I also remember journalist Leslie Stahl having a very unnerving experience with the then-president which pointed towards senility. I also remember reading about how Gorbachev reacted to some of Reagan's truly off-the-wall behavior.
Snip:
Stahl tells me that she is certain that after that Oval Office encounter with Reagan, she discussed with her producers whether to report on Reagan's mental condition. "I would have to have skirted around the words 'senility,' 'Alzheimer's,' 'dementia,'" she notes. "I would have been declaring the president unfit to serve, or at least raising the possibility." That undoubtedly would have set off a political detonation. And such a report would have suggested a White House cover-up—at a time when tense foreign policy matters were in the news and midterm elections were a few months off.
Whether or not Stahl made the right call—she seems to believe she should have reported something at the time—the evidence she later gathered indicates that Reagan aides were concerned about his mental condition during his presidency. Perhaps it wasn't Alzheimer's but another health issue. Yet her account and her subsequent reporting suggests Ron Reagan is closer to the truth than Michael Reagan. The Gipper was slipping while he was occupying the most powerful position in the world, and the public was kept in the dark.
In hindsight, it should have been reported at the time. Sure it would have created a bit of an uproar, but the twenty-fifth amendment would have been invoked as Reagan was clearly not capable of running things.
In truth, the second term was what I call "the presidency of the two Bakers," meaning Howard Baker and James Baker. They actually ran the country.
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