can't break away. >> do i remember the gaze? it was a talent because she looked at him as though he were a god. >> it was almost hypnotic that gaze. >> she just saw in her husband someone who should be president. her husband's glory would be their glory. >> the ragens were the first show business family to the white house. >> she wanted to be the producer, director behind the scenes. >> how do you feel about this, mrs. reagan? >> i agree with everything he said. i always do. >> he never would have been elected governor without nancy. he never would have been elected president without nancy. they were a team. she gave him strength inasmuch she gave him encouragement. she gave him hell. >> you asking me or --

>> well, you first. >> i consider nancy to have been in some ways the most powerful, the most influential, the most indispensable partner in the modern presidency. >> you want to get the story straight ? >> we have two more quotes here. would you be a forceful first lady in your opinion? >> depends on what you mean by forceful. >> it's 1980 with and with her husband running for president

nancy reagan was in the spotlight. >> i have a feeling president carter doesn't have a foreign policy. >> nancy is tough more than an adoring wife. >> well, i don't think i'm tough. >> where some see a good wife standing by her man. >> she's always pushing to make sure that he succeeded as any good wife would do. >> we can make america great again. >> others see her as the powerbroker in the relationship. >> we'll go on. the brains behind her husband, you've read that. >> no. my husband is the brains of the family. >> nancy reagan was seen as a retrograde traditional figure yet it is hard to think of someone who was just so comfortable with her own power and so unafraid to use it. >> speaking of nancy, she's been the first lady in my life for a long time.

>> nancy davis and ronald reagan met in hollywood in 1949. nancy was an ambitious young actress. >> nancy arrived in hollywood during the time of the red scare. there was a lot of concern that the communists were infiltrating hollywood. >> she sees nancy davis on a list of supposed communist sympathizers. this was a career killer. >> so she went to her director and he said, look, i'm going to have my good friend ronny reagan, the president of the screen actors gild look into this for you. >> reagan says now it's another nancy davis, tell her not to worry, we'll standby her. but nancy says you need to engineer a chance for me to meet with him face-to-face. >> ronald reagan ten years nancy's senior, was a well-known actor and a staunch anti-communist. >> i think the list was really a pretext to get to know ronald

reagan who was now a divorcee. >> they make it sound they got married a week later, but he was still playing the field after his disastrous divorce. it was really years after they actually tied the knot. >> their wedding was also hastened by the fact that she discovered she was pregnant. >> on that spring day in 1952 nancy set aside her hollywood dreams to take on the role of mrs. ronald reagan. >> they needed each other. they made each other possible. and they played on the world stage together very well. >> almost 30 years later nancy holds the bible as her husband is sworn in. it's the first inauguration to be held on the west side of the capitol, closer to california.

>> i think something like 700 corporate and private jets landed over the weekend. >> she wanted him in a morning su suit, and then she was in a very expensive dress. so, yeah, it might have been a little overdone, but nancy did it her way. >> watching the new first lady so comfortable and elegant on the world stage few could imagine just how far she had traveled to get here. >> nancy was born in 1921 in flushing, queens. >> her mother was an actress named edith luckette. her father was kenneth robins. a sort of aimless car salesman. >> they divorced when she was quite small. the mother struggled for two years. nancy would be in a bassinet backstage and finally she realized, this wasn't working.

>> so she leaves nancy with relatives in bethesda, maryland. and thus begins a six-year period where her mother essentially abandoned her. >> 3 years old is not the age when you want to see your mother driving off to the big city, leaving you behind. >> when nancy was 8, her mother settled down and married a distinguished neuro surgeon. nancy joined the couple in chicago. >> there for the first time in her life, she does get a sense of security. she also learned to navigate the social elite. >> nancy's mother loved social life. she would organize the dinner party with the top will doctors, the mayor of chicago who was also a democrat. the governor of illinois who was always republican. >> this couple comes out of nowhere and becomes a couple that everyone in chicago has to pay attention to. >> she always said to me, a lot

of things happen at dinner parties, bob. that was a lesson that she carried to washington. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states and mrs. reagan. >> president reagan and first lady nancy made the rounds in washington to a series of inaugural balls. >> there are ten of these. you are number seven. we're going to get to all of them. no, number eight. >> after dancing their way through nine vip balls, the reagans finally make it back to their new home. nancy recalls that night in her memoir. >> as i close my eyes, i remember thinking, my lord, here we are. sleeping in the white house. and here i am, sleeping with the president of the united states. but i found out the hard way that nothing, nothing prepares you for being first lady.

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girl and a boy who fell in love with her. >> you know, nancy, we'll see patty later on. >> it was meant to be the show house for general electric appliances and lights and everything. we had more switches and gadgets in that house than you could shake a stick at, most of which we never used. >> it is too complicated for me but do i know that our heat pump is amazing and wonderful. >> my sister had more of the ge commercial. >> there is another one you ought to know. >> i got a little more of the crest toothpaste commercial. >> come meet the younger members of the reagan family. >> i'm patty. >> now the reagans have a new family home. but nancy is disappointed to find it needs a little work. >> floors and doors needed refinishing, the plumbing system

needed repair. >> there was a lot of mold on the walls in the private residence. >> some of the curtains were rotted through from the sun. >> it was shameful. the carters wouldn't spend any money and she knew how to make it right. >> nancy turns to private donors seeking tax deductible contributions to fix up the white house. >> she caught a lot of flak for it. >> nancy tried to be jacky kennedy this is white house. the '80s were not the '60s. >> nancy did all of this against a backdrop of a country that was plunging into a recession. >> the biggest checks come from people nagsy has known since the reagans first entered politics. >> they were all from california. and they were all her friends. >> she knew what she was doing. these women all had husbands who were not only powerful but

conservative republicans. >> she had become sort of a queen bee of the set. and that becomes very important when her husband starts to launch a political career. >> you and i have a rendezvous with destiny. >> nancy's new friends were impressed by her husband's political views. >> they come to reagan and say you've got to run for governor. >> vote for me and you believe in your yourself. you believe in your right to control your own destiny. >> she was involved in every campaign meeting from the first and stewart spencer said she had in a way better political instincts than him. >> her modus operandi was this. woo do a day of campaigning and let's say 8:00 in the morning she'd call her friends and she'd get all this feedback. you have to do this and that. ronnie has to do this and that. >> women have more time to devote to politics. obviously, their husbands are working. >> in some ways, she wanted to win more than he did.

>> her work paid off. the hollywood power couple became governor and first lady of california. >> he was not a good actor, but he sure became a hell of a politician with her help. >> to show how well they're settling into washington, the reagans take a stroll across lafayette park. >> i remember, i had the news. on i thought, this is great. the reagan there's get out. they won't be in a bubble. we're off to a great start. and then lo and behold the next day -- >> we were at that hospital in three minutes. and she went racing toward the door. >> in her memoir, nancy,confusion and fear. >> i stammered, where? where was he hit? >> they don't know. they're looking for the bullet. looking for the bullet? i have to see him, i said. wait, they're working on him.

>> i was holding her hand. i kept saying, it's going to be all right. it's going to be all right. she was just lost somewhere. she was in shock. >> the secret service came and told us that shots had been fired. go upstairs. turn on the tv and there is the scene being played out. >> the president has gone to george washington university hospital. as has first lady nancy reagan. >> we got a lear jet. flew back to d.c. and to the hospital. nobody's really telling anybody anything. she was of course terrified she was about to lose her husband. and then they wheeled him out, he look pretty good for a guy that had just been shot nearly in the heart. >> in our top story, president reagan's temperature is back to normal today. he continues to make satisfactory recovery. >> the president recovers. but the scars will stay with nancy for years to come.

>> the impact of the shooting never left nancy reagan. having seen how close he came to dying, she determined she wouldn't let that happen again. >> it then became a problem whenever he went out. >> somebody could come out of nowhere. bullets could fly out of nowhere. washington seemed a darker place. >> and this of course leads to the famous astrology business, which i'm sure you would have gotten to eventually. this astrologer lets her know, i could have predicted this. i knew that was not a good day for him to be out of the house. >> is the plane going to take off for europe at 3:00 a.m. sunday or 7:00 p.m. saturday? those kinds of decisions were put to the astrologer. >> the problem of course was, in retrospect, she was telling someone who didn't have security clearance about his schedule. >> she was very scared.

and she had some crutches that she needed. >> nancy's consultations with her astrologier are kept secret from all but her inner most circle. they would continue for many years. >> in all the time i worked with her, i never, ever knew about the astrologer. none of us did. >> but the astrologer wasn't the only person nancy was calling. >> i learned early on that i needed to keep her informed about everything. somehow through her network, and her network was extensive, she would hear. >> she was the classic old-fashioned, almost corporate wife who did everything behind the scenes. and the telephone was her sort of weapon of choice. >> she once joked to me that she wanted to be buried with the phone. just in case. >> she didn't go down to the

cabinet room and sit in on the meetings. she didn't go into the oval office and take part in a dialogue. but she was watching from above. >> she would ask questions. what happened here? what went wrong here? what are we doing about this? she stepped up when she saw things were going the wrong direction for her husband. >> if you valued your life, you didn't want nancy reagan coming after you with a hatchet. you might lose something. >> she basically started calling me about two things. one, to discourage ron from giving up his secret service detail. she said gadhafi and the puerto rican liberation front were both trying to kid nap him. and the other thing she wanted to talk about was why does the president hate me so much. >> nancy knows how to keep the people around him in line. but journalists in washington are a whole other beast.

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today the president's wife does not own all of her clothing. >> i got a heads up that it was coming. i walked down to the oval office. and i explained you might want to give nancy a heads up. and he looked mat he and said, why don't you tell her? and she was livid. and i said, you have to go through your wardrobe and start picking out some of these dresses and return them. >> she borrowed and still has not returned more than 100,000 worth of jewelry. >> there are very strict regulations over reporting gifts. and nancy really didn't feel like she always had to follow the rules. >> the camera's eye focused on her lavish redecoration of the living quarters and her $209,000 set of china. >> it was nancy has to have this and nancy has to have that. she took a real beating. >> i would get to work in the morning and i would read some dreadful piece on the front page of the "new york times," or the "washington post" about, mrs. reagan. and i would be almost stock my stomach. >> the president and the first

lady generally don't both get bad press simultaneously. they kind of take turns. and nancy really was the lightning rod. and that enabled ronnie to play the doting, protective husband which played well in the media. >> no one would say how many items mrs. reagan received. >> in her memoir, nancy admits that the attacks got to her. >> everything did i or said was instantly open to criticism. my clothes, my friends, my taste in decorating. the way i looked at my husband. >> let's set that straight once and for all. nancy has taken a bit of a bum rap. >> reporter: these stories not only hurt. they also made me damn mad. >> she was turning into a political liability.

>> nancy was never popular with the press because she didn't trust the press. she didn't like the press. she was very controlled. and that is not unusual for someone from hollywood. they learned very early on not to say anything. >> you're really hurt by some of the press that you've been getting. i mean, hurt. >> yes. >> i guess what you really want for christmas is for the press to take a fresh look at you. >> that would be nice. >> to turn the tide of hatred, nancy tries a new tactic. >> she was scheduled to speak at the al smith dinner back in new york. >> there is now a picture post card of me as queen. now, that's silly because i would never wear a crown. it messes up your hair.

>> the room went nuts. they just had a ball. >> she had seemed so icy and so unapproachable. that was a brilliant move. >> it demonstrated that she had a sense of humor about herself. which i don't think she did. but it did the trick. >> now she needs a cause to get behind. >> i asked her what she was interested in being involved in. and she said youth drug abuse. and i remember at the time thinking, that is sort of a downer. >> i'm saying that if you're a casual drug user, you're an accomplice to murder. >> it was a way to push back against the '60s. feminism, rock 'n' roll, smoking pot, clearly something was very wrong here. and needs to be put right. >> tonight there is something special to talk about and i've asked someone very special to join me. nancy? >> thank you. >> today there is a drug and alcohol abuse epidemic in this

country and no one is safe from it. because it is aimed at destroying the brightness and life of the sons and daughters of the united states. >> did all of you start first on pot? >> there is no more middle ground. >> she is making drug abuse her personal crusade. >> indifference is not an option. >> telling kids to stay off drugs. stay in school. >> what should you do when someone offers you drugs? >> when it comes the drugs and alcohol -- >> just say no! >> it is almost like saying, if you remain celibate, you won't get a convenient venereal disease. too simplistic. >> just say no and throw people in prison. >> what a waste, what a wasted life. >> there was of course, the irony that her two kids certainly had smoked pot. so none of. was particularly popular with me. >> though it is true that every

first lady needs to have a cause, in my view, nancy's chosen cause was her husband. >> good morning. >> go out and talk to the press about something that was very, very difficult. we worked it out with nancy to get a birthday cake. when it got to the point, we're in deep water. let's get him out of here. >> we are at 7%. ♪ happy birthday to you ♪ >> and two days early. aren't they coming fast enough without moving it up? >> make a wishful. >> two years into his first term, the question of whether the 72-year-old president should run again is on everyone's mind. >> maybe this would be a good time for to you tell him whether you think he should run again. >> oh, no. >> the nancy, the protector in chief, won't show her hand. >> how would you like a piece of cake, sam? >> she was worried about his

physical safety. he was in his mid 70s. he had been shot and nearly killed. i asked him not to run. >> here, take mine. >> no, no, no. that's bad luck. >> my view is that nancy reagan would have been very happy to go home after one term. think back on their successes. and look ahead to the future. >> i have learned not to argue with her superstitions. >> but i think she also realize that had president reagan's work was not done. >> of course he's going to run and he's going to win and she's not going to take that away from not going to take that away from him. can get a free samsung galaxy s21 5g. the leader in 5g coverage. the fastest 5g speeds and a free samsung galaxy s21 5g. age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein...

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it's the summer before the 1984 election. the reagans are on vacation at their ranch. a report he asks the president about a potential meeting with the soviets. >> doing everything we can. >> and it took some prompting from wife nancy for the president to acknowledge -- >> that was her being his protector. him stumbling for the right words. and taking a pause and her feeling that the pause was uncomfortable. >> with the election if full swing, the president's age has become a major issue.

>> he was the oldest president ever at that point. >> he was slowing down. and she was right by his side trying to, you know, keep it all afloat. >> president reagan's challenger is former vice president walter mondale. a relative youngster at 56. >> famously his first debate with walter mondale did not go well. >> to try to say that we were taxing the rich and not the other way around -- >> he seemed kind of out of sorts, slow. >> the system is still where it was with regard to -- the -- >> he stumbled and fumbled and that was because his debate preparation was just too detail

oriented. too many numbers, too many facts. >> he did not do any of his homework. so he stunk. >> i thought i'm glad i'm not in louisville. somebody will have to deal with nancy reagan tonight. she wanted heads, she wanted bodies, she wanted it all. >> nance country is describes her reaction in her memoir. there was no way around it. the debate was a nightmare. >> what have you done to my husband? i said to mike at the hotel. whatever it was, don't do it again. >> as she would say all the time, you need let ronnie be ronnie. just let ronaldie believe ronnie. he knows what to do.

>> the second debate came around. he had done some reading, he rested up, he walked in and he mastered it. >> 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. >> at that point the debate was over. and in many ways, the election was over. >> reagan carries an unprecedented 49 states in the '84 election. and nancy's eye goes toward securing his legacy. >> in 1997, i asked her, was there some area that you felt you had an effect? and she said, oh, no, no. ronnie knew exactly what he wanted to do from the moment he was elected. then she paused and very, very softly added, well, maybe the whole russian thing. and i was like, the whole russian thing some you mean the main thing of his administration? >> we will meet with the soviets, hoping that we can agree on a way to rid the world

of a threat of nuke destruction. >> he had a lot of people on his right saying, arms control is only for fools and don't get into negotiation. the soviets will always cheat you. she was much more main stream. she didn't want her husband going down in history has the man many built this huge arsenal and possibly touched off a war. >> she believed very much in reagan's slogan. peace and strength. she felt they had double the strength side. it was time to do the peace side. >> in november 1985 the moment finally arrives. the u.s. and soviet leaders to meet for the first time since the start of the cold war. >> reagan had his team on his side of the table. nancy knew that wasn't enough.

she knew that ronnie was going to be best one-on-one along with gorbachev as much as she could get him. so she said, honey, what you really ought to do is take gorbachev for a walk. >> president reagan proposed the two leaders walked from the 18th century villa they were meeting in to a village on the edge of the lake. >> they decided they didn't even need to go into the group meeting. they had made so much head way alone. >> geneva was an incredible break through. on the policy but also the personal relationship. you could tell there was a chemistry between two of them that began that day. >> everything happens the way nancy reagan had planned it. it was a great summit. she had her finger prints all over it. >> the bond forged in geneva effectively ends the cold war. just the legacy nancy was after.

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apparently in exchange for the release of american hostages. >> reagan never felt it was trading arms for hostages. it was just, we'll send these arms and by the way, if we get our hostages back, at the same time, wouldn't that be good? >> the president said no law has been or will be violated. >> then it is revealed money from the arms sale was used illegally to send weapons to a right wing rebel group in nicaragua. the regan presidency was on a deaths watch. >> nancy reagan felt the president has not been served well. >> she took it to heart. will they impeach my husband? is this an impeachable offense? >> that's where you see nancy reagan spring into action to rescue her husband. >> she knew i had had the role. it wouldn't be ronnie's. and she had to go after somebody. and that somebody was don regan.

>> he had replaced james baker as chief of staff at the start second term. he and nancy did not get along. >> i honestly tried to help him be a good chief of staff. like lesson number one, how you handle nancy. he wasn't an ego maniac. oh, i'd better will listen. >> she had a certain radar. >> if she sniffed out that there was someone in his circle who wasn't 1,000% loyal to ronnie, they were toast. >> she said, you know, jim, we're going to have to make a change here. don regan will have to go. you know, ronnie can't fire anybody. >> he didn't like to get rid of anybody. but she did. she had no hesitation whatsoever.

>> it didn't go well. >> the first lady was asked if the president had demanded she get off his back firing him. >> how can the president deal with the soviets if he cannot settle a dispute between his wife and the chief of staff? >> she called me ten times a day to talk about it. >> one day, don regan came down to my office. he looked at me and said, i think i made a big mistake. and i am, what was that? and he said, well, i was talking to the first lady and she was really pushing me. and i lost my cool and i hung up on her. and i said, don, you what? >> you don't cross her like that. at the end of the day, the president goes back to the living quarters and gets into bed with this personal you just hung up on. and she gets the last word.

>> what's the latest on the strain between mrs. reagan and regan. >> chris wall is leaving the white house one day and nancy reynolds, close to nancy reagan, comes up to him and tells him, do you know don regan hung up on the first lady today knowing that chris wallace then at nbc will go right on the air that night in the newscast and say that. >> and two sources tell me that the chief of staff again hung up on the first lady. they have not -- >> you didn't hang up on ronald reagan's women. that is is a bad mistake. >> that was curtains for don regan. >> he finally bowed to intense pressure -- >> regan is out. a year later he gets his revenge. regan reveals nancy's best kept secret. the astrologer she's had on her payroll since the shooting. >> i called the press office right away. what's going on?

we think it is a one day story. are you out of your mind? >> reagan is asked if he still allows astrology to play a part in the make-up of his schedule. >> i can't i never did. >> the president's approval ratings are sinking fast. >> his overall approval rating is down 17 points in less than two months. >> nancy believes to win the country back, her husband must apologize for iran-contra. >> he is resisting admitting the obvious. which is that he has been trading arms for hostages. she knew she had to get him to this place where he could say what he needed to say to rescue his presidency. >> so many people walk into the oval office and tell president what he wants to know. not what he needs to know. very few people are willing to be the reality therapist. and nancy was willing to do that. >> a few months ago, i told the american people i did not trade arms for hostages. my heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true.

but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. >> he gives a speech. he gives at this time way nancy wants it. >> you take your knocks. you learn your lessons and then you move on. >> all of a sudden, you saw the american people going, that's our president. >> and his approval ratings just skyrocket overnight. >> the nation's faith in president reagan is restored. it has been a difficult term for nancy. and she has one year left to write the show to a rousing finale .

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i've been busy with arms control and -- all right the imf treaty and the russians. i actually covered their 1988 visit to moscow. there was a sense of hope that had been missing since the second world war. >> in moscow, the two leaders finalized their nuclear treaty. the highlight of the trip is a dramatic piece of street theater orchestrated by nancy. >> invited him to washington. he walked down connecticut avenue through the throngs of people. >> it was great footage. it took the show that day. >> the guy is a pr genius. >> nancy found that -- >> once in moscow, nancy reveals her plan.

>> we got to the house and nancy and i shared with the president the idea and it was "sounds good to me." let's run it past the secret service and the secret service said absolutely not. so i went to the president and mrs. reagan in the bedroom. nancy is lying on the bed with her feet on the pillows propped up. reagan is walking around the bedroom. secret service they're making

their case. they're saying if you the reagans go where we want to go a that you cannot protect them? and the lead person said, "no, that's not what they're saying". nancy sat up and said, fine, let's go. we went to the place which is a shopping area. >> all of a sudden it was full much people applauding and cheering. >> they all wanted to see. >> they were nervous as all get out. >> nancy spotted some old carriage sitting there and she grabbed reagan's hand and pulled him on the carriage. >> after decades of this frozen relationship between the two super powers, to see this

american president arms held out for the poor soviet people who have never been anywhere near an american president, much less one that looked like ronald reagan. it made the gulf war seem like ancient history. >> we got our footage. nancy just took over. i thought, wow, she never ceases to impress me. >> some things i'll be glad -- [ laughter ] >> we'll miss you. >> i thought you'd never say that. >> and just like that, eight years are over. the reagans leave the white house flying high.

the oldest u.s. president has survived an assassination attempt and a major scandal. he will go down in history as a peacemaker. all under the eye of the first lady. >> on the last trip, the administration back home to california on the floor of air force one, sam donaldson, bill clancey of cbs were all three collaborating to write the last full report of the reagan years. and who was overseeing it as they were typing on the floor? not the president. nancy! >> it's been eight years but a big chunk of your life you've been the first couple in the white house. all the important stuff swirling around you every day. now that's going to go away. and you will leave the stage. she said we thought we have our golden years. we would reminisce about, you

know, our lives. sorry. >> so then they leave and within four years, yeah, four years. he's been diagnosed with alzheimer's. he now has dementia, you know. that's a whole different phase of their life, of course. now she's not going to be fancy nancy anymore. she's going to be this new character, you know, and so just continued through the rest of her life. >> when nancy reagan died on march 6th, 2016, tributes came from all corners. her support for her husband through his illness and her work to legalize stem cell research softened her image but her greatest legacy remains, the protective power she wielded for

eight years as a formidable first lady. >> when i think of her, i often think of her as a child and frightened. she can be fierce when she wanted to be. but, yeah, i think tlfsz still a little 3-year-old girl whose mother was gone away. people were frightened and go ahead anyway. that's a certain kind of courage. there are a few first ladies who really are milestones, cultural milestones. who help us understand what's going on in larger society. >> it took me some time doing a little dreaming to be standing right here today.

>> she hasn't forgotten that journey and the challenges that she faced. >> in this great country, where a girl from the south side of chicago can go to college and law school and the son of a single mother from hawaii can go all the way to the white house. >> it's the idea that you can break through. that much more is possible than you might have thought. michelle still carries that forward. every time she walks into a room. >> when you've worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. no, you reach back and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed. >> from the moment they enter into the white house, it becomes historic. but this is also a representation of americans' better selves. >> that is the story of this country. the story that has brought me to this stage tonight. the story of generations of people who felt the lash of