Californian Helps Write ‘Valedictory’ : Reagan Again Turns to Trusted Wordsmith

Several weeks ago, at President Reagan’s Santa Barbara ranch, speech writer Kenneth L. Khachigian sat down with Reagan for their third session on tonight’s address to the Republican National Convention.

“It was the only time I’ve been up there,” said Khachigian, who has written many of Reagan’s major speeches during his eight-year presidency. “They really like to keep it private.”

That day, Khachigian said, the President was “very relaxed and very expansive” as he began “conversationally spinning out” what he was going to say. Listening, writing quickly on a yellow legal pad, Khachigian said, he took dozens of pages of notes.

Aware of Importance

Both of them were aware that this would be an important night for Reagan--his chance both to warmly endorse Vice President George Bush in prime time and also to deliver a “political valedictory” for his presidency.

“Clearly the audience will be prepared to be moved, and part of his job is to move them,” Khachigian said.

To aid him with this formidable task, Reagan is depending on a wordsmith who has helped to produce some of the most memorable presidential oratory of the last eight years. Although Khachigian, 43, is not on his White House staff, Reagan has repeatedly turned to him since the two got to know each other in 1980 when Khachigian first served as a Reagan speech writer and flew with the candidate aboard his campaign plane.

Among the speeches Khachigian helped Reagan craft were the 1984 presidential campaign kickoff at Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley, the 1985 pre-summit speech to the U.N. General Assembly, the 1986 joint speech on drugs by the President and the First Lady, and the 1987 State of the Union address. Khachigian also was involved in writing the talk at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp that many said defused the controversy over the President’s highly controversial 1985 visit to the Bitburg cemetery in Germany, where Nazi SS officers were buried.

Studies Reagan Speeches

Khachigian, trying to explain why Reagan repeatedly turns to him, said: “You do get to know one another. In ‘80, I watched him give dozens and dozens and dozens of speeches. I’ve always made it a point to get to know his mannerisms, how he structures his speeches, how he modulates his voice.”

As he talked, the usually intense Khachigian appeared relaxed. It was still two weeks before the convention, and Khachigian, dressed in a blue plaid sport shirt, chinos and brown loafers, had just finished 10 solid days of work on the first draft of tonight’s speech. Over lunch at a favorite Dana Point marina restaurant, he said he would return home to read over the 16-page speech and cut it slightly before sending it by facsimile machine to the White House later that day for Reagan’s editing.

Reagan’s speeches have provided the historical punctuation for Khachigian in the last eight years, since he turned down the President’s offer of a job at the White House after the 1980 election. Khachigian said he wanted to return to San Clemente, where he and wife and two daughters had settled while he helped former President Richard M. Nixon write his memoirs. But Khachigian quickly became what one White House official called Reagan’s “designated hitter” for important speeches.

In between these speech-writing chores, Khachigian, a graduate of Columbia University Law School, opened a private law practice. He also gained a reputation as a balanced--and yet aggressively partisan--consultant to Republican officeholders, candidates and causes. He is probably closest to California Gov. George Deukmejian, a fellow Armenian, taking an active role both in his gubernatorial campaigns and his Administration.

Khachigian repeatedly plays down his role in writing the President’s speeches.

‘Excellent Speech Writer’

“Ronald Reagan is not only an excellent speech giver, he’s an excellent speech writer,” Khachigian said. “He has strong views, very strong views, about why they’re effective.”

In trying to explain this, Khachigian recalled an earlier time--on the 1984 whistle-stop tour--when they were behind schedule and needed to cut Reagan’s speeches. “He kept resisting,” Khachigian said. “He said, ‘I can’t drop that. You should see the reaction of the people when I say that.’ ”

For tonight’s speech, Khachigian met with Reagan for three half-hour sessions in the White House and the longer session at Reagan’s Santa Barbara ranch. At the second of the White House sessions, Khachigian said, he asked Reagan for any quotes or anecdotes he might have set aside for the occasion.

“He took several hundred from his desk . . . everything from Biblical sayings, quotations from articles he read, or from letters,” Khachigian said. Three or four ended up in the first draft.

By the time he was through with those meetings, Khachigian said, he had a working outline. He returned to his office for the actual writing. Around his house, he said, his two teen-age daughters thought “Dad’s doing another speech--oh, no.” Meanwhile, he pounded away at his favorite older-model electric typewriter. “The clatter and clash . . . tells you you’re getting something done,” he said.

Reagan Adds Material

When the first draft was done, it was given a line-by-line fact check at the White House. Reagan then rewrote portions of it and added “an extensive amount of new material,” Khachigian said.

“It’s 100% Ronald Reagan. He’s really put his heart into it,” said Khachigian, who flew to Washington last week for a final meeting with Reagan on the speech. “I don’t want any authorship or credit or anything.”

Khachigian said he hopes to hear the speech from the convention floor. “I’d like to be there because it’s a historic event,” he said.