnie says I should just forget them, but I can’t,” she said plaintively.

“Tell them to go to hell!” declared Elliott.

I shook my head and urged Nancy to meet regularly with the press and be as honest as possible with them. “But the questions they ask!” Nancy cried.

“You’ll get used to them,” I assured her. “Meanwhile, try to stay calm and devote yourself to a cause that people can identify with. Eventually, the public will change their minds about you.”

Although we did not agree politically, I liked Nancy personally. In private she is relaxed and full of fun, with a warm quick laugh. She is also far more intelligent and down-to-earth than she has been portrayed by certain journalists. I agreed with her husband (for once) when he said she was getting a bum rap from the press and public. No matter what the pundits thought, the White House needed new china. When the Reagans moved in, the wealthiest nation in the
world could not field a complete set of dishes for a state dinner. Every First Lady back to Dolley Madison has exercised her right to redecorate the private quarters to suit her own taste and her family’s living arrangements.

When I interviewed Nancy for this book, she still felt bewildered by the flap over the china and the redecorating. “I tried again and again to get someone to explain that the Knapp Foundation was donating the china. Not a cent of taxpayers’ money was used. It never got into print,” she told me. “As for the redecorating, a lot of money went for basics like plumbing and air conditioning and restoring the marble floor downstairs. It wasn’t all spent on the second floor.”

Nancy has told people my luncheon advice was the best suggestion she got from anyone while she was in the White House. She talked things over with the President and some of his advisers and decided there was a cause out there she could adopt as her own: drug abuse. She did not pick this out of a hat. In 1981 two decades of the drug culture were cresting with disastrous impact on millions of young Americans. We had been inundated with celebrities and gurus telling us drugs were harmless fun, good for the soul. There was a real need for someone to speak out against this insidious menace.