Books in Brief.(Review)(Brief Article)

A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan, by Michael K. Deaver (HarperCollins, 228 pp., $25)

Mike Deaver worked for Ronald Reagan for most of the period from the first gubernatorial campaign to the beginning of the second presidential term. As chief scheduler and logistics man, he probably spent more time alone with Reagan than anyone else but Mrs. Reagan. He had, as he tells us more than once, "a front-row seat." In this memoir he gives his account of events that have been recorded by many others (the various political campaigns; the Bitburg mess; and of course the assassination attempt), but he also gives some fine vignettes that are new, at least to this reader. There was the time a soldier in Vietnam wrote to ask if Gov. Reagan would phone the soldier's wife on their wedding anniversary; instead, Reagan went to their house with a dozen roses and spent an hour talking with the young woman. Or the time a local supporter in Illinois, serving as host for a speaking appearance, invited Deaver to go fishing. Reagan, who was normally untemptable when preparing for a speech, asked, "Do you think he'd mind if I came ...