Former President Ronald Reagan’s youngest son suggests in a new book that his father showed signs of Alzheimer’s disease while he was in the White House. In the book titled “My Father at 100,” which is due out next week, Ron Reagan writes, “Three years into his first term as President … I was feeling the first shivers of concern that something beyond mellowing was affecting my father.”
He writes about watching his father’s first debate with Walter Mondale, the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee.
“I began to experience the nausea of a bad dream coming true,” Ron Reagan writes. He adds: “My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered.”
But the younger Reagan also admits, “I’ve seen no evidence that my father (or anyone else) was aware of his medical condition while he was in office.” He then questions: “Had the diagnosis been made in, say, 1987, would he have stepped down? I believe he would have.”
Former president Reagan disclosed he had Alzheimer’s disease in 1994, five years after he left the White House. Questions have been raised in the past about whether he developed the disease while he was still in office, but suggestions that he did have been widely dismissed.
In an effort to set the record straight, four of the president’s White House doctors spoke to the New York Times in 1997 to say the president didn’t show evidence of the disease until 1993 and that he was mentally sound while in office. The newspaper reported the doctors said, “they had taken the unusual step of discussing their former patient’s medical history publicly because neither they nor Mr. Reagan had covered up any illness, and because they did not want history to see them as having done so.”
Some people who served in the Reagan Administration are dismissing Ron Reagan’s new claims.
“I strongly disagree with my brother, Ron Reagan’s assertions that our father, Pres. Ronald W. Reagan, would not support the Tea Party Movement in this country and Sarah Palin’s activism, if he were alive today.”
“Pres. Reagan championed freedom throughout the world. He believed in the power of the people. His fundamental core beliefs about individual freedoms and liberties, and against government intrusion into the lives of citizens, were foremost on his agenda. 
Michael also rebuked the assertion that his father showed signs of Alzheimer’s during his presidency.
Both of President Ronald Reagan’s daughters also became authors. Before her passing, Maureen Reagan wrote this Memoir of her life as daughter to two movie stars, with one being the President of the United States.
A Review by Marvin D. Pipher:
Maureen had an interesting and challenging life and career. She was the daughter of two famous movie stars and a child of divorce who spent most of her youth in boarding schools. Married at twenty, she found herself in a physically abusive relationship which she couldn’t talk about and which she was afraid to end for fear that she would be killed. (Chapter 6 is a must read for anyone in such a situation.)
Freed of that marriage, she struggled to make her way in the world, working at various times as a singer, an actress, in public relations, as a radio talk show host, and more often than not as a volunteer campaign worker for the Republican Party. But when her father finally entered the political arena to run for governor of California she was prevented from campaigning on his behalf because those running his campaign feared that news of his earlier divorce would hurt his chances. Maureen and her brother Michael were forced to become invisible “non-persons.” But even then, Maureen remained politically active behind the scenes by supporting other Republican candidates for office.
At the same time, she continued to pursue a career in show business; but as she said, she had three strikes against her – Ronald Reagan’s acting career, Jane Wyman’s acting career, and Reagan’s conservative politics. Maureen did, however, find minor roles and extensive work in TV commercials. Finally, she found her real role in life as an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) activist, consultant on women’s affairs, and an expert on international trade. Then, at long last, in 1980, she got her wish. She was allowed to campaign for her father, and she campaigned vigorously, not just then, but for the remainder of his political life.
In 1985, she was chosen to chair the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations World Conference for the UN Commission on the Status of Women, became the U.S representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and went on to be appointed co-chairman of the Republican National Committee. All in all, her’s was quite a life.
President Ronald Reagan’s second daughter, Patti, has written several books. I found this one most interesting and my favorite of her writings. As a mother myself, with two grown daughters, it’s the kind of book I love to read. Very insightful about the difference a mother can make in a daughter’s life.
by Patti Davis
The title The Lives Our Mothers Leave Us encapsulates what this book by Patti Davis is about. No matter what a woman achieves in her life, no matter how old she gets or whether or not she herself becomes a mother, she is always and forever a daughter.
The Women Whose Stories Are Included . . .
Patti Davis Anne Rice
Carolyn See Marg Helgenberger
Melissa Gilbert Carnie Wilson
Rosanna Arquette Mariel Hemingway
Anna Quindlen Angelica Huston
Mary Kay Place Ruby Dee
Faye Wattleton Julianne Margulies
Lily Tomlin Diahann Carroll
Candice Bergen Marianne Williamson
Lorna Luft Whoopie Goldberg
Alice Hoffman Cokie Roberts
Kathy Smith
Linda Bloodworth Thomason
Former President Ronald Reagan’s youngest son suggests in a new book that his father showed signs of Alzheimer’s disease while he was in the White House. In the book titled “My Father at 100,” which is due out next week, Ron Reagan writes, “Three years into his first term as President … I was feeling the first shivers of concern that something beyond mellowing was affecting my father.”
He writes about watching his father’s first debate with Walter Mondale, the 1984 Democratic presidential nominee.
“I began to experience the nausea of a bad dream coming true,” Ron Reagan writes. He adds: “My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered.”
But the younger Reagan also admits, “I’ve seen no evidence that my father (or anyone else) was aware of his medical condition while he was in office.” He then questions: “Had the diagnosis been made in, say, 1987, would he have stepped down? I believe he would have.”
In an effort to set the record straight, four of the president’s White House doctors spoke to the New York Times in 1997 to say the president didn’t show evidence of the disease until 1993 and that he was mentally sound while in office. The newspaper reported the doctors said, “they had taken the unusual step of discussing their former patient’s medical history publicly because neither they nor Mr. Reagan had covered up any illness, and because they did not want history to see them as having done so.”
Some people who served in the Reagan Administration are dismissing Ron Reagan’s new claims.
“I strongly disagree with my brother, Ron Reagan’s assertions that our father, Pres. Ronald W. Reagan, would not support the Tea Party Movement in this country and Sarah Palin’s activism, if he were alive today.”
“Pres. Reagan championed freedom throughout the world. He believed in the power of the people. His fundamental core beliefs about individual freedoms and liberties, and against government intrusion into the lives of citizens, were foremost on his agenda.
Michael also rebuked the assertion that his father showed signs of Alzheimer’s during his presidency.
Both of President Ronald Reagan’s daughters also became authors. Before her passing, Maureen Reagan wrote this Memoir of her life as daughter to two movie stars, with one being the President of the United States.
A Review by Marvin D. Pipher:
Maureen had an interesting and challenging life and career. She was the daughter of two famous movie stars and a child of divorce who spent most of her youth in boarding schools. Married at twenty, she found herself in a physically abusive relationship which she couldn’t talk about and which she was afraid to end for fear that she would be killed. (Chapter 6 is a must read for anyone in such a situation.)
Freed of that marriage, she struggled to make her way in the world, working at various times as a singer, an actress, in public relations, as a radio talk show host, and more often than not as a volunteer campaign worker for the Republican Party. But when her father finally entered the political arena to run for governor of California she was prevented from campaigning on his behalf because those running his campaign feared that news of his earlier divorce would hurt his chances. Maureen and her brother Michael were forced to become invisible “non-persons.” But even then, Maureen remained politically active behind the scenes by supporting other Republican candidates for office.
At the same time, she continued to pursue a career in show business; but as she said, she had three strikes against her – Ronald Reagan’s acting career, Jane Wyman’s acting career, and Reagan’s conservative politics. Maureen did, however, find minor roles and extensive work in TV commercials. Finally, she found her real role in life as an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) activist, consultant on women’s affairs, and an expert on international trade. Then, at long last, in 1980, she got her wish. She was allowed to campaign for her father, and she campaigned vigorously, not just then, but for the remainder of his political life.
In 1985, she was chosen to chair the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations World Conference for the UN Commission on the Status of Women, became the U.S representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and went on to be appointed co-chairman of the Republican National Committee. All in all, her’s was quite a life.
by Patti Davis
The title The Lives Our Mothers Leave Us encapsulates what this book by Patti Davis is about. No matter what a woman achieves in her life, no matter how old she gets or whether or not she herself becomes a mother, she is always and forever a daughter.
The Women Whose Stories Are Included . . .
Patti Davis Anne Rice
Carolyn See Marg Helgenberger
Melissa Gilbert Carnie Wilson
Rosanna Arquette Mariel Hemingway
Anna Quindlen Angelica Huston
Mary Kay Place Ruby Dee
Faye Wattleton Julianne Margulies
Lily Tomlin Diahann Carroll
Candice Bergen Marianne Williamson
Lorna Luft Whoopie Goldberg
Alice Hoffman Cokie Roberts
Kathy Smith
Linda Bloodworth Thomason