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James Baker on:
the Reagan's Closing Statement at the 1984 Presidential Debates

RealAudio 14.4 | RealAudio 28.8

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 and 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 Nancy Reagan, will be very quick to tell you, is 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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