In the Cross-Fire of Chaos

March 30, 1981. President Ronald Reagan is shot outside the Washington Hilton as a gunman fires six rounds, also injuring press secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent and a District of Columbia police officer.

The history books have recorded that President Reagan took a bullet between the heart and lung, came within a few moments of death and then went on to serve two full terms.

That day, though, was a more complicated story. As the crowd roiled in chaos outside the hotel, Reagan was thrust into a limousine destined for the White House. Short of breath, the president thought he had cracked a rib when thrown to safety, before a cough of blood prompted the Secret Service to redirect him to George Washington Hospital, where the president, still unaware of the bullet lodged in his chest, walked into the emergency room and admitted himself.

We know the president survives. Details not so widely known provide the basis for “The Day Reagan Was Shot,” a fact-based TV movie, Sunday on Showtime, that explores the initial confusion at the White House. Richard Crenna plays Reagan, Holland Taylor (“The Practice”) is Nancy Reagan, and Richard Dreyfuss has the pivotal role of Secretary of State Alexander Haig.

Amid such confusion, ambition can be born, said Cyrus Nowrasteh, the film’s writer and director. “I think there’s an interesting thing that happens in a crisis. There’s a lot of panic. When Kennedy was shot, there was a lot of panic, and a lot of things went wrong. Same thing happened when Reagan got shot. And really what this is about is kind of the chaos that occurs when there’s a power vacuum.”

Members of the Cabinet at first believed that the president was unhurt, and that message was conveyed to the press. When it was learned that Reagan had been hit, panic ensued.

With then-Vice President George Bush on a plane to Austin, Texas, thinking all was well, administration officials James Baker, Ed Meese and Michael Deaver went to the hospital to monitor the president’s progress.

Haig, meanwhile, stepped in front of the press gallery and mistakenly announced that he was in charge, that the Constitution put him third in line for the presidency--an error pointed out by a reporter, which Haig dismissed. All of this while senior administration officials in the White House’s situation room and at the hospital--many of them Haig’s adversaries--looked on in dismay.

That press conference ultimately led to Haig’s downfall, said Dreyfuss, who plays Haig in the film.

“It’s one of the great ironies of all time that he made a schoolboy’s error in public, and it brought him crashing down because there were people who wanted to bring him down. They were looking for an opportunity,” Dreyfuss said. “Something like this out of someone else’s mouth might very well have been forgiven.”

While spin control went into overdrive--including distribution of a heavily doctored photo of the president, minus the various tubes and machines that were keeping him alive, and the vice president assuring the public that President Reagan was at the helm throughout--things continued to go awry behind the scenes. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger inadvertently raised the nation’s alert level to Defcon 3 in anticipation of a Russian missile attack, which later proved to be simply an American attack simulation. The nuclear code card was lost. And all the while, Haig believed he was calling the shots.

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An Overanxious Haig

Ultimately Resigns

It was a new administration, Nowrasteh said, with everyone trying to prove their worth. Haig, perhaps, got a little too anxious. “These administration and Cabinet officials, everyone around the president, are trying to figure out who can get his ear, and not necessarily control him, but guide him. Each of them wants to be in a position to help the president the most,” he said. “And Haig felt that there was a lot of mischief going on, and he was being denied access ... [and] purposely diminished by those that had the president’s ear. He felt like he was being crowded out.”

Haig, as a result, tried to crowd his way back in. As Dreyfuss put it, Haig “spent his whole life in bureaucracies and staff positions and whatever that means in terms of infighting, and when he got to the pinnacle of his career, he flubbed it. It could also be said he flubbed it much earlier by making all these people his enemy. Had he had friends in the administration, he might very well have been forgiven.”

Haig wasn’t. As the situation returned to normal, he felt the acrimony from the president’s inner circle growing and resigned from his post a year later. “A lot of this other stuff gets covered up,” Nowrasteh said. “But Haig’s mistake, his gaffe, his misstatement occurred in front of the press, in front of the world. And he never really recovered.”