THE REAGANS

A tactfully revealing profile from a biographical master.

One thing is evident from the outset: Edwards (Ever After, 2000, etc.) is a pro at the biography game—without agenda or axe to grind, she forms an opinion from the material at hand. She’s done her spadework and seems to have had a virtual hotline to Nancy Reagan’s diary and occultist, for Nancy receives the lion’s share of attention. Edwards’s conclusion: The Reagan union was one of great affection and protectiveness, not without its share of miscues and emotional blunders, but strong and steady as they go. The author steers clear of politics, keeping, in the best tradition of reporting, an unbiased hand: She’s more interested in the impact of the rumor, for example, that Reagan was an FBI informer while president of the Screen Actors Guild than she is in casting aspersions. The writing is tasteful without being dodgy (“Nancy was not a deep thinker”). Nancy is allowed to speak to her own lame efforts as a mother, while close friends of the couple discuss any drug use, vindictiveness, frenetic behavior, manipulativeness, or untoward preening as first lady. Edwards writes with equal competence about Edward Meese and Michael Deaver as she does about the importance of the White House’s chief usher, reserving her most dramatic storytelling for the day Reagan was shot. Throughout, she is quick and sure in her judgments on loose talk—Nancy had an affair with Frank Sinatra while married to Ronald? Pshaw!—while remaining comfortable also with the politics of Bitburg or Berkeley.

A portrait with the ring of truth. (16 pp. b&w photographs, not seen)