so we're at a distinct disadvantage us having followed two incredible panels. and who really shared so many of the stories that we had sort of teed up for today. so but you know, honestly we can all dig deep because there are many many stories and we all have them and we're going to be touching today upon a bit of a timeline of pre white house or pre like when gail was at the state department and working with the white house and then fred host white house and then ken's stories as well real early on in the administration and i was also there at the post in the post-white house years. so boy a wash in memories right getting ready for this. it's been an amazing journey these last couple weeks getting ready and thinking of all the things and in our our panel now we want to look at it's really there's some feedback feedback here. we hearing that right better. okay is really looking at some of the personal things that we experience with mrs. reagan and they were numerous and daily and we had just some really serious times and some really fun behind the scenes times that that we really in many cases have never shared stories like these before because it was very personal to us. i know when mrs. reagan died a few years ago our local my local paper in pasadena, california called and said like i'd heard that you'd worked for her and and would you want to write something and i sat at my computer and i typed out a few few sentences and i thought now you can't have it and i called the guy back and i said, you know everything i have about my time with mrs. reagan was so pure and so personal to me that i didn't want to share it in that way. and so i never did but nonetheless we'll pull a few of those out of our pockets today the post white house years, and i'm just gonna lead with this because it's just so telling about what the post white house years felt like i'm gonna lead with fred if you would lead to tell us a couple of stories about just a fun or funny incidents that happened post white house. you want to give me in trouble right? i do sorry i do and they're just like one story you and i were sharing earlier that you suggested. maybe it provides a dimension that the nancy reagan that i think maybe hasn't been talked about yet was when she left for california. she she learned it took her a while, i guess to learn that there was a three hour time change between washington dc and los angeles because when i came back here at about 11 o'clock at night, i would get a phone call. it'd be mrs. reagan and i would say hello just starting to go to sleep. she said oh, is there a time? yeah. yeah. there's three hour time difference here. oh good. i remember that and then two or three days later the phone ring at 11:00 11:30 at night and this is reagan again. and so i finally i went to that store new york, scully and scully and i bought her clock that had two time zones. it had los angeles it had washington dc and i said it and send it to her and then i waited a couple days and then 11:30 at night the phone ring again. i said, did you get the clock and she said i but i haven't figured out how to set it yet. so but as we know she was a creature of the telephone in time zones. she was never really gotten away of that. yeah, you have to tell the orange story. okay, please just keep it in this room. yeah, i i will point out. i've been watching the live stream all day. this is being streamed to a large audience. we'll tell that later. so gail, let's go back to gail gail you you started early in and doing things in the protocol office at the state department and just some of the things that we talked about in preparation about her intuitiveness and her vulnerability. would you share? some of some of them. yeah that's on that might when i went to interview for my job. mike dever said to me you should never forget that. ronald reagan would not be president of the united states were it not for nancy reagan and if you keep that in mind, you will be fine. if you get the job and so so we had a good interview and i got the job and about a week into the job. our first event was the special olympics the first event that i did was the special olympics that once again a kennedy a big sergeant shriver eunice kennedy event. we had 1,000 special olympics kids on the on the lawn. we it was a lot of work and prior to this event we had a secretary of the interior named james watt. remember him and and james ward was already on thin ice within the administration. but then about a week before our event he was quoted in the washington post saying we will not allow the beach boys to perform on on the ellipse for the fourth of july because they are a bunch of pot smoking hippies. and so i was mildly curious about that comment, but i didn't think it would impact me at all until i get a phone call from mrs. reagan and she says, you know maybe we should invite the beach boys to perform at the special olympics and that's when i understood what mike dever said to me that ronald reagan would not be president were it not for nancy reagan? so we did have the beach boys perform at the special olympics james. watt was no longer about a week later and but i do want to tell you they were a bunch of pot smoking hippies. today they arrived with girlfriends with shrinks. they had corvettes it thousands of corvettes. they arrived with it was bedlam so finally i took huge waka to announce the beach boys. ladies and gentlemen the beach boys and one of them said hey, man. i think they just announced us and i said they did they did they announced you if you're a beach boy come with me and because they're entourage was thousands and we're hundreds. and so anyway, the beach boys did perform. it was terrific and james watt lost his job about it. thank you gail. that's a great segway to ken who was there in the very early days of just say no. we're like me secretary like me at all. i've been very fortunate and i think i think god and certainly thank mrs. reagan for giving an opportunity to can be here today a lot of the staff was here so many great. memories, we all have and one triggers another everything you say gail you talk about that. i remember when miami vice folks came to the white house remember that one, too. i can remember the little cat a little tattoo story. i will keep that one quiet, but i came from a life of drugs. jewish kid from new york was running the drug program the president came to visit that program and through that whole series of events. i went to work on the campaign and then wound up in the in the white house, i actually got a job at hhs from the campaign and then i got a call from jim. who said would you come over to meet with mrs. reagan and i went over and i sat on that red and white couch in in the residents which now i work for billy graham. there's a lot of in between it but that i have a picture in my office a big picture joanne you were joanne she blew that picture up and mr. graham died. it was in the library and i had that in my office now to answer so to my office into billy graham evangelistic association down in charlotte. and i remember that couch very well and then jim brought it, but i sat there with mrs. reagan and we talked i don't know for how long i had no idea why i was there. i met mrs. reagan on the campaign and she had visited my drug program as the president had and then i was jim came in and said, it's mrs. reagan. are you done? i don't know how it felt like hours and i was telling my story she was tearing up and crying and i was crying because it's a lot of drama to it and she said well ken, i'm really going to enjoy having worked with me. i was replacing and robleski as the director of projects. i didn't know that at the time and when she said i'm going to like i'm glad you're going to be working with us. and i said well, i'm right down the street on independence and she said no i want you right here at the white as jim says jumps this mrs. reagan. this was an interview. and i i looked at him like really and so i got offered the job on the spot, which was really incredible for where i had come from and it tells you something that you know, we all have our stories but mrs. reagan, i will remember one one other story. after i left and i went to work for mcdonald's corporation and i became i started an organization go ronald mcdonald house charities, which you all know about it we started there was just me. in a group to a very big organization, but camp ronald mcdonald for good times was right near the ranch. and so i convinced whoever at the time might have been jim manning or somebody to get the reagan's to come visit. a camp brown mcdowell of good times so they drove and i told mrs. reagan they were sitting in the car and they had these ronald mcdonald house. ronald mcdonald for good times shirts on a night so i've got to tell you a story when we were leaving the white house my three boys wanted to know we were going so i said, well we're going to go to chicago and one of my oldest boys now with lieutenant colonel in the army said, oh great. i love jim mcmahon played for the bears and my i said, i'm going to work from mcdonald's. so my little guy max, who was that big? he thought we were going out to eat. and i told them but my middle son adam who was seven at the time said dad you you look real sad about this. nice. well, we've had a great time here. he said look at it this way you won't be working for ronald reagan. you'll be working for ronald mcdonald. and then he said as all your kid would say and i like that clown a whole lot more. so i told the president i did i told the president he laughed and he says well there's a step up and this is reagan gave me that look the look pete just look. so, oh, thank you ken. i have i'm going to share a quick one about interviewing. i i was in france during the administration with our ambassador to france and came back and got a call. in fact gail. you helped he that up for me at some point you and your husband at the time did that for me? and i went in for my interview and i had the new hairdo the new suit i can visit i can envision it like it was yesterday pumps the whole thing and i walk into the suite, you know through the back hallways of the hotel. i sit down in the big suite i'm ready to go and she comes bouncing through the doorway of the bedroom in running shoes blue and an oversized sweater. and i thought wow. okay, this is just real. and that's the side that i think so many of us were just really fortunate to see is just the real. nancy reagan behind the scenes that she was a wonderful supportive and protective wife and a mom and just a really wonderful human being and and fred when i think about the fierce protector that was one of the areas that we spoke about you. talking about just a bit and you saw that through the white house and some regard and certainly his legacy after i think i think we probably all did those of us at different roles worked on the campaigns worked in the white house or after i think she was i was a very important role. she provided sometimes her the presence was felt. sometimes it was more behind the scenes, but she was there she was making sure that his that he could accomplish his objectives getting elected as you remember there were changes made on the campaign teams. she was involved in that making sure the right people were there in the white house. they were changed has made that she was involved in. i think we all know president reagan always saw the very best in people and nancy reagan saw the full dimension of people and his flaw or which led him in at times to be vulnerable to taking advantage of was protected by nancy reagan and her her scrutiny, but you could see it even more. i mean when when his physical health on the assassination attempt took place how she stepped up and was there on the scene and helped nurse him back to good health when i had one experience after when they left office it got a little bit of attention. he was giving a speech in las vegas president reagan's former president right in the middle of speech some guy just very carefully walked out to the podium where ronald reagan was speaking and they presented him a few minutes earlier with this crystal award and the guy picked up the award and then slammed it down the ground smashed in front of him. remember this and a picture was taken of that and we got back and nancy reagan just immediately it was like a flashback to the assassination attempt. she said she said that look on his face. i could tell that look on his face and and as a result, i mean she she had the entire secret service detail replaced because it was just a type of thing that couldn't happen, but she protected in there and then when he had alzheimer's you know, she was very i think played a key role in preserving protecting his dignity and allowing him to continue to have enjoyable life finding things. he came to the office for several years afterwards and then when he couldn't do that, she found things occupied him. he would be out in the parks throwing footballs with groups of kids. she took him to see horses when he couldn't ride any longer. she she took him up to see where his mother was buried she wanted him to see that and she took incredible care of him after he left office and it was something where she knew with alzheimer. she know there was no going back and one thing that certainly caught my attention was that he was always as you know, perfectly dressed beautiful suits and ties and she realized he wouldn't be using those he wouldn't be going in public places anymore. so she started giving them away and i think was los angeles times discovered down on scared row in los angeles. there were these guys wearing these searches said rwr they were ronald reagan shirts and suits and that she had made sure they got to the needy in los angeles, but the other thing that i think there's kind of ties into what we're doing today that she was such a fierce protector of his legacy with the presidential library. she got actively involved in that when he passed away. she really don't more deeply into it making sure his legacy his story was told and his legacy was protected and and even this place today the ronald reagan institute, which has actually has even opened officially. yeah roger but this was decided several years ago, and it was something that nancy reagan thought would be a very important part of his legacy and she was a key driver behind it. so all of those different forms of protecting him, i i think contributed his success we can't ignore the fact too that you have been a protector of their legacies and years and years and years of dedication to the library and to them so yeah, actually, so thank you. they're so many of us so many of us who had the chance to work with them all have been doing our share and just turned out today. tell us that story. okay, so gail you shared a story. we've talked a little bit about how intuitive mrs. reagan was and you shared a story about a state visit that i'd love to you for you to share with the crowd the african state visit so for we had a state. visit for 11 months the 12 is but we had every other month we had a state visit so it kept you busy. there were no computers back then. so you you were a constantly planning for the next one in the next one. um, we had a state visit from from a country a third country and the the she always mrs. reagan always t for the visiting first lady after this the ceremony on the south lawn. and the this particular first lady you were invited to sign the guest book before you had tea this particular first lady sort of paused and she didn't. she didn't sign it and then she was talking with her ambassador's wife and there was some to and fro there and and mrs. reagan immediately took this woman by the arm and took her on into the living room when they sat down and had tea and it was only afterward that the ambassador's wife told me that she was illiterate and could not write and and no one of course had told us this in advance. so so mrs. reagan picked up on it before i did and and i i sort never forgot that she sort of tuned in this way. i think one of the things that that has informed my opinion of the reagans and their marriage is a study that i read some a few years ago. it's called the grant study and it is a harvard study. they it's a longitudinal study that they started in the year 1940. and they followed all of the harvard men only men then. until now there are a few that are still alive. they interview them every year. and the title of the grant study is what makes us happy. and the it's a long study. you can access it online. it's really interesting. but the bottom line of this study is what? makes for success and happiness is companionship. that is their that is their bottom line word is a successful steady. companion through life not necessarily a spouse but a partner of some sort. they also talk about business relationships that are partnerships and and they go into a lot of the how this makes for a study normal happy life and you know both president and mrs. reagan didn't have that as children. and they so i think they clung to each other. i mean i used to say that they were two halves that made a hole, you know, her strings were his weaknesses. his strings were her weaknesses fred knows is better than i do, but they were constantly compensating for each other looking out for each other. and and i i've always thought about it as such a lovely thing because not everybody has that. you're not always dealt those cards and i think they finally were and they both knew it and they both cherished it and i have always thought about it in in those terms. so i i think it's it's lovely that they eventually found each other. and even in hollywood and that it blossomed into into what it really really good. they were good people both of them. and and it came through i mean i was single you were single she played she played cupid for me all the time. she would constantly tell my boyfriend at the time. you know, it's valentine's day next week. you know women like jewelry. so, so anyway, they they were both really good stable people and they cherish the stability that each one of them gave each other. it's beautiful beautiful girl. thank you, and and i have to laugh because i was just thinking when you said she liked jewelry or that women like jewelry, this is reagan had a very organized wardrobe it had listings on the front of each of her hangers where she had worn a particular outfit. it had a an image of it. so she knew what to what accessorized with it because if you can imagine she's dressing, you know, six or seven days a week for various events and things and i just remember just being sort of awestruck looking at her closeting. oh, it's just perfectly organized and her jewelry was the same it was it was a little bags. everything was in its own little ziploc and it was just all these little compartments and she knew what was what you know, it's just a really special part of her. putting herself together so well at least on that side because you know with traveling with her when the president was in office. there was a person who accompanying him a military aid who carried the football with the nuclear codes and when they left office there was a person who traveled to carried the football with her jewelry and yeah, exactly it was guess what it was a red leather. overnight bag always knew where that was. in jim's here. it could be different people, but we always knew exactly where it was. good recollection fred. thank you. i asked can the other day? what was one of the funniest moments and and then one of the names that you brought up was somebody who a couple days ago. i thought they're two people who were so dear to here dear to her who are not here with us. and it's elaine crispin whose daughter was here earlier