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The most powerful influence on Reagan is his wife Nancy, 52. Says a former aide: "Nancy is a strong woman with strong opinions. She's the one to talk politics with. She likes it, the details and all, more than he does." She also has more stamina on the stump. Recently she willingly submitted to a grueling round of twelve interviews with reporters in six hours.
Nancy Reagan rarely showed up at the Governor's office, but her touch was often felt. Her sense of femininity led to a decree that the women who worked for the Governor were to wear dresses, not pantsuits. According to some aides, she frequently phoned staffers to talk over her husband's travel plans, his daily appointments and even the qualifications of people who were being considered for high state offices. In 1968 she decided that one of her husband's closest advisers, Communications Director Franklyn Nofziger, talked too much to reporters and persuaded her husband to fire him.
Above all, she takes meticulous care of her husband when he is not campaigning, making certain he does not overwork and gets to bed before 10 p.m. Reagan seems to relish the motherly, don't-forget-your-galoshes attention. With great affection, he calls her "Mommy" and she calls him "Ronnie." Says Nancy Clark Reynolds, Mrs. Reagan's longtime press secretary: "When they hold hands, it's for real."
Their personal fortune is estimated at well over $1 million, but the Reagans live comparatively simply in their five-bedroom house in the Pacific Palisades, a section of Los Angeles. Infrequently, they entertain such old friends as Tuttle, Dart Industries Chairman Justin Dart, Los Angeles Lawyer William French Smith and former Aide Edward Meese, now a vice president of Rohr Industries Inc.
Reagan usually rises by 7:30 a.m. and spends the day at his office near U.C.L.A., where he works on political business, his radio broadcasts and newspaper columns. Lately, he has been out of town making speeches about one week a month. Otherwise he generally returns home to his family by 6, showers, changes into pajamas and eats a simple meal, often his favorite macaroni and cheese. After dinner Reagan munches on jelly beans as he works over his papers and speeches, which he writes in a personal shorthand on 4-in. by 5-in. index cards, or watches television. Favorite programs include The Waltons and reruns of Mission: Impossible. His best-liked authors include William F. Buckley Jr. and Allen Drury.
Besides his wife, Reagan pays close attention to the counsel of a handful of confidants. The most important:
— John Patrick Sears, 35, an amiable, Georgetown-educated lawyer with a scholarly understanding of the tides that move American politics. Despite his youth at the time, he was a prime strategist of Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign, served briefly as a presidential aide but left after he was frozen out by the jealous H.R. Haldeman. He became a guest lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, then returned to a lucrative Washington law practice. Though the Reagan committee is headed officially by Senator Paul Laxalt of Nevada, even he admits that Sears is the master planner and director.