Was Treated Shabbily for Loyalty: Regan

Former White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan said today his loyalty to President Reagan was repaid with “shabby treatment.”

In an interview on CBS “This Morning,” Regan continued to defend his kiss-and-tell book of his years in the Reagan Administration and did not hide his bitterness.

Much of the discussion of Regan’s book, “For the Record,” centers on what he has written about Nancy Reagan’s interest in astrology.

But Regan denied today that the First Lady is the focus of his book.

“She is far from the focus,” Regan said. “She comes into the book in her role as wife of the President.”

Asked if Mrs. Reagan was responsible for his leaving the Reagan Administration, where he served as White House chief of staff and Treasury secretary, Regan said, “Oh, yes, there’s no doubt about that.”

Not ‘Poor-Me’ Writing

Regan said his book is “not just a pity-poor-me-type of writing.” But he did not hide his bitterness over his departure.

“If you want loyalty from your subordinates you’ve got to give them loyalty,” Regan said, adding that he gave Reagan “six years of my life. I did not seek the job of secretary of the Treasury. He selected me. I worked willingly with him. I upheld his ideals, his policies. I pushed Reaganomics. And then at the end I don’t think my treatment was anything that could be described except as shabby. There was no loyalty there.”

Later today, Regan, former chief executive of Merrill Lynch & Co., called on Congress to ban index arbitrage trading, saying the computer-driven transactions are undermining public confidence in the stock market.

Before Regan spoke before the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) read Regan’s horoscope to him, which said that he could not “force colleagues to be more understanding” until May 17.

Regan did not respond but said later that his testimony “comes at an interesting time in terms of my own personal activities.”