Paul Laxalt: Reagan's First Friend and the Call That Ended Marcos

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Paul Laxalt was born in Reno in 1922 to immigrants from the French Pyrenees: a sheepherder father who made and lost a fortune, and a Le Cordon Bleu trained mother who ran the French Hotel in Carson City. He served as an Army medic at Leyte, became a district attorney and then a lawyer for casino figures, winning the Golden Rooster case by convincing a jury that a 15 pound gold statue was art rather than hoarded bullion. He won the lieutenant governorship in 1962, lost a 1964 Senate race to Howard Cannon by 48 votes after refusing to avoid Barry Goldwater, and won the governorship in 1966. As governor he met with J. Edgar Hoover, licensed Howard Hughes without an in person appearance and created the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency with Ronald Reagan.

He beat Harry Reid for the Senate in 1974 by 624 votes, chaired Reagan's campaigns in 1976, 1980 and 1984, and became general chairman of the Republican Party, earning the name the First Friend. He led opposition to the Panama Canal treaties with a mass mail campaign and brokered a deal with Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden over William Rehnquist's confirmation. As Reagan's envoy he pressed Ferdinand Marcos, and in February 1986 he told Marcos by phone to cut and cut cleanly. He sued the Sacramento Bee over casino skimming stories and was awarded more than $647,000 in fees. His 1988 presidential bid lasted four months, and in 2013 it was revealed that Pete Domenici was the father of his grandson Adam Laxalt. He died in 2018 at 96.

• Running mate Rex Bell died of a heart attack at a Fourth of July rally in 1962, and Laxalt still stayed in the lieutenant governor's race.
• He walked into the yard during a Nevada State Penitentiary riot, remarking that many inmates were his former clients.
• He said Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon felt like a hundred pound weight around his neck in 1974.
• The Sacramento Bee acknowledged it found no evidence of a skim at his family's Ormsby House casino.
• His Senate intern program helped launch the career of future Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval.