Diary Entry - 12/30/1981
Key Facts
President Reagan travels to the home of former Ambassador Walter Annenberg in Palm Springs, CA.
NASA announces future plans for the first manned excursion outside the space shuttle to service the malfunctioning Solar Maximum payload launched in 1980.
I wont do a day by day but it was a wonderful trip. Our first few days at the Century Plaza. On Mon. Barney & I went up to the ranch. It was a beautiful day. Most of our time was spent cutting up fallen limbs for firewood & brush to burn. That night at the hotel—dinner with Patti, Maureen & Dennis. There was some work of course—bill signings, intelligence reports etc. To Palm Springs on the 30th. Went by Marine 1. The whole holiday season there was great—all our friends for a wonderful New Year’s Eve—then the same group for 2 additional parties. Golf in the mornings & on New Year’s Day football on T.V. all day. Met with Al Haig, Bill Clark, Mike Deaver. I think Bill will come over as National Security Chief. The problem is how to treat the Allen problem so as not to hurt him. He has good offers in the private sector but I dont want to leave him with any onus. The press has really been a lynch mob & I dont think they’ll stop which is why he cant be back in N.S.C. Left Sunnylands on Jan. 3rd—took A.F.1 out of Palm Springs. Learned before leaving that “Little Man” may have a fractured skull. Vet has him for a few days of observation. Evidently he’s in bad shape. Is it the end of an era? His mother became mine in ’46—then I rode his half sister Nancy D & now him—last of the line. We’re back in the W.H. and the whole trip seems like a beautiful dream from which we’ve just awakened.
