 Well, as you know, this is for a cover story that will appear the week after next on Mrs. Reagan. That's what I understand. And this part of it is sort of your perspective on a number of things that have been going on. The piece, as my other pieces on there have been, that will be shall we say on the serious side of the First Lady, I hope at least. Now she has told me in one of our conversations that she feels these days more like her own person than she did two or three years ago. Do you have any sense of that happening? And if so, how does that appear from your perspective? Well, yes. I'm sure there had been a change a few years ago. First of all, that absolutely uncalled for attack by some in the media with regard to the refurbishing and painting a few walls in the White House, which hadn't been painted for 30 years, that was very upsetting to her. And they were painting an image or creating an image that I think even now those who did it realize was a false image and that isn't the way she is or her personality. And I think the little episode that happened to me on March 30th, she didn't get over it as quickly as I did. And now I think the other that images out of the way and picking on her in that way anymore. And I think there's been some recovery from a kind of a traumatic shock on the other. So yes, I think she's, yes, I've been able to see it that she's more herself. But more her own person, I mean that indicates some kind of change, not as a woman, not in her relationship with you insofar as man and wife, but a change as a public personality. Well in that way, yes, to, after the other was to now, to find herself in the things that she's very much interested in, particularly the program of the young people and the drugs, which certainly is hers and her undertaking, I mean. And she's most sincere and deeply involved in that and of course her continuing interest in the foster grandparents program. So I think in that sense, yes, that all those things, they were kind of left over here with the other things that were going on, but no, she's, she can't help but be aware of what she's been able to accomplish and do in those fields and it's considerable. Even apart from that, I'm not trying to diminish that in any way, but in addition to that, some of your own political advisers have mentioned in private that in the 84 campaign judging by the data, she was much more of an asset in straight political terms as a public personality than she had been in 80. She also appeared in public, in the political sense, to be more self-confident and more outgoing. Well, if you'll remember in 1980, these other things that I was just talking about hadn't happened and since then in connection with those programs, she's always, there's been a shy side to her and the very calls on her for appearances and for public gatherings and so forth, particularly in connection with the drug programs or the, our programs to eliminate drugs, she can't help but have gained a confidence about public appearances and so forth in doing that. Before, she was very reluctant. I remember that very well. Yes. I realize that she still does not involve herself in policy matters, economics, foreign affairs, but she does give you advice and I think she always has on certain important subjects. I think I'm talking about political and administrative subjects. For instance, she mentioned in one of her conversations with me that after the 84 election, she suggested to you that you consider seriously important changes in the cabinet. Obviously, you, in that case, did not take her advice, but do you seek her advice in such matters? Do you seek her advice more often recently than perhaps in Sacramento or in 81? Well, let me answer this in two ways. First of all, a part of the image making that has taken place and false image making has been one of trying some way to suggest that she is some dominant force behind the scenes and well, the, an example of that was that incident at the ranch when someone asked a question of me and I was, I paused for a second about how I was going to answer that and Nancy literally to herself said, well, you know, like that's what we're doing or something. We're doing the best we can. And she wasn't cueing me to an answer and actually what happened was and I'm sure this could happen to anyone that I heard what she said and I thought that's, that's a good answer and I, I repeated it. Well then they have it played that I was stymied for an answer and she had to cue me. This was all a part of that other thing. So that, let me lay that to rest. Now on the other hand, we've been married 32 years. Yes we talk. And yes, I, I don't have any things that I keep to myself. I'm just that way that I go upstairs and talk about what took place in the day and problems that I'm facing at all and she talks and I talk and I just find it that is very normal. Well, wasn't there another myth about her years ago, at least as I got to know her in the 80 campaign, I think there was still another myth kicking around, which I, she and I have joked about it. I call it the Miss Goody Two Shoes myth and she kind of, so she almost fed that myth by occasionally coming across as not knowing enough or not being interested enough really to even to have opinions. I always felt that she did herself an injustice in that respect and that, and more recently I think as part of this business about her being more her own person, it's become clearer to more people that she has well informed opinions on some subjects and she certainly is always trying to guard your flanks politically. I think there's no secret about that. She's very protective. She is a nest builder with an intense family loyalty that grew out of her own rearing in the doctor's family. Yeah. She and I talked about that too and how she was very eager as a young girl to have a real family life again and all that. But in the process, don't you have the sense that she is becoming increasingly an advisor in addition to being first lady? No, not increasingly or anything of the kind. It's just as I say, we have a very open relationship between us. I find myself, and this has been true as long as we've been married, long before I was in this activity, that I think when something unusual happens or something important to my life or something that I hear about my first thing in my mind is, wait till I tell Nancy. I just, it's that way between us. And I think again what you said about the self-effacing thing, I think that was a reaction to this image-building about somehow that I stand and wait for instructions. That goes back to Sacramento. And it does. Your opponents were trying to attack you as being the passive movie actor, all of that sort of thing. And somebody wrote a book even and invented all sorts of things about her that are absolutely false. So what I have chosen with journalistic license to call Miss Goody Tushu's business is almost a reaction to that other thing. Yes, yeah. Well, she mentioned to me, we've had three conversations as you probably know recently for this article, she and I, she mentioned to me that building up to the decision to run again in 84, that you had to court her, I think that was the word she used, into that decision. Now was that a difficult courtship job? No, not really. When she understands something that I want to do, that settles it. So there was never a point, as I understand it, where she was saying, no, let's not, and you were saying, yes, we must. Never, no. But she did have some ambivalence, some reservation or two that you had to work around? Oh, not really, except that it was a thing of remembering 80 and the whole hassle of the campaign and everything was, you know, are you sure that we really want to do this, that kind of attitude? Well, with the new self-confidence that she shows in public, and here again, I'm talking mostly about political matters, not so much the anti-drug program, although one may flow from the other. She is saying things that in 80 she would not have said. For instance, in her interview with the Los Angeles Times, she stated a view on abortion in those cases of pregnancy caused by rape. It attracted a little attention because she had not spoken on that before. She has also been more candid, as in the Betty Beale interview, about family matters. How does that sort of thing sit with you? No, I understand. The thing happens to me, too. I understand when questions start and you can say something that someone grabs on and makes maybe more of it than it was in your mind when you said it. The question of abortion, for example, I think there are facets to that question which people can be unsure of how they feel. I have, as I say, for me, and I think she accepts this, the only way that I can justify abortion is in self-defense. We recognize, in other words, abortion is the taking of a human life, in my view, and no one has been able to introduce any evidence that that unborn child is not a human life. Does a few minutes between actual birth and prior to birth mean that something has suddenly come alive that wasn't alive a few minutes before? To me, I say, well, when could it be justified? In our Judeo-Christian tradition, self-defense has always been justification for taking life. So I have felt that the expectant mother, if that actually threatens her life, has a right to protect her life. Now, I know that a number of people feel much the same way about abortion. But then they say, well, now, wait a minute, self-defense, could that include other things, just as you would have an ability to defend against rape, do you have a right to defend against the results of rape? Well, I'm content in my own mind that the life of the mother is the one justification for it. And I think that in answering that question, and Nancy was probably saying just what I have said here, you could take this if you wanted to and isolate it from any of the rest of the conversation, and I could see a headline appearing, President says abortion is justified if, well, I haven't said that at all, so I've told you I think it is a human life that is being taken. Well, that interview in which she used the term estrangement, and then your son Michael's response, led to a series of phone conversations between you and Michael. In retrospect, did that turn out to be a good thing? Did that sequence of events perhaps clear the air between you two and serve to repair any bit of static? And I speak, of course, as a fellow with three sons of my own, and I know how these things can go. Well, again, none of us are going to, what she was principally trying to say simply was that the whole summing up of it was that we're not going to talk about family affairs, so I'm not going to violate that either. But we'll be together soon, we'll go to California, and we're just not going to comment. Well, many people have remarked on the unusual strength of your marriage, how close you two have always been. You said on camera during the campaign, I believe, that you can't imagine life without her. Do you think as part of that, that Mrs. Reagan sometimes feels or acts overly protective where you're concerned, you alluded to that yourself a moment ago, in effect that she sometimes acts in a maternal way towards you? Well, no, I can just tell you that there is a great sense of loyalty that she has and extends to family, all of us. And yes, she, I'm quite sure she just couldn't help it, as I say, she's a nest builder. And she can't help herself from feeling protective in that way. Well, it's been suggested by any number of pop, psych artists that another side of this unique relationship between the two of you is that your children, particularly the older two, have sometimes felt, in effect, left out that you two were so close and so self-sufficient emotionally. What do you think of that kind of speculation? I don't think so. As a matter of fact, I think they, as they've grown up a little, they all understand because they have discovered that the same protection and protective feeling goes to all the family. No, I don't think that or that, I don't think that any of them feel it. The bonds are very close. And you refer to this as an unusual relationship. Well, I happen to think there are just millions of marriages throughout our country and many more, I'm sure, throughout the world. But I know a great many people that I think have that same bond of love and that same close relationship that we have. But yes, we're both very fortunate. Well, then again, she always says that you're the eternal optimist of the two. And that's sort of part of her function to live in that a little bit. Yes. And I always tease her about worrying. And it's almost kind of a family joke in the family. She uses a line from a joke sometimes about me. When I say something optimistic, by the same token, I joke at her that she worries if she hasn't got something to worry about. What is the joke that she uses? Larry, I can't. It's always good to end these things with a joke. I can't tell. But it's a joke that just is based on optimism versus pessimism. It's not the old pony story, is it? Are you going to print that? Well, I've printed the pony story several times. It's the old pony story. I got you. Okay. I'm Matt Willem. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Happy new year. All right. We'll bump into you out there. Thank you.