The Clothes Have No Emperor Part 14

1/14/85.

Nancy Reagan insists that new reports of her husband's disengagement are "absolutely untrue." And what of the Regan / Baker job swap, worked out without Presidential consultation? "Yes," she says, "but he was the one who made the decision to accept it. He could have said no."

1/17/85.

Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY) no stranger to pandering expresses solidarity with Bernhard Goetz. "I'm afraid to get in that subway system even when I'm with my bodyguard," he says, "and my bodyguard is afraid."

1/17/85.

With Frank Sinatra in town to produce and direct the Inaugural Galas, The Was.h.i.+ngton Post The Was.h.i.+ngton Post runs a piece recapping the sleazy glories of the Rat Pack. When reporters try to interview him later, he is not a happy man. "You read the runs a piece recapping the sleazy glories of the Rat Pack. When reporters try to interview him later, he is not a happy man. "You read the Post Post this afternoon?" he snarls, eyes blazing and index finger waving. "You're all dead, every one of you. You're all dead." this afternoon?" he snarls, eyes blazing and index finger waving. "You're all dead, every one of you. You're all dead."

1/20/85.

Not content to have his inauguration televised, President Reagan's aides inject him into the Super Bowl coin toss. The live feed linking him to Stanford is open ten minutes before he goes on the air, enabling satellite dish owners to spy on the leader of the free world as he: *Practices the coin flip three times "It is heads ... It is tails" so he's prepared for all possibilities *Reveals a really neat idea a friend of his had: "Frank Sinatra had a recommendation, instead of tossing the coin, what would have been a lot better. You'd have had me outdoors throwing out the ball. I would have thrown it a little art work of maybe a ball going across a map and out there, one of them catching a ball, as if it's gone all the way across the United States. How about that?"

*Stands immobile, almost deflated, as the minutes tick by, as if he doesn't quite exist when the camera's not on. Finally, he gets his cue and suddenly animated he flips the coin. "It is tails!" he announces, adding some ba.n.a.lity about how all the players should do their best. The network cuts away and, somewhat forlornly, he resumes the less satisfying non-televised portion of his life.

1/28/85.

Lawyers for Ed Meese renominated to be attorney general reveal that the Office of Government Ethics found him in violation of Federal ethical standards.

1/30/85.

"If there were any doubt in my mind that four years from now you could look back and say 'Ed Meese has fulfilled the standards that I've set for this office,' then I would retire right now and withdraw."

--Ed Meese a.s.suring the Judiciary Committee that his days of playing fast and loose with ethics are behind him FEBRUARY 1985.

2/4/85.

Addressing a convention of religious broadcasters, President Reagan defends his arms build-up, citing Luke 14:31 to verify that "the scriptures are on our side in this." Then, for the benefit of the Jews in the audience, he describes how much he liked looking out over Lafayette Park at "the huge menorah, celebrating the Pa.s.sover season."

2/5/85.

"Birthday? Oh, you mean the 35th anniversary of my 39th birthday?"

--President Reagan on his upcoming 74th 2/13/85.

President Reagan defends off-sh.o.r.e drilling to a Santa Barbara reporter. "You've got that whole expanse of ocean," he says. "It isn't as if you were looking at the ocean through a little frame, and now somebody put something in the way." And, anyway, he has a solution. "We've got a lot of freighters ... up in mothball. Why don't we bring down some and anchor them between the sh.o.r.e and the oil derrick? And then the people would see a s.h.i.+p, and they wouldn't find anything wrong with that at all."

2/17/85.

Pursuing the strategy many urged on him during the Vietnam War, William Westmoreland withdraws his libel suit against CBS and declares victory. He later distinguishes himself by contending that the naked girl running down the road in the famous Vietnam photo had not been napalmed, but had been burned by a hibachi.

2/21/85.

At his 28th press conference, President Reagan says he is not seeking the overthrow of the Sandinista regime he'd be satisfied "if they'd say 'uncle'" to the contras and abdicate.

2/22/85.

"By accepting unsecured loans from a man he later helped appoint to a federal position; by accepting a promotion in the Army Reserves that smacked of preferential treatment; and by asking that a check he had already deposited be altered after discovering that the original purpose of the check might be illegal, Meese has demonstrated a clear lack of judgment and an appalling indifference to the appearance of impropriety."

--Sen. John Glenn in The Was.h.i.+ngton Post The Was.h.i.+ngton Post, urging Senate rejection of Ed Meese, who is confirmed the next day 2/28/85.

Defending the President's decision to abolish the Small Business Administration, David Stockman is shown a two-year-old tape of Reagan praising the agency. "We at the White House," says Stockman, "have come to enjoy watching old films of the President."

MARCH 1985.

3/1/85.

Desperate to win contra aid, President Reagan says the Nicaraguan rebels are "the moral equal of our Founding Fathers." Historical novelist Howard Fast calls this "an explosion of such incredible ignorance that ... he is not fit for public office of any kind."

3/6/85.

"Nuclear war would be the greatest tragedy, I think, ever experienced by mankind in the history of mankind."

--President Reagan demonstrating his awareness of just how serious it would be if he pushed the b.u.t.ton 3/6/85.

Geraldine Ferraro's Diet Pepsi ad for which she is reported to have been paid over $500,000 premieres.

3/13/85.

President Reagan whose fondness for talking tough is exceeded only by his love of getting laughs does both as he wraps himself in Clint Eastwood's aura and declares, "I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers: 'Go ahead and make my day.'"

3/15/85.

Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan resigns after being ordered to stand trial on fraud and larceny charges.

3/18/85.

"More than twice as many people are fighting in the field right now against the Nicaraguan communist regime as fought against Somoza."

--President Reagan trying to garner support for contra aid 3/19/85.

"Nearly three times as many men are fighting the communists right now as the Sandinistas had fighting Somoza."

--President Reagan trying even harder for contra aid 3/21/85.

20/20's Geraldo Rivera attempts to shed some light on the Bernhard Goetz debate by re-enacting the subway shootings, while Barbara Walters shares Chinese take-out with the gunman in his apartment. A week later, Goetz who is being seen, in the wake of reports about his vicious New Hamps.h.i.+re confession, as less a hero than kind of a creep is indicted for attempted murder, after all.

3/21/85.

At his 29th press conference, President Reagan explains that he has no intention of visiting a concentration camp site during his upcoming visit to West Germany. To do so, he explains, would impose an unpleasant guilt trip on a nation where there are "very few alive that remember even the war, and certainly none of them who were adults and partic.i.p.ating in any way." Though this stunning ignorance of the actuarial tables is displayed to a roomful of reporters, not one challenges it.

3/26/85.

General Electric Ronald Reagan's old employer is indicted on 108 counts of fraud for falsely billing the Pentagon for over $800,000. The corporation pleads guilty.

APRIL 1985.

4/3/85.

Rep. Robert Dornan (R-CA) reveals the "best compliment" he has yet received on the House floor Henry Hyde (R-IL) said, "If we were Indians in the Plains Wars and you were a cavalry trooper, we would kill you just to drink your blood." This, explains Dornan, was how true warriors showed respect.

4/8/85.

Michael Deaver is asked if he has any plans to write a White House memoir. "Never, never," he says. "You can't take a special relations.h.i.+p of trust and then do a kiss-and-tell book."

4/11/85.

The White House announces that President Reagan will lay a wreath at a military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany where German and American soldiers are buried. Oops! Correction: no Americans are buried there, just n.a.z.is.

4/12/85.

Sen. Jake Garn (R-UT) becomes the first lawmaker in s.p.a.ce as he joins the crew of the s.p.a.ce shuttle Discovery, where he serves as a guinea pig for motion sickness experiments and earns the Doonesbury nickname "Barfin' Jake."

4/16/85.

As the contra aid vote approaches, President Reagan claims he "just had a verbal message delivered to me from Pope John Paul, urging us to continue our efforts in Central America." The Vatican quickly issues a denial.

4/17/85.

"We haven't finished yet."

--Ballet dancer Fernando Bujones to President Reagan, who has prematurely stepped on stage with Nancy to thank him 4/18/85.

Michael Deaver too busy buying a BMW to notice n.a.z.i gravestones last time he was in West Germany is back searching for an appropriate concentration camp to add to the President's itinerary. Asks Rep. Pat Schroeder, "What are they looking for? The right light angle?" Meanwhile, Reagan defends his visit to Bitburg by claiming the German soldiers "were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." Says an aide, "Oh my G.o.d!"

4/19/85.

Elie Weisel fortunate enough to be accepting a medal from the President on the same day The New York Times The New York Times carries the headline "Reagan Likens n.a.z.i War Dead To Concentration Camp Victims" tells his host, "That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS." Reagan puts on his sad face. carries the headline "Reagan Likens n.a.z.i War Dead To Concentration Camp Victims" tells his host, "That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS." Reagan puts on his sad face.

4/19/85.

"[The handicapped] falsely a.s.sume that the lottery of life has penalized them at random. This is not so. Nothing comes to an individual that he has not ... summoned."

--Eileen Marie Gardner, who resigns from President Reagan's Education Department after this quote is exhumed from an article she wrote for the conservative Heritage Foundation 4/23/85.

Coca-Cola, which has been selling itself as the less sweet alternative to the surging Pepsi, announces that it is changing its formula to make it ... sweeter! c.o.ke chairman Roberto Goizueta calls the switch "the surest move ever made."

4/27/85.

New York Times: 82 SENATORS URGE REAGAN TO CANCEL HIS BITBURG VISIT 4/29/85.

President Reagan defends the Bitburg visit as "morally right," adding, "I know all the bad things that happened in that war. I was in uniform for four years myself." He stops short of claiming to have filmed the death camps.

MAY 1985.

5/5/85.

Having atoned in advance with a visit to the Bergen-Belsen death camp, President Reagan spends eight minutes at Bitburg, where cameras are forced to shoot the ceremony from poor angles. He cites a letter from 13-year-old Beth Flom who, he claims, "urged me to lay the wreath at Bitburg cemetery in honor of the future of Germany." In fact, she urged him not to go at all. Summing things up, he says, "It's been a wonderful day."

5/8/85.

Opponents of President Reagan's Nicaraguan policies heckle him at the European Parliament. "They haven't been there," he says. "I have." For the record, he has not.

5/8/85.

Arriving in Lisbon, President Reagan fails to recognize Portuguese Prime Minister Mario Soares whom he has met before and walks right past him.

5/8/85.

Marianne Mele Hall resigns as chairman of the Copyright Royalty Tribunal after it becomes known that a book she worked on in 1982, Foundations of Sand Foundations of Sand, said US blacks "insist on preserving their jungle freedoms, their women, their avoidance of personal responsibility and their abhorrence of the work ethic."

5/10/85.

Having successfully booked the President into a n.a.z.i cemetery and received his diplomat's discount on a BMW, Michael Deaver resigns.

5/10/85.

Buddy Ebsen's friend Richard M. Nixon attends a meeting of the Barnaby Jones Barnaby Jones fan club. "Most clubs are useless, but this one is for fun," says the former President, who liked the show because it "was a good mystery where you knew the good guys from the bad guys." Ebsen says Nixon claims to have seen each episode "at least" three times and committed much of the dialogue to memory. fan club. "Most clubs are useless, but this one is for fun," says the former President, who liked the show because it "was a good mystery where you knew the good guys from the bad guys." Ebsen says Nixon claims to have seen each episode "at least" three times and committed much of the dialogue to memory.

5/13/85.

A long-running confrontation between Philadelphia police and a radical black cult called MOVE comes to a head when mayor Wilson Goode orders their headquarters bombed. The resulting blaze destroys 61 homes, killing 11. The mayor defends his strategy as "perfect, except for the fire."

5/15/85.

Following his release from jail after her recantation of her six-year-old rape charge, Gary Dotson and Cathy Crowell Webb make the rounds of the network morning shows. "What were the first things you said to each other?" asks Joan Lunden on Good Morning America Good Morning America. "Who would you like to see play you in the movie?" asks Jane Pauley on Today Today. "How about a hug?" asks Phyllis George on the CBS Morning News CBS Morning News. They decline to embrace.

Explains George later, "I wanted to get the personal side."

5/17/85.

Under some delusion about the career opportunities awaiting him elsewhere, Patrick Duffy appears in his last episode of Dallas Dallas, in which Bobby Ewing is killed off.

5/20/85.

Private detective John Walker is arrested along with three others, including his brother and son for conspiring to deliver secret Navy doc.u.ments to the Soviets. "I'm a celebrity," he declares. "I feel like Eichmann or someone." He gets life.

5/21/85.

New York Times: MEESE NAMES PANEL TO STUDY HOW TO CONTROL p.o.r.nOGRAPHY 5/22/85.

Rambo: First Blood Part II, Sylvester Stallone's rewrite of the Vietnam War "Do we get to win this time?" opens in a record 2,165 theaters, grossing $32.5 million in its first six days. Says the star of the increasing monosyllabism of his characters, "I try to eliminate as much dialogue as possible, and I guess Sylvester Stallone's rewrite of the Vietnam War "Do we get to win this time?" opens in a record 2,165 theaters, grossing $32.5 million in its first six days. Says the star of the increasing monosyllabism of his characters, "I try to eliminate as much dialogue as possible, and I guess Rambo Rambo is my really best experiment. To me, the most perfect screenplay ever written will be one word." is my really best experiment. To me, the most perfect screenplay ever written will be one word."

5/23/85.

President Reagan bestows the Presidential Medal of Freedom the nation's highest civilian award on the otherwise rarely paired Mother Teresa and Frank Sinatra.