First inauguration of Ronald Reagan

The First inauguration of Ronald Reagan, held on January 20, 1981, appears in Andy Warhol’s diary as both a highly secured public ceremony and a day of sharp political impressions. Its details move from crowds and checkpoints to a sudden announcement about the American hostages, then to an encounter in the nearly emptied Capitol and Warhol’s ambivalent response to the new president’s address.

Arrival and Security

Warhol and his party set out from Ina Ginsburg’s at 10:00 a.m. Their driver, Carter, brought them as close to the Capitol as he could; the rest of the way they walked through crowds that included children, troops, Marines, and police. Reaching their seats in section E required passing through several checkpoints. Warhol complained that the seats were far back, but the distance became a vantage point for the day’s mix of ceremony and celebrity.

A black Marine marched up to two white Marines and saluted them. Warhol and his companions expected a formal assurance about the arrival of heads of state and the security arrangements. Instead, the Marines’ reported concern was finding entertainers Robert Goulet and Glen Campbell, seated in row sixty-four. The three set off to look for more stars. The incident gave the security detail a comic, distinctly public-facing aspect: even amid military order and controlled access, celebrity-spotting remained part of the occasion.

The Ceremony and the Hostage Announcement

The party had binoculars, and Warhol focused on Rosalynn. He thought she looked sad. The brief observation stands apart from the surrounding security and spectacle: rather than describe the inauguration only as a procession of officials, the diary records a particular face seen from a distant seat.

Senator Pell had obtained Ina a place on the president’s platform for the swearing-in. During the ceremony, a Marine stopped in front of each row and quietly passed along the news that the hostages had just left Tehran. Helicopters patrolled overhead, while bulletproof glass surrounded the podium. The announcement entered the ceremony row by row, carried in a low voice against the visible precautions around the platform. The diary places the news of the hostages’ departure alongside the inauguration’s security measures, without suggesting that the public ceremony had become separate from the international crisis.

Encounters in the Capitol

After the swearing-in, Warhol’s party was in the Capitol building near a staircase marked for senators only. They encountered Doria and Ron, who were then whisked away. In another corridor, Happy Rockefeller called out to Warhol and asked why he never came to see the paintings he had made of her. She wore a mink coat, and a Marine with a walkie-talkie stood beside her.

By then the building was nearly empty. Warhol noted that his party seemed to be the only people there without Marines of their own. The encounter brought together personal recognition and official protection: Happy Rockefeller addressed him through their connection to the paintings, while the nearby Marine and communications equipment kept the security setting in view. The diary’s attention shifts readily between those registers, recording a familiar greeting without losing sight of the unusual conditions surrounding it.

Political Response and Diary Record

Warhol’s response to the inaugural address changed as he considered it. Listening to it made him feel fired up and briefly inclined toward being a Republican. Once it was over, however, he looked at the faces of the Republicans around him and felt glad to be a Democrat, concluding that there was a real difference. The entry preserves a movement from the address’s immediate effect to a judgment formed by looking at its audience; it does not turn that momentary reaction into a change of political identity.

The scene survives as a dated diary entry, not as an impersonal account of the inauguration. In the years described by the diaries, Pat Hackett and Warhol had established weekday morning phone sessions in which he recounted his activities and expenses; she took notes and typed the accounts. The routine generally paused on weekends, when they would cover several days together on Monday, and travel could require notes on hotel stationery or occasional recordings. The available account does not specify which procedure produced this particular entry, but its first-person observations belong to that collaborative record-making process.

The published diary was also shaped by selection. Hackett reduced an original archive of 20,000 pages, cutting entire days or weeks as well as portions of individual entries, and removed many names to keep the narrative from becoming a social list. She also explained that she edited out personal exchanges between herself and Warhol, sometimes recasting herself in the third person. The inauguration account’s close attention to section E, binoculars, whispered news, and the Marine beside Happy Rockefeller consequently offers a personal view of a public event, preserved within an edited diary rather than a comprehensive record of the ceremony.