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When I interviewed Ronald Reagan about his health in 1980, he was 69 and poised to become the oldest person to be elected president. During our conversation, Reagan was mentally sharp. In a light moment he feigned a wrenched back and asked what I (a physician) would do for it.

I asked him about his mother’s health, and he told me that his mother had symptoms suggestive of dementia before she died. I asked what he would do if, as president, he developed the same ailment, and how he would know he had it. His doctors would follow him, he said, and he would resign if they found evidence of cognitive decline. Years later, those remarks would seem particularly noteworthy.

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The interview was likely the first in which a future president and his doctors discussed the leader’s health prospectively. (That cooperation was short-lived; Reagan’s aides did not allow reporters to interview him or his doctors when he ran for re-election after what some regarded as a poor debate performance with Walter Mondale.)

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