Despite strong relationship with Nancy, Reagan headed dysfunctional family

[kskiska]

BY MICHAEL KILIAN
Chicago Tribune

(snip)

As narrator David Ogden Stiers noted in a public television "American Experience" documentary on Reagan, "He preached family values but presided over a dysfunctional family."

(snip)

Unlike successors George and Barbara Bush, whose close friends and many grandchildren were frequently underfoot in the White House, the Reagans kept the Executive Mansion a formal place. When not entertaining, they invariably retreated to their cozy private apartment upstairs, leaving the staterooms of the mansion deserted and museumlike.

"There always seemed to be a controversy about when the Reagans had last seen the kids," recalled Reagan's press secretary, Larry Speakes, in "Speaking Out," his White House memoir. "And who was coming for the holidays, if anybody."

Maureen said she and her brother were kept at arm's length from Nancy and the other two Reagan children for years. Patti was 7 before she was told of her sister, Maureen. When she was 26, Maureen read an official biography of Reagan that said he had "two children, Patti and Ronnie."

Reagan did not attend his son Michael's wedding, going to Tricia Nixon's that day instead. According to Michael, the standard holiday invitation from Ronald and Nancy Reagan was "Come at 5 and be gone by 7."

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http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/8849679.htm

[Skittles]

1. strong relationship with Nancy?

she led him around on a leash

[kskiska]

2. But he willingly followed

and abandoned his kids.