Читать книгу Riding with Reagan - Rochelle Schweizer - Страница 6

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The Unlikeliest of Friends

That first ride was the beginning of a special relationship that was forged through not only a love for horses but the many years we spent riding over the trails alone. My boss made it clear to me on that sunny November morning that from then on, I had to be prepared to come out to the ranch every time the President did, and I would go with him anywhere else he was going to ride.

There were things about Ronald Reagan I already knew I liked. The first time I saw him and heard him speak was on October 28, 1980, in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Bond Court Hotel. For members of the Secret Service, a presidential campaign always presents challenges and changes. After Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, in 1968, Congress decreed that the Secret Service must cover any viable candidate running for president. Five individuals from different areas of the government determine viability. Once a candidate is deemed viable, he or she starts to have the aura of the presidency, because it’s a lot bigger deal if a candidate shows up with a Secret Service entourage than if they just ride up in a taxi.

I was on the detail covering President Carter at one of the debates, and I was impressed by the way Reagan handled himself. I remember how much I liked it when he kept saying, “Well, there you go again,” and then there was the “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” line. Of course we weren’t, with fifty-seven hostages in Iran and 21 percent interest rates.

After that debate, I remember hearing one of President Carter’s aides tell him, “Mr. President, you did a great job.”

“I did not,” was all he said in response. Everyone, including President Carter, knew Reagan had eaten him up.

Those unforgettable lines from the debates were only the first of many endearing things I would hear from Reagan. He was likable from the beginning, and he really knew how to communicate. His vision for America was optimistic. I had previously covered both President Ford’s son Michael and his wife Gayle and, then, President Carter. During those years the country was struggling, and consequently, many Americans were pessimistic about the future. Now there would be a new man in the White House. His ideas were hopeful—things could be good again, and there were opportunities for everyone. As we learned over the years, those were not just his ideas, but beliefs he held dearly.

* * *

BECAUSE OF HIS UPBRINGING, the glitz of Hollywood and the power of the White House did not reveal much about the man I came to know. Reagan valued decency and hard work and found respite in the simple pleasures of life. Reagan’s core came from his mother, Nelle Reagan. As I got to know him, it became clear that his mother ran the house when he was growing up. Jack Reagan, his father, was an alcoholic who worked as a shoe salesman, most of the time holding small jobs while always on the search for his pot of gold. The family spent years bouncing around Illinois, and as a boy, Reagan never lived in a house that his family owned. Instead, he grew up in apartments above a bank and later a shoe store, as well as various rental homes along the way. Before reaching his teen years, he lived in five different towns and twelve rented apartments or houses. He was often the new kid on the block. Seeking comfort from the difficulties all those childhood disruptions must have caused, he gravitated more to his mother, who was his anchor.

His mother set all the rules and made all the critical decisions for her boys. When Reagan became a father, he would tell his children to go to their mother when they had a problem or a difficult question, because that is how he had seen it done. Clearly, his mother taught him the values for which he came to be admired—being down to earth, being idealistic, and telling it like it is. He got all that from Nelle Reagan.

His father, who could be cynical, had very little influence on him, and his brother, Neil (or “Moon”) Reagan, had even less influence on him. He used to call Neil the “One-Match Kid” because he was a chain-smoker. Neil would light a cigarette, and then before that cigarette would go out, he’d use it to light another one, chain-smoking all day. To Reagan, that habit was a mystery.

Early on in our relationship, the President put me at ease. While riding our horses, I was always conscious of my duty: to protect him. Still, on those early rides, I was surprised by how disarming and transparent he was with me.

Once, after we had been riding for some time in silence, he asked me, “John, you know the best job I ever had?”

I thought I knew the answer to that one, so I immediately answered, “Yes, sir, being president.”

“No,” he replied. “I was a dishwasher in a girl’s sorority.” As he explained it, he could stand around all those pretty girls and get paid for it!

In fall 1928, just a year before the Depression, Reagan left Dixon, Illinois, to enroll in Eureka College. A poor young man, it was extremely difficult for him not only to get into school but then to pay for it once he was there. He worked hard, though, taking side jobs. His work ethic, which he inherited from his mother, ran deep. While still living in Illinois, he also worked as a salesman at a sporting goods store. He liked that job, and he told me that at one time he thought that was what he would do for a living.

Reagan’s humble upbringing kept him modest throughout his life. When he combined his work ethic with his natural good looks and charm, it didn’t take him long to land some starring roles in Hollywood. However, he didn’t have an ego. I never heard him say, “I can do that because I’m president of the United States.” While he was a part of Hollywood and the whole system, it never became a big part of him. Anyone who has watched his movies can see how his plain mannerisms came out on the screen, just as they did in his politics. People wanted to sit and listen to him.

His actions and choices were unlike many of the other stars and climbers around him. Countless Hollywood marriages have broken up because the success of one partner has bruised the other’s ego, but not Reagan. He ended up divorced from Jane Wyman, because she’d just won an Oscar for her performance in Johnny Belinda, while he was busy making B movies. He didn’t care, but obviously she did, and Wyman filed for the divorce. That devastated him, and he never talked about it later in life.

President Reagan never put on airs. He had a remarkable ability to be just as comfortable with the person cutting his hair as he was with actor Charlton Heston, who was one of his very good friends from their days in the Screen Actors Guild. Once, when we were riding along a trail, he started to tell me about Santa Fe Trail, a movie he had made with Errol Flynn in 1940. I had always been curious about Flynn, and while I would never have been the one to initiate a conversation like this one with him, I seized the opportunity to ask the President a question about the movie star. “Are all the stories about his womanizing true?”

“John,” he said, “I went out with him for three nights, and I couldn’t keep up with him. He’d be up all night and then on the set the next day, his lines all memorized and ready to go, looking good. He was a true professional.”

The President was good-looking and naturally had many women after him, so I’ve been told. Yet he never would have bragged about it. I asked him, “I understand you were sought after too?”

“Well, I guess a little bit,” he said and smiled. While he wouldn’t elaborate, his friends sure told me. He was just too humble to brag.

The President was also graceful and a good slow dancer, but he wasn’t musical. I remember him singing in church once, and you wouldn’t want him in the choir. I never saw any records around or heard any music on his radio. I once asked him if he wanted the radio on in the limousine, and he said, “No.” I later asked him one or two times more, and then I dropped it. When he said “No,” that was exactly what he meant.

As I got to know the President better, his honesty impressed me greatly. Although in many ways he was smooth and always seemed a bit like a Hollywood leading man, he was forthright. That puzzled his critics. Some people say he wasn’t the smartest president. Maybe he wasn’t, but he knew his facts. His memory was phenomenal. He would read the scripts for the promotional videos shot at his office in Century City after his presidency, and he would always get them in one take. The producers and the directors couldn’t believe it. I remember one time they asked him, “Okay, Mr. President, can we do it again?”

“Why? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no, it was great.”

“Then why are we going to do it again?” he asked.

They looked at each other for reassurance, and then someone would say, “Well, I guess we don’t have to do it again. Yeah, that’s perfect.” Some of the President’s friends called him “One-Shot Reagan.”

Even more than knowing his facts, he knew and understood people and human nature. Early on, he came to appreciate the fact that I knew my limitations—and everyone has plenty of them. I had only been to the ranch a few times when an incident took place. It illustrated to me just how well he understood that pride was one of the worst human vanities. One morning a military aide had a problem with his horse, so the President let him use one of his. Seeing that the aide was having a few problems readying the horse, I walked over to him and asked, “Sir, can I help you with your horse?”

He looked at me and answered, “I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. I’ve been riding horses for years.”

I continued to watch him for a few more moments and saw that he was still struggling. “Okay, fine,” I said as I walked away.

Next, the President came up. He was on his way to get Mrs. Reagan’s horse, No Strings, which was always the first part of his routine. He got the saddle and the grooming equipment and then started brushing her horse. He noticed right away what was going on, and he looked over at the military aide and then at me. I said, “Sir, I tried to give him some assistance. He told me he knows everything about horses. He grew up in Texas.” Not a word was said, but the President saw what I saw, the aide had put the saddle pad on incorrectly.

When the President was finished with No Strings, he next went to get his horse, El Alamein, a big gray Arabian thoroughbred. As he walked El Alamein over to where he had put his grooming equipment, he looked at the military aide again. The aide was now trying to put the bit in the horse’s mouth, and he had gotten it upside down and backwards. The horse was throwing his head, so the President tied up El Alamein and looked at me again over El Alamein’s back. I just shrugged my shoulders.

Finally he said, “John, he’s going to hurt my horse.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I’m going to have to say something.”

Normally, he would never do that, but it was unsafe. Since I had already tried to help the aide, I was not going to go over there again.

The horse was still fussing and pitching his head as the President walked over to the aide. He politely asked him, “Excuse me. May I show you something?” He then took the bridle out of the aide’s hands, straightened it out, put the bit into the horse’s mouth, and the head stall around his ears. The horse started licking his lips as contented as could be.

Instead of saying, “Thank you, Mr. President, I appreciate it,” the aide said, “I knew there was something wrong with the equipment.” No one else said a word.

Not only was Reagan right about the bit, but he was the president of the United States, and it was his horse. He was just too polite to inform the aide that there was nothing wrong with the equipment.

* * *

MY LIFE, TOO, had a humble beginning. I was in the middle of five kids, and my father was a police officer. While the most money I think he ever made in a year was twenty-five thousand dollars, he provided for our large family. In retrospect, I’m amazed at how my father actually did it. I don’t remember ever wanting for anything. I don’t remember ever going hungry. I don’t remember being unable to see a movie. The family always had a vehicle.

Like the President, I had a wonderful mother. There were also some other women who loomed large in my formative years. Primarily, they were the Sisters of St. Joseph’s Order at St. Clement, a Catholic school, who taught me from grades one through twelve. I know for certain that I never would have accomplished as much as I have, whatever that may be, without being taught by the nuns. I still remember all of them—especially Sister Diaonysia.

We received corporal punishment from the nuns, and we needed it. Today if children went home and told their fathers that some nun hit them, there would be lawsuits flying. In my day, though, my father would hit me again for making the nun hit me.

Although we lived in Somerville, Massachusetts, which is right next to Boston, we attended St. Clement that was actually in Medford. Every day, I walked to school, as did my three brothers and one sister. We were years apart in age, but we all went to St. Clement at one time or another. Ed and Bob were five years older than I was, while Barbara was five years younger. My mother gave birth to my youngest brother, Chuck, when she was forty-five years old.

About thirty-five students stayed together all through those twelve years. In some ways, it was just like the movies that portray what school used to be like. There were inkwells in the desks, and the boys would dip the pigtails of the girl in front of them into the ink. The boys had to wear a suit or a sports jacket, a white shirt, and a tie every day, and the girls wore navy blue uniforms with white-collared blouses. Even then there was pressure to have the latest styles, so having a specific dress code took some financial strain off my parents. My mother passed the white shirts that my brothers had worn down to me. The dress code at St. Clement was based on the assumption that people act differently, depending on how they are dressed. While that is true to some extent, we would still tussle around, and now and again I would damage a sports jacket. The school yard we played on was cement, and things could get rough.

My relationship with my father was markedly different from the one Reagan had with his. In my life, my father played an important role. Although both of us had saintly moms, my mother’s word wasn’t as final as Nelle Reagan’s. My parents would talk about things. Even though my father had so many responsibilities, he still found the time to be my Little League baseball coach. He was a strong figure, and not only did he have a great reputation as a police officer and detective, but he had arrested many of the mafia-type figures from Boston.

Like Reagan, I had an early love affair with horses. Most of the time, I’d get to ride only if I could save enough money to rent a horse from the Pony Boy Stables near my home, but one of my biggest thrills was when my father would take me with him to the Boston Mounted Police. They had a stable right in downtown Boston, and at the age of ten, the officers down there would let me ride one of the horses in the ring. That was what got me hooked. Many people are unaware of Boston’s rich history with horses, thoroughbreds in particular. The United States Equestrian Olympic Team works out in the Boston area. In Boston, everyone rides English.

After St. Clement, I first went into the military service before I enrolled in college. I enlisted in the U.S. Army and was in what they called Airborne Unassigned—which was really stupid. Back then, most people in the military didn’t even have a high school education. Many of them ended up there. It was either go there or go to jail. Of course, it’s quite different today, but that was in 1962, and it was a huge eye-opener for me. I could’ve gone into other fields of the military, joining the “white-shirt army” and pushing papers somewhere. In fact, my father tried to talk me into going into an area in which I could use my education, but I didn’t heed his advice. Instead, I was in the mud airborne infantry, because that was what I wanted to do.

The President knew of my military service, but we hardly ever talked about it. He couldn’t go into the service as a combat soldier in the Second World War because of his poor eyesight, and he had to watch his friends like Jimmy Stewart enter the combat arena. He idolized Stewart, who became a general. I think the President was disappointed that he never got his chance, but he never complained that he couldn’t go overseas. He told me, “I tried to go into combat, but I couldn’t. I’ve always had bad eyesight.” He was also deaf in one ear from pistols going off. During one of our rides, he told me how while filming one of the movies, a stuntman held a gun right up to his ear and then fired it. He lost a lot of his hearing from that incident.

Following the military, I went on to Boston College, where I was taught by the brothers. I was there for two years, but completed just one year of studies because I went part-time at night. Each evening after classes I drove to Logan Airport where I worked as a flight information coordinating agent for TWA. At the time, I was the youngest person to work in that position for TWA. After those two years, I transferred to the University of Arizona where I finished my college work.

One thing that Reagan and I shared in common as young men is that we both saw going to college as an immense privilege. Financially, it was a struggle for both of us. When I came back from the military, I was able to go to college on the G.I. Bill, which gave me one hundred seventy-five dollars a month. I lived on campus, and because I was a little older when I went to college, I truly appreciated it.

I really started my heavy riding while I was going to college in Arizona, where I met Mr. Kelly. He was like a thin John Wayne, and he ran a horseback-riding facility. He rolled his own cigarettes, wore a cowboy hat, and was a natural around horses. He had a lovely wife and young kids.

I wanted to ride, but I couldn’t afford to rent his horses. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ve seen you ride, and I could use your help. When people come in, you take them out for a ride, whether they want to go for an hour or two. Then you can have the pick of any horse you want to ride for nothing.” He just liked the way I handled horses and my way with them.

This ranch was out in the desert. Riding in Arizona was different from Boston—no cobblestones, but plenty of cactus. In the Arizona desert, a type of cactus grows called jumping cactus, which looks like a spiny round fish, and I learned quickly that the horses would always get the jumping cactus in their feet. To deal with this problem, I started carrying a comb with me. Using the wide edge of the comb, I would stick it on the horse and pull the cactus spines off his foot.

I began taking groups out for rides. Before I took anyone out I’d ask, “Do you want to trot? Can you trot? Do you want to run? Can you run? If you are running, you have very little room for error.” Most people would exaggerate their riding skills. (Later, even the Secret Service agents would inflate their abilities with horses.) However, this wasn’t too hard for me to figure out. As soon as we reached the stables, I could tell who could really ride. I’d always go over it with them again and say, “Don’t tell me you know how to ride if you don’t, because I’m going to give you a horse to match your ability. If you don’t know how to ride that well, then I will give you an easier horse.” Usually the guys trying to impress their girlfriends were the ones who exaggerated their abilities, but I said, “You can get hurt out there.”

One of my first rides was with a group of ten. Mr. Kelly’s son rode drag, keeping everyone together. After the ride, I went to Mr. Kelly and asked, “How did I do?”

“John,” he said, “you did great. Everybody liked you, but would you please learn how to pronounce horse? They’re not hosses. They’re horses. When you start using words like that, the people start doubting that you can ride.” He reassured me, however, that in spite of my Boston accent, the minute I did start to ride, it was obvious I knew what I was doing.

I stole away to ride whenever I could. I’d go up into the hills by myself, wearing my Army field jacket with the insulated liner. My friends would harass me asking, “Where the hell are you going with all that cold weather gear?” I guess those guys forgot that I was going from the ninety-degree Arizona heat to about a forty-degree temperature up in the hills. I’d sleep overnight on a saddlebag, just like in the movies. It was my kind of fun.

During my early riding days in the late 1960s, Reagan already owned a ranch. By that time, he had established his habit of escaping to go riding by himself. Although Reagan was from the Midwest and I was from Boston, we both did a lot of early intense riding out on the dusty trails of the West, seeking solitude. It was dangerous to ride alone, but it was something we both took our chances with.

I joined the Secret Service in 1974. As it so often happens, the direction my life took hinged on two things: a telephone call from an old friend and one decision I made. I had returned to Boston after I graduated from the University of Arizona in the early 1970s. Tom McCarthy, also a former student from St. Clement, called me when I was back home. He was three years older than I was, and following his service as a U.S. Navy scuba diver in the Vietnam War, he had become a Secret Service agent. “John, have you given any thought to the Secret Service?” he asked.

“No,” I told him. “I had never even considered that.”

“Well, why don’t you at least talk to my boss, Stu Knight, who is the SAIC of the Boston field office?”

I called for an appointment, and after listening to Stu, I became quite interested. I wanted to become an agent. The Secret Service didn’t recruit in those days. In fact, at that time there was only one job opening for every one hundred applicants. The background checks can take six months, and mine was taking awhile. At that point, I moved back to Arizona where I was just getting ready to enter the Arizona Highway Patrol training program. I then received word that I had made it over all the obstacles, and my security clearance had been okayed. They were ready for me to become an agent. I decided to join the Secret Service instead of becoming an Arizona Highway Patrol Officer.

When President Reagan was elected, he became the first modern president who enjoyed horseback riding, and I was the one tasked with establishing a Secret Service detail on horseback to protect him on his rides. The U.S. Park Police in Washington, D.C., put me through a three-month course in three weeks, which helped enormously. I requested that every Secret Service agent assigned to the horseback detail undergo similar training. The supervisor of the Secret Service was a little skeptical about it. He asked me, “Well, can’t you just take someone that knows how to ride?” Secret Service agents are all Type A personalities who think they can ride. “Well, they need to prove to me they know how to ride,” I told him.

The agents in training and I would run our horses through Rock Creek Park, a beautiful area with woodlands bordering Washington, D.C. We’d ride wearing windbreakers that had the words Park Police on them, because we didn’t want people to know we were Secret Service agents. It was dangerous, and several agents did get hurt. The rule was you couldn’t go out alone. I insisted that we ride all day, and it got to the point where the officers were complaining. To them, riding was work, but to me, it was fun. Finally, they gave me permission to go out by myself, carrying a radio. During the weekends, people would be out picnicking in Rock Creek Park. They would offer me a hot dog and would want to pat the horse. I would let them, viewing it all as part of my public relations work.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that I would have something special with President Reagan. You rarely encounter people like that in life: someone you know at first glance will become a true friend. I recalled seeing his movies as a kid and watching General Electric Theater. I was less familiar with him during the 1960s when he was governor of California. Growing up in Boston, California was like a foreign country to us. How could prim and proper Bostonians relate to the guys out on the West Coast with the tie-dyed shirts, shorts, and what we then called Jesus shoes—sandals? No one in Boston dressed like that. We thought the Beach Boys were from Venus and California was the land of fruits and nuts, but now Reagan and I were thrust together, and it didn’t take long for us to begin to communicate in our own special way. As our friendship became stronger, we started to really understand each other. In fact, many times we never said anything, but we were still talking without saying a word.

Understandably, the communication between us at the White House was different from the talk at the ranch, and I always knew my place. I’d never speak to the President unless he spoke to me first. However, once he’d open that door, which he always did, we’d go at it. Regardless, I’d still be doing my job, and I had to be careful. Even though we shared a special friendship, I wasn’t there to be his friend. Although it’s good to be close and have your protectee trust you and know where you’re coming from, becoming too close might cloud your judgment, and if something does happen, you might make a mistake. Because I was so close to him, I was overly concerned about that. Trouble was, you couldn’t be around Reagan very long without becoming his friend.

We would seldom talk politics. There were times when the President just wanted to talk about something other than what was going on at the White House. I can vividly recall an exchange that we had just before the beginning of a head of state ceremony in 1983. I had just returned from my first year of riding with the Rancheros Visitadores, a men’s riding group of which the President was also a member. We were having a south-ground arrival at the White House, which means that a U.S. president has invited the president of another country for an official visit. When the visiting president arrives, he receives an official welcome. Hundreds of people are let into the south grounds. A platform is set up, and the military band plays. Both leaders take their places on the platform where they each make a speech. After they are finished, they go into the White House and have tea or some other refreshment.

I happened to be at the post that day, which is the point where you walk through the set of doors from the Diplomatic Room out to the south grounds. I was standing post and along came the President with his military aide, his chief of staff, and a couple of cabinet members. As he was walking forward, the band received its cue to start playing “Hail to the Chief.” The familiar don-don-da-don-don started to ring out, but when the President reached me, he stopped and asked, “John?”

“Mr. President?”

“How was Rancheros?”

“It was wonderful, sir.”

“What did you do? Did you catch the pig?”

“Yes, I did.”

Then he said, “I did the pig catching. You know, you grab them by their rear legs.”

“I know that now, sir, cause I grabbed them by the front legs, and I had a very difficult time.”

“No. You got to grab them by the back and you take them like pushing a wheelbarrow.”

While we were having this conversation, you could still hear the military band outside playing. People were now starting to sweat, and so was I.

Still the President continued, “How was the horse? Did they give you a good horse? I talked to Trev Povah, president of Rancheros.”

“Yeah. Trev took good care of me. Si Jenkins, owner of Jedlicka’s Saddlery, got me a good horse and we had some great rides.”

“Did you enter the rodeo?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you do the hide race?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Did you do the tie the ribbon on the calf’s tail?”

“Yes, sir, I did,” I answered, “but when the guy lassoed the calf, I put my hand on the rope which is a no-no. I didn’t know it, and I thought I could pull that calf toward me. Well the rope went through my hand and just peeled all the skin right off.”

The music continued to drone on outside, and now I was really starting to sweat. I looked at the chief of staff first. Then I turned and looked at the military aide. He needed to tell the President he had to go, because I was not going to tell him to.

Of course, the President had great respect for the visiting head of state. He just wanted to talk about the Rancheros. How many other people could he share this conversation with?

Judge Bill Clark, who was at first the President’s national security advisor and later the secretary of the interior, was someone else I got to know through our love for riding during those White House days. He was also a member of Rancheros, and often he and I would ride U.S. Park Police horses together at Rock Creek Park.

After his meetings with the President, Judge Clark would come by and say, “Hi, John.”

“Good morning, Mr. Secretary,” I would answer.

Every time, he would put his hand up and say, “John, it’s Bill.”

“Not in the White House it isn’t, sir,” I would shoot back.

Our exchanges were always more formal at the White House than they were at the ranch, and they needed to be. The White House was the place where all the official business was taking place. When state dinners or other ceremonial events were held, the Secret Service agents would rotate from one position to another. I remember one black-tie function on the second floor. It was a dinner the President was hosting for a visiting president. Los Angeles Dodgers baseball manager, Tommy Lasorda, who was a good friend of the Reagans, was one of the guests, along with his date, Angie Dickinson. He had previously sent Dodgers baseball team warm-up jackets to the President and Mrs. Reagan. At the dinner, I noticed that while Mr. Lasorda was talking to one of the staff members, he kept looking over at me. I wondered what they were talking about.

Finally, he came over to me and said, “Agent Barletta, I’m Tommy Lasorda.”

“I know who you are, sir.”

“You ride with the President all the time, don’t you?”

“That’s one of my duties.”

“Now, tell me the truth. Do they wear those jackets I sent them?”

“I’ll tell you the truth. They’re at Camp David. They wear them at Camp David when he goes riding or when they just go walking around.”

“You ride with him all the time?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

The day after the dinner, there was a Dodger jacket waiting for me that had been delivered by Federal Express, and the next time we went to Camp David, I wore that jacket. At Camp David, the Secret Service command post called the Elm overlooks Aspen, the main cabin, which is where the President and the First Lady stay. The entire compound is secured by a United States Marine Corp detachment. When the President opens the front door, an alarm goes off to alert the agents that he is on his way out. It was a Saturday morning and the President and First Lady were going over to the building called the Laurel for his weekly radio broadcast. At once, I noticed that they were both in their Dodger jackets.

I happened to be in my Dodger jacket on that morning, too. My boss looked first at me and then at them, as we walked over to escort them. My boss asked, “John?”

“Boss, this was not planned,” I answered. “This was not planned. I just wore the jacket.”

When the President saw us he just smiled that Irish smile and winked, and Mrs. Reagan said, as she tugged on her own coat, “Nice jacket, John.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

WHENEVER WE got to the ranch, things were always a bit more relaxed. Still, I was mindful of the fact that he was the President and I was a Secret Service agent. I would always remember that. The Secret Service did all it could to make certain the President and First Lady still felt their ranch was a private place for them—a retreat. They installed the security in such a way that the Reagans would not hear or see all the mechanisms that had been put in place to protect them. Although the President knew it was all there, he would never complain that there were too many people around, as some other presidents have done.

One reason the ranch seemed worlds away from the White House is that while we were there, the President never talked to me about anything related to what was going on in Washington, D.C. Even though he shouldered some of the burdens of the world, he was always able to see and enjoy some of the great gifts of life. While riding, he would talk to me about the scenery. He’d say “This is what it’s all about. Look at that tree. Look at those yellow poppy flowers. Those are the state flowers, John. That’s Santa Rosa Island out there, John.”

He was always looking for places along the path where he needed to clear some brush. He would tell me to look at the bottom of the oak trees. “John, if I clear that up, the yellow poppies will thrive. They aren’t growing because they can’t get the sunlight. That’s why Mother Nature allows fires, because they clean out the fields.” After he cleaned out the bottom of the trees, everything did look healthier.

“John, see how the sunlight touches the trees,” he’d say, “and notice how the mighty oak tree bends but doesn’t break. Just hear that wind blow.”

One time when we saw a gopher snake, he told me that he wanted them around. “There goes a gopher snake, John. You don’t have the fellows kill them, do you?”

“No, sir,” I reassured him.

“That’s good, because they are good, friendly snakes that keep the gopher population under control. Now if there is a rattlesnake, well, that is a different story.”

He loved being able to say what direction we were going. That was how I knew the ranch so well. At the beginning, I wouldn’t know where we were or what direction we were facing. The President would say, “We’re going to the northeast corner of the ranch, and when we get to that part, I want to go north.”

“Is that right or left?” I would ask.

One of the first things the President noticed was that the other agents weren’t as comfortable around the horses as I was. True horsemen relax around their horses. The President also appreciated that, like him, I rode English. There were always four agents, including me, on horses when the President went riding. The other three rode Western. The Secret Service gave me the authority to purchase four Western saddles from Si Jenkins. They were Woffards—a good, basic leather saddle. With this type of saddle, they could carry gear with them. On an English saddle, you can’t carry much gear. I didn’t want to, because the agents around a president aren’t going to stand and fight it out. If something did happen, we would’ve covered him with our bodies and evacuated. We’d practice and practice that repeatedly.

Another thing the President liked was the way I tied horses. Everybody has a way of tying, and I use a slipknot. To tie this knot, you take the lead rope and you put it over the hitching post. You then bring the lead rope underneath the hitching post. Next you take your right hand, grasp the bottom lead rope knuckles up, and then with the lead rope in hand, you rotate it until your knuckles are facing the ground. Finally, you take the tip of the lead rope and twist it and pull it through until it tightens. If there is a problem, the horse usually can’t get out of it, and if you tie the knot properly, all you have to do to release the horse is pull on it.

There is one thing you never do: tie a horse by the reins, which certain people did up at the ranch. You just don’t do that. I can recall the time one of the military aides wrapped his reins around the hitching post. I’m not picking on the military aides, because some of them have been my fast, longtime friends, but every good horseman knows that you never tie a horse by the reins. Anyway, when this happened, the President looked at the reins and then he looked at me, never saying a word. I walked over, undid the reins, and put the halter lead rope on the hitching post the way it was supposed to be. He just gave me a nod and a smile. The military aide acted like, what’s going on? but not a word was said.

Besides the First Lady, no one else at the ranch had ridden with him before. One time some friends came up, the Jorgensons, and they rode with him, but that never happened again. He almost always had ridden alone, but now he had me, and he liked that. I once tried to get Dennis Le Blanc to go riding. He was the California State Police Officer who had been on Reagan’s protective detail while he was governor, and he was at the White House for a while. He always came to the ranch to cut wood with the President. I said, “Dennis, why don’t you ride with us? I’ll tack up a horse for you.”

“No, John, no. I chop wood with him. I don’t ride horses with him.”

In the beginning, the President and I would ride for two or two-and-a-half hours and sometimes twice a day when we were at the ranch. At Camp David, we would go twice a day for the same length of time. Unfortunately, that became too time consuming for him. He had work to do, but at the ranch, most of his official business was “homework,” so that left him more time to ride.