Word: deaver
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...accounts the President is by nature a passive man who needs to be set in motion by others. Deaver knows how and when to stir him, how to construct an agenda that Reagan then cheerfully pursues. Like no one except Nancy Reagan, he knows the President's inner feelings. He reads the President's diaries, which Reagan dictates into a tape recorder. Deaver's office, at the insistence of the President, adjoins the Oval Office. He is privy to the problems Reagan has with his children. At the end of a hard day last year, the President...
Reagan, a man who holds back virtually all his private feelings, needs the kind of emotional outlet Deaver provides. Says an old friend: "Reagan never unloads his problems on anybody. He just doesn't know how to open up." But with Deaver, outwardly calm and softspoken, the President allows himself to show real anger...
...watches Reagan prepare for his national press conferences, Deaver can tell within minutes how well the President will do that night. Deaver always slips the President a handwritten message just before Reagan steps out the door to confront reporters. Sometimes the message teases him, sometimes it stresses a serious theme, always it seeks to break the tension for the performer. Deaver recently changed the format of the conferences, arranging for Reagan to stride down a long red carpet to the waiting reporters. Reagan seemed uncomfortable with the De Gaulle-like staging, but Deaver, ever the calculating imagemaker, persuaded...
...Deaver's stamp of approval is on every presidential day. He controls Reagan's schedules, decides who comes in to see him. He puts together details of foreign trips, such as those to China and Ireland. Reagan, chafing playfully at the way Deaver manages his life, recently told a Senate group about a young boy in Europe who rushed forward and surprised him with an American flag. "That was one thing Mike Deaver didn't set up," Reagan said grinning. The President might have been less relaxed over Deaver's ill-considered comment in an interview...
...Deaver's fussy imagemaking shows up everywhere. It was he, against strong opposition, who pushed for Katherine Davalos Ortega as the keynote speaker at this week's Dallas convention. He brushed aside suggestions that she was boring, seeing her instead as an answer to Geraldine Ferraro. Reagan sided with him. He balked at the showcasing of 1988 presidential hopefuls such as Howard Baker and Jack Kemp, and their roles were cut back. He initiated the convention films on the Reagans, including one on the First Lady. For that one, Deaver persuaded Reagan to be the narrator...