Maureen Reagan Caught Political Fever in County

Maureen Reagan’s recent foray into Orange County to promote her new book was a homecoming of sorts.

It was here that the eldest daughter of President Ronald Reagan says she cut her “political teeth.”

While living in San Clemente and Anaheim during her second marriage in the ‘60s, Reagan served as a full-time political volunteer, doing precinct work and recruiting other volunteers for the Republican Party. She also became the first president of the Walter Knott Republican Women’s Club.

Reagan’s political awakening and activism, which coincided with her father’s political ascent, are chronicled in “First Father, First Daughter” (Little, Brown), an affectionate and intimate dual portrait of Ronald Reagan and his outspoken daughter--from Hollywood in the ‘40s to Washington in the ‘80s.

In the book, which will be excerpted in five parts in Orange County Life beginning today, Reagan, 48, describes her less-than-ideal childhood growing up in Hollywood and her feelings of abandonment after the divorce of her father and mother, actress Jane Wyman.

She also reveals that during a brief first marriage to a Washington policeman when she was 20, she was the victim of frequent marital violence--a part of her life she even kept hidden from her parents until she sent them a copy of her manuscript. (“We didn’t talk about it much,” she said in an interview. “They basically said they had known something was wrong, but they didn’t realize it was that bad.”)

“First Father, First Daughter” also provides behind-the-scenes glimpses of life in the White House and Maureen Reagan’s views on the Iran-Contra affair, the assassination attempt on her father and the Challenger disaster. And the former First Daughter does not refrain from offering her personal portraits of Reagan aides such as Donald Regan (“an arrogant, autocratic man”) and Michael Deaver who, she writes, “gives chutzpah a bad name.”

As Reagan told her audience at a recent book and author luncheon in Costa Mesa, the book contains a few unkind words about people--feelings she’s kept “bottled up” for a long time. “I hope you understand,” she said with mock smugness, “it’s my turn.”

A one-time actress, singer and radio and television talk show host, Maureen Reagan has been an outspoken proponent of women’s rights. An unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1982, she recently completed a 2-year term as co-chairman of the Republican National Committee. She currently chairs the GOP Women’s Political Action League, a political action committee that supports women candidates for state and federal office.

Reagan lives in Los Angeles with her third husband, Dennis Revell, owner of a public relations company.