Original subtitles

-[Ronald] Where do you want me? -[man] You're right.

[man] No, you're gonna sit right there.

[indistinct conversations]

[Ronald] Hello, Robert.

[indistinct chatter continues]

[man] Mr. Vice President. Good to see you.

[indistinct chatter continues]

dramatic music plays

[camera shutter clicks]

[indistinct chatter continues]

[man] Mr. President, how could so much be going on

inside your White House without you knowing about it, sir?

[man] Mr. President, as a result...

[chuckles]

[woman] Well, don't you think it's--

[laughs]

[applause]

[applause continues]

I'm Dorothy Ridings,

President of the League of Women Voters,

the sponsor of tonight's first presidential debate

between Republican Ronald Reagan,

and Democrat Walter Mondale.

And now let us begin the debate

with the first question, Mr. Wieghart.

Mr. President, in 1980...

[Baker] When the red light went on the camera,

he was superb.

And so I was always one who was in favor of his debating

because I thought he was so good.

I mean, he didn't have facts and figures.

He wasn't a policy wonk.

But he could take the temperature

of the American people pretty damn well.

The system is still where it was

with regard to, uh...the...

uh...with regard to the-- the, uh...

progressivity, as I've said.

Well, the first debate was a fucking disaster.

And the guy that knew it was a disaster was Ronald Reagan.

So there are a host of other figures

that reveal that...

the, uh, the--the grant programs

are spending a third more on all of the...uh...

well, all of the programs of human service.

We...We have...

We have more people receiving food stamps...

[Ron Jr.] I was watching it on television,

and I began to, you know, think, you know,

"Whoa, what--what is happening?

This--he doesn't-- this is not my familiar father

here on the TV in this debate."

And a lot of people started talking then

about what's wrong with him?

Is he too old to be president? Does he have Alzheimer's?

So this was a discussion that was sort of widespread

in the country.

[man] One case study was Mrs. Reagan's reaction

to the first debate with Walter Mondale,

and the president's fumbling performance.

She was upset, and everybody knew it.

-And rightly so. -How so?

I mean, what did she-- did she chew people out

or what... I mean, what went on?

Oh, I'm not gonna get into that.

You-- you'd have to ask her that.

-I was upset. -Because?

Because I thought they'd gone about it all wrong.

And they had. [chuckles]

In terms of preparing the president?

Yes. Yes. They overloaded him.

He know--He--He-- he knows all those things.

They don't have to overload him.

-And were they... -[Spencer] He screwed up.

It was not because these facts were put in his head.

It's because he did not do his homework.

Weekend before the debate, three of us went to Camp David.

I brought the debate book, which was six inches thick,

put it on a credenza.

He was supposed to start doing his homework.

I go to my cabin.

I get a phone call, "Hey, you wanna watch a movie?"

He says, "What do you wanna watch?

Bedtime for Bonzo " I said, "No." "Why?"

I said, "Listen, any time the lead actor's a gorilla,

it's a crappy movie."

He walks in the bedroom, pissed. Nancy's over there like this.

She goes, "Stu, he loves Bedtime for Bonzo.

You're on thin ice." [laughs]

I said, "Okay. I'll watch the goddamn picture."

[film reel whirring]

[Spencer] The whole weekend, I watched the debate book.

It didn't move.

Two days later, he screws up the debate.

I knew it. He knew it.

[applause]

Nancy made her feelings very clear,

as only she could, that her husband didn't win

with the quality of his arguments.

[applause] - He had to win by being

so familiar and friendly

that the facts wouldn't matter.

He was a performer at heart.

Having a wife who was able to buck him up

and tell him that he-- he'd do fine in the next debate,

that was really important for that second debate.

[man] I recall yet that President Kennedy

had to go for days on end with very little sleep

during the Cuba missile crisis.

Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able

to function in such circumstances?

Not at all.

[Rollins] We kept him very relaxed the second time.

All he had to do is not stand up there and drool,

and he'd been just fine, and he--

and he had this humorous line.

I will not make age an issue of this campaign.

I am not going to exploit, for political purposes,

my opponent's youth and inexperience.

[laughter]

[Rollins] That was over. The race was over.

I said, "Fuck. Get that on the air, baby.

That's--That's the game."

[Alter] The line was so powerful

that everybody forgot the fact that he had just kind of spilled

the beans about an illegal operation in Nicaragua.

We have a gentleman down in Nicaragua

who is on contract to the CIA,

advising supposedly on military tactics the, uh, Contras.

Mr. President, you are implying then

that the CIA in Nicaragua is directing the Contras there?

I'm afraid I misspoke

when I said, uh, a CIA head in Nicaragua.

There's not someone there directing all this activity.

Uh, there are, as you know...

[Alter] Reagan accidentally revealed a covert operation,

but hardly anybody noticed.

A couple of years later,

that would be close to the center of the scandal

that nearly ended the Reagan presidency.

[Stahl] Our job with presidents

is to hold their feet to the fire.

I was encouraged to be very tough at the White House.

But when Reagan came in, my boss has changed direction.

They were taking out things that sounded like criticism,

removing them.

Everybody was afraid to contradict him.

The media was gentler on Reagan

because of public opinion, I think.

[Wiley] Reagan knew exactly how to play on the feelings

of the American public.

He could use his personality and his effectiveness

as a communicator to say, "Don't look at the truth.

Look at what I'm telling you."

Before we begin,

I know we never have enough time or anything,

but I think it's appropriate.

Could you listen to a bit of poetry?

-Yes. [chuckles] -This is from Kipling.

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation

to call upon a neighbor

and to say, "We invaded you last night.

We are quite prepared to fight,

unless you pay us cash to go away."

[Baker] President Reagan's management style

was to hire people that he had confidence in,

delegate responsibility to them,

and give them the authority to perform.

[Powell] The president was very clear

that he expected us to get the work done.

He wasn't somebody who would spend all his time dialing in

or digging into what you're doing.

He gave us great flexibility,

sometimes too much flexibility, and it got him in trouble.

Today I am announcing the following reassignment

of responsibilities among two of my most senior advisors.

I intend to appoint Donald T. Regan

as Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President

effective upon the date...

[Tumulty] When Don Regan becomes Chief of Staff,

Nancy is not happy.

Along with Baker's departure

is the departure of Michael Deaver,

who was a long-time advisor.

These were Nancy Reagan's eyes and ears.

They were her early warning system in the West Wing.

[indistinct chatter]

[birds chirping]

Don Regan, Gordon told me he's golfed-out.

He's golfed-out? Well, I-- I'm--

I've got a couple of little things

up here he could do. -[laughs]

He could clear some brush, a little variety.

How is he gonna clear a golf-- brush with a golf club?

[chuckling]

He could do a little riding, exercise some horses.

Mm-hmm.

He should have a change of pace.

-Mm-hmm. -[chuckles]

-Don't you think? -Yeah.

Okay. You tell him. [laughs]

-[man] So help me God. -So help me God.

-Congratulations, sir. -Thank you.

Thank you very much. Just call me "Chief."

[laughter]

[Baker] Don Regan, I don't think,

after he replaced me as Chief of Staff,

ever really understood that this Chief of Staff's job

is primarily a staff job, not a chief job.

How are we doing with the immigration issue?

[Rollins] He didn't give Nancy much reverence.

As a matter of fact, he made the comment,

"I'm not hired to be the fucking Chief of Staff

to the First Lady."

Her political antenna were far more sensitive

than President Reagan's were.

Happy birthday, dear Donald

[Ron Jr.] You could call my father gullible

to a certain extent. He was trusting of people.

She was not. My mother was not.

That was not her default position--trust in people.

[Spencer] Nancy had a great deal of power with her husband,

but she had to hide it in different roles.

[Baker] When we would have an important thing to schedule,

I would go to Dever and I'd say, "Now what about doing this

on such and such a day?"

He said, "Let me check. I'll get back to you."

That happened a few times, and I started thinking, hmm.

I knew we were checking with Nancy,

but I didn't know we were checking with an astrologer.

Are you serious, Ms. Quigley?

What do you mean, am I serious?

I mean, the wife of the President of the United States

would call Joan Quigley

and would talk to her for a couple of hours

on the telephone. -Yes.

And would talk about what time a treaty should be signed or--

Yes, but I'm a very good technical astrologer,

and I know how...

[Kelley] The Reagans dealt with many astrologers

for many years, but the most famous became Joan Quigley.

[Ruth Quigley] When Nancy wanted a new astrologer,

she called Merv Griffin 'cause she and Merv were great pals.

And he said, "Oh, well, the one that always tells me

the right things is Joan Quigley."

[Kelley] Nancy Reagan relied on Joan Quigley.

She would call her sometimes eight times a day

for almost everything, down to unbelievable details,

including the takeoff and landings times

for Air Force One.

It was astrology that charted their way.

But nobody knew that at the time.

[Ruth] Joan timed all of the press conferences,

the State of the Unions.

She defused so many difficult situations for them.

She would say, "Make no foreign pronouncements on this day,"

or when Ronald Reagan wanted to arm twist a congressman,

Joan could tell him when to do it.

[Spencer] People have always asked me on that question

of astrology and Nancy, "What about the husband?"

He and I had the conversation.

That's her thing. Leave her alone.

[applause]

[Tumulty] For her, astrology was a crutch.

Nancy did not have religion to fall back on,

and Ronald Reagan had a very deep religious faith.

He truly believed that God had a plan for him.

[cheers and applause]

Religious America is awakening

perhaps just in time for our country's sake.

[applause]

[Alter] Reagan's religious background

and conservative ideas really resonated with a group

of right-wing evangelical Christians

who decided to get more heavily involved in politics,

and Reagan saw that as an opportunity.

[Spencer] And Christian right, then termed a Moral Majority,

it was a very large voting bloc.

And on a lot of the issues, social issues particularly,

we had an inside track.

Reagan and I would go out to pay our allegiances to Falwell.

The reverend's thing was Roe vs. Wade.

When we left, I said, "Mr. President,

are you gonna give serious thought

to reversing Roe vs. Wade?"

He turned to me with that big Irish smile, and he says,

"Stu, do I look insane?"

Well, he got politically close,

as close as we could get away with,

and we got a lot of money out of 'em.

[woman] Claiming to receive $400,000 a week

in contributions, the Moral Majority movement

believes that all of America's problems are the byproduct

of moral decadence and runaway Democratic liberalism.

[Ron Jr.] To some extent, at least,

my father did let the genie out of the bottle

with the link between the Republican Party

and the evangelical right--

the unholy alliance that we see now.

[Shearer] Ronald Reagan didn't go to church a lot,

and for him to then embrace the Moral Majority, I think,

was pure political opportunism, which he did well.

[man] What's happened?

Twenty million Americans have herpes,

incurable venereal disease.

Many more have AIDS,

incurable and in most cases fatal.

God was angered, and God has judged a society.

suspenseful music plays

What?

[laughter]

There was a lot of willful blindness

to--to what was happening all around them.

[Ron Jr.] I don't mean to be making excuses for him

because it's not defensible, but when he took office,

there was no such thing as AIDS.

It existed, obviously, but nobody knew what it was.

There was this mysterious illness that seemed

to be affecting mostly gay men and IV drug users.

Not big Republican, you know, constituents.

They had gay friends, but he probably

would have put them in a different category.

You know, not our kind of gay people.

[Kelley] It is hypocritical because with Nancy,

everybody around her

that helped her,

and made her look good and feel good was gay.

But because the politics of the time,

she kept that façade.

[Shearer] When he came to Yale University in 1967,

end of the first year as governor,

I asked Reagan whether he thought homosexuals

had the right to serve in government.

Well, I think we're getting into an area now

where we can debate, uh, what is an illness

or whether it is an illness or not.

I happen to subscribe to the belief

that it is a tragic illness.

[Shearer] And then he kind of thought and he said,

"And it should be illegal."

[man] I would like to ask you if you also think

that certain other tragic illnesses

like tuberculosis, cancer, mental illness,

and heart disease should also be considered illegal?

We recognize this as a form of illness and neurosis.

As a result of that illness,

they are not content to simply suffer

the illness themselves but they seek to get others

who'll catch the ailment.

And from that standpoint, yes, I believe that we have right

to a protection with regard to the practice

that follows such an illness.

People knew very little about homosexuality.

In the summer of 1981

when the first cases were identified,

we were seen as an inherent danger.

This was the transition from homosexuality

being on a list of biblical vices

to being a person you need to be afraid of,

a person who is an inherent threat to society,

to your family.

It felt like there was a bull's eye on our back.

It really felt like we were targeted.

[man] What is your response to those who say

that only a small, unsavory group of people is affected by it?

To say that only a small unsavory group of people

are affected with it is really...

is outlandish because we know that the virus

can and is infecting a variety of people in the population.

And to say because someone has a particular lifestyle

that they're unsavory, I think is objectionable.

It just seemed that Reagan

was being fed or accepting

that this was a bad thing

because of the people involved and not because of the virus.

I was very frustrated.

We're seeing an emerging catastrophe,

and he wanted nothing to do with it.

[Alter] It was a political calculation

that his evangelical base did not want him to deviate

from their premise which is that

AIDS was God's revenge.

You ever get the feeling sometimes

that if we let this be another Sodom and Gomorrah,

that maybe we might be the generation

that sees Armageddon? - Yes.

Reagan believed that he was President

because he was called to be President.

He saw himself as placed at that time in history

to move the world away from Armageddon.

[indistinct chatter]

[Adelman] This notion of Armageddon scared the dickens out of him.

So whenever the president talked about Armageddon,

basically we would just slough it off

or, you know, not answer it.

What do you do about Armageddon?

[projector whirring]

[Alter] From Goldwater in 1964

through the 1980 campaign, he was a hawk's hawk.

[explosion ]

[Alter] But then a movie changed his mind.

[Adelman] It was Reagan's viewing

of The Day After-- made him anti-nuclear.

He had an image of that in his mind--

that's what the world's gonna look like if we fail.

That was a massive shift in his political position.

[Ronald] My fellow Americans,

let me share with you a vision of the future which offers hope.

It is that we embark on a program to counter

the awesome Soviet missile threat

with measures that are defensive.

-Well, what is it? -The inertia projector.

It's a device for throwing electrical waves

capable of paralyzing alternate

and direct currents at their source.

All right, Hayden.

Focus that inertia projector on 'em and let 'em have it.

[engine droning]

[man] By any name, Star Wars or SDI,

it is an anti-missile system which already carries

a $26 billion development price tag.

It is not proven, may not be feasible,

and Congress has yet to agree to pay for it.

[man] Mr. President, would this not create,

instead of an offensive arms race, a defensive arms race?

Well, would that be all bad? Uh...

If you've got everybody building defense,

uh, then nobody's gonna start a war.

And, uh, that's maybe part of the idea.

[Scheer] It was based on a movie that he was in

with a laser beamed apparatus.

It never was gonna happen.

It's a cockamamie idea

that was a fantasy from beginning.

[rings]

dramatic music plays

[cheers and applause]

[McFarlane] Ronald Reagan carried a belief

that the other side ought to know

that they're not dealing with a patsy here.

He was conveying a moral judgment about

what he thought about the Soviet Union.

He really felt that this was an evil empire.

[woman] Soviet television had the announcement

this morning that President Andropov

had died after a long illness.

Today we've learned of the death of the head of state,

Konstantin Chernenko,

and I've sent my condolences...

to the Soviet leadership and people

[Shearer] For the first five years,

Reagan didn't directly deal with the Communists.

Reagan's interaction with the Russians changed

because the Russians changed.

Gorbachev was a younger, more modern guy.

And so Gorbachev reached out,

and Reagan did respond.

[Spencer] He was willing to deal,

make the deals that had to be made

as long as our country wasn't hurt.

And he lucked out.

Gorbachev came along, who had the same frame of mind.

[woman] In Warsaw today, Soviet leader Gorbachev,

said he sent a personal letter to President Reagan,

a letter which could lead to a summit.

It's, uh, different than things

that we've heard in the past leaders in the Soviet Union.

-[man] How is that? -[man] Thank you.

That's enough.

Well, it's just about the first time that anyone

has ever proposed to actually eliminating nuclear weapons.

To Reagan's credit, with the help of his wife,

when Gorbachev came on the scene,

he realized that he could change course,

shed that old image of the Cold War era,

and take advantage of this historic opportunity.

[Joan Quigley] I talked to Nancy for two or three hours,

convincing her that Gorbachev was a kind of man

that was not only tough but intelligent,

open to new ideas, and that he had vision

like Ronald Reagan did,

and that these two men

have a fantastic chemistry between them.

[Ruth Quigley] When Nancy called Joan, she said,

"Gorbachev, from his chart, was an intellectual,

and he was a man that loved ideas

and could be influenced."

Gorbachev had gotten to where he was

through the assistance of older men.

And Ronnie was 20 years older than Gorbachev,

so there would be that sort of

subconscious respect for someone older.

I also affected definitely the relationship

between the superpowers because of my reading

of Gorbachev's horoscope.

And I...the minute I read it, I knew that I had to change

the evil empire attitude before he...

they had their first summit, and I went about that.

[Ruth Quigley] Joan convinced Nancy that

if Ronnie kept an open-mind, using his super salesmanship

on Gorbachev, it would work.

[Kelley] In a sense, it was harmless.

On the other hand,

this is the man who has his hand on a nuclear button,

and his actions

are being dictated by astrologers.

[Ronald] We have serious problems

with the Soviet positions on a great many issues,

and success is not guaranteed.

But if Mr. Gorbachev comes to Iceland

in a truly cooperative spirit,

I think we can make some progress.

That's my goal.

That's my purpose in going to Iceland.

[Adelman] After the first morning of the Reykjavik Summit,

we were summoned into the room within a room

in the U.S. Embassy.

It had a kind of vault-like entrance,

and so it was absolutely secure.

Reagan start to tell us that Gorbachev

really wants to do this.

And Reagan, from his memory,

gives us some numbers that are in his head.

After about five minutes

of absolute agony of groping around,

he goes into his suit pocket

and he takes out a piece of paper, he said,

"Oh, Gorbachev handed me this."

So we all dived for the paper and we found out,

holy cow, this guy really wants to use this weekend

to get something done in arms control.

Gorbachev says, "Yes, we made great progress,

but you know what? It's all tied to canning SDI."

[Shultz] President Reagan rejected that.

This man has strong opinions

but he understands why he has the opinion.

So that means he's gonna stick to something that he decides on.

[Adelman] Reagan told us that he had made a pledge

to the American people to see SDI through.

None of us had ever heard the pledge.

That was the first time...

but you know, it was a part of his imagination

that he must have done it or should have done it,

and that he wasn't gonna give it up.

[man] Do you think he missed an opportunity back then?

Yes. I think he did,

'cause in retrospect we know that SDI doesn't work, you know?

So he wouldn't have been giving up anything actually.

I think, you know, we could be living in a world

with many fewer nuclear weapons right now

if he just had, you know, given in on that.

But he thought he was...

he thought Gorbachev is trying to hustle him.

[man] After three hours and 42 minutes

of that last meeting, disappointment.

Ronald Reagan, his jaw set grimly,

and an unsmiling Mikhail Gorbachev walked out,

telegraphing failure.

[Shultz] So in the end...

...we are deeply disappointed...

...at this outcome.

[Ruth Quigley] In January 1986, Ronald Reagan was really moving

into a very bad period, astrologically.

When Nancy called Joan,

she could see the horrible aspects gathering

for poor Ronald Reagan,

and Joan had to do what she could to minimize it.

So she didn't let him have press conferences

because those could have assassinated him

in a different way.

Ronald Reagan held fewer

than one press conference every other month.

That's not accountability.

That is hiding from the press.

[Tom Brokaw] It is taking shape as one of the most

controversial foreign policy developments

of President Reagan's years in office.

The reports of a secret White House operation

to ship Iran military supplies

in exchange for help in freeing three American hostages.

[man] Mr. President, do we have a deal going

with Iran of some-- of some sort?

- [man chuckles] [camera shutter clicking]

No comment.

[man] Mr. President, the Iranians are saying

that if you'll release some of those weapons,

they'll intercede to free the rest of the hostages.

Will you?

Good evening. President Reagan is about to hold

his first formal news conference since August.

Mr. Reagan holds these sessions so infrequently

that when he does, just the fact

he's meeting with reporters becomes news.

But with all the controversy

swirling about secret arms deals,

this one promises more newsworthy than usual.

I have a few words here before I take your questions.

Just some brief remarks.

18 months ago, as I said last Thursday,

this administration began a secret initiative

to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

However, to eliminate the widespread

but mistaken perception

that we have been exchanging arms for hostages,

I have directed that no further sales of arms

of any kind be sent to Iran. I further...

[Rollins] It all started with the hostages.

And the first rule is you never let the president

be talked to by the families of the hostages.

Don Regan got tired of listening to the sister

of one of the hostages.

And finally one day, he just put him through to Reagan.

It became not about the big picture.

It became the picture of what would take to get them home.

And now I'll take your questions. Helen?

Mr. President, in the recent past,

there was an administration whose byword was

"Watch what we do, not what we say."

How would you assess the credibility...

[McFarlane] The President had empathy for the hostages

to a fault.

I briefed the President along with the risks.

And before long,

to show evidence of our good faith,

was the transfer of weapons.

Mr. President, you have stated flatly,

and you've stated flatly again tonight

that you did not trade weapons for hostages,

and yet the record shows

that every time an American hostage was released,

there had been a major shipment of arms just before that.

Are we all to believe that was just a coincidence?

Chris, the only thing I know about major shipments of arms...

[Ron Jr.] I came back to the White House,

and I was very blunt with him.

"What are you talking about?

You need to admit what has on here."

But he had convinced himself

this wasn't really an arms for hostage deal.

That he was simply making an overture

to more moderate Iranians,

and that a side benefit of that

would be the freeing of the hostages.

But you wanted to say to him,

"You're not saying things that jive with reality here."

Sir, if I may, the polls show

that your credibility has been severely damaged.

Can you repair it?

What does it mean for the rest of your presidency?

Well, I imagine I'm the only one around

who wants to repair it, and I didn't do--

have anything to do with this-- damaging it.

[Tumulty] After Reagan comes out in this press conference,

the poll numbers plummet.

It's a real key turning point.

For the first time ever,

the American people do not believe

that Ronald Reagan is being straight with them.

dramatic music plays

Republicans and Democrats alike are calling it a crisis,

some call it a scandal, others a tragedy.

Today's startling revelation

that up to $30 million dollars

from the secret arms deal with Iran

ended up in the hands of anti-government forces

in Nicaragua, the Contras.

[McFarlane] Covert activities are difficult enough to maintain

the operational security of one of them,

and you certainly don't want to mix

two separate covert operations together.

[James] [laughs] They broke the law, okay?

They violated the Boland Amendment.

I know this is very self-serving,

I don't think it would have happened if I were there.

There is a growing public perception

that something is very wrong in the White House

when it comes to foreign policy.

A president who says he knew nothing

of the first arm shipments to Iran

until after the fact, and perhaps most important,

serious questions about who is running

the foreign policy of the United States.

We are told that three military men

used to carrying out orders from their superiors

failed to tell the commander-in-chief

what they were up to.

NSC Advisor Admiral John Poindexter,

Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North,

and former National Security Advisor

Colonel Robert McFarlane.

I don't intend this to be somehow in justification,

but I knew that if I had stayed around,

if I had intervened emphatically,

I could have prevented this, I think.

[man] So far, Colonel North's testimony

means trouble for the White House in two ways--

his image as a one-man band overachiever

was useful for the White House

because it meant he wasn't part of the organization.

Today, he dispelled the image

of an out-of-control lieutenant colonel,

and he said he assumed the president knew a lot

about what was going on.

That doesn't help Mr. Reagan.

He was being put in this terrible position

and had put himself in this--in this, uh,

in this terrible position,

that Poindexter and company had been going behind his back.

[Tumulty] Nancy Reagan begins to realize

that impeachment is a real possibility here.

She is singlehandedly organizing the rescue effort.

She decides that Don Regan has got to go.

[Rollins] And she made it happen.

She took him out at the knees.

Chris, what's the latest on the strain

reported between Mrs. Reagan

and White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan?

Well, Tom, a source very close to Mrs. Reagan

told me today that she purposely--

Mrs. Reagan purposely leaked the story

that she's no longer talking to Donald Regan,

to try to force Donald Regan out of the White House.

I think this is one

that has been bandied about in the press.

That is fiction,

and I think it is despicable fiction.

And a lot of people ought to be ashamed of themselves.

But the idea that she's involved

in governmental decisions and so forth

in all of this and...

being kind of a dragon lady,

there is nothing to that and no one who knows her well...

[Thomas] Well, you know who said it.

...would ever believe it.

[Thomas] You know who said "Dragon lady"?

Your Chief of Staff.

[Regan] No, no, Helen, I didn't say that.

[laughter]

[Stahl] I came to believe that in the second term,

Nancy Reagan was taking the reins behind the scenes,

and directing more and more policy.

And I also saw

the president would dip in and out of attention.

I met with the president

and he's just standing there,

not paying any attention at all.

And he could hardly talk.

And I thought, "What's going on with the president?"

And the press secretary, to jolt him out of this,

screamed very loudly, "Her husband is a screenwriter."

And honestly, he popped--I'm not kidding,

his neck tightened, the age spots disappeared.

He popped up and wanted to talk about movies and there he was.

I never could diagnose it.

So I never said anything.

[Ron Jr.] As his son, I just thought,

hmm, something just a little bit off here.

I don't know what it is.

It could just be that he's getting older.

He's now in his 70s, and you tend to slow down a bit.

But there's something just a little odd here.

[Tumulty] All these people who dismissed Nancy Reagan

as an empty-headed fashionista socialite,

suddenly see her exercising a lot of power

at a time when her husband

seems incapable of getting his own footing.

[Spencer] Got a phone call from Nancy Reagan and Ken Duberstein

who was assistant Chief of Staff at the time.

They said, "We like you to come back

and talk to the president

and try to help us work our way through this problem."

[Adelman] We started questioning the president.

Every which way of Sunday,

to figure out whether or not

he was telling the truth to the American people.

And what did he know and when did he know it.

[Parvin] You got a very historic sense

that this is how...

presidencies can fall.

Are you saying the president made mistakes?

Yes, the president made mistakes.

I think that's-- that's very plain English.

The president did make mistakes.

I believe that, uh, the president was

poorly advised and poorly served.

[Alter] Nancy tries to do anything she can

to try to straighten this out.

The new objective is to change the narrative.

[man] Mr. President, what do you think have to do

to restore your credibility?

Ask me that question after the speech tonight.

[Thomas] So you're not going to apologize tonight

to the American people?

Tune in.

[Nancy] You'll be great.

I'm gonna break a leg.

No, what--No. Good luck.

[laughs]

[Parvin] The big question was whether the president

would admit he traded arms for hostages.

The problem was that he didn't, in his heart,

believe that he did.

So I went around and around, how do I bridge that gap

that he would accept?

And so what I finally came up with was...

A few months ago, I told the American people

I did not trade arms for hostages.

My heart and my best intention still tell me that's true.

But the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

As the Tower board reported,

what began as a strategic opening to Iran

deteriorated in its implementation...

[Alter] That line is just... vintage Reagan.

His heart is telling him one thing

and the facts are telling him another?

Really? I mean, only Reagan could get away with saying that.

And that just tells you

how deep he was into fantasyland.

[Ron Jr.] He was depressed.

He knew that the public wasn't on his side.

He knew there's something

almost unfathomable to him was happening.

You deserve the truth...

[Spencer] The speech he finally gave

was, um, not a mea culpa at all.

Uh, it was in my mind, it was continually in denial

knowing anything about it.

And--but the truth is who knows?

contemplative music plays

[dog yapping]

[Tumulty] The next day, The New York Times writes

it's the biggest presidential mea culpa

since John F. Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.

But whatever the reality,

it does the trick.

Ronald Reagan's poll numbers go up overnight

because the American people really feel for the first time

that he's being honest with them about this.

[helicopter blades whirring]

[Stahl] I remember thinking that Iran-Contra

was gonna destroy him completely.

Nope. He bounced back.

But Don Reagan,

after Nancy got rid of him,

wanted to embarrass her

and hurt her image.

So, he got back at her.

Donald Regan, former Treasury Secretary

and White House Chief of Staff,

out this morning with a new controversial book

about the Reagan administration.

The book portrays President Reagan as a hesitant

and unassertive chief executive

controlled to a large extent by a scheming image-conscious

first lady who depended heavily

on the predictions of an astrologer.

[Stahl] This was Don Reagan's sweet revenge.

You call it, "for the record.

Why didn't you call it "Don't Get Mad, Get Even"?

Because that's what appears to be to a lot of people.

It is not a story about Mrs. Reagan or anyone else.

If it's embarrassing to them,

it's only because it's true history.

[Ruth Quigley] Nancy was very upset about it.

And on Nancy's last conversation with Joan, she said,

"Joan, you can't say anything.

Lie if you have to. Just lie."

And Joan said that was the last word

she and Nancy ever exchanged was

Nancy saying to her, "Lie if you have to. Just lie."

I am a serious political astrologer,

and I object to the whole circus atmosphere

surrounding this situation.

And she put up shield over him--

what we used to call the mantle of heaven.

Nancy Reagan was gonna make sure they were protected,

that his image was protected no matter what.

suspenseful music plays

[indistinct chatter]

[crowd chanting] ...own fault, just fire it up.

Won't take his own fault, just fire it up.

Fight back, fight AIDS! Fight back, fight AIDS!

AIDS is spreading so fast in America

that within five years,

it will have killed 179,000 people.

That is just one of many alarming numbers to emerge

from a federal government forecast on the disease today.

By 1987, uh, the epidemic is raging out of control.

[crowd] We've got to fight AIDS.

[Sean] The advocacy in the streets

had reached a whole new level.

There is rampant discrimination based on AIDS

and that this is hampering the public health control efforts.

[Fauci] The more the activists pushed,

the more the administration drew back.

And it was sort of a self-defeating

phenomenon that we were seeing. -[crowd shouting]

[Kramer] People die every day. Friends get sick every day.

I don't--it's like being in the trenches.

There is such anger in the community,

and it is coalescing in a way that has never been done before.

[cheers and applause]

dramatic music plays

[Taylor] The issue that was becoming steadily worse,

and it was still in the closet.

People would not talk about it.

[woman] The very public death

of her close friend, Rock Hudson,

first brought the disease out of the shadows

and into the American spotlight.

It brought attention to the Reagans

in kind of a personal way because the friendship

and they had this long history together in Hollywood.

This was so clearly invading their life as well.

[Ron Jr.] First Lady isn't as isolated as the president is.

So she was talking to her friends

and talking to me, and she got it before he did.

[man] With conservatives saying the president should not support

what amounts to gay rights legislation,

well, the First Lady is known

to have strong views about protecting AIDS victims.

The White House was basically dragged

into addressing the AIDS issue in a speech.

At Elizabeth Taylor's urging, Mrs. Reagan

realized they were behind the curve,

and she got things rolling.

The White House speechwriting staff was--

it was hardcore conservative.

Mrs. Reagan didn't want the AIDS speech

to fall into those hands.

That's why I was hired.

Things were so behind that when I talked

to Sergeant General Koop,

I realized he had never even met

with the president on AIDS.

I just couldn't believe it.

With everything that's going on in the country, how can that be?

[indistinct chatter]

This was six years into the epidemic.

There were probably 20,000 people dead by then,

maybe 30,000 people dead by then.

[Parvin] Certain conservative members of the cabinet

got involved,

pushing against what we could and could not say.

It was just battle after battle.

For example, should the president use the word "condom"?

[woman] The setting was gala,

but the mood distinctly was not.

It was Ronald Reagan's

first major address on federal policy on AIDS.

AIDS is surreptitiously spreading

throughout our population,

and yet we have no accurate measure of its scope.

It's time we knew exactly what we were facing.

[Sean] It was more important as a political opportunity for him

than it was as a humanitarian crisis.

I've asked HHS to add the AIDS virus to the list

of contagious diseases

for which immigrants and aliens

seeking permanent residence in the United States

can be denied entry.

[audience shouting and booing]

[Sean] Some of us were able to get tickets into the event.

We would boo him, and then we were getting,

like, hushed or kind of booed back

from the audience, you know, to drown us out.

[Ronald] Now, let me turn to what the States can do.

[applause, crowd booing]

[cheers and applause]

I mean, there was so much hurt...

um, that people were feeling.

It was not the speech I would have given,

but it was the speech...

that went as far as I could get it to go.

[Ronald] It's something that

a young man with AIDS recently said,

"I am going to fight the disease with every breath I have."

Ladies and gentlemen, so must we.

-Thank you. [cheers and applause]

[crowd booing]

[Sean] I can tell the president was shaken.

I mean, you could just tell.

[Fauci] I was gratified that he said AIDS,

but I had a big feeling of it's about time.

It was puzzling to a number of people,

myself included,

why Nancy Reagan did not push a bit more

to have the president and the people around him

using the bully pulpit of the presidency

in the beginning, warning people.

[applause]

[Sean] If it hadn't been for Elizabeth Taylor

really insisting and cleverly lobbying and setting it up

so that Reagan would speak at that,

he might have never given a significant address on AIDS.

And that was nearing the end of his second term.

[Sean] Had he all the way taken the steps

in the early 1980s,

but his administration did not allow those things to be done.

And instead, he abdicated responsibility on AIDS.

And that abdication brought pain and suffering

to so many.

And we still see the reverberations of it today.

What you essentially had

near the end of Reagan's presidency

was a man who had to be propped up by his wife,

members of his staff,

by loyalists in his administration

to redefine the myth of the Reagan presidency.

[Ron Jr.] He wrote in his diary during his presidency

about flying over the canyons of the West Coast of California,

familiar canyons to him,

couldn't remember any of their names.

That struck him enough that he put it in his diary

with a kind of slightly alarmed, you know, tone.

contemplative music plays

[Ron Jr.] Was something going on in his mind at the time?

Well, we know that Alzheimer's takes about 10 years at least

to develop to the point where you end up with dementia.

So, he has the disease while he's in the White House.

That's really pretty much unquestionable.

I ran that by his neurologists, too,

who confirmed that that had to be the case.

[Johnson] It was Nancy recognizing

more than the press was willing to admit

that he was entering the early stages of Alzheimer's

became concerned with his legacy.

She wanted to transform him into the man

who stares down the Soviet Union and saves this country,

saves the world from nuclear conflict.

[Alter] The Reagans understood

the theater of the American presidency,

the stagecraft that's involved, and the importance of creating

an emotional connection to the audience

to make that performance a winning one.

[cheers and applause]

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

[cheers and applause]

[Shultz] They're great friends.

And there were some people in the State Department

and also in the NIC Staff

who thought it was too provocative.

And they tried to get it knocked out.

But the president kept it in.

[cheers and applause]

It became the signature line of Reagan's eight years.

[cheers and applause]

[Johnson] Reagan's success was in part

because he was the ultimate pitchman,

and this is important to understand.

Ronald Reagan's ultimate sales pitch

wasn't to the American people.

It was to journalism.

He completely flipped the media industrial complex

in America on its head.

And by the time he left office in 1988,

he was not just a hero to the Republican Party,

he was a hero to American media

because he had given them the sort of televised president

that they had always wanted to see.

[Stahl] They manipulated us by making sure we had pictures

with the president in the scene that we absolutely had to use.

And they fed us gorgeous pictures.

When the pictures are stronger than what you're saying,

the pictures will override, and people won't even hear you.

[Scheer] He was particularly gifted in manipulation

by being an actor and being able to follow scripts

and play a folksy person.

He was destructive to the people who trusted him

and caused a great deal of harm.

Ronald Reagan was famously affable.

But I think it's important to know

that he was a friendly man with one friend,

and he married her.

[Spencer] She was playing the role of the wife,

but I think she wanted the world to know

that she was the power behind the throne.

I do.

[Johnson] Ronald Reagan believed

that a mythological America never existed.

He didn't really care about taking us back to it.

He thought that it still existed.

It was just covered over

in civil rights and government regulation.

And if you move those things out of the way,

this America that never existed

that he magically believed in was going to come back.

[Ron Jr.] My father was not comfortable with

a lot of negativity.

If America was a great country,

then it needed to be great through and through.

So, whether it was racism, misogyny, wealth and inequality,

these systemic issues, you might say, with America

made my father very uncomfortable.

So he would edit it out.

[Wiley] And it was all mythmaking.

It was all brilliant acting.

Ronald Reagan remains an incredible societal myth,

the myth of the perfect president.

[David] You're the only movie actor I know of

who ever got elected to a high office.

Do you learn anything as an actor

that has been useful to you as president?

[Ronald] I'm tempted to say something here.

-[David] Go ahead and say it. -Well, I'm gonna say it.

-[David] Go ahead. -There have been times

in this office when I wondered

how you could do the job if you hadn't been an actor.