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steve2470

(37,457 posts) Thu Feb 9, 2017, 04:19 PM Feb 2017

Wiki: 1987: Reagan's alleged (mental) incapacity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#1987:_Reagan.27s_alleged_incapacity

Upon becoming the White House Chief of Staff in 1987, Howard Baker was advised by his predecessor's staff to be prepared for a possible invocation of the Twenty-fifth Amendment[32] due to Reagan's perceived laziness and ineptitude.[33]

According to the PBS program American Experience,

What Baker's transition team was told by Donald Regan's staff that weekend shocked them. Reagan was 'inattentive, inept,' and 'lazy,' and Baker should be prepared to invoke the 25th Amendment to relieve him of his duties.

Reagan biographer Edmund Morris stated in an interview aired on the program,

The incoming Baker people all decided to have a meeting with him on Monday, their first official meeting with the President, and to cluster around the table in the Cabinet room and watch him very, very closely to see how he behaved, to see if he was indeed losing his mental grip.

Morris went on to explain,

Reagan who was, of course, completely unaware that they were launching a death watch on him, came in stimulated by the press of all these new people and performed splendidly. At the end of the meeting, they figuratively threw up their hands realizing he was in perfect command of himself.

*note: Wiki has no copyright rules that I'm aware of*