[Unidentified Male:] A still picture stops time.
[Unidentified Female:] A good photograph pains to tell you something about the person. When you start to go through frame by frame, the person becomes alive.
[Announcer: The Reagan Years:] A LIFE IN PICTURES, with anchor Perri Peltz.
[Perri Peltz, Cnn Anchor:] A picture tells you so much about a person. You can read someone's hidden thoughts, feel their moods, even peer into their heart and soul. The editors of "Life" Magazine have assembled the life of former President Ronald Reagan in pictures, an awesome undertaking. After all, whether he was in Hollywood, Sacramento or Washington, Ronald Reagan made his living in front of cameras. For the next hour, we'll follow the editors as they open a treasure trove. The pictures that tell the story of our 40th president. We begin in just a minute.
[Peltz:] Ronald Reagan was born 90 years ago. Cameras had been around for some time, but family photographs still were rarities, something reserved for special occasions. By finding these old pictures, "Life"'s editors also found something else, a man of destiny. We begin with the early chapters of Ronald Reagan's life.
[Barbar Baker Burrows, Picutre Editor:] Here it is, this is fun.
[Robert Andreas, Editor:] I wonder if he did play the guitar?
[Robert Sullivan, Writer:] We are always paranoid about the first photo meetings, because the lives of famous people are chronicled more fully once they become famous.
[Burrows:] Very handsome.
[Andreas:] Oh, yes.
[Sullivan:] So you never know what will be there in the early years of Ronald Reagan's life.
[Burrows:] I'm a sucker for the christening gown pictures. We had hundreds of contact sheets that we had housed and I started to go through all of them and spotted this picture which I had never seen before. When you find something like that, it makes your whole week.
[Peltz:] Born February 6, 1911, Reagan may have been officially christened Ronald, but even then his family called him Dutch.
[Sullivan:] There are six different stories as to how he got his nickname. We go with the one from his memoir. In the moment of his birth, his father said he makes a lot of noise for a little Dutchman. They weren't well off; they moved a half dozen times by the time Ronald was 10. Mostly, they lived in small, very rural towns in Illinois, finally settling in Dixon.
[Unidentified Female:] Good morning, welcome to the Reagan boyhood home.
[Sullivan:] Dixon remains a small town.
[Unidentified Female:] OK, I guess we can go now.
[Andreas:] So, did all this stuff check out about the father?
[Sullivan:] He painted his childhood in his first memoir; his term was Huck Finn idol.
[Andreas:] There was a thing in his own memoir where he talked about, that his dad wouldn't shrink from clobbering him.
[Sullivan:] It wasn't a Huck Finn idol, and he knew that. Two pages after he used that term, he was talking about finding his father face down in the snow passed out. They had shielded him from his dad's alcoholism. That obviously is painful, if not scarring, to a kid that age and you can see it in the photographs. He was a more serious kid than you might have anticipated.
[Peltz:] His mother's church proved a refuge from his unhappy home.
[Doctor Lamar Wells, Reagan High School Friend:] You were some dude when you had the knickers. Boy, I though I was the bee's knees, too.
[Peltz:] Doctor Lamar Wells was one of his Sunday School students.
[Doctor Wells:] He was a good teacher. He knew what boys wanted to hear. I'm not talking about girls. He knew about football.
[Burrows:] Yes, you have to do the football, but the cheerleading has so much energy and it's so much fun. Pictorially, visually, I've never seen it before. But we only have, what is it? Five spreads.
[Peltz:] Dutch wasn't just popular with the boys.
[Burrows:] I would really like to find out about this woman.
[Mrs. Lamar Wells, Reagan High School Friend:] I had a cousin that went to school with him and she was really quite thrilled with him but he didn't give her time.
[Sullivan:] He dated Mugs Cleaver, most famously, during this period.
[Burrows:] And it's funny, because when I was going through the contact sheets and editing, I didn't know who she was.
[Dr. Wells:] She was a really nice gal. I thought he should have married her, but what did I know about love and marriage at this point.
[Peltz:] To supplement the family income, Reagan worked for $15 a week at Dixon's local park. Over the course of seven summers, he pulled no fewer than 77 swimmers from the Rock River rapids.
[Burrows:] I mean, it's possible, but I can't believe that in one town, all those people would be dead now.
[Peltz:] At 18, he left Dixon for a small religious school, Eureka College. Academics were not his priority.
[Sullivan:] His phrase was, while he was getting by with the grades, I did cop the lead in most of the plays.
[Peltz:] And served as president of the student senate, wrote for the school paper and played varsity football. Reagan graduated from college in 1932 at the height of the Great Depression: Twelve million Americans, 25 percent of the adult population, were out of work. But not Dutch Reagan. Against all odds, he landed a job as sportscaster for WHO, one of the most far reaching radio stations in the Midwest. His specialty? Baseball Republicans-creations.
[Sullivan:] Ronald Reagan's radio station would be getting the Western Union of the results of the game, and then, he would bring it to life. They would use pencil taps for the crack of the bat. It was taking something and turning it into gold.
[Peltz:] Exotic stuff for a boy living in the Iowa dust bowl.
[Hugh Sidney, "time" Magazine:] Here's Dutch Reagan. You could feel it, you could smell it, you could taste it. His voice rising every one of those plays, and then he'd described the crowd. And on those Saturday afternoons for a young boy like myself out there in on Iowa so far away from the rest of the world, it was just a thrill.
[Burrows:] Here, this is a wonderful picture. Look at this.
[Peltz:] In 1937, a friend of Reagan's arranged a screen test for him at Warner Brothers. To his astonishment, they hired him on the spot. The matinee idol look he cultivated in those early days wouldn't change for the next 60 years, with one small exception.
[Burrows:] The art director and myself spent two hours around midnight one night trying to figure out when he changed his part. He changed his part from the left side to the right side and it was either 1938 or 1939, because by 1940 it was always on the right-hand side. One of my favorite and your favorite, "Dark Victory."
[Andreas:] Yes, Bette Davis and Bogey. [Begin Video Clip, "dark Victory"]
[Bette Davis, Actress:] Hello, everybody.
[Ronald Reagan, Actor:] Oh, what a party.
[Davis:] Glad to see you're still on it.
[Sullivan:] Bette Davis thought him a silly boy. He was not a drinker and he wasn't a womanizer. He was a Boy Scout in Gomorrah.
[Peltz:] On screen, as in life, his stock in trade would always be heroes.
[Unidentified Male:] In more than 50 films, only once would he play the villain.
[Sullivan:] It just would have been impossible for that guy with the sunny disposition to play that far against type. So, whether he was a radio broadcaster or a second banana to Errol Flynn, he was a good guy.
[Andreas:] "Rockne." He played the Gipper which turned out to be his nickname.
[Reagan:] Ask them to go in there and win just one for the Gipper.
[Burrows:] Famous scene.
[Andreas:] Very credible performance in "King's Row."
[Reagan:] Where is rest of me?
[Peltz:] Considered his finest performance, "King's Row" made Ronald Reagan a household name.
[Unidentified Female:] He was known for charm and good looks so it's not surprising that he had all these fans. I went to Dixon, Illinois in 1950 to be part of Ron's homecoming celebration.
[Peltz:] Zelda Moltz was president of Reagan's movie fan club.
[Unidentified Female:] I saw him in a movie called "Smashing the Money Ring" he played a character called Brass Bancroft, Secret Service agent. He has this habit of leaning up against a door with this glint in his eye and I said, oh, my isn't he cute?
[Peltz:] Soon after seeing that film, Zelda wrote him a letter, and he wrote back.
[Unidentified Female:] The wrist watch came as a Christmas gift one year.
[Peltz:] Establishing a correspondence, at times, surprisingly personal, which would span more than 50 years.
[Unidentified Female:] I would tell him what my day was like and what I did. I would send him cards and at one point, he came into the city and called me, and the my mother answered the phone and she was so excited, and she said, please, do me a favor, call back, I'm too nervous to talk.
[Peltz:] Reagan may have had many female fans around the world, but by 1940 his heart belonged to only one: fellow Warner Brothers star, Jane Wyman.
[Unidentified Female:] I will tell you, once they met one another and the publicity machine got going, there was no question they would be stars; every single week they were putting out another press release about Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan; they were the ideal Hollywood couple.
[Burrows:] There's certain people that were covered in a way that made them more natural. I think Ronald Reagan was more of in the Hollywood mode. It does make it more difficult visually. I mean, there's some beautiful pictures, but the intimacy is lacking. The one with Jane Wyman at the swimming pool, which is it's obviously posed but it's absolutely beautiful.
[Peltz:] With the birth of Maureen in 1941 and their adoption of Michael in 1945, the Hollywood press was touting the Reagans as the perfect family. They weren't. Tensions between the couple were growing over Reagan's new obsession: the Screen Actors Guild.
[Sullivan:] He rises in the ranks to the point where they elected him their president. All of this is going on when the big issue facing SAG and all of Hollywood, are the anti-Communism crusades out of Washington.
[Reagan:] I would hesitate or I would not like to see any political party outlawed on the basis of its political ideology, because we have spent 170 years in this country...
[Sullivan:] It was all about politics and she was just fed up with spending a life with this political junkie. She wanted to live a Hollywood life.
[Burrows:] The minute you see one photograph that says it all, you are amok; you see one looking off to one side and the other turning in the opposite direction. There's body language there.
[Unidentified Female:] This is a card that I received at the time that Ron and Jane were breaking up and made me cry actually. "I'm sorry Zelda, but right now time won't permit a letter; just keep your fingers crossed and pray that Jane will realize she loves me." It's not really signed, but I know the handwriting. He came home one day and she said get out. Who wouldn't be shattered by that he still believed he was in love.
[Peltz:] Actress Patricia Neal was one of those who witnessed Reagan's suffering.
[Patricia Neal, Former Actress:] I was there for New Year's Eve and he came up and he said
[Peltz:] Then another blow for Reagan: his acting career stalled.
[Reagan:] Well Bonzo, I never did thank you for saving my life this morning.
[Sullivan:] "Bedtime for Bonzo" was one of his better roles, because they were really drying up.
[Peltz:] The bright spot in this period: Nancy Davis, a wealthy, socially connected contract player at MGM. She was mistakenly included on a list of Hollywood Communists in 1949.
[Sullivan:] So she came to the head of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan, and she said, can you help me this? And they fell in love. The issue went away. Communist was just not on her resume. She was absolutely devoted and dedicated to this man from the minute the spark struck.
[Peltz:] One love story was over, but a new one was about to begin. One career was winding-down, but destiny was waiting. We'll see it all, in pictures, when we return. Believe it or not, there's a period of Ronald Reagan's adult life when they're aren't many pictures. This was his time of transition. Not surprisingly, it was a troubled time. But these years turned-out to be vitally important, for the man and ultimately for his country.
[Unidentified Male:] A couple things left in this section; otherwise it seems all right to me.
[Andreas:] The photographic possibilities are immense, and the stories that we can tell will be immense. Obviously, when we come to these projects, other people have done books on them; a life that huge doesn't go unnoticed, so see we have to try to figure out a way to do it a little differently.
[Reagan:] Here's great news about two wonderful Beraxo hand cleaning products.
[Peltz:] The early 1950s was a difficult time for Ronald Reagan.
[Sullivan:] His career was going down the tubes as a movie actor, so it's this sort of murky period of transition and it wasn't clear what would become of Ronald Reagan.
[Peltz:] Reagan was forced to hawk hand soap on television, sell beer in print ads and perform in Las Vegas cabarets.
[Burrows:] It was a greeting card that he sent out to people. I don't think we it in our files in our search all over the place somebody had actually kept this greeting card in their files.
[Sullivan:] An MC for some dive in Vegas chillingly called The Last Frontier. I mean, what must he have felt like that week?
[Reagan:] I would like to introduce my family. This is my wife Nancy.
[Nancy Reagan:] Good evening.
[Reagan:] And our daughter Patty.
[Nancy Reagan:] Say hello, honey.
[Patty:] Hello.
[Sullivan:] He agreed finally to take a TV job. Back in those days if he went to television, it was seen as death to your movie career, but he took a took with General Electric hosting GE Theater.
[Peltz:] Ronald Reagan was not only the host of the show; he was also the star. Acting in many of the screen plays with numerous guest stars including James Dean and Reagan's wife Nancy Davis.
[Sullivan:] GE was a very important time of his life. That was the transition.
[Burrows:] One would think that there would be ample photography from that time period. Well, we were up against a brick wall we found the picture of chair which says GE on the back which is a perfect opener.
[Reagan:] Well, as you can see, our new home is beginning to take shape. Nancy and I thought you might like to see how its coming along.
[Peltz:] Reagan was paid a salary of more than $100,000 and given a GE-built house of the future, perched high atop the Pacific Palisades. His new found wealth was forcing this working class Democrat to reconsider his political views.
[Sullivan:] With every day that went by, he was further from the poverty of Dixon, Illinois and closer to the richness of a Hollywood movie star. He lived among rich people and he became appalled at how much the government was taking from him once he reached the 91 percent tax bracket. He was paid to be host of the show, but he was paid to also be an ambassador for General Electric; he would go among these blue collar workers and tell them that they were being taxed too much by the government. This GE gig, which looked on paper like it was hosting a television show, was actually training ground for a future president.
[Peltz:] "Hellcats of the Navy" was Ron and Nancy's only Hollywood movie together. Even though it's a movie, you can see the reality in it, you kind of know something is going between them in real life.
[Burrows:] This is great with Angie Dickinson.
[Andreas:] "The Killers." The only time plays a villain and there he's giving her a facial massage.
[Peltz:] "The Killers" marked a dramatic end to Reagan's movie career and a new beginning for his political one.
[Reagan:] Most of us had wonderful dreams when we were children about what we wanted to be when we grew up.
[Peltz:] As General Electric Theater became more popular and television more influential, Reagan became one of the highest paid political lecturers in the country.
[Sullivan:] In the very early '60s, he switches from the Democratic to the Republican Party. He was already way out on the right-wing of the Republican Party. He was a conservative Republican when he signed up.
[Reagan:] Thank you and good evening. The sponsor has been identified, but unlike most television programs, the performer hasn't been provided with a script.
[Peltz:] In 1964, Reagan gave a ringing endorsement to free enterprise, while attacking communism in a speech supporting Barry Goldwater called A Time for Choosing.
[Sullivan:] That absolutely made his political career.
[Burrows:] There were no real photographers there. We decided to have one of our photographers actually shoot from the video.
[Reagan:] There can be no real peace while one American is dying in some place in the world for the rest of us.
[Burrows:] They didn't know that was going to be the speech of a lifetime.
[Peltz:] Ronald Reagan was suddenly a star in the national political arena.
[Burrows:] I love this picture because he's popping up out of the convention floor and it's just so wonderful. Just, you know, so energetic and fun.
[Lyn Nofziger, Former Reagan Adviser:] There were some wealthy Republicans in California, who were looking for a basically conservative candidate to run against Pat Brown, and they were attracted by this speech and they went to Reagan and urged him to run.
[Bill Ray, Former Photographer, "life" Magazine:] And actually drove him down to his kickoff speech in Orange County; just Ronnie and me in a rented Mustang driving down to Orange County, and there he was with his little index cards; he was an out of work actor reinventing himself. He would get out there and the people reacted to him and they loved him.
[Arena:] I suppose that icon and smile was part of the magic and the guy was a photographer's dream. You couldn't take a bad picture of him.
[Burrows:] Now we are getting into the days where we have "Life" going out and shooting, the whole set of pictures was just a wonderful inside look at the family.
[Ray:] I got to his house in Pacific Palisades and we'd shoot some pictures around the pool with Skipper and Nancy. I would say, Ronnie, is there any chance of going out to the ranch and doing some pictures with a horse and he would say, well, Bill, do you want me to ride English or Western a photographers dream.
[Burrows:] Everybody discusses the family situation that he was never around but as I look through the photographs, I saw the family man.
[Ray:] As a photographer, it's just about perfect, it's the ideal family, isn't it?
[Peltz:] Reagan in 1966 still seemed to project the image he crafted in Hollywood in the 1950s.
[Ray:] I'm convinced that Ronald Reagan got up one spring morning in 1954, he looked out the window and he saw the Buick Roadmaster with the four portholes, he looked at the window and saw his hair, and says, this is it; this is as good as it gets. I'm staying right here in 1954 and he did.
[Arena:] We can take out the back story about when he became afraid of flying and just say Reagan had a deathly fear of flying.
[Unidentified Male:] What I would like to do is just get the same size but just a little darker or with a little more contrast maybe.
[John Loengard, Former Photographer, "life" Magazine:] He took the first prop stop tour of the state. I found him very stiff in front of the camera in front of the still camera. In front of movies, cameras, he was fine, he was used to it, but still cameras, he was a little weary. And there he was, swapping jokes with his advisers, and suddenly guffawing in front of me.
[Burrows:] According to John, John suspects that he hadn't flown in a long time.
[Andreas:] He was afraid of flying.
[Burrows:] He had this incredible fear of flying.
[Loengard:] I figure that what I photographed was not a man who was happy and confident he was winning, I think I was photographing a man who was trying to stave off a panic attack.
[Andreas:] Start with Lyn Nofziger, the long time so that it's clearly a Nofziger moment.
[Burrows:] This is quite something because Lyn Nofziger is in it and these people followed him to the White House. And that's why I liked this photograph so much. There is a sense of intimacy.
[Nofziger:] I had been out with him two or three times in the spring of '66 after I went to work for him and I said, there's something out there. I think you're going to be elected governor and I think you could even be president some day.
[Peltz:] In 1966, Ronald Reagan, former actor, television host and reform Democrat, was elected Republican governor of California in a landslide victory.
[Unidentified Male:] Do you solemnly swear that you will support and defend the Constitution of the state of California?
[Reagan:] I do.
[Peltz:] The state had a new conservative governor. But it was the 1960s. The country was struggling with the Vietnam War, campus unrest and turmoil in the inner cities, and as the nation's largest state, California was in the eye of the storm.
[Jerry Brown, Frm. California Governor:] Reagan came in, and he was the white hat standing against all these disruptive force that were threatening the American upper class or middle class even or white working class.
[Burrows:] And the student demonstration in Sacramento.
[Andreas:] Right, outside the capitol building.
[Helene Van Damm, Frm. Reagan Secretary:] All the aides said he should just stay in the office and not go outside. Reagan wouldn't abide by it. He says no, they come to see me. I go and see them. And he went out there angry as can be. He says now, permit me to speak, too, and he got his words in.
[Sullivan:] I think the run for the presidency began the day after he was elected governor.
[Burrows:] Here it said everything. You had the date. It's the Republican National Convention and you just know I mean, it just really sets the tone.
[Peltz:] At the 1968 Republican National Convention, Ronald Reagan made a bid for the nomination for president.
[Reagan:] Thank you.
[Peltz:] It was unsuccessful, but there was no denying that Reagan was on a clear path to the White House. He had traveled a long way from Hollywood.
[Edwin Meese, Frm. Attorney General:] One of the interesting things about Ronald Reagan, who had spent so much time in Hollywood, was that he was able to balance that part of his life and the Hollywood career was kind of a thing of the past, and he concentrated his time and efforts on his new career which was being governor of California.
[Peltz:] A career that now, with Nancy by his side, seemed his destiny.
[Burrows:] This is the theme that carries throughout the book. This is the greatest love story of all time, besides Antony and Cleopatra. We've got a great love story.
[Peltz:] And for Ronald Reagan and wife, Nancy, this fairy tale was just beginning. Next, Ronald Reagan's White House years when A LIFE IN PICTURES returns. As we've seen, "Life" magazine's editors struggled to find pictures for the years of Ronald Reagan's transition from actor to politician. But they had a completely different challenge once he entered the White House. It was an eight-year photo-op. Instead of asking, what can we put in? They agonized over what to leave out.
[Burrows:] The presidential years are so rich, you know. Everything was so well documented.
[Peltz:] When Ronald Reagan stepped into the role he will be most remembered for, the cameras loved him more than ever.
[Dirck Halstead, White House Photographer, "time" Magazine:] Ronald Reagan was a star. There was just no two ways about it. He carried himself with this incredible dignity. He had this smile that was infectious. His eyes would twinkle. He knew all about showbiz. He was the consummate actor. The resonance really was sort of like a movie star's trailer and he would come out of the trailer and hit his marks.
[Unidentified Male:] The president of the United States.
[Halstead:] The simple fact is he played his role so convincingly that he totally convinced his foes that he was going to persevere.
[Burrows:] Doing a biography of somebody who is very important, you have to capture all the elements of their life, its ups and downs and it has to be presidential but you also want it to intimate.
[Andreas:] I love it.
[Burrows:] He was president of the United States for eight years. How do we put that into a capsule? I like that. I like everything, OK? There isn't enough room in the book. I wish this had been a bigger book.
[Peltz:] With this embarrassment of riches comes the challenge of sorting out the images that best tell the story of Reagan's eventful years at White House.
[Andreas:] So, here we are at the beginning of presidency. This is a great starter. What's this one from?
[Burrows:] That was in 1980 during the campaign. He was in Birmingham, Michigan. You know, it's so patriotic. Anyway, we go back in time. of course, that's the opener. We go back to '78, I think that is, back at ranch before he starts campaigning.
[Andreas:] He loves those ranches.
[Burrows:] He does.
[Peltz:] From 1976 to 1980, Ronald Reagan spent most of his time at his ranch Del Cielo in Santa Barbara, where he prepared new strategies for the presidential campaign.
[Sullivan:] He spent a lot of time touring the country, doing his old GE stuff, you know, shaking hands, asking people what their problems are and again, he narrowed his themes to taxation and anti- communism.
[Andreas:] This is one of my favorite pictures in the whole book.
[Burrows:] That was taken where he was born, in Tampico, Illinois and he was born right above the First National Bank.
[Andreas:] Uh, oh.
[Burrows:] Campaign.
[Andreas:] What do you think? I like it. You want to show the exhaustion.
[Meese:] He spent every day, virtually, going from town to town. He would have meetings in town halls and restaurants, sometimes even in people's homes and it was a very people oriented campaign, and he went on from victory to victory from that point on until he successfully got the nomination.
[Burrows:] This is wonderful, right after the debates Carter hugs his wife, Rosalyn, and Nancy and Ron hugging.
[Andreas:] There you go again. I think and some people think it maybe sealed Carter's fate.
[Burrows:] That was it.
[Reagan:] There you go again.
[Sullivan:] The presidential campaign is largely being dictated buy an Ayatollah in Iran. As long a those hostages are held, Jimmy Carter's support drips away and Jimmy Carter's talking about how there's a malaise in the land and Joe Six-Pack is saying, what, is Jimmy trying to blame us for this hostage thing? You know, I'm going to vote for Ronnie.
[Peltz:] The debate did seal Ronald Reagan's fate and ultimately led him to victory. He became the 40th leader of the American people.
[Burrows:] And of course, now the inauguration.
[Reagan:] I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear...
[Unidentified Male:] ... that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States.
[Reagan:] ... that I will faithfully execute of office of president of the United States.
[Peltz:] For Ronald Reagan and his political family, known as the Kitchen Cabinet, January 20, 1981 was the culmination of a lot of work.
[Reagan:] So help me, God.
[Van Damm:] We worked years, literally around the clock, every waking moment. So then when it finally comes tomorrow to the culmination, to election day and you win, it is not just an exuberant experience that it was worth it, but it's also, total utter relief and almost like a breakdown.
[Meese:] The president and Nancy Reagan attended each of the balls that night and, of course, when they came to the California ball, that was a great event because this was in a sense coming home
[Diana Walker, White House Photographer, "time" Magazine:] I remember when they came in, and, I mean, they just sparkled and he with that wonderful smile, very handsome, and she in some I think it was white and it had sparkles.
[Halstead:] All of sudden, here were all of these mink coats, sable coats, designer stuff. I mean, it was the California Republicans marching in.
[Sullivan:] It was a stunning change in style. I mean, you had the Carters in there for four years and they're wonderful people but they're almost Spartan people.
[Halstead:] I've been going to White House dinners now since the Kennedys, so I have seen every permutation of how the White House entertains. I must tell you, the absolutely rock bottom was during the Carter years. There were paper cups. There were paper plates. There was this cheap wine. There was no open bar. It was just awful.
[Sullivan:] With Reagan, I mean, as "The Wall Street Journal" reported at the time, the booze is back. From a Republican standpoint, it was sort of a return of Camelot. There was problem with that. The problem was that as Reagan is presiding over a country that's got this kind of economic misery, high unemployment, high inflation, they're dancing at the White House.
[Burrows:] I think in the entire book, this is my very favorite picture. Or at least...
[Andreas:] This one?
[Burrows:] Yes. It's Diana Walker shot it and it was Walter Cronkite's last interview before he retired as the CBS anchor and this is Doug Benjamin, who was vice president of CBS. They're just doubled over with something that's so funny and you went to be part of it.
[Walker:] The president was telling a joke. Now, I have asked every single one of those people in that picture what the joke was. Now, they say they can't remember.
[Meese:] I can't remember the joke. There were number of jokes that day.
[Burrows:] Nobody seems to remember, so maybe it was a little off color. This is the first day in the Oval Office and Jim Baker is in this picture, Mike Deaver, Jim Brady. What makes this picture so special is you know that's the moment where he first sat down at his desk and imagine what his thoughts were.
[Halstead:] From the very first moment that Ronald Reagan came into office, he projected this incredible aurora of hope and possibility. It was like a breathe of fresh air because suddenly all of this malaise, the clouds just disappeared and everything was possible.
[Peltz:] Then, only nine weeks into Reagan's presidency, John Hinckley raised his gun.
[Unidentified Male:] The White House has confirmed now, just in the last few minutes, that President Reagan has indeed been shot.
[Burrows:] This was secret service agent who was protecting him, and next here is down on the ground. It's almost like, a news reel. You know, you see one, two, three as he's being shot. You see the secret service agent as he's turning around, realizing what happened and there he is down on ground.
[Halstead:] I've been present now at three assassination attempts. First, there is disbelief that what is happening is happening. And then, time slows down.
[Meese:] I went immediately to the hospital, and it just happened the president saw all of us as he was being wheeled from the emergency room to the operating room. And he saw all of us there and he said in his typical fashion, who is minding the store?
[Van Damm:] It was so amazing the humor he kept not one time, why me It was him and that's the way it is and now let's go on.
[Peltz:] The assassination attempt gave President Reagan a boost in popularity, leading to what was called the Teflon presidency.
[Halstead:] After that, anything Ronald Reagan said people totally bought and what happened, Congress just passed everything he asked for. All of a sudden, they were stuck with budget which was an accident because the guy got shot.
[Andreas:] I love this picture.
[Burrows:] Tax cut, in 1981, Dirck Halstead.
[Andreas:] It speaks so eloquently of tax legislation.
[Burrows:] What's interesting about this, here's a picture that would probably be boring but because the mist. It was such a beautiful, beautiful morning. Oh, there's a great one that Diana Walker took of Reagan just laughing his head off with the queen.
[Andreas:] What in God's name is she wearing? Did she get dressed in the dark?
[Walker:] It was 1983. Queen Elizabeth came to California, and it never stopped raining. I mean, pieces of Santa Monica were falling into the ocean. The president and Mrs. Reagan were giving her a dinner, and she stood up to toast the president and she said, as I remember, I knew when the Puritans came to the New World that they brought with them many of the customs of my country, but I had no idea they brought the rotten weather, too. And the president just threw his head back and roared.
[Andreas:] And this, I happen to know, is I think it's at Camp Lejeune.
[Burrows:] Beirut bombing.
[Peltz:] On October 23, 1983, 241 American Marines were killed by a truck bomb in the Beirut compound. The president accepted full blame for the tragedy.
[Walker:] There was this memorial tribute to them and it was even worse because it was raining, and there was something just so very, very sad and I think you can see it on the Reagans' faces.
[Burrows:] And then, of course, then you go into...
[Andreas:] Speaking of reelection.
[Burrows:] Yes, Nancy at the GOP convention while Bush and President Reagan are in their hotel room waving back. So, the moment is almost simultaneous here.
[Andreas:] We have this wonderful Oval Office.
[Burrows:] Pete Souza.
[Pete Souza, Frm. White House Photographer:] I had this idea of trying to show the Oval Office from a different view that nobody had every seen. I thought it really showed the somewhat loneliness of the presidency.
[Burrows:] Well, this was where he was writing his speech at Reykjavik. It was not a high point and Pete Souza remembers.
[Souza:] That picture was taken in Iceland after the Reykjavik Summit with Mikhail Gorbachev, and the summit had not ended well. So, they had to frantically at the last minute rewrite the speech, and this is in the holding room at the Keflavik airport.
[Peltz:] Reagan's life-long crusade against communism reached its turning point at the Reykjavik Summit, held in October 1986. Though Margaret Thatcher called Mikhail Gorbachev a man we could do business with, President Reagan was not willing to give in to any conditions.
[Souza:] Gorbachev wanted Reagan to give up the strategic defense initiative and Reagan said no. And I think maybe Gorbachev had a greater appreciation for Reagan standing on his principles.
[Burrows:] And this was the Washington Summit and that was Geneva when they first met and it's interesting to see the body language and the interpreters and everything and here we are, a couple of years later in Washington, and you see the warmth of the two coming together.
[Andreas:] Exactly.
[Walker:] They were very good at making really terrific photo opportunities and this is one. I mean, there they are in their red, white, and blue. I mean, it looks almost like a Busby Berkeley musical.
[Burrows:] And then, of course, the Dirck Halstead's last moment in the White House.
[Halstead:] It was just me and the Reagans and he is telling jokes again. Just as the Bushes car came up to the front door, I crouched down from behind and took the picture.
[Burrows:] And the farewell after the.... Ken Jereski.
[Andreas:] This is terrific. Passing the torch here.
[Souza:] The last day of his presidency, after the inauguration, the Reagans came to the East side of the Capitol where the Marine helicopter was parked and we took off and I remember the pilot flew around the Capitol one last time and then went over to the White House and flew over the White House, and President Reagan is looking out the window and he says to Nancy, well, there's our little bungalow down there, honey.
[Peltz:] An incredibly powerful image. In a minute, pictures from the twilight: Ronald Reagan's legacy. A LIFE IN PICTURES comes right back. By the time Ronald Reagan left office, the world had changed dramatically. But what no one could foresee were the changes soon to affect Ronald Reagan's life and define his final years.
[Reagan:] Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
[Burrows:] Remember in the '80s, when he made that famous speech, tear down that wall, and here he is in 1990 chipping away at it. It's a wonderful way to open up the legacy chapter.
[Sullivan:] He comes out of the White House, and from the ranch in California, he watches the fall of communism across Eastern Europe. He watches democracy spread West and he knows he's had a lot to do with it.
[Burrows:] And then part of the legacy that ties right in is Gorbachev, and that was after the two retired, basically, and the Gorbachevs came out to California and visited the ranch. Years later, I mean, they have remained friends. This is Kennerly's shot, the presidential library first, which I think that is such a wonderful it should be a spread.
[Andreas:] This is terrific.
[Burrows:] All the presidents together at the dedication of the Reagan Library in 1991. And what's wonderful about it is of all of them, Reagan is looking at us.
[Andreas:] They're also in chronological order.
[Burrows:] Yes, it makes the picture. It's just wonderful.
[Walker:] I would think in terms of his legacy, you certainly would have to have a picture of he and Mrs. Reagan together. It was always my impression that this were very much in love, and it was quite a partnership.
[Souza:] You know, a lot of people think he relied on her so much. Well, she relied on him, too. I mean, I think he gave her a world that she never would have expected to experience.
[Halstead:] As a photographer you couldn't miss how really powerful their relationship was. She had this gaze, this adoring gaze, that was on him all the time. She was the sunshine in his life.
[Sullivan:] It's all looking good, and very, very, very quickly, it's over. It's clear to his doctors in 1993 and confirmed for everyone by 1994 that he has Alzheimer's and almost immediately after, Reagan hand writes his letter to the American people, essentially telling they won't be hearing from him again. Basically, it's the old radio man signing off.
[Peltz:] President Reagan closed his letter with this message: "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America, there will always be a bright dawn ahead. Thank you, my friends. May God always bless you. Sincerely, Ronald Reagan." "Life" magazine's book, "Ronald Reagan: A Life in Pictures," had to be ready for an April 2001 publication date, so there was no way to include the latest pictures of Ronald Reagan's life. Despite the passage of time, despite the ravages of Alzheimer's disease, and now his broken hip, somewhere deep down, the spirit of the Gipper is still there. Thank you so much for joining us for this special report. I'm Perri Peltz. Good night.