Posted on 01/14/2011 10:34:16 AM PST by Arec Barrwin
Reagan Son Claims Dad Had Alzheimer's as President
2011 is a big year for Ronald Reagan fans, being the centennial of his February 6 birth in Tampico, Ill. But youngest son Ron Reagan is spoiling the good cheer with a new book that suggests the Gipper suffered from Alzheimer's disease while in the White House, a claim dismissed by Reagan's doctors and outside experts. "Had the diagnosis been made in, say, 1987, would he have stepped down?" Ron asks, regarding the disease confirmed in 1994. "I believe he would have," he writes in My Father At 100: A Memoir, due in bookstores Tuesday. [Poll: Who do you think was the worst president?]
In addition to challenging the former president's doctors, Ron also reports for the first time that Reagan, right after falling off a horse six months out of the White House, underwent brain surgery, denied by Reagan associates.
Let's start with the Alzheimer's diagnosis. It was announced in 1994. While it prompted some to suggest they knew Reagan had the disease as president, his four White House doctors said they saw no evidence of it. But Ron, who became a liberal and atheist, disappointing his dad, suggests he saw hints of confusion and "an out-of-touch president" during the 1984 campaign and again in 1986, when his father couldn't recall the names of California canyons he was flying over. Arguing his case in the book, Ron adds that doctors today know that the disease can be in evidence before being recognized. "The question, then, of whether my father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer's while in office more or less answers itself," he writes. [See a gallery of caricatures of Reagan and other pols.]
Besides playing amateur doctor, Ron Reagan reveals, if true, brain surgery on his dad never before reported. He accurately reports that Reagan, after leaving the presidency, was bucked from a horse on July 4, 1989, while in Mexico. Ron tells of how his dad, after initially refusing medical help, was transported to a San Diego hospital. "Surgeons opening his skull to relieve pressure on the brain emerged from the operating room with the news that they had detected what they took to be probable signs of Alzheimer's disease." Several Reagan associates, however, say there was no surgery in San Diego.
What's more there is no reporting about any San Diego operation on Reagan. News reports at the time of his fall say Reagan was flown to a hospital in Arizona, where he was treated for scrapes and bruises and released after five hours.
There were no reports of Reagan with a shaved head or skull stitches later that month when he served as a guest TV announcer at the July 11 baseball All-Star Game in Anaheim, Calif., or when he was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City on July 21.
In September, he went to the Mayo Clinic, where a small burr hole was drilled to relieve a fluid buildup due to the fall.
Ron Reagan doesn't mention this, but says that Reagan visited the Mayo Clinic in 1990 for tests that "confirmed the initial suspicion of Alzheimer's." Reagan's post-presidency history, documented in several archives like University of Texas, reveal no such visit. And Dr. John E. Hutton Jr. his doctor from 1984 through Reagan's retirement, told the New York Times that Reagan didn't show the tell-tale symptoms until 1993.
Ron Reagan won't talk about his book until its release, says his publisher Viking. The publisher also didn't provide documents backing up the San Diego operation claim.
Here are key excerpts from Ron Reagan about his dad's situation from My Father At 100, A Memoir.
Early hints that Ronald Reagan's mind was fuzzy:
"Three years into his first term as president, though, I was feeling the first shivers of concern that something beyond mellowing was affecting my father. We had always argued over this issue or that, rarely with anything approaching belligerence, but vigorously all the same. He generally had the advantage of practiced talking points backed up by staff research, but I was an unabashed, occasionally effective advocate for my own positions. 'He told me you make him feel stupid,' my mother once shared, to my alarm. I didn't want my father to feel stupid. If he was going to shoulder massive responsibility, I wanted him to feel on top of his game. If he was going to fulfill his duties as president, he would have to be." Pages 204-205
"Watching the first of his two debates with 1984 Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale, I began to experience the nausea of a bad dream coming true. At 73, Ronald Reagan would be the oldest president ever reelected. Some voters were beginning to imagine grandpa—who can never find his reading glasses—in charge of a bristling nuclear arsenal, and it was making them nervous. Worse, my father now seemed to be giving them legitimate reason for concern. My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses, fumbling with his notes, uncharacteristically lost for words. He looked tired and bewildered." Page 205.
"My father might himself have suspected that all was not as it should be. As far back as August 1986 he had been alarmed to discover, while flying over the familiar canyons north of Los Angeles, that he could no longer summon their names." Page 218.
The July 4, 1989 horse bucking and discovery of Alzheimer's:
"In July 1989, barely six months out of office, my father visited friends in Mexico. While out riding he was thrown when his horse shied at something in the trailside scrub. That my father, even at age 78, would be bucked off his mount was, in itself, an ominous sign. It's a wonder he didn't break any bones, but he did hit his head hard enough to cause a sizable contusion. After initially refusing medical attention, he ultimately relented and was transported to a hospital in San Diego. Surgeons opening his skull to relieve pressure on the brain emerged from the operating room with the news that they had detected what they took to be probable signs of Alzheimer's disease. No formal diagnosis was given, as far as I know. I have since learned from a doctor who happened to be interning at the hospital when my father was brought in that surgeons involved in his care, in what my informant characterized as 'shameful' behavior, violated my father's right to medical privacy by subsequently gossiping about his condition." Page 217.
"Doctors recommended to my mother that further tests of cognition be conducted the following year to measure any decline. Those tests, at the Mayo Clinic, confirmed the initial suspicion of Alzheimer's." Page 217.
"I've seen no evidence that my father (or anyone else) was aware of his medical condition while he was in office. Had the diagnosis been made in, say 1987, would he have stepped down? I believe he would have. Far less was known about the disease then, of course, than is known now. Today we are aware that the physiological and neurological changes associated with Alzheimer's can be in evidence years, even decades, before identifiable symptoms arise. The question, then, of whether my father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer's while in office more or less answers itself." Pages 217-218.
And this is significant how? Wow, I am so disappointed that he was named after our greatest president
Actually he had two daughters with Jane and adopted Mike. The one daughter died in a day. Beyond the minutia, Maureen was generally a good person from my recollections of her in the 80’s and 90’s. Never caused any controversies and was very supportive of her father. I always got the same impression of Mike. Whether adopted or not is irrelevant. Apparently Jane raised better kids than Nancy.
Patti was always saying stupid stuff during his presidency and Ron went so far as to act like a moron on SNL at the time. For some reason these two idiots became entrenched in liberal Hollywood, thus becoming the doctrinaire mindless leftists you see today. Ron worked for MSNBC for crying out loud bad mouthing all of the ideals his father had.
Non Reagan should be ashamed! Ronald Reagan could be in the throes of full-on dementia and he’d still “out-president” Little Barry Dunham.
I miss President Reagan.
Did he HATE his father?
True. Can Patty Davis's book be far behind? Surely she wouldn't miss this opportunity for some more face time during her father's 100th birthday commemoratives?
fags always get show wives to throw off the trail!
Shameful . . . but typical for a liberal.
Anyone that stands for American values is no doubt suffering from dementia /sarc
If he were a democrat he could still vote...
We have had one real president in my adult lifetime and it was this wonderful man: the end of the Cold War, defeat of the Soviet Union, a revitalized economy with low inflation, huge job growth and tremendous power. Speaks for itself whatever some lowlife ingrate writes for money.
And so it continues-—the manufacture of histroy based on ideology.
Leftists are experts at that.
Boy am I in trouble. You should hear me call my kids by each others names.
Didn't make him incompetent.
I like the part where he is decribing his dad having his skull opened after the horseback fall and doctors finding evidence of alzheimers.
While a full autopsy can find the indications in the full brain, there is not test that I am aware of to examine brain lining when skull pressure is relieved or other similar test site and make a clinical pathological diagnosis.
Long term neurological evaluation can lead to such a diagnosis on a conditional basis, but such would not be done or relied upon at the time of head truama.
And how much worse when one considers that this is his own father that he is speaking of. Liberal hatred knows no bounds, not even familial ties. Purely sickening.
“Cruel” I would add Hateful, Nasty, and Venomous.
Agreed. He broke his dad's heart when he was still alive, and now junior is trying to cash in on his father. And saying that he "made his father feel stupid"? Such arrogance! I hope nobody buys this twinkletoe's book.
You know, as one grows older, you look back over your life and there a things you would like to have done differently. One of my biggest regrets is not taking my grandson to DC and to pay our respects to President Reagan when he died. Even better still would have been to line the highway with all the thousands when his hearse was taking him to his funeral. The liberal media played the whole thing down to the point that it was both shameful and comical at the same time.
There is a funny thing a truth; it is what it is. And it makes no difference what people do to change it. The Truth is The truth! And the TRUTH will never change. Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 2nd best President this country ever had. Only George Washington was better. Both were sent from God when we needed them the most.
He slept with several ballet dancer dudes in his time... now now... the last governor of NJ had a wife and kids... and a boyfriend.
LLS
Bend over boy is redefining history?
Nah, he is selling out. Too bad, now he is on the WRONG side of history.
Sure , the man who brought down the Berlin wall had a diseased mind. I hope its contagious.
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