Leonard Saffir
Monday, June 14, 2004

Ronald Reagan was one of the most unforgettable members of the human race I ever met.

Over the years I had close encounters with five men who were either living in the White House at the time or became president soon after I met them. None touched me the way Reagan did.

I met Richard Nixon at a cocktail party in Rochester, N.Y. I was working in Washington, as chief of staff to U.S. Senator Jim Buckley, R-N.Y., during Nixon’s presidency. Nixon was going to Rochester, N.Y., on a political trip. Buckley was invited to accompany him on Air Force One. I flew to New York on Air Force Two. Nixon didn’t come close to having Reagan’s warmth.

After Nixon’s resignation, I spent more than an hour with President Gerald Ford at a meeting in the historic White House Cabinet room that I had set up with a bunch of law enforcement union leaders from New York. Ford was a nice guy but no Ronald Reagan.

I met Bush the elder several times before he became president. I spent several hours with him in his office in Houston in 1977 discussing a newspaper I was starting and how he could help. Close, but no Reagan cigar. Eleven years later I was present at Bush’s presidential inauguration after he served as vice president under Reagan.

I talked to Bill Clinton while he was campaigning in New Hampshire during the presidential primary season of 1992.

Meeting Reagan

Millions of people around the world feel the same way I do today about the “Great Communicator” and they never met Reagan. I was blessed to have spent a little time with him.

I first met Reagan in Sacramento, Calif., when he was governor during the 1970s.

I was in California with Buckley. We were both invited to the governor’s mansion for a cocktail party.

While there were many at the party, most who probably knew Reagan well, he still had time to chat with me about Washington and things. I was struck with his down-to-earth warmth. And hetook time to talk to me, I thought. After all, he was not only governor but also a former film star.

When Reagan learned that I handled press affairs for Buckley, among other things, he invited me to a news conference he was holding the following morning. I witnessed my first Reagan press conference, front and center. Up until that point I had devoted a good part of my working life either covering press conferences as a reporter or assisting some client about to meet with the media. None was as smooth and polished as Ronald Reagan. He had the often not-too-friendly California media eating out of his hand.

During Reagan’s eight years as president I watched most of his press conferences on television. He only got better as he got older, like a good wine.

11th Commandment

A year or so later, before the 1976 elections, Reagan was in Washington. I joined him for breakfast at the regal Hay-Adams Hotel, a stone’s throw from the White House.

There were six of us present, including F. Clifton White, Buckley’s campaign chairman, who, in 1964, had a similar position with Barry Goldwater; longtime Reagan friend and political adviser Pete Hannaford, and two other aides to the governor.

We were discussing the upcoming elections and Buckley’s re-election campaign. Years earlier, Reagan had coined a phrase that he called the “11th Commandment.” It goes: “Never speak ill of a fellow Republican.”

I learned that morning there were exceptions to the commandment.

“I’m going to break my commandment,” he told us. Reagan then proceeded to ask what could we do to defeat the very liberal Republican Jacob Javits, the senior senator from New York.

Even discussing hard-core politics, Reagan came across as the nicest guy you ever met. We all agreed the popular congressman Jack Kemp should run a primary against Javits. Later I urged Kemp to run, but he was happy with his safe congressional seat in Buffalo, N.Y. (Javits later would lose a primary to Al D’Amato.)

Presidential Debate

That night I joined Reagan and wife Nancy at a cocktail party in Washington. Reagan eventually came to Washington to live full time when he defeated incumbent president Jimmy Carter in 1980.

While Reagan was campaigning for re-election in 1984 against Walter Mondale, they engaged in a televised debate in Kansas City.

I was there at the time on behalf of Philip Morris, a public relations client of mine. Philip Morris was producing one of its Marlboro Country Music concerts in the same basketball arena where the debate was being held.

I had the pleasure of slipping away from the singing group Alabama and others to catch some of the debate.

Historic Words

When Reagan delivered his historic words in West Berlin in June 1987, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” they meant more to me than to most citizens. Years earlier I walked with Buckley through the Brandenburg Gate at the same area of the wall in West Berlin to East Berlin where Reagan would speak the words that marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

I have a photo of me taken with Ronald and Nancy Reagan in Washington hanging in my den at home. I will forever treasure it.

When I look at the photo, after frequently reading about all the waste and screw-ups in the Washington bureaucracy, I think about Reagan’s words, “Government is not the solution for our problems, it is the problem.” How true.

I am confident Reagan’s accomplishments and consistency of purpose will secure his place in history among great presidents.

Maybe today, while we are engaged in a deadly war, and days after all the ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of D-Day, all of us will unite as we did in World War ll in memory of this great American.

Let’s win this one for the Gipper, the line made famous in Reagan’s film portrayal of George Gipp in “Knute Rockne – All American.”

Contact Leonard Saffir at the Lake Worth Herald, (561) 585-9387, or e-mail at Lenpr@bellsouth.net.

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