American Experience

Former White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of Treasury James Baker on Reagan's Closing Statement at the 1984 Presidential Debate

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JAMES BAKER: The only time I ever remember an incident when the President didn't do his homework was in the debate in Louisville with Walter Mondale, when he didn't memorize his close. It's really important in a presidential debate that you open strong and close strong and generally speaking, the candidates are encouraged to memorize their closing statements. And President Reagan didn't do that at the Louisville debate and consequently he had trouble with it. If you go back and view the tape of that debate and he lost his track. But that's the only time I remember an incident really where he didn't "do his homework."

He was very good about it and as a matter of fact, we made special efforts not to over-brief the President because -- as Nancy Reagan will be very quick to tell you if she's interviewed for this program -- one of the biggest mistakes you could make with President Reagan was to give him too much because he was so diligent about reading it and working on it and trying to learn it that sometimes he could, if it was too much, it would throw him off track. So, he was quite diligent about doing his homework, generally.

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