Free Ansel Adams by Mary Street Alinder Page B

insisted on keeping his work day preserved, so the two interviewers were invited to come for cocktails every afternoon for two weeks to talk with him as he relaxed over drinks. The published interview was excellent, communicating Ansel’s humor as well as his serious concerns. While Adams photographs did not replace the centerfold, Playboy ’s editors did run a multipage spread of Ansel’s work in black and white.
    Ansel received some criticism for the interview, or rather its venue, along the lines of “How could you?!” 11 He replied that while he knew the magazine contained much trash, Playboy offered some of the best interviews around and was read by twelve million people, who might now understand a bit about the strengths of photography and the importance of environmental activism. 12
    One morning in June 1983, I arrived at work to find Ansel quite lathered up. He reported that Michael Deaver, President Reagan’s majordomo, had called earlier to say that the president wanted to know why Ansel Adams did not like him. Reagan wanted to meet with Ansel to show him how much they had in common. I thought it must be a crank call.
    I found it bizarre that the Carter White House phone numbers on my Rolodex still worked in the Reagan administration, but they did, and I got right through to Michael Deaver. Everything Ansel had related was true. I later figured out that President Reagan must have read Ansel’s Playboy interview, a large portion of which centered on the disastrous performance of his government in the areas of the arts and the environment. 13
    Neither Ansel nor Reagan wanted to be seen in enemy territory: Carmel or the White House. It was agreed that they would meet on neutral ground. The Presidential Suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles was designated the no-man’s-land.
    Deaver was adamant that we not conduct a news conference immediately following the meeting. He was surprised when we acquiesced. I was worried about Ansel’s health and concerned that this event would sap all his available energies; the pacemaker kept his heart steady, but the heart muscle itself was weakening, and Ansel’s doctors thought it best that he not undergo the rigors of a press conference. Instead, much to the later ire of the White House, Ansel agreed to an exclusive post-meeting interview with a reporter from the president’s least favorite newspaper, the Washington Post.
    Deaver had a further demand: Ansel must not be accompanied by an environmental heavyweight. This disqualified Bill Turnage, who had hoped to accompany his old boss. Virginia, Jim, and I, deemed nonthreatening, were welcome to come along.
    We flew down to Los Angeles the night before, had a quiet dinner in our hotel, and all went to bed early. The next day, uncharacteristically, Ansel bore no gift of a photograph or book for the president. As the four of us were escorted down the hallway toward the Presidential Suite, Reagan’s photographer, Michael Evans, popped his head out of a doorway and commandeered Jim and me to look at his photographs. We couldn’t say no. I hoped he had only a few pictures; he had a whole portfolio.
    We had been briefed that the schedule allowed for only a fifteen-minute meeting. After we had been with Evans for half an hour, I began to fear we had missed it all, but at last he took us into the other room. Virginia was sitting off to one side, by herself. Ansel and the president were perched on opposite ends of a sofa, as far apart as they could get without falling on the floor. The gaping social distance between the two told me everything I needed to know about what had occurred. Ansel looked tense, though he visibly relaxed when I gave him a big smile.
    Their meeting lasted fifty minutes in all. Ansel had come prepared to discuss issues; he had even boned up. But Reagan talked nonstop for the first twenty minutes, determined to let the other know what a committed environmentalist he, Reagan, was. Ansel was both