Thomas Mallon
Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years
In memory of Scott Carpenter
and for Rene, Tom, and Kris
Blow the dust off the clock. Your watches are behind the times. Throw open the heavy curtains which are so dear to you you do not even suspect that the day has already dawned outside.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
(Those with names in quotation marks are entirely fictional.)
Antony Acland: British ambassador to the United States
Leonore (Lee) Annenberg: first chief of protocol of the United States under President Reagan; wife of Walter Annenberg
Walter Annenberg: publisher and philanthropist; former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom
Marion S. Barry, Jr.: mayor of the District of Columbia
Shirley Temple Black: child film star and diplomat; chief of protocol of the United States under President Ford
Betsy Bloomingdale: widow of businessman Alfred Bloomingdale and friend of Nancy Reagan
Lindy Boggs: U.S. congresswoman (D-LA)
J. Carter Brown III: director of the National Gallery of Art
Patrick J. Buchanan: White House communications director
Pat Buckley: New York socialite and wife of William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.: conservative columnist and editor of National Review
George H. W. Bush: vice president of the United States
Nicholas Carrollton: staff assistant, Republican National Committee
Jimmy Carter: thirty-ninth president of the United States
Rosalynn Carter: former first lady of the United States
Carl Spitz Channell: president, National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty
Winston Churchill: Conservative member of Parliament; son of Pamela Harriman
Peter Cox: former Republican state senator from Michigan; political consultant and contributor
Elaine Crispen: press secretary to Nancy Reagan
Nicholas Daniloff: correspondent for U.S. News & World Report
Bette Davis: film actress; performed with Ronald Reagan in Dark Victory
Michael Deaver: lobbyist; former White House deputy chief of staff
Terry Dolan: cofounder and chairman, National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC)
Bob Dole: U.S. senator (R-KS) and Senate majority leader
James Dugan: contributor to the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty
Vigds Finnbogadttir: fourth president of Iceland
Betty Ford: former first lady of the United States
Gerald R. Ford: thirty-eighth president of the United States
Eva Gabor: actress and television personality; businesswoman
Ellen Garwood: contributor to the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty
Lillian Gish: film actress
Mikhail Gorbachev: general secretary of the Communist Party of the U.S.S.R.
Raisa Gorbachev: first lady of the U.S.S.R.
Al Gore: U.S. senator (D-TN)
Tipper Gore: wife of Al Gore; cofounder, Parents Music Resource Center
Bob Graham: governor of Florida; Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate
Cary Grant: film star
Merv Griffin: television host and show-business entrepreneur
Neal Grover: management analyst, National Security Council
Fawn Hall: secretary to Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North
Marvin Hamlisch: American composer and orchestra conductor
W. Averell Harriman: former governor of New York and ambassador to the U.S.S.R.
Pamela Harriman: founder and chairman of Democrats for the 80s (PamPAC); wife and widow of Averell Harriman
Kitty Carlisle Hart: actress; television personality; chair of the New York State Council on the Arts
Paula Hawkins: U.S. senator (R-FL)
Jane Hazard: Michigan delegate to the 1976 and 1996 Republican national conventions
John W. Hinckley, Jr.: failed assassin and mental patient
Christopher Hitchens: journalist
Ernest F. Fritz Hollings: U.S. senator (D-SC)
Rita Peatsy Hollings: wife of Ernest Hollings
Bob Hope: entertainer
Janet Howard: assistant to Pamela Harriman; executive director, Democrats for the 80s
John Hutton: White House physician
Thomas Victor Jones: chief executive officer of Northrop Corporation
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick: former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
Henry A. Kissinger: U.S. secretary of state under Presidents Nixon and Ford
Sofya Kornilov: Soviet human-rights activist and political prisoner
Jim Kuhn: executive assistant to President Reagan
Anders Little: deputy director, Defense Programs and Arms Control Division, National Security Council
Anne Macmurray: activist against nuclear weapons; ex-wife of Peter Cox
Edwin Meese: attorney general of the United States
Walter F. Mondale: former vice president of the United States
Edmund Morris: authorized biographer of Ronald Reagan
Daniel Patrick Moynihan: U.S. senator (D-NY)
Paul Nitze: special advisor to the president and secretary of state on arms control matters
Pat Nixon: former first lady of the United States
Richard M. Nixon: thirty-seventh president of the United States
Oliver L. North: lieutenant colonel, U.S. Marines; deputy director for political-military affairs, National Security Council
Thomas P. Tip ONeill, Jr.: speaker of the House of Representatives
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: former first lady of the United States
John M. Poindexter: vice admiral, U.S. Navy; national security advisor
Kelly Proctor: staff assistant to Pamela Harriman at Democrats for the 80s
Joan Quigley: astrologer to Nancy Reagan
Irina Ratushinskaya: Soviet poet and dissident
Doria Reagan: daughter-in-law of the president
Maureen Reagan: daughter of the president
Nancy Reagan: first lady of the United States
Ron Reagan: son of the president
Ronald Reagan: fortieth president of the United States
Donald T. Regan: chief of staff to the president of the United States
Dennis Revell: son-in-law of the president
Rozanne Ridgway: special assistant to the secretary of state for negotiations
Nelson A. Rockefeller: forty-first vice president of the United States
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.: historian; former special assistant to President Kennedy
Frank Sesno: CNN correspondent
Eduard Shevardnadze: minister of foreign affairs of the Soviet Union
George P. Shultz: U.S. secretary of state
Ann Sothern: film and television actress
Larry Speakes: deputy press secretary to the president
Robert Strauss: attorney; former chairman of the Democratic National Committee
Maurice Tempelsman: businessman; companion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Margaret Thatcher: prime minister of the United Kingdom
Sarah Vaughan: jazz singer
John Warner: U.S. senator (R-VA)
Charles Wick: director, United States Information Agency
Jane Wyman: film and television actress; first wife of Ronald Reagan
Gennadi Zakharov: