How Close Did Lesley Stahl Come to Reporting Reagan Had Alzheimer's While in Office? Very Close

Ron Reagan's comments have ticked off his half-brother, Michael Reagan, who was adopted by Ronald Reagan and his wife, actress Jane Wyman, 13 years before Ron was born to Reagan and his second wife, Nancy Reagan. Michael, a firebrand conservative, has slammed Ron for concocting "falsehoods and lies and conspiracy theories to sell books." (Ron and Michael haven't spoken since the reading of the will following their father's death in 2004.) Michael claims there is no evidence his father had developed Alzheimer's while in office: "I saw my father on and off and I never saw anything that looked like that." And the Ronald Reagan Library and Foundation has issued a statement noting that "this subject has been well documented over the years by both President Reagan's personal physicians, physicians who treated him after the diagnosis, as well as those who worked closely with him daily. All are consistent in their view that signs of Alzheimer's did not appear until well after President Reagan left the White House."

But during his second term, Reagan did show worrisome signs of diminished mental capacity, according to Lesley Stahl. In the book she published in 2000, Reporting Live, Stahl recounts a disturbing encounter she had with Reagan in the summer of 1986. Stahl was finishing up a stint as CBS News' White House correspondent, and she was awarded the customary farewell audience with the president. As she, her husband, and her eight-year-old daughter were about to enter the Oval Office, Reagan's press secretary, Larry Speakes, told Stahl, "No questions at all, about anything." Stahl was angered by this, but she soon saw why Speakes had issued this instruction. When she and her family entered the office, the 75-year-old Reagan was standing by a Remington sculpture of a rearing horse, and Stahl immediately began to fret:

Reagan was as shriveled as a kumquat. He was so frail, his skin so paper-thin. I could almost see the sunlight through the back of his withered neck…His eyes were coated. Larry introduced us, but he had to shout. Had Reagan turned off his hearing aid?

…Reagan didn't seem to know who I was. He gave me a distant look with those milky eyes and shook my hand weakly. Oh, my, he's gonzo, I thought. I have to go out on the lawn tonight and tell my countrymen that the president of the United States is a doddering space cadet. My heart began to hammer with the import...I was aware of the delicacy with which I would have to write my script. But I was quite sure of my diagnosis.

Stahl tried to fill the silence, telling Reagan that her daughter used to tell everyone that the president works for her mommy, but after Reagan took office, she started saying that her mother worked for the president.

I wasn't above a little massaging. Was he so out of it that he couldn't appreciate a sweet story that reflected well on him? Guess so. His pupils didn't even dilate. Nothing. No reaction.

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