Editor's Letter

Slow Fade

Shortly after his inauguration for a second term, Ronald Reagan posed with Nancy for a memorable Vanity Fair sitting with photographer Harry Benson. It was the pre-crash heyday when blacktie America was in full cry, and we thought there was no better image to personify the booming social mood than that of the First Couple fox-trotting on the cover of our June 1985 issue.

But, as readers may recall, Benson's sitting turned into a record of something more. To loosen up the atmosphere we took along to the White House a portable cassette player with a tape of Frank Sinatra's greatest hits. As OF Blue Eyes crooned out "Nancy with the laughing face," the dancing Reagans spontaneously kissed in a photographic moment that flashed their private electricity round the world.

On a sunny fall day at the end of the second term, while Bush and Dukakis slugged it out on the hustings, Vanity Fair went back to the White House. This time it was to include the Reagans in V.F.'s annual Hall of Fame, as a way of saying sayonara to the roaring eighties—a thought that might appeal as much to those who voted for President Dukakis as to those who voted for President Bush, Annie Leibovitz was the photographer, but again what took over the sitting was an inescapable sense of the Reagans' emotional bond. We saw it the moment they emerged from the flurry of security, lightly holding hands. Mrs. Reagan chose to wear a figure-hugging red cashmere evening dress by Bill Blass, and it was clear from the president's appreciative smile when he looked at her that he liked her in it—a lot. She lit up when he came closer. "Act like you like me, can't you?" he teased.

"Mr. President, Mrs. Reagan, um, wave!" said Annie.

Action.

The Reagans did it on Take One, natch.

"Who are we waving to?" asked Mrs. Reagan.

"Congress, Nancy," said the president.

Slow fade on an era. End credits.

Happy Christmas, from all at Vanity Fair.

Editor in chief