>> it is high noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. out west. breaking news, former first lady nancy reagan has died her office has just confirmed the news in the statement. nancy davis reagan, former first lady of the united states, died this morning at her home in los angeles at age of 94. the cause of death was congestive heart failure. mrs. reagan will be buried at ronald reagan presidential library in simi valley, california, next to her husband, president ronald wilson reagan. presidential historian mishle besh lof joins me on the phone. tell me your most profound

memories of nancy reagan and the legacy that she leaves behind. >> well, i think there's no question this was one of 0 the great central important first ladies of american history and i think it's not too much to say that she made reagan possible. she made the ronald reagan presidency possible. we think of her as first lady at the side of the very successful, popular president in the 1980s, but in fact, when they married in early 1950s, ronald reagan was at the ebb of his professional career, he had come back from world war ii, audiences in hollywood were not what they were before the war. and she basically stood at his side and brought him back not only as an actor, first on television, a few more movies and in he were taking in one famous film of the late 1950s called "hell cats of the navy" only time they acted together. she was a central lab rater in the political career. one thing about nancy reagan when she was alike, she was --

would always say it was always ronnie, i had a bit part, i didn't do very much about -- i haven't have very much to do with this. i think now that she's no longer with us, we begin to learn more and more about that marriage, i think we will increasely see how success if was for reagan's success and president for her to be at his side. >> i'm going to ask you to stay with us. for all of you tuning in, nbc's lester holt looks the life of the former first lady. >> reporter: nancy davis an actress her when show met ronald reagan in 1949. he was already a star. though she had her own hollywood dreams she later found her greatest role as his wife. >> i think high was born to be married. i was the happiest girl in the world when i became we. >> reporter: they married in 1952, a simple ceremony, even appeared together in "hellcats

of the navy" last of her 11 films. >> i began to think you were playing the south sea circuit. >> you knew better. >> how could i know? did you give me a postdated check? >> reporter: by her own description, her life was devoted to her husband, as mother to their two children, patty and ron, and a stepmother to his two children by former wife jane wyman, then came politics and her long career as first lady. first in california to governor ronald reagan in 1966. >> what's ronnie's greatest asset with the women voters? >> oh my, just being ronnie, i guess. >> reporter: and then, to president reagan in 1980. after the president was shot by a would-be assassin two months into his first term, his wife was forever shaken. >> every time he went out and talked to thousands of people, my heart stopped.

>> reporter: but she carried on, steadfast in her chosen roles as the president's protector, best friend and partner in efforts like the anti-drug campaign for which she was forever linked. >> when it comes to drugs and alcohol, just say no. >> reporter: she was criticized for consulting an astrologer about the president's schedule. dubbed queen nancy for expensive taste in fashion and white house decor and accused of managing her husband. >> doing everything we coo. >> doing everything we can. >> reporter: when in the mid '90s the then-former president revealed he had been diagnosed with alzheimer's disease, the partner who would rarely leave his side, visited the republican national convention to share her family's pain and a new cause. >> we learned, as too many other families have learned of the terrible pain and loneliness that must be endured as each day brings another reminder of this

very long good-bye. >> nancy, let me say thank you for all you do. thank you for your love. and thank you for just being you. >> reporter: she stayed close to her ronnie even in her last years. >> she made it a point to be there when the reagan library hosted election year debates. and to visit her husband's resting place. a love story to the very end. lester holt, nbc news. >> joinings now, nbc's chief foreign affairs correspondent, andrea mitchell. andrea, as we were speaking earlier, she really had quite a profound influence on international politics and the policies that were developed by her husband's administration, didn't she? >> she did. and most importantly, with the soviet union, what was then the soviet union, because there had been a series of soviet leaders with whom ronald reagan had no communication and there was potentially crisis after crisis and she saw an opening when g h

gorbachev came into power and she's one of the key figures with one of the key figures who pushed for the first summit between reagan and gorbachev in 1985, and he helped with george schultz, the then-secretary of state and others in the administration to promote an atmosphere at a guest house in geneva that would create the possibility of a real conversation where they went for a walk about, where they stopped, a fire set in a small room and had their first one-on-one conversation without all of the others hanging on and it became really the template for future talks, which some went well, some didn't, rake key owe vick was a terrible summit. on a guide path towards communication and negotiation for arms control. if one forgets during the cold

war, we were at times on a hair trigger with nuclear weapons aimed at each other and all of that changed with the result of those conversations, those summits, a lot of other people, not only schultz but jim baker and others interested in negotiations, despite efforts at the pentagon by the defense secretary casper wine burger and others in his close circle who tried time and time again to stop those engagements and there were military deployments which were controversial, intermediate range missiles deployed in europe, very controversial with europe, green parties, protests all over. his only ally was maggie thatcher, leader in france, socialist, other leaders, pierre trudeau, father of justin trudeau, who is coming for a state visit to washington, the new leader in canada, frustrated with the reagan policies in 1982

and 1983. a summit in 1983 which went very badly in williamsburg, virginia, where reagan hosted the g-7 summit and it was all about missile deployments in europe. and the controversy over whether or not there should be nuclear weapons and there whether or not zero option of anti-nuclear weapons. but the first effort of reagan and gorbachev to start drawing down weapons that began to make europe a safer place, america a safer place and led to better communication and all of the changes we saw in then the soviet union and the eastern bloc. so a major transformation on foreign policies. in other ways she and her husband were more rigid. they had to be dragged into recognizing that in the philippines, fer hand in marco, dictator and his wife, who they got along with very well, were not the future and they had to think about democracy there and it was richard lugar, then

prominent senator, from indiana, in foreign relations and others and george schultz, again, secretary of state, who helped pull them along. apart tight resistant to changes in south -- in south africa, any support of various boycotts in the united states against apartheid. so there were pluses and minus in foreign policy but certainly the biggest contribution was on east-west relations and what led to real negotiations to reduce nuclear weapons. >> stay with us, as we welcome joining our conversation right now, the moderator of nbc's "meet the press" chuck todd. chuck, when you first heard this news, what came to mind? >> i immediately just the idea that you know, it's i think we're going to have a good celebration of the reagan legacy, can't help but note it's in the middle of a republican primary season and i think that's going to refocus a lot of people on the reagan legacy and

we're going to rightfully so. and the first thing i thought of when it came to nancy reagan, when you think of most influential first ladies of the 20th century, pretty much the first two people you come up with are nancy reagan and hillary clinton after that you'll have eleanor roosevelt and folks like that. and she really, i think, in hindsight helped usher in the new era where the public is used to the first lady being both a political and personal adviser to the president and that it's more -- she almost -- she got criticized a lot at time because she was the most overt at the time since eleanor roosevelt in hindsight people realize, okay, nancy reagan was the same for ronald reagan as hillary clinton was for bill clintonen it respect in hindsight in her role that she got while first lady. >> to that end, what you're saying, chuck, it seems as if

republican presidential candidates would seek her blessing, her endorsement for their candidacies because of the role you are describing. >> no, there is. and i think that, again, this was, you know, she's especially in the last, i'd say, decade or so, really is just viewed as this revered figure in the republican party and in the conservative movement, and i think her adding her name to any presidential campaign would mean a lot and i think that's why so many people would make the visit out there, they want to be seen with her, anything to connect themselves to the reagan legacy. it's understandable in the republican party. >> andrea, to continue with you, there are few memories that i have of the reagan funeral back in june of 2004, more profound than the grief-stricken look on nancy reagan's face. you felt as if she had lost her

heart, as if half of her was almost being buried there in simi valley, california. >> i think that's absolutely correct. i was in the cathedral for the funeral and then following afterwards that incredible day where we saw the sunset burial at simi valley. and i always felt, and she visited that grave so often, but i always felt that part of her was lost there. you know, she lost so much of her heart and soul with his death and it was a long, slow death. recall that as he became increasingly frail, in mind and body from alzheimer's she stayed with him every step of the way. she nursed and attended him and they -- her ronnie, as she always called him was at her side and she was at his side to the very end. i think that that devotion to him and that devotion led to, as i said, earlier her acceptance

of stem cell research and alzheimer's research and also scientific developments that in the republican party at time and her voice who courageously led the way within conservative republican circles to rethink differently about a lot of the scientific research and she had the support of so many people in republican world, not talking about leadership, i'm talking about families across america who had gone through similar tree veil, that she really became a really important spokesperson and think about the brady bill and gun control that she and ronald reagan, after the terrible harm done to jim brady, press secretary, she was completely and passionately devoted to that struggle as well and that was also not republican orthodoxy but it was where the personal crossed the traditional

republican views. >> andrea mitchel and chuck todd, you'll welcome to the conversation, nbc's tom brokaw. tom, given all of the time you spent helming nbc "nightly news" and so many things domestic and international, put this into perspective, life of nancy reagan, and your first thoughts when you heard about her passing today. >> well, i was unsettled more in a way that i thought i might have been because i've been concerned that she was near the end, and in fact, i just talked to her on february 6th, the president and i shared a birthday. every year nancy and i would exchange notes or and a phone call, and jim baker and i were together and we calleder 4. she was very alert. very responsive to what we had to say. when i saw her last summer in los angeles, i was quite concerned. we couldn't see her until late in the afternoon, she was not as responsive.

sheep w she was pulled together in terms of appearance and we spent an hour with her. i had been waiting for this in news a matter of speaking but i've spent a lot of my life with nancy reagan i was a young reporter in 1966 in los angeles, having just arrived to go to work for network when he began to run for governor and obviously she was an important part of that first campaign and all of the others that followed. >> came to know her has a report somewhere she was the wife of the governor of california, and she was protective of him then and came out of the higher caste los angeles society. big auto deal where bloomingdale and others and she had a certain idea how she wanted to live her life and how she wanted to protect, myronny, has she called him.

i had a funny experience when getting to run for re-election. i was at press club, sitting at end of the table, i a knew everybody and nancy came in, she was giving a little -- kisses to everybody standing there. as i remember, there were people like jimmy stewart and color g stuart friends from hollywood and she leaned over to kiss me and kind of startling, she leans back and i said, mrs. reagan, whatever it is i have, it's not catching. and we laughed and she leaned over and gave me a kiss and a high five, that was nancy. she was so adept at any kind of public appearance and making a recovery. and as andrea said earlier, i thought she was one of the truest and most important political advises not just during his days in california but certainly in the white house, very protect everybody of him but also encouraged him to make the deal with the soviet union, not just on their terms but on our terms.

she could see, having talked to jim baker and george schultz and the others, the opportunity to do something historic. >> and, tom, to that end, her footprint, if you will, within the reagan white house years, that which you're talking about, chuck, and andrea and her influence, that was obvious, that was known. was it as much so during her years as first lady of california? >> i think it did help, and of course, there is a kind of aristocracy of hollywood as well, they were among the first couples of hollywood by the time i got to know them, by the time he's getting to run for governor his film career has peaked but he was extremely known around the country as spokesman for general electric, he made speeches. when i was working in omaha, he'd come through there. you could see the transition from being 1940s liberal to being a 1950s and '60s conservative. and within the los angeles

society, they were highly regarded and they had their own set. and she had a very strong sense of who she was, what was appropriate and i thought that she carried herself with great dignity. now she grew up in a family where her father world series a world-famous surgeon and a strong mother in chicago and later in phoenix. so this is something that she had grown up with all of her life. just a little tidbit that people may not be aware of. her mother was an actress in chicago and one of her mother's great friends was mike wallace, who was also a radio actor. so nancy and mike were great friends to the end of his life because they knew each other when they were both very young. i think they even had a couple of dates. but it was more platonic than anything else. she touched a lot of bases. >> she did. how about her role as a mother? we know her so much as always being by the side of her husband

but she had her own two bilogical children, patty and ron, and a stepmother to michael and maureen. it's hard to do everything. we working women know that. she was the working wife of a president and a working mother as well. but what do you know about that role? >> well, that was tricky because her daughter was coming of age, during the counterculture, a lot of pressure on her because her father was a straight conservative and her their daughter, patty, wanted to be something else and posed in playboy and wrote articles and i always thought that nancy, who i knew, was very upset by a lot of that behavior handled it in a public way very well. didn't condemn her daughter, didn't throw her out. the same way with her son, ronnie. there were some tensions aen lo the way, no question about that.

but they managed to stay in touch. i give nancy great credit for that. right after the president's funeral in los angeles out of the library, about an hour after he, the ceremony concluded i got a call in new york it was from nancy and patty both on the phone at the same time and they wanted to get my assessment about how things are going on and i told them i thought it was one of most remarkable state funerals i had ever been witness to, the sun setting in the west, he had been in washington, she thought all of that through. and patty was on the phone with her mother and they were joined at that point when the president became so ill and was at home and there were questions how much this was going to cost, about the care that he needed there was a little tension there as well, it got out, it worked out within the family and it really didn't spill out into the public. so i give nancy a lot of credit for that, but also their

children, and maureen, who was the daughter by his first marriage, became very close to nancy. they had shared political values, if you will, and maureen was a very good counselor to the president and unfortunately we lost her as well. >> i will add that i became friendly with their daughter patty a number of years ago through our colleague harry smith. at that time i saw no matter what happened in the past, patty flew to her mother's side and seemed to be in her later years her advocate in everything. i think spending a lot of time with her mother at their home, making sure she was getting proper care, i will be honest and say i've not spoken with patty for a few years, but that said i have no reason to think that changed the two of them had -- had a reconciliation, if there was anything to reconcile. >> look, a lot of families went through those same experiences in the '60s, you know, children,

the boomers, absolutely distorted the values of their parents and in the case of reagins it was very public. because of his very conservative political point of view and her conventional, old kind of stylish way of wanting to appear in public how she wanted to raise her family, it was an enormous clash at that time. but in my conversations with her, about patty and in my conversations with patty, i never detected any great hostility. now yo, both uncomfortable with each other there for a time, minor complaints, but nancy knew to give her just enough running room and patty understood, at the end, this is my mother, after all and there's an enormous amount of pressure on the fact that i'm the daughter of the president of the united states. so it could have ended disastrously but it did not. and i give both of them credit for that. >> tom, i ask you to stay with the conversation, i want to go

back to moderator 0 of nbc's "meet the press" chuck todd. how you expect washington will react to the news on both political standpoint and those that seek to align themselves with the legg si acy of ronald n but at the very beginning we started talking the way washington will put on a sell brat celebration of her life. >> i think there will be a celebration of her life and i think there will be luke i said, a lot more, she'll get more praise for her role as first lady today on both side of the aisle, than she would have or did 30 years ago, and i think that's part of that is a maturity with which washington looks upon and admit ponz what the role of the first lady would -- any first spouse would naturally be, many marriages and many partnerships have just that, partnerships, as well as marriages now.

looking you're going to have, in the middle of a presidential campaign, a presidential campaign among the most vulgar and ungraceful that we've had in a long time, and i do wonder if rernss of nancy reagan, somebody who universally would be seen as someone who brought grace and elegance and respectfulness to the white house and sort of raised -- you know, as if standards weren't high already in washington, but there was an extra sense of graciousness about her, that you wondered maybe will it put the presidential candidates on their best behavior for a little while. >> we can hope. >> we can only hope. >> stay with me. serving as president reaganen's white house chief of staff and ken joins me on the phone now. react to this sad news on the sad news of passing of former first lady nancy reagan. >> well, i think she and her

beloved ronnie are together again, what a sad, sad day, the end of reagan era. nancy, aas chuck todd was saying was a true partner but a true love affair between the president and nancy. every time she was in the room, he was better. and every time that he was in the room, she was better. but she brought a sense of dignity, class, and elegance that everybody respected and admired. she fundamentally upgraded the white house and i'm not just talking about structure. i'm talking about the way people acted in that place. there was -- it was a joy to be

there as hard as we worked, because you knew that nancy reagan and the president had brought that level of dignity to the office again, that joy that we all loved. >> ken, as an insider there, a true insider there, in the west wing, you're able to see those who come and go through the oval office and perhaps leave to go to the white house, first family's residence there, talk about their interaction. you said they made each other better and i would add probably each one sparkled in each other's presence. would she, for example, walk into the oval office and be welcomed or how did that work? >> well she seldom came to the oval office but she loved using the telephone, whether she was calling the president or oftentimes calling me, asking me to remember about this or

remember about that or remind me of something on the president's mind. it's not something that she shared widely but unlike at least one of my predecessors, i never made a mistake of hanging up on nancy reagan because she was invaluable and she became a friend and she knew that i was there to serve her president, her husband, and she wanted me to be as best as i could be because that would help the president. and that was, you know, they had the best going in washington, the two of them, if she was willing to share some stuff with me, sure, i was going to do that. she was fiercely loyal to her husband. how did she react this those who in her mind were not? >> she could give you those eyes and a cold stare that were

absolutely destroying. she didn't like people picking on her, which was natural, but if you messed with her husband, you were, you know, you had a black mark next to your name for a long, long time, sometimes in perpetuity. >> ken, did you ever see the pressure, presumed pressure, of living in the white house get to her? if so, how did that manifest itself? >> i don't know, i think she fit in quite well at the white house. she was very comfortable there. she loved the staff. both west main staff as well as the household staff. she was very comfortable in her own skin as the president was, and i didn't see any issue whatsoever. >> ken, how did she take to criticism? for example, when she was

criticized for her influence with astrology over the president? >> well, she wasn't happy about it. but you know, she went on. you know, nobody likes the criticism you get. but she wound up rolling with and the unabout. s slept on it for a might or two and kept going. >> was she as gracious to you and leaders in the white house as she was in, say, somebody in the wait staff? >> absolutely. >> absolute lady. >> you know, talking about real class and real dignity here. you are talking somebody as gracious as could be. fiercely loyal to her husband and wanting him to succeed. >> absolutely. >> and the country would

succeed. >> thank you for your recollects. watching be in news coverage of nancy reagan. # nbc news coverage of the death of former first lady nancy reagan. some of our stations may now go back to regular programming. for others, our coverage continues. nancy reagan, the widow of president ronald reagan has died. she was 94 years old. her death was announced in a statement from her spokesperson, and lester holt looks at the life of the former first lady. >> nancy davis was an actress herself when she met ronald reagan on the mgm lot in 1949. he was already a star. but though she had her own hollywood dreams, she later said she found her greatest role as his wife. >> i think i was born to be married. i was the happiest girl in the world when i became we. >> they married in 1952. a simple ceremony and even appearedge