Word: deavere
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...always there, distinct in the shadows of power, never very far from Ronald Reagan's side. But slender, balding Michael Deaver is a man who cares little about presidential policy and often slips out of secret White House briefings, bored. He worries far less about Soviet missiles and accusations of Administration sleaziness than he does about how those issues-and all others-threaten his boss. For Mike Deaver, at 46, has essentially one aim in life, and that is serving Ronald Reagan. For 18 years, after he stopped selling IBM supplies in Bakersfield, Calif, and got into politics, Deaver...
...presidency like this one, where the Chief Executive is so detached, so indifferent to detail, so psychologically unable to deal with personal conflict, Deaver fills a crucial need and thus wields enormous influence. He is Reagan's bridge to the rest of the world. Little comes out about the well-shielded President that does not first pass through the fine mesh of the Deaver filter. A master of symbolism and hoopla, he creates and cultivates the lasting images of the Reagan era. Strictly a behind-the-scenes operator, he is totally trusted by the President and Mrs. Reagan...
...quickly signals with a shake of his head for participants to quicken the discussion or drop it. Sometimes in a crisis he will rush the President a prepared statement only to discover that Reagan has already scribbled out sentences in almost the same words. At the root of the Deaver genius is the fact that he always pushes the President to stay his own best self. Says one close watcher: "He knows Reagan can't sell if he doesn't believe." And Deaver instinctively knows when Reagan reaches too far. In 1980 Reagan considered taking Gerald Ford...
...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...