In his new book, Ron Reagan says he saw early signs of Alzheimer’s disease in his father, Ronald Reagan, while the late president was still in the White House. When he said as much on ABC‘s 20/20 last Friday (1/14/11), he infuriated many on the right, including his older brother Michael Reagan.
Over the weekend, the older Reagan son took to Twitter, writing over the course of several messages, “My brother seems to want [to] sell out his father to sell books…. My father did not suffer from Alzheimer’s in the ’80s…. Ron, my brother, was an embarrassment to my father when he was alive and today he became an embarrassment to his mother.”
Such angry denials in the supposed defense of his father’s honor (it’s apparently shameful to have Alzheimer’s) garnered Michael Reagan much media attention, including an appearance on Fox‘s Hannity (1/17/11) where he denounced his brother, claiming “there’s absolutely no evidence” that his father’s Alzheimer’s began while he was still president.
On CBS‘s Early Show (1/17/11), Michael Reagan repeated his denials. But what was most noteworthy about the CBS interview wasn’t what Michael Reagan said, but what CBS journalist Erica Hill did not say.
In 1986, CBS‘s outgoing White House correspondent Leslie Stahl went to the White House to say goodbye to Reagan before moving on to another beat. She failed to report her dramatic observations at the time, a notable omission in itself, but recounted them in a 1999 book. As FAIR founder Jeff Cohen wrote about Stahl’s belated findings at the time:
In her new book Reporting Live, former CBS White House correspondent Lesley Stahl writes that she and other reporters suspected that Reagan was “sinking into senility” years before he left office. She writes that White House aides “covered up his condition”—and journalists chose not to pursue it.
Stahl describes a particularly unsettling encounter with Reagan in the summer of 1986: her “final meeting” with the president, typically a chance to ask a few parting questions for a “going-away story.” But White House press secretary Larry Speakes made her promise not to ask anything.
Although she’d covered Reagan for years, the glazed-eyed and fogged-up president “didn’t seem to know who I was,” writes Stahl. For several moments as she talked to him in the Oval Office, a vacant Reagan barely seemed to realize anyone else was in the room. Meanwhile, Speakes was literally shouting instructions to the president, reminding him to give Stahl White House souvenirs.
Panicking at the thought of having to report on that night’s news that “the president of the United States is a doddering space cadet,” Stahl was relieved that Reagan soon reemerged into alertness, recognized her and chatted coherently with her husband, a screenwriter. “I had come that close to reporting that Reagan was senile.”
Stahl wasn’t the only reporter to hold back. Nor were her bosses at CBS the only ones to pressure journalists to soften their coverage of Reagan, both of his policies and his person.
So CBS News failed to mention Stahl’s dramatic story in 1986—and failed to mention it again in 2011.
UPDATE: Mother Jones‘ David Corn talks to Lesley Stahl about why she didn’t report on Reagan’s mental condition at the time.
Reagan’s White House doctors denied they’d ever seen any evidence of the disease while Reagan was in office, but there were countless examples of the kind of bizarre behavior Stahl recorded, going back to at least 1984. Among others, Sam Donaldson recorded example after example of this in his book “Hold On, Mr. President,” where he tends to make light of it (the book being written in the ’80s, well before the diagnosis). Donaldson wrote that Reagan once came out of a meeting with the congressional leadership to talk to the press about some compromise they’d just worked out, and couldn’t remember a single detail of the agreement he’d just concluded minutes earlier–a total blank. To explain it, he introduced “Congressman Michelle” to the press. There was no “Congressman Michelle,” but Rep. Bob Michel was there, and helpfully stepped up to outline the deal. Reagan’s use of note-cards from which he read pre-written answers at press conferences was a particularly hideous sign, but in the years after he left office, it emerged that he also used these cards, prepared by his advisers, when on the phone, and even in meetings with foreign dignitaries. Right in front of the foreign dignitaries.
There is much to support Ron’s speculation about his father. I’m going through a particularly hideous personal crisis at the moment and can’t give proper attention to any of these things, but they’re out there.
So the debilitated Reagan stated he was going to both cut taxes and eliminate the Federal budget deficit by doing so.
That seemed to be and later proved to be deluded “thinking”, to use the word loosely.
All that remains to be determined is whether the reporters believed this magical thinking or dutifully pretended to believe it.
Anyone could see that the President was in a fog , beginnings of alzheimers, I watched his loving wife Nancy trying to help him but it was too obvious for people with any intelligence not to see it. Ron, his son, is telling what he thought and he is right all the way.
Yes, I stuck to mentioning some reported incidents in the things I was writing above, but it was painfully obvious something was very wrong with his mind throughout a lot of his administration, and everyone who lived through it and paid attention to public policy matters knew it, though the press largely refused to make any issue of it. One of Phil Hartman’s very funny moments on SNL happened around 1986 or ’87 when he was spoofing Reagan, and the entire joke of the skit was that Reagan was competent, in charge, and forcefully directing everything.
I’m surprised nobody brought up Iran-Contra. Didn’t Reagan claim he had no memory of approving tho the documents said otherwise?
Once I thought “Ronnie the worse president ever- but alas Have I been proven wrong!”
The year 1986 doesn’t make sense. Why would Reagan be saying goodbye in the summer of 1986. Is it supposed to be summer of 1988?
@Mo Chen: Stahl was leaving the White House beat in 1986.
Possible correction: In the article where it says “When he said as much on ABC’s 20/20 last Friday (1/14/10), he infuriated many on the right, including his older brother Michael Reagan.” I believe that it should read “(1/14/11)”. I know it seems incredible, but it’s now 2011.
Toward Reagan’s first term in office, I was walking into the office where I worked and was greeted by a colleague, “Good morning, Leo. How are you?”
“I’m fine.” I answered, “How are you?”
My colleague said, “Not so good, my father has Alzheimer’s.”
“Well,” I said, “maybe he should run for the presidency — Ronald Reagan made it.”
Leo Toribio
Pittsburgh, PA
@Miles: Thanks for catching that!
Well…it seems that Mr. Reagan’s adopted son is stating that he knows more about what was going on in the White House of the Reagan administration than the natural son and namesake states that he knows.
If what the younger natural sibling says is correct (based on FAIR reporting herein), then some massively important decisions were made that have had everlastingly important impacts on the world at large.
For example, a domestic policy decision that now has the United States $15 trillion in debt (and engaged in $1+ trillion annual budget deficits) is that decision which resulted in the U.S. now owing hundreds of $billions to China and elsewhere—China’s President Hu having recently visited the White House and in our opinion not been seriously engaged by President Obama because of said debt. The U.S. is now dependent upon potential enemies in order to pay its recurring annual bills. It’s bad enough when a national economy as pivotal to world stability as that of the U.S. is dependent upon its friends…but enemies? Well, the potential impact of that is absolutely staggering to even our collective imaginations.
What happened here? Was it the Reagan federal income tax policy decision that took effect in first 1982 (top rate of 70% down to 50%) and then in 1986 (50% down to an unsustainable 28%)? We say yes…it was that policy decision that is in fact what happened here.
Said (by all reports likely senility-induced) economic tax policy decision is that which a democrat/republican-controlled congress (O’Neill-D/Rostenkowski-D/Dole-R) foolishly went along with as late as 1986. Said policy is the one wherein the historical average top marginal rate of 70% was cut to the bone (down to 28%) effective in 1988 (1986 legislation)—with total disregard for the fact that it had traditionally been privileged class taxpayers who had paid America’s bills since World War I (actually, since the republican-inspired federal income tax went into effect retroactive to March of 1913, the republican-originated/passed 16th constitutional amendment of 1909-1913 being implemented by a democrat president and democrat-controlled congress in October of 1913).
Although Vice President (and later President George H.W. Bush) knew precisely how “voodoo-like” such an economic tax policy was (i.e., Reaganomics, even at the time)—it seems that the former’s son, President George W. Bush, and a republican-controlled congress went on to emulate said “voodoo-like” 20th Century Reaganomics with their own 21st Century republican brand of “voodooistic” tax policy, i.e., Bushonomics, in 2003 (2001 legislation). That was when the top marginal federal income tax rate was cut one final instance in modern times to the present 35%. And 35% is where the top rate will now apparently remain until December 31, 2012, after a new president is elected or after President Obama is reelected. All the while, of course, the United States sinks yet another half a $trillion into debt owing to privileged-class avoidance of its patriotic duty during wartime. Yes, the middle class needs all of the “surplus ‘investment’ capital” it can garner to just barely keep the consumer-driven U.S. economy afloat. It’s getting to the point that we wonder if the republicans even realize what is going on. Is it senility at work yet again, e.g., the current congress’s Mr. Speaker and Mr. Senate Minority Leader?
Perhaps just as seriously important, is this FAIR-reiterated business of one’s being the victim of serious senility apparently even being kept quiet by Big Government and Big Media at the behest of Big Business and Big Politics…Big Legal also playing its part in camouflaging what was going on at the time. Worse still—is using an elderly president who is sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office as the aforementioned camouflage.
Said self-serving “users” then all the while wielding presidential political, economic & military power during the so called “enlightened” years between 1981 and 1989. It reminds us of the president who signed the Revenue Act of 1913 during his first year in office. President Woodrow Wilson later became so debilitated during his second term, that his wife and aides wielded said presidential power during their own version of such a Reagan-like, disability-driven cover-up.
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In an authorized biography of Reagan, I remember the author saying that reagan went through an entire meeting with Gorbachev only joking around. He wasted the entire meeting that day. After the meeting, he was urged that they would really have to discuss substantive things the following day. Is that the action of a clear-headed presidentâ┚¬”Âno matter how intellectually challenged? I think not.
Read Garry Wills’ “Reagan’s America” for the best insights into this strange fellow. Wills’ book remains the best account of Reagan’s political life; his accounting of Reagan’s time in Hollywood is truly insightful. The note cards? Reagan began using them very early on; there was actually a “keeper of the cards” who made sure the future President had them on hand–if he didn’t, all was lost. I most certainly trust Ron Reagan’s judgement here; Michael Reagan is a low and contemptible person, a known liar and violent-minded asshole who doesn’t have the sense that God gave a handful of gravel. Hence, he makes good money and is a trusted person on the Right.
All jokes aside….The question is not did Reagan who had a mind like a steal trap develop the sickness into his presidency(medical study of the disease and its time line shows he did)It is how many have it now?The general age of our senate-congress is getting up there.
There is an important question here.Reagan had alzheimers.Kennedy was a pain wracked drug addict.How do we address this?Presidents tend to be narcissists.They dig into this job deeper than an Alabama tic.And the process makes it damn near impossible to remove them -so insulated are they.Maybe michael has started a discussion better late than never.
We’re missing the point here folks!
The Reagan legacy is anti-worker, anti-healthcare, anti-education, anti-people generally, and most certainly anti-government (anarchist)- remember his inauguration speech? the government is the problem! much of the current anti-government sentiment- goverophobia- comes from his administration and his political party and has only increased since 1980-
Reagan and the anarchists (sounds like a book title) are indirectly responsible for the second worse terrorist attack on the American People. And more importantly! they are directly responsible for the deterioration of this nation’s quality of life for those of us who are not millionaires.
During the 1984 campaign the incumbent made some astonishing gaffes. For example, he used slogans that had worked so well when running against Jimmy Carter in 1980. “Do you feel better now than you did four years ago?”
I visited the White House for a day in the summer of 1986 for a charity event, and I was shocked to see how senile our President was. It was so obvious that he “wasn’t there”: vacant eyes, shuffling around and needing to be steered by Nancy, basically totally out of it. I remember thinking (to my horror), “my God, WHO IS RUNNING THE COUNTRY?”
No need to have worried, Julia. George Shultz and George HW Bush had things well in hand. It is creepy though, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure that Reagan was basically finished by 1985–does it matter? The permanent bureaucracy never stops, and Reagan’s apparatchiks understood from Day One that the Great Man was a pushover (think Iran-Contra and the billions wasted on “defense”) if you hit the right mono-syllabic buttons. The Horror! The Horror! As Thom Hartmann has pointed out, Reagan ushered in the destruction of the working and middle classes, and the belief (ask David Stockman), now held sincerely by millions of Americans, that paying income taxes was an insult to us all. Truly dreadful, truly awful.
It all just proves, that it doesn’t matter who the “President” is. It is just a symbolic office and the real power lies with his “advisers” – financial elites and multinational corporations.
It’s becoming more a matter of what didn’t the President know and when didn’t he know it. Here’s another one – I don’t know the date, but would appreciate it if anyone else did. Reagan couldn’t remember whether he had fought in World War II or had merely hung out as the hero in training films. Of course, the latter was the case.
I AM a little surprised no one has raised the oft-recounted anecdote that Reagan believed that if he ordered a nuclear missile attack on the Soviet Union the missiles could be recalled if the decision turned out to be based on an erroneous interpretation of information/events (THEY COULDN’T!)
FURTHER TO THAT at the time of the CUBAN/(SOVIET) MISSILE CRISIS many CREDIBLE people in the both parties seemed comfortable that it was OK to threaten the USSR by placing missiles in Turkey, a similar distance from Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad and other major Soviet centres as was Cuba from Washington; and allowing the General Staff to commit to a new invasion of Cuba, the USSR’s sole significant ally in the Americas.
This, after the US had already used Nukes on one losing adversary… the only country ever to do so! (the Missile Crisis Strategy worked out pretty well as the USSR & CUBA hoped, with the belated withdrawal from Turkey, and a gurantee of no new Cuban invasion using US forces…)
– Lived thru it in Jamaica
…- that was – “belated MISSILE” withdrawal from Turkey I INTENDED…
â┚¬“ Lived thru it in Jamaica
– PS – WHERE THE THE WINDS BLEW ONSHORE TO US FROM CUBA
– PPS – Machiavelli debated whether it was better (for a Prince) to be (hated &/or) FEARED.
– increasingly, the US seems to have been opting for the latter~
â┚¬“ Lived thru it in Jamaica
Further, the USSR established a plan to evacuate major centres and disperse into the vast hinterland, if an attack was imminent.
The RUSSIAN NATION did survive the collapse of the 90’s – people in the USSR were closer to survival mode than in the US today, now that a US collapse seems imminent, and their State structures transport, urban planning & housing better organised than FEMA under Bush (or since?)
See DMITRY ORLOV’s writings…
â┚¬“ Lived thru it in Jamaica
– PS (Jamaica, where collapse was deliberated induced as US Foreign Policy in the ’70s)
Helen Caldicott in a speech at the University of Texas, part of her nuclear disarmament activism, told a story about a private but short conversation with the Gipper which also , in my opinion, supports the Alzheimers in office theory.
John Williams, the Machiavelli quote is: “Is it better to be loved than feared, or the reverse?” (The Prince, Chapter 17, p. 59)
If anyone listened to Greta last night talking to ex madam Speaker Pelosi ……I think we have reason to start testing her as to dementia.I am more than half serious.As the testing becomes more accurate i wonder if all legislative members of a certain age should be required to be tested.
this is my first visit and I just wanted to stop by and say hello there everyone.
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