I can say with certainty that both a neurologist and a neurosurgeon (along with a heart surgeon) were available whenever he traveled outside the states. I’m not sure whether this is normal for any POTUS, but those of us in Neurosurgical Team One thought it unusual.
I have that book-it’s awesome.
I seem to remember, during a debate, at one point, Reagan actually said, “Now I’m all confused.” Am I going nuts, or suffering from dementia, or does anyone else remember this?
As an aside, on hulu.com in the SNL clips is the skit where an amiable chuckling bumbling President Reagan is meeting visitors and media, then when they all leave, he switches into Manipulative Super-Genius mode and is on the phone with various world leaders in various languages manipulating the markets, plotting conquests, etc.
I may be one of the few Reagan fans who loved that skit.
The late, great Phil Hartman. One of his best ever sketches.
I remember that skit. I despised Reagan, and I loved that skit. I chuckle right now thinking about it.
Per this excerpt it was in 1984, debating Mondale:
According to almost all independent observers, Mondale clearly won the first debate. Reagan made many mistakes during the debate: he claimed responsibility for creating laws during his time as California’s Governor, which were in fact his Democratic predecessor’s legacy; he claimed that a large portion of his military budget was for “food and wardrobe”; and he lost himself many times during his speeches. The debate ended with Reagan’s closing statement, which, before it began, Reagan declared “I’m all confused now” (Slansky 1989: 112).
I remember that debate very well. It was very discomfiting to watch and gave rise to much public discussion about his faculties.
It sounds pretty bad- how then did people see this and still elect him? (rhetorical)
They just decided to overlook it and downplay it. So much of politics is about taking sides. If Reagan was your horse, you weren’t going to let a little thing like gibbering senility stop you from voting for him. People (me included) would just say, “well, he’s got a lot of good people around him. They won’t let him drive into a tree or anything.”
Plus, he was running against a fairly weak opponent with a stunt VP choice.
He was our grandpa sovereign figure. IIRC, Tip O-Neil said (perhaps ironically) that Reagan would have made a great king.
I remember his press conferences. They were issue specific. The handlers would quickly try and stop it ,if Reagan tried to answer off subject. We used to joke about how much he needed his script. Sometimes his off the cuff talk was embarrassing.
I presume it helped that he sounded more coherent in the second debate and got that debate’s soundbite moment with the quip, 'I will not make age an issue in this election. I will not exploit my opponent’s youth and inexperience."
Since last posting I asked a few of my contemporaries whom I didn’t know back during the Reagan era. All agreed that the appearance that then-President Reagan had some kind of dementia, and that there seemed to be efforts at covering it up, was a frequent topic of conversation during that time. Some noted that the second half of the second term seemed much more so this way.
There was another side of the coverup theory coin; that he was exaggerating his incompetence and playing the “doddering old man” to make his Iran Contra testimony more plausible.
Too bad I can’s search, we had an excellent thread (or more) about this a while ago with some very factual-seeming links to evidence of dementia while in office.
Reagan’s actual Doctor’s said the symptoms began “about a year” before his public announcement - putting it about fall 1993
William F. Buckley says he suspected in ~ early 1994 & I think probably would have talked about seeing it before then - he was pretty tight with Reagan & pretty open about such things.
I can’t find it on-line but Ronald Reagan Jr. talked about this and when asked this very question said paraphrased in italics: Well that is the $64,000 question isn’t it? Did he have it as President - Alzheimers is a slow cumnulative process and wasn’t diagnosed for about 4 years after he left … there might have been things going on in his brain before he left but I can’t say that ever I saw it myself.
Until I saw some speculatin’ in the rest of this thread I was ashamed to just quote from memory the (Democratic Convention speaking, Atheist, stem cell lovin’ son). I add all that in parens because I think if he really saw dementia in the old man he would have been honest about it. YMMV
I saw it. Lots of people saw it. It wasn’t exactly a secret. I don’t think I’d call it “dementia,” but it was pretty obvious that some of the M&Ms were missing from the bag.
Dude. A candy reference in a Reagan thread and you went with M&Ms? Jelly beans, man, jelly beans!