Reply #20: like McClellan: "Excerpts from Don Regan's Explosive Memoirs"

[chat_noir]

(Reagan) As President her husband suffered a barrage of memoirs by his former employees, and she suffered right along with him, from the former press secretary Larry Speakes' description of her in his book - he says Mrs. Reagan was ''likely to stab you in the back'' - to Mr. Reagan's former personal secretary Helene von Damm's portrait of her, in ''At Reagan's Side,'' as a jealous wife who tried to stop Ms. von Damm from becoming Ambassador to Austria and who - worse yet - once dispatched the chamberlain Michael Deaver to tell Ms. von Damm that she had too many houseplants and to get rid of some.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE1D91E3AF932A35753C1A96F948260


Alexander Haig, Reagan's first secretary of state; David Stockman, Reagan's budget director; and Regan all published books during Reagan's presidency about their administration experiences.

Both Haig's work, "Caveat," and Regan's memoir, "For the Record," featured quite a bit of score-settling. Regan's book is best remembered today for revealing that Nancy Reagan relied on an astrologer to pick dates for her husband's public appearances. (The astrologer, Joan Quigley, later wrote her own book.)

http://www.findtarget.com/CNN.php?/2008/POLITICS/05/28/bush.books/index.html