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Nancy Reagan
and the
Ark of the Covenant
38.
The end of the movie really is the best part. If you’re only gonna see one thing, make it the ending. Who doesn’t want to watch God blow up some Nazis?
The Nazis take the Ark of the Covenant to a secret island in the Mediterranean so they can perform an ancient ritual to test the thing before bringing it to Germany. Indiana Jones sneaks onto the island and tries to save Marion, but he gets captured instead. The Nazis tie Jones and Marion to some pole in the distance where they will have to watch the whole ceremony.
For the life of me, I can’t understand why they wouldn’t just shoot him. It just doesn’t make sense why bad guys in movies do this sort of thing. I mean, not only are you going to leave Indiana Jones alive, you’re going to tie him up fifty feet away from the ark he keeps trying to steal? When murder is so easily available to you? You’re on a remote island. You couldn’t find a more convenient place to kill someone!
For the ritual, the Nazis place the ark on an altar where the French Archeologist stands over it in some bulky, religious outfit while two soldiers take the lid off the thing. Almost immediately, the head Nazi jumps over to stick his hand in it, but all he finds inside is sand. The French Archeologist looks confused, but the gay little Nazi from before starts cackling. This is when I knew something bad was going to happen. If I learned anything in church growing up, it’s that you’re not supposed to laugh around God.
Suddenly, BOOM! All of the electrical equipment shorts out. The Nazis look around, confused. Smoke starts to pour out of the ark. Then beams of light.
Indiana Jones turns to Marion and tells her not to look. I don’t remember this part of the Bible, but I guess that God hates being looked at almost as much as He hates laughing.
The beams of light fly around, twisting in the air. Suddenly, the beams of light get angry. The music changes to something ominous, which I guess the Nazis must have heard because they start screaming and looking terrified. Before you know it, the French Archeologist’s head catches fire and his fire head starts shooting bolts of lightning into all the Nazis standing in front of him.
Honestly, I love lightning. If I had to pick a super power, it would be shooting lighting bolts. It’s like fire, but skinny and mysterious. What more could a girl want?
While the lightning is burning through all the uniformed officers standing in front of old Frenchy Fire Head, the two top Nazis standing behind him look at the beams of light–which you’re not supposed to do–and then their faces melt off.
Flames wipe away all the Nazis and then all the fire gets sucked back into the ark. Bing bang boom, Nazi problem solved.
Now, I know what you might be thinking. “Oh no! Does that mean that Indiana and Marion are tied to a poll on a deserted island with no one there to save them?”
Don’t worry. The fire untied them. With its little fiery God thumbs.
Bit of a deus ex machina if you ask me.
39.
When the movie came out later that year, Ronnie arranged for a private showing in the East Wing. I was a little surprised, but I am not convinced that he even knows who Joan Didion is. I think to him, Harrison Ford is just another Hollywood liberal. Once you take Ford out of the picture, it makes perfect sense Ronnie would want to see it. He loves anything set in the past. Almost as much as he loves punching. The movie is almost made for him.
That night, as we were getting ready for bed, he asked me about the end of the movie. As the credits roll, we watch the government box up the ark and stow it away in a giant warehouse filled with thousands of similar, large wooden crates. Sheepishly, he said, “You know, thinking about that ark down there–and thinking about nobody even ever knowing it’s there–I think it’s going to keep me awake tonight. Sometimes I really wonder what secrets this country has that I don’t even know about.”
I couldn’t believe that he’d say something so stupid.
Now, I know that people like to call my husband dumb. A lot of the time, part of the reason they are saying that is because he used to be an actor. They say he’s just playing the role of President. As if that would be so easy in the first place! Ronnie isn’t just your standard Hollywood idiot. He built his way out of that town. Say what you will about him, but he figured out how to turn a career as a mediocre matinee star into a job as the leader of the free world. Hollywood is full of people who are better actors than my husband, but he is the only one who will ever be The President.
However, I would agree that part of his success as president is because he used to be an actor. You’d be shocked just how much of the job is reading prepared statements. The speeches, though, aren’t the impressive part. Give them an excited enough crowd and I really think almost anyone could pull that off. The impressive part is when you have to show you believe something, even when you don’t. As his wife of thirty years, even still, sometimes I can’t tell what he really believes and what he’s just willing to say to get what he wants.
To be clear, though, I do think that what he said about the ark is pretty stupid. That ark isn’t gone forever. Hell, I don’t think anyone putting the ark in that windowless warehouse thinks that it is gone forever. That’s not why you hide something.
Think about how many people know about the ark. How many people were working at that dig site in Egypt? Someone had to come pick up Indiana and Marion after God melted the Nazis that were holding them captive. How many people do you think were on that boat? And now that Indiana Jones is back at his day job, do you think that he is going to be hush hush about the great ark he found that he keeps insisting should be in “a museum?” As if the safest place for an all powerful religious relic is in some stuffy building filled with bored kids on poorly supervised field trips!
In the world of Indiana Jones, I think that they are less than five years away from fringe candidates running for congress promising to free the Ark of the Covenant. Politically minded preachers will accuse secret communists in America’s government of hiding the ark because the pinkos are scared that it will prove God exists.
The goal isn’t to keep people from talking. It is to make the people who are talking sound crazy.
I remember, Ronnie’s first week as president, he learned about a lot of…unexplained phenomena that people in the government are keeping an eye on. Please don’t tell anyone this, but it freaked him out a little bit. He tried to tell me some of what he had seen, describing blurry images of strange objects and recounting eyewitness testimony of things that don’t make sense. He kept saying, I think more to himself than to me, that this doesn’t necessarily mean that something crazy is happening. Sometimes it just means that there’s a few pieces of information that we’re missing. As he kept trying to make sense of the things he’d seen, I kept thinking, “Boy, Ronnie sure sounds off his rocker right now.”
I don’t even understand why the government in this movie would want to hide the Ark of the Covenant. Are they worried that too many Americans are going to start believing in God? Perhaps it’s the same reason why people think that the government is hiding aliens from them. “Oh, if everyone learns that there are aliens, they’ll freak out and then the government can’t control us.” As if people being scared and uncertain ever made it harder to control them. I mean, if there really are aliens and the government really is hiding them, then what do I even have to be worried about? It sounds like things are under control. If anything, I’d be more likely to believe that the government fabricated aliens to scare people.
In that way, aliens are kind of like communists. I’m not scared of communists. I’m scared of what we’re going to do without them. God help us, if the Soviet Union ever falls, we’re going to need a fresh excuse the next time we need to arrest a bunch of student protestors or shut down the next Black Panther free breakfast program.
You look at the Church Committee, that’s the sort of thing you cover up. COINTELPRO. MKULTRA. Project SHAMROCK. Project RESISTANCE. Operation CHAOS. You don’t cover up that aliens exist. You cover up the things you did that you don’t want people talking about.
Even then, it’s not like nobody knows. People knew they were being followed. They knew that there were undercover agents at every meeting they went to. Good. The less they trust each other, the better. The point isn’t to hide the fact it’s happening. It’s to remind the people it’s happening to that there is nothing that they can do about it. Because even now, after the redacted evidence has been declassified–after we know for certain that intelligence folks were opening our mail and tracking our calls, now that we know about the human experiments, the planned assassinations, blackmailing Martin Luther King Jr. and telling him to kill himself–when someone tries to talk to you about it, don’t they sound a little crazy?
40.
I asked Ronnie, “Do you think that ark is really gone forever? So many people already know about it. It seems impossible to hide now.”
I watched him think for a minute before he responded, “I don’t know. Maybe the ark’s not gone forever. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other boxes down there.”
He had a point, but I wasn’t sure I agreed. “I think that anything important enough to box up in that basement has touched at least a hundred people. And those people have touched a hundred more. That kind of stuff, it just doesn’t go away.”
His eyes softened. I could tell he was nervous. He whispered, “What about that thing you took care of for Roy in California. Do you think that’s gone for good?”
I was shocked. “I didn’t know you knew about that.”
“You think you can keep secrets from me, Nancy?”
“I mean, I saw the box burn.” I thought it better not to mention the river of lava.
He looked down, chastened. “But the pay-offs. Do you think it’s going to come back to bite me?”
“I don’t think it’s gone for good,” I responded. “But I don’t think it is ever, ever going to be a problem.”
We both smiled. “You know,” he started, “I really appreciate you taking care of that. I know I wouldn’t be here without you.”
But by the tone in his voice and the look in his eye, I knew that it was just something he was willing to say.
The end of the movie really is the best part. If you’re only gonna see one thing, make it the ending. Who doesn’t want to watch God blow up some Nazis?
The Nazis take the Ark of the Covenant to a secret island in the Mediterranean so they can perform an ancient ritual to test the thing before bringing it to Germany. Indiana Jones sneaks onto the island and tries to save Marion, but he gets captured instead. The Nazis tie Jones and Marion to some pole in the distance where they will have to watch the whole ceremony.
For the life of me, I can’t understand why they wouldn’t just shoot him. It just doesn’t make sense why bad guys in movies do this sort of thing. I mean, not only are you going to leave Indiana Jones alive, you’re going to tie him up fifty feet away from the ark he keeps trying to steal? When murder is so easily available to you? You’re on a remote island. You couldn’t find a more convenient place to kill someone!
For the ritual, the Nazis place the ark on an altar where the French Archeologist stands over it in some bulky, religious outfit while two soldiers take the lid off the thing. Almost immediately, the head Nazi jumps over to stick his hand in it, but all he finds inside is sand. The French Archeologist looks confused, but the gay little Nazi from before starts cackling. This is when I knew something bad was going to happen. If I learned anything in church growing up, it’s that you’re not supposed to laugh around God.
Suddenly, BOOM! All of the electrical equipment shorts out. The Nazis look around, confused. Smoke starts to pour out of the ark. Then beams of light.
Indiana Jones turns to Marion and tells her not to look. I don’t remember this part of the Bible, but I guess that God hates being looked at almost as much as He hates laughing.
The beams of light fly around, twisting in the air. Suddenly, the beams of light get angry. The music changes to something ominous, which I guess the Nazis must have heard because they start screaming and looking terrified. Before you know it, the French Archeologist’s head catches fire and his fire head starts shooting bolts of lightning into all the Nazis standing in front of him.
Honestly, I love lightning. If I had to pick a super power, it would be shooting lighting bolts. It’s like fire, but skinny and mysterious. What more could a girl want?
While the lightning is burning through all the uniformed officers standing in front of old Frenchy Fire Head, the two top Nazis standing behind him look at the beams of light–which you’re not supposed to do–and then their faces melt off.
Flames wipe away all the Nazis and then all the fire gets sucked back into the ark. Bing bang boom, Nazi problem solved.
Now, I know what you might be thinking. “Oh no! Does that mean that Indiana and Marion are tied to a poll on a deserted island with no one there to save them?”
Don’t worry. The fire untied them. With its little fiery God thumbs.
Bit of a deus ex machina if you ask me.
39.
When the movie came out later that year, Ronnie arranged for a private showing in the East Wing. I was a little surprised, but I am not convinced that he even knows who Joan Didion is. I think to him, Harrison Ford is just another Hollywood liberal. Once you take Ford out of the picture, it makes perfect sense Ronnie would want to see it. He loves anything set in the past. Almost as much as he loves punching. The movie is almost made for him.
That night, as we were getting ready for bed, he asked me about the end of the movie. As the credits roll, we watch the government box up the ark and stow it away in a giant warehouse filled with thousands of similar, large wooden crates. Sheepishly, he said, “You know, thinking about that ark down there–and thinking about nobody even ever knowing it’s there–I think it’s going to keep me awake tonight. Sometimes I really wonder what secrets this country has that I don’t even know about.”
I couldn’t believe that he’d say something so stupid.
Now, I know that people like to call my husband dumb. A lot of the time, part of the reason they are saying that is because he used to be an actor. They say he’s just playing the role of President. As if that would be so easy in the first place! Ronnie isn’t just your standard Hollywood idiot. He built his way out of that town. Say what you will about him, but he figured out how to turn a career as a mediocre matinee star into a job as the leader of the free world. Hollywood is full of people who are better actors than my husband, but he is the only one who will ever be The President.
However, I would agree that part of his success as president is because he used to be an actor. You’d be shocked just how much of the job is reading prepared statements. The speeches, though, aren’t the impressive part. Give them an excited enough crowd and I really think almost anyone could pull that off. The impressive part is when you have to show you believe something, even when you don’t. As his wife of thirty years, even still, sometimes I can’t tell what he really believes and what he’s just willing to say to get what he wants.
To be clear, though, I do think that what he said about the ark is pretty stupid. That ark isn’t gone forever. Hell, I don’t think anyone putting the ark in that windowless warehouse thinks that it is gone forever. That’s not why you hide something.
Think about how many people know about the ark. How many people were working at that dig site in Egypt? Someone had to come pick up Indiana and Marion after God melted the Nazis that were holding them captive. How many people do you think were on that boat? And now that Indiana Jones is back at his day job, do you think that he is going to be hush hush about the great ark he found that he keeps insisting should be in “a museum?” As if the safest place for an all powerful religious relic is in some stuffy building filled with bored kids on poorly supervised field trips!
In the world of Indiana Jones, I think that they are less than five years away from fringe candidates running for congress promising to free the Ark of the Covenant. Politically minded preachers will accuse secret communists in America’s government of hiding the ark because the pinkos are scared that it will prove God exists.
The goal isn’t to keep people from talking. It is to make the people who are talking sound crazy.
I remember, Ronnie’s first week as president, he learned about a lot of…unexplained phenomena that people in the government are keeping an eye on. Please don’t tell anyone this, but it freaked him out a little bit. He tried to tell me some of what he had seen, describing blurry images of strange objects and recounting eyewitness testimony of things that don’t make sense. He kept saying, I think more to himself than to me, that this doesn’t necessarily mean that something crazy is happening. Sometimes it just means that there’s a few pieces of information that we’re missing. As he kept trying to make sense of the things he’d seen, I kept thinking, “Boy, Ronnie sure sounds off his rocker right now.”
I don’t even understand why the government in this movie would want to hide the Ark of the Covenant. Are they worried that too many Americans are going to start believing in God? Perhaps it’s the same reason why people think that the government is hiding aliens from them. “Oh, if everyone learns that there are aliens, they’ll freak out and then the government can’t control us.” As if people being scared and uncertain ever made it harder to control them. I mean, if there really are aliens and the government really is hiding them, then what do I even have to be worried about? It sounds like things are under control. If anything, I’d be more likely to believe that the government fabricated aliens to scare people.
In that way, aliens are kind of like communists. I’m not scared of communists. I’m scared of what we’re going to do without them. God help us, if the Soviet Union ever falls, we’re going to need a fresh excuse the next time we need to arrest a bunch of student protestors or shut down the next Black Panther free breakfast program.
You look at the Church Committee, that’s the sort of thing you cover up. COINTELPRO. MKULTRA. Project SHAMROCK. Project RESISTANCE. Operation CHAOS. You don’t cover up that aliens exist. You cover up the things you did that you don’t want people talking about.
Even then, it’s not like nobody knows. People knew they were being followed. They knew that there were undercover agents at every meeting they went to. Good. The less they trust each other, the better. The point isn’t to hide the fact it’s happening. It’s to remind the people it’s happening to that there is nothing that they can do about it. Because even now, after the redacted evidence has been declassified–after we know for certain that intelligence folks were opening our mail and tracking our calls, now that we know about the human experiments, the planned assassinations, blackmailing Martin Luther King Jr. and telling him to kill himself–when someone tries to talk to you about it, don’t they sound a little crazy?
40.
I asked Ronnie, “Do you think that ark is really gone forever? So many people already know about it. It seems impossible to hide now.”
I watched him think for a minute before he responded, “I don’t know. Maybe the ark’s not gone forever. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other boxes down there.”
He had a point, but I wasn’t sure I agreed. “I think that anything important enough to box up in that basement has touched at least a hundred people. And those people have touched a hundred more. That kind of stuff, it just doesn’t go away.”
His eyes softened. I could tell he was nervous. He whispered, “What about that thing you took care of for Roy in California. Do you think that’s gone for good?”
I was shocked. “I didn’t know you knew about that.”
“You think you can keep secrets from me, Nancy?”
“I mean, I saw the box burn.” I thought it better not to mention the river of lava.
He looked down, chastened. “But the pay-offs. Do you think it’s going to come back to bite me?”
“I don’t think it’s gone for good,” I responded. “But I don’t think it is ever, ever going to be a problem.”
We both smiled. “You know,” he started, “I really appreciate you taking care of that. I know I wouldn’t be here without you.”
But by the tone in his voice and the look in his eye, I knew that it was just something he was willing to say.
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