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Ronald Reagan's Family ValuesWhat the diaries show.

By Timothy NoahPosted Thursday, May 3, 2007, at 9:01 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

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He wants to Sign off Secret Svc. for a month. S.S. knows he's a real target—lives in a N.Y.C. area where the Puerto Rican terrorist group is active. In fact he's on a hit list. He thinks we're interfering with his privacy. I can't make him see that I can't be put in a position of one day facing a ransom demand. I'd have to refuse for reasons of the Nation's welfare.

And that would make him feel … how? The logic is hard to argue with (though subsequent events suggest Reagan might have considered selling TOW missiles to the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional), but Reagan's failure to confide, even to his diary, what such a loss might mean is striking. Fast forward to October 23:

Late afternoon Doria [his daughter-in-law] & Ron arrived for a family pow-wow. He'd been rude to Nancy on a phone call and when I phoned him about it he said he thought we needed to clear the air. It wasn't the greatest meeting but still I think it opened the door to a closer relationship. He seemed to be carrying water for Patti [Davis, his daughter] who has a kind of yo yo family relationship. She's either warmly attentive or very distant & Nancy seems to bear the brunt of it.

Moving on now to April 7, 1983:

This evening Ron called all exercised because S.S. agents had gone into their apartment while they were in Calif. to fix an alarm on one of the windows. I tried to reason with him that this was a perfectly O.K. thing for them to do. [Redaction.] I told him quite firmly not to talk to me that way & he hung up on me. End of a not perfect day.

Well, OK, families have disagreements, and imposing a Secret Service detail on your children surely creates unusual tensions, and even in close families it's not necessarily unhealthy for one family member to hurl an obscenity at another or slam down the phone. We now proceed to May 1:

Nancy phoned—very upset. Ron casually told the S.S. he was going to Paris in a few days. I don't know what it is with him. He refuses to cooperate with them. [Redaction.] I'm not talking to him until he apologizes for hanging up on me.

Here it's unclear whether what's being held is something harsh or obscene that the president's son said to the Secret Service or to his mother; something harsh or obscene that the president's wife said to or about her son, or something harsh or obscene that the president himself is expressing about his son. Again, though: Healthy families have disputes, right? Members may even refuse to talk to one another for awhile. But by Feb. 1, 1984, Reagan seems to have reached his limit:

S.S. got a tip [redaction] that a terrorist act was pointed at the Presidents daughter. I'm inclined to believe they might mean Maureen because she is so visible in her pol. work. She has S.S. protection. On the other hand, Patti screamed & complained so much we took the S.S. detail away at her request. Now S.S. went to her & asked if she would accept it for no more than a week until they could get this informant out of Lebanon & check the story. She said yes. But today's the 4th day & she's screaming again about invasion of her privacy & last night she abused the agents terribly. I said take them away from her so she's again without protection. Insanity is hereditary you catch it from your kids.

That parting shot might seem more lighthearted if it weren't preceded by the president's admission that he'd rather his daughter's life be put in danger than that he have to deal further with her rudeness to Secret Service agents. He doesn't seem willing even to talk to her about it. Are they on speaking terms? Now on to July 18, 1987: