‘Nobody knew about it’: Former Quincy policeman tells story about night in 1979 when Ronald Reagan secretly slipped into town

QUINCY — Remember the story posted on this website about the number of presidents who have visited Quincy?

Well, it appears Muddy River News missed one.

When it happened, most of Quincy did too.

Jim Fitch is a retired Quincy businessman who owned seven Subway restaurants with his wife, Carmell. They now live in Reddington Shores, Fla., near St. Petersburg and Clearwater. Before he sold sandwiches, however, Fitch was a Quincy police officer from 1975 to 1992. 

One evening in 1979, Fitch said he was called out of roll call at 11 p.m.

“I can’t even put a date on it, but I know I worked nights every third month that year,” he said. “So it had to be in February, May, August or November.”

Fitch, a patrol officer at the time, was told to head to the Holiday Inn on Gardner Expressway and meet a Secret Service agent.

“So I go down there, and there’s one guy standing outside,” he said. “I’m on the second level, and he tells me how we’ve got (Ronald) Reagan here. He says, ‘I really don’t need you, but just hang around the area of the parking lot.’”

Reagan announced he was running for president on Nov. 13, 1979, and he immediately went on a national tour that began in New York. His last stop on the trip was in Iowa, when he appeared Nov. 18 in Des Moines and then later on a Saturday night in Cedar Rapids. (Reagan re-visited Iowa again later in November, but he went from there to Mankato, Minn.)

Fitch remembers he was told Reagan stopped in Quincy to sleep before continuing south.

“I’m not sure anybody at the police department knew why I was going down there to meet with this guy,” he said. “Maybe the chief (Charles Gruber) just got a call of a sudden that night from the Secret Service agent. I went down (to the Holiday Inn), and eventually some (QPD) guys on the shift came by to check on me. I told them what was going on. (Reagan) was at something else, I think it was in Iowa, and they drove from there to Quincy to spend the night.”

Fitch said all he did most of the evening was drive his car around the parking lot and around the block. The Secret Service agent stood outside Reagan’s room with a suitcase.

“I’m assuming he had an Uzi or something like that,” Fitch said. “I just kept my eye on the guy. He stood there all night.”

Fitch asked the agent if he was part of a bigger group. “He said, ‘No, it’s just three of us (with Reagan),’” Fitch said.

He also said he offered to go find something for the agent to eat or drink.

“He said, ‘I can’t take anything from you,’” Fitch said. “He explains that they’re worried that somebody might put something in it, so they just don’t take anything from anybody.”

At about 7 a.m., Fitch said a group suddenly came out of the Holiday Inn at the same time and piled into a car to leave.

“I went over there, maybe to see (Reagan) or shake his hand,” Fitch said. “All he did was wave at me and then got into the car. He barely acknowledged that I was there. They were in a hurry.”

Reagan didn’t meet a newspaper reporter, speak to a radio or television reporter or shake hands with a group of supporters during his brief stay. Instead, he was in Quincy just long enough to sleep.

“Nobody knew about it. To be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed. I thought he was just some old actor,” Fitch said with a laugh.

Reagan went on to defeat Jimmy Carter in 1980 to earn the presidency. He received the highest number of electoral votes ever won by a non-incumbent presidential candidate.

It wasn’t Reagan’s first visit to Quincy. 

Reagan had announced in November 1975 that he was going to run in the Republican primary against Gerald Ford, who had assumed the presidency without an election following the resignation of Richard Nixon. Reagan flew into Quincy on the morning of Feb. 23, 1976, for a three-day visit to his native state. After breakfast at the Casino Starlight Terrace in Quincy, his motorcade traveled to Macomb for a noon rally at Western Illinois University. Reagan eventually lost the primary in August.

Reagan also made three appearances in Canton, Mo., to visit Culver-Stockton College. He was the presentation speaker for the college’s fourth annual Goodwill Dinner on May 5, 1958, speaking on “The Business Side of Show Business.” 

He was presented with the college’s first Presidential Fellow honor on Feb. 24, 1977, when his speech was part of the C.A. Moorman Memorial Lecture Series. At the time, Reagan had been a two-term governor of California.

Reagan was attending Eureka College and played right guard on the 1931 football team that came to Canton and defeated Culver-Stockton 42-14.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The name of the chief of the Quincy Police Department at the time of Reagan’s visit was incorrect in a previous version.