Review: Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency

Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency by Bill O'Reilly
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Interesting observation here on sleeping arrangement between Presidents and First Ladies:

Bill O'Reilly says separate bedrooms were used until Gerald Ford, which does not even sound plausible. I happend at the same time to be reading Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies which offers the more believable inside observation quoting Mamie Eisenhower:

“First of all, I’m not going to sleep in this little room. This is a dressing room, and I want it made into my dressing room. The big room”— she indicated with a sweep of her arm the mauve-and-gray chamber next door, where Mrs. Truman had sat listening to baseball games—“ will be our bedroom!” “Prior to the Roosevelts, it had been used that way,” Mr. [Howell G. Crim, Chief Usher of the White House from 1933 to 1957] ventured.

Who to believe? Well, I believe J.B. West, of course, as he was there. I am later given pause when O'Reilly says Sharon Tate was killed on the "second night" of the Manson Family Murders. Well, that was the LaBiancas, Bill. Sharon was killed the night before, the first night of the murder spree. (Maybe Bill is confused since Tex Watson and crew set out on the 8th of August, 1969 and killed Tate et al after midnight. But, the point is that this book reads like it s well researched, but scratch that patina and it does not bear up.)

So, I don't really trust the research here and it feels like a money grab on continuing the Killing... theme, since (spoiler alert), Reagan wasn't killed by his would-be assassin. John Hinckley Jr. didn't have as near as full and rich life as Reagan, so the dual biographies have Hinckley lurching along in short, pop-up chapters with little resonance to Regan's film and political career.

I do give O'Reilly points for taking down the Reagan image a notch through exploration of the damning Iran–Contra affair as well as painting the second term as largely the orchestrated affair of Nancy Reagan and her the astrological guidance of Joan Quigley as Reagan began to succumb to Alzheimer's disease.

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