EXCLUSIVE: Bossy Nancy Reagan objected when the President kibitzed with his Secret Service detail, made her kids check with her before seeing their father and refused to let 'Ronnie' eat his fave mac 'n' cheese

Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, is the author of 20 non-fiction books, including 'The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents.'

Unlike her easy-going husband President Reagan, Secret Service agents found Nancy Reagan -code-named Rainbow - often aloof and demanding.

Nancy was 'very cold,' a Secret Service agent who was assigned to her detail says. 'She had her circle of four friends in Los Angeles, and that was it. 

'Nothing changed when she was with her kids. She made it clear to her kids that if they wanted to see their father, they had to check with her first. It was a standing rule. Not that they could not see him. "I will let you know if it is advisable and when you can see him."She was something else.'

If Nancy Reagan's wealthy California friends reported getting their copies of Vogue and Mademoiselle before she did, she took it out on the White House staff. For that reason, Nelson C. Pierce Jr., an assistant usher in the White House, always dreaded bringing Nancy her mail.

Bossy: Ronald Reagan was president but Nancy Reagan called the shots, according the former Secret Service agents. 'Mrs. Reagan was a precise and demanding woman,' recalls John F. W. Rogers, the Reagan aide in the administration of the White House

Ticket to ride:  Nancy never really liked the ranch. She would go up there because the president liked it. Other than the ride, she used to stay in the house almost all the time, and a good portion of the time she'd be talking to her friends down in L.A.

'She would get mad at me,' Pierce told me for my book 'The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Secret Lives of the Presidents.'

'If her subscription was late or one of her friends in California had gotten the magazine and she hadn't, she would ask why she hadn't gotten hers,' Pierce remembers. 

White House ushers would then be dispatched to search for the missing magazine at Washington newsstands, which invariably had not received their copies, either.

One afternoon Pierce brought Nancy her mail in the first family's west sitting room on the second floor of the White House. Nancy's dog Rex, a King Charles spaniel that was a Christmas gift from her husband, was lying at her feet.

Pierce was old friends with Rex, or so he thought. During the day, the usher's office—just inside the front entrance on the first floor of the mansion—is a favorite snoozing area for White House pets. But this time, for some reason, Rex was not at all cheerful about seeing Pierce. 

As Pierce turned to leave, Rex bit his ankle and held on. Pierce pointed his finger at the dog, a gesture to tell Nancy's pet to let go. But Nancy turned on Pierce.

'Don't you ever point a finger at my dog,' she said.

Throughout his political life, Nancy stage-managed her husband.

Her boo: When Nancy's King Charles spaniel bit a White House usher, she yelled at the usher for pointing at the dog

'Did I ever give Ronnie advice? You bet I did,' Nancy wrote in 'My Turn: The Memoirs of Nancy Reagan.' 

'I'm the one who knows him best, and I was the only person in the White House who had absolutely no agenda of her own—except helping him,' she said.

'Mrs. Reagan was a precise and demanding woman,' recalls John F. W. Rogers, the Reagan aide over administration of the White House. 'Her sole interest was the advancement of her husband's agenda.'

In fact, most of Nancy's advice was sound. As she explained it, 'As much as I love Ronnie, I'll admit he does have at least one fault: He can be naive about the people around him. Ronnie only tends to think well of people. While that's a fine quality in a friend, it can get you into trouble in politics.'

Like Nancy, the Reagans' daughter Patti Davis was difficult. When agents were with her in New York, she would attempt to ditch them by jumping out of the Secret Service car while it was stopped in traffic. She viewed her detail as an annoyance.

'At least with the Nixon kids, they would all get together, but there was not a lot of affection shown with the Reagan kids,' a former agent on the Nixon and Reagan details says. 

'With the Reagan kids, each had his or her own agenda, and then they didn't want anything to do with the other one. They never got together as a family. Ever.'

Former agent Lloyd Bulman got to know Reagan's first wife, actress Jane Wyman, while protecting Maureen Reagan, the president's daughter with Wyman.

Actress Jane Wyman, Reagan's ex-wife and mom to Maureen (above with her mother) was a friend to the agents protecting her daughter. 'She would grab me by the shoulder and pull me inside and say, 'Come in and have some lemonade or some food. You're just like part of the family,' one agent recalls

'Jane Wyman was really nice,' Bulman says. 'I'd go up to her penthouse suite with Maureen, and Maureen would go inside the penthouse, and pretty soon I'd be standing by the door, and a hand would come around the corner, and it was Jane Wyman,' Bulman says. 

'She would grab me by the shoulder and pull me inside and say, 'Come in and have some lemonade or some food. You're just like part of the family.'

In contrast, Nancy Reagan was so controlling that she objected when her husband kibitzed with Secret Service agents.

'Reagan was such a down-to-earth individual, easy to talk to,' an agent says. 'He was the great communicator. He wanted to be on friendly terms. He accepted people for what they were. 

'His wife was just the opposite. If she saw that he was having a conversation with the agents, and it looked like they were good ol' boys, and he was laughing, she would call him away. She called the shots.'

On the day Reagan left office, he and Nancy flew to Los Angeles on Air Force One. Bleachers had been set up near a hangar, and a wildly cheering crowd welcomed him as the University of Southern California band played.

'As he was standing there, one of the USC guys took his Trojan helmet off,' a Secret Service agent says. 'He said, 'Mr. President!' and threw his helmet to him. He saw it and caught it and put it on. The crowd went wild.'

But Nancy Reagan leaned over to him and said, 'Take that helmet off right now. You look like a fool.'

'You saw a mood change,' the agent says. 'And he took it off. That went on all the time.'

While Reagan and Nancy had a loving relationship, like any married couple they had occasional fights.

Nancy was 'very cold,' a Secret Service agent who was assigned to her detail says. 'She had her circle of four friends in Los Angeles, and that was it'

'They were very affectionate and would kiss,' Air Force One chief steward Charles Palmer says of the Reagans. But they also got mad at each other over what they should eat and other small issues. Palmer says Nancy could only push the president so far.

'We were going into Alaska. She had put on everything she could put on,' Palmer says. 'She turned around and said, 'Where are your gloves?' He said, 'I'm not wearing my gloves.' She said, 'Oh, yes, you are.' He said he was not.'

Reagan finally took the gloves, but he said he could not shake hands while he was wearing them. He said he would not put them on, and he didn't, Palmer says.

When they were at the ranch, the Reagans would ride horseback together every day after lunch. 

Besides having the military aide with the nuclear football with him on horseback, Reagan had the White House doctor follow him with Secret Service agents in a Humvee, former agent Patrick Sullivan says.

Despite his hard-riding cowboy roles in westerns, Reagan rode English, in breeches and boots. He usually rode El Alamein, a gray Anglo-Arab that former president José López Portillo of Mexico had given him.

'He would go up to the barn just outside the house, he would saddle up the horses, get them all ready, then he had one of those triangle bells,' former agent Dennis Chomicki says. 

'He would always bang on that iron triangle, and that was Nancy Reagan's sign that the horses are ready, come on out, let's go.'

One afternoon, Reagan was banging away on the bell, but Nancy did not appear. Finally, Reagan went in the house to get her. He came out with her, looking distressed. 

Then a technician from the White House Communications Agency told Chomicki that he had detected a problem with the ranch's phone system. A telephone set must be off the hook, he said, and the technician wanted to check on it. 

Chomicki allowed him to enter the Reagan home, and he soon came out holding a phone that had been smashed to pieces.

For all the spin from the Carter White House about not drinking, it was the Reagans who drank the least. During Reagan's years in office, on Air Force One, 'I may have served the Reagans four drinks, maybe, with the exception of a glass of wine,' one agent says.

President Ronald Reagan and Mrs. Reagan pose in December 1981 with from left,  Doria and her husband, their son Ron, and daughter Patti 

'She was on the phone,' Chomicki says. 'That's why she didn't come up to the barn.'

Nancy never really liked the ranch. She would go up there because the president liked it. Other than the ride, she used to stay in the house almost all the time, and a good portion of the time she'd be talking to her friends down in L.A. 

For the president, Chomicki says, 'the highlight of his day was to go riding with Nancy. And when she didn't come out because she was talking on the phone, he threw the phone on the floor.'

Nancy Reagan tried to restrict her husband's diet to healthy foods, but whenever she was not there, he reverted to his favorites.

'She was protective about what he ate,' Air Force One steward Palmer remembers. 'When she was not there, he ate differently. 

'One of his favorite foods was macaroni and cheese. That was a no-no for her. If it was on the menu, she said, "You're not eating that."'

While most recent presidents liked their steak medium rare, Reagan liked his well done. He also liked hamburger soup - made with ground beef, tomatoes, and carrots - roast beef hash, beef and kidney pie, and osso buco. 

'No one looked out for his welfare more or was more concerned about him as a human being,' says James F. Kuhn, Reagan's administrative assistant during his second term

Nancy Reagan liked paella à la Valenciana, salmon mousse, and chicken pot pie. For dessert, the Reagans both liked apple brown betty, prune whip, fruit with Cointreau, and plum pudding.

For all the spin from the Carter White House about not drinking, it was the Reagans who drank the least. During Reagan's years in office, on Air Force One, 'I may have served the Reagans four drinks, maybe, with the exception of a glass of wine,' Palmer says.

'Nancy Reagan was very protective of that guy,' says Jimmy R. Bull, the chief communicator on Air Force One. 

'The president would need forty hours a day to do all the things people wanted him to do. You can run him into the ground in a hurry, mentally and physically.'

'No one looked out for his welfare more or was more concerned about him as a human being,' says James F. Kuhn, Reagan's administrative assistant during his second term. 'Everyone said she was demanding. 

'I remember her saying some things to me about things that should be done. But she never asked for anything for herself. It was always for her "roommate", as she called him.'