Farewell to Nancy

First Ladies often end up as lightning rods, absorbing criticism and hostility aimed at their husbands. That certainly has been true for Nancy Reagan. In her eight years in the White House she has been attacked both as a plastic ex-starlet with nothing on her mind except designer clothes and expensive china, a walking example of the Reagan Administration’s disdain for the have-nots, and as a shrewd manipulator who calls the shots on every important decision made by President Reagan--that poor, hen-pecked bumbler. Both extremes cannot be true; we suspect that neither is.

Americans have such unrealistic expectations of those in the White House that there is no way a First Lady, however conscientious, can please everyone. No one wants a frump at the President’s side, but if his wife indulges in haute couture , she risks being branded extravagant. A First Lady is expected to do a few good works, but if she shows too much interest in policy, inevitably someone will complain that she’s trying to run the country.

To her credit, Mrs. Reagan has managed to ignore all the unsolicited advice about what she should be doing and has concentrated on the subject dearest to her, Ronald Reagan. She has looked out for his best interests, made sure that he got enough rest even if it meant curtailing his schedule, and surrounded him with relaxing friends. If, for his own good, she forced the ouster of trouble-some aides and urged superpower summits and plumped for an intermediate-nuclear-forces treaty, those moves were incidental to her greater cause--serving her husband. As the President’s closest confidante, she often has been a better White House adviser than those on the payroll.

Once in a while, beneath that well-coiffed exterior, there have been glimpses of a different Nancy Reagan--a no-nonsense woman with the strength to endure commonplace problems like rebellious children and cancer operations as well as extraordinary events like the assassination attempt on her husband. She is human enough to be sensitive about gossip that her campaign against drug abuse was “just a PR thing created for me,” as she once said. Critics belittled her anti-drug slogan, “Just Say No,” but it was utterly spontaneous; that’s what she answered when a girl in Oakland quizzed her about what a teen-ager should say when offered drugs.

Nancy Reagan may never have endeared herself to Americans beyond the Republican faithful and her own elite circle; perhaps her public persona is too polished, too perfect. But she has certainly earned the respect of the American people.