FIRST LADY OF TRAUMA
Jun 11, 2021
3 minutes
By Peter Conrad
![f0057-01](https://article-imgs.scribdassets.com/2n4r13wayo8uthhw/images/file9QAEC6R9.jpg)
After Jimmy Carter’s glum diagnosis of national malaise in 1 979, Ronald Reagan supposedly restored the customary swagger of the US by making the country “feel good about itself”. That folksy blessing didn’t extend to his wife: on the evidence of Karen Tumulty’s biography, Nancy Reagan spent his presidency in a state of seething anxiety that frequently tipped over into hysteria.
Aides in the White House came to dread
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