Routines - Ronald Reagan
"Like many aging men, he loved routine. At two or three minutes before 9:00 a.m., he would emerge from his private elevator in the Residence, impeccably dressed and giving off discreet waves of cologne. David Fischer, his personal aide, would be waiting to escort him along the colonnade, armed with the latest edition of his schedule and whatever verbal elaborations seemed necessary. As they rounded the corner of the Rose Garden, Reagan's attention would always divert to the window of Helene's office, on which he liked to tap good morning. Promptly at nine he would enter the Oval Office through its French door and find the troika waiting for him. This 'Senior Staff time with the President' lasted a quarter of an hour (Baker always on the alert to head off excessive input from Meese), and was followed by another quarter hour's briefing by National Security Advisor Richard Allen. The troika would generally stay in the room until Allen was through, then stay with the President if he needed them further. From ten to eleven he absorbed himself in paperwork sent to him by Darman. Then, according to the day of the week, he met with Congressional leaders or the National Security Council until the noon lunch hour.
'The President prefers to eat alone,' cautioned a White House memo. He was denied that respite on Mondays, when senior staffers gathered to discuss 'any 'hot' items that should be brought to [his] attention,' and on Thursdays, when he entertained George Bush in his private dining room off the Oval Office. (I have no record of what they talked about early in the first Administration, but can attest that their later lunches were enlivened by uproariously obscene jokes.)
Except for the occasional hamburger, Reagan ate sparingly: usually just soup and crackers, and Jell-O for dessert, with iced tea. He sat at his table as he did at his desk, always with his coat on and his tie tight. Although he was by no means a dandy, and had a weekend wardrobe that may best be described as cheerful, he believed that a President should look like a President, and not 'dress down' the office of Jefferson and Lincoln.
At 2 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and hour of 'Cabinet time' was reserved, but not always used. Department heads unfamiliar with the President's executive style learned that he preferred them to work at their jobs, rather than intrude upon his own.
He always looked forward to Wednesday afternoons, those being classified as 'Private Time' and generally assigned to the Residence. His eager retreat there at 2 p.m. (5 p.m. sharp on other weekdays), plus his well-known need for eight or nine hours sleep a night, gave rise to the myth that Ronald Reagan was a lazy man. This was true only in the sense that he lacked intellectual energy: he had long since abandoned inquiry for the reiteration of old certainties. But the journalists who joked about his clock watching were unaware that he always took home whatever work he could not finish during the day. Faithfully, after dinner, he would read through the last page of every colored folder (red for Classified, green for Action Items, gray for Speeches and Statements, blue for Information), checking what he approved and adding terse marginalia until duty was done and he could go to bed. Richard Darman learned not to give the President more than one and a half hours work a night, knowing that if he did, Reagan would be tired and withdrawn the following morning."
Edmund Morris
Dutch
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