The White House as Theater

By Hugh Sidey

Before he went to Geneva last year to meet with the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan broadcast a brief message on television and radio to the people of the world. In the Voice of America studio during the preparations, a slight, bearded figure hovered at the elbow of the President.

Edmund Morris, Pulitzer-prizewinning biographer of Theodore Roosevelt, had never been so close to the actual events of power. Every sound, every gesture, every word was caught and cataloged in his quick mind. As the final seconds before broadcast time ticked off, Morris saw a sudden movement beneath the President's table. Reagan's left foot was tapping off the seconds, a reflex planted more than 50 years ago in the soul of a fledgling broadcaster. Morris cradled a tiny black notebook in his left hand and with a thin-line pen jotted down his observation. Later, he transcribed his notes to a file card that went into a growing mass of research on Reagan the man and President, to be distilled into a biography after Reagan leaves office.

The unwritten book has already achieved a fame of sorts. Morris' reported $3 million advance is a record for such a project, though it will be spread out over eleven years. And the arrangement giving Morris access to most of the inner workings of the White House and a monthly seance with Reagan is brand new.

Morris went on to Geneva with Reagan, deliberately taking a hotel room far from the presidential party so he could sort out his thoughts in cool independence. But he still had the rare privilege of drifting in and out of the summit events. Morris delighted in what he calls "the whole ballet of power" played out when Gorbachev arrived for the first meeting. Reagan came down the steps without his overcoat. Gorbachev drove up in hat and coat. Reagan was utterly at ease. Gorbachev was tentative. Reagan, the host, gently maneuvered his guest. Morris sensed that Reagan had taken charge.

Morris could do more than just write a biography. He could reshape the study of leadership and the presidency. "I want to do a detailed, literary work on personality as power," says Morris. He has already spent time in Hollywood talking with those who knew and worked with Reagan. Soon Morris will go to Dixon, Ill., and live for a spell along the President's boyhood streets. There he will search for keys to Reagan's character, look for experiences of those distant years that surface today. Morris has noted that at Reagan's "cutting edge" lunches, where pioneering physicists, geneticists and others come to talk, the host's native humor and geniality almost always help to bring out ideas from the visitors.

"The enormous extent of the President's memory impresses me," says Morris. On almost any subject from the past half-century that Morris has raised, Reagan has had an observation based on firsthand experience: the Depression, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, the rise of fascism, name it. Nothing escapes Morris' scrutiny. He has become convinced, for instance, that that lush, indestructible head of dark hair plays a part in the imagery of perpetual Reagan youth and thus in his remarkable leadership.

Morris fills at least one notebook every week. Almost always some old myths are shattered, and several new thoughts about running this uproarious nation crowd onto his scribbled pages. "The White House is theater," says Morris with relish, "and good theater makes good literature."