Where’s the Rest of Him?

Two days after the Iowa caucuses, the press is waiting for Ronald Reagan in the Aloha Lounge at O’Hare airport, a room decorated with orange, yellow, and pink pineapples and volcanoes. Advance men have hung a red, white, and blue “Reagan 80” banner from the wall, and there are a number of good-looking men in three-piece suits with wires running out of their ears and bulges on their hips.

Reagan appears in a dark blue checked suit, a blue necktie, and shoes like mirrors. Whenever he speaks at press conferences, he places both hands on the lectern, and occasionally cocks his right foot and points a toe on the floor. This afternoon, he seems . . . bleak is too strong a word; subdued will do.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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Ronald Reagan

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Two days after the Iowa caucuses, the press is waiting for Ronald Reagan in the Aloha Lounge at O’Hare airport, a room decorated with orange, yellow, and pink pineapples and volcanoes. Advance men have hung a red, white, and blue “Reagan 80” banner from the wall, and there are a number of good-looking men in three-piece suits with wires running out of their ears and bulges on their hips.

Reagan appears in a dark blue checked suit, a blue necktie, and shoes like mirrors. Whenever he speaks at press conferences, he places both hands on the lectern, and occasionally cocks his right foot and points a toe on the floor. This afternoon, he seems . . . bleak is too strong a word; subdued will do.