Disease was officially diagnosed 5 years after he left office
Ron Reagan, son of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, writes in a new book that his father showed signs of Alzheimer’s disease as early as 1984, when he was campaigning for a second term. However, Ron’s older half-brother Michael, who is also releasing a book commemorating the 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birth, says the claim is untrue and offensive. Doctors have said that the disease, which was officially diagnosed five years after he left office, may explain the confusion Reagan experienced during the 1984 debates with Walter Mondale. Ron says he noticed then too: “There was just something that was off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it,” he told ABC News. Ron cites the fact that his father had difficulty naming familiar canyons in 1986 and called Princess Diana, “Prince David” by accident as evidence of the degenerative brain disorder. Older son Michael believes the statement tars his father’s legacy; Ron thinks it shouldn’t. “This no more discredits or defines his presidency than Lincoln’s chronic depression, Roosevelt’s polio, Kennedy’s Addison Disease any of those things.”