“It may be in our power to put an end to this suffering [of debilitating diseases]. We only need to try….How’d you like to have your own personal biological repair kit standing by at the hospital? Sound like magic? Welcome to the future of medicine.”—Ron Reagan at the Democratic National Convention, July 2004, on the subject of stem-cell research.

He’s not left; he’s not right. He’s in the middle. But that doesn’t mean he’s neutral. “Etymologically, neutral shares a root with neutered,” declares Ron Reagan, deep into the interview conducted in my suite at the cutting-edge Hotel Andra on a crisp, rainless morning in downtown Seattle. “Who wants to be neutral all the time? I can’t think of a single thing I’m neutral on. I wanna be objective; I wanna be fair—but neutral? Make a judgment, for God’s sake, and stand on that judgment. Stand up and speak your mind!”

Ron Reagan does. He is passionate about curing such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, diabetes, cancer, and AIDS. He doesn’t like the system of having political parties (“labels divide, and none of them represent me”); Reagan is registered as “declined to state” and is an active member of the Creative Coalition. Before we go any further, let’s set the record straight. Contrary to popular belief, he is not a Junior. President Reagan’s middle name was Wilson; Ron’s is Prescott. Though he was close to his father, and admired and respected him enormously, Ron Reagan is his own man. 

Right on time, Ron phoned me from the hotel lobby. A few minutes later he enters the room cool, calm, and collected. He’s casually dressed in a gray V-neck sweater with jean-jacket, brown denims, and hip black boot-shoes. Though forty-six, Ron still has a youthful face and a trim physique. He has resided in Seattle for the past ten years with his wife of twenty-four years, Doria, a psychologist. They have three cats. Ron is a no-nonsense, no-frills guy. Well-spoken, honest, direct, and fervent, he has a strong, friendly, reassuring voice. Throughout our discussion, I feel as though I am catching up with an old high school chum.

Presently under contract with MSNBC, as a political commentator, Ron hopes this gig will lead to either a co-hosting job or his own show. He’s been working since he was eighteen, and for the past eighteen years has worked as a television correspondent, reporter, and a host on such shows as 20/20, Good Morning America, and Animal Planet. He’s been a contributing editor for Newsweek, Esquire, Interview, and Ladies’ Home Journal, and has produced several documentary specials. At one point he had his own talk show. In the early eighties, he did a two-year stint as a dancer with the Joffrey Ballet. During his father’s reign as President, Ron appeared in his skivvies both on Saturday Night Live and in a flamboyant Vanity Fair cover spread à la Tom Cruise in Risky Business.

We have watched him grow up in the spotlight, and sometimes, we’ve even made fun of him. Maybe we just didn’t understand his humor and lightheartedness. In Ron’s youthful days, there were murmurs that he was gay and that he had married to appease the Reagan administration. In a recent interview, Ron stated, “It never bothered me about being called gay. I’ve always thought of it like someone thinking that I’m Chinese or something. It’s not pejorative….It’s simply incorrect.”

Whatever one may have thought of him in the past, today he has emerged as an eloquent, thoughtful, mature man. Listen to that touching eulogy he gave at his father’s interment this summer, or the dynamic, stirring speech advocating embryonic stem-cell research at the Democratic convention this past summer.

Is Reagan the baby boomers’ maverick mouthpiece? We sure need one. Alas, he will not run for office because he likes to shoot off his mouth. “I’m not cut out to be a politician. You can’t just say what you feel. And, besides, I’m an atheist,” attests Reagan. His critics say this is Reagan’s fifteen minutes of fame. Don’t believe it. He has much more to say. It’s been a winding road but through it all Ron’s retained his sense of humor. (After the interview, and on the bequest of the A&U photographer, he was doing a pirouette and other dance moves on the street.) When I compliment him on his attitude, he chuckles, “Well, the next few years will be trying, but I hope I can maintain it.”

Since the election is still fresh in everyone’s mind, I ask Ron about it. He immediately points his finger at the Democratic Party. “For too long the Democrats have been back on their heels, running scared, trying to be ‘Republican Lite.’ The Democratic Party would do much better in the long run, and maybe even in the short run, if they would take a stand on certain issues and stick with it,” he advises, sitting back in a Scandinavian-designed armchair. “Stand up! Don’t run away every time somebody calls you a liberal. You ought to be proud to be a liberal, for God’s sake. When’s the last time you saw a Republican shy away from the conservative label?!” Reagan does give credit to Bush for approving AIDS funding to Africa, though the entire allotment has not been appropriated yet. “I’m cautiously optimistic about this election because it could be a painless opportunity for [him] to reach across the aisle, as he put it in his post-election press conference, and earn the trust of the Kerry voters. He could then rightfully call himself a ‘compassionate conservative.’”

Though the “compassionate conservative” has limited federally funded stem-cell research, Ron is elated about the passage of the California initiative for the state funding of stem-cell research, especially since he has actively campaigned for it. (His mother, Nancy Reagan, also supports stem-cell research). Recently on CNN’s Larry King Live he was astonished that they were even talking about this issue. “Discussing this is so profoundly anti-intellectual and inhumane. It is shameful,” Reagan protested. Indeed, stem-cell research will help eliminate many diseases, but will it cure AIDS? The simple answer is—not sure. “I’m told, the first diseases that will probably be affected are conditions like diabetes or Parkinson’s,” explains Ron as he sips green jasmine tea. “Alzheimer’s may not be affected by stem-cell research because you’re talking about plaques and tangles in the brain, that kind of external thing happening—likewise with AIDS. But research into stem cells is like sending a man to the moon, which gave us so many side benefits. The more you learn about cells and how they develop, the more likely you are to learn about things like viruses, and how you might be able to affect them. I suspect there will be tangential benefits to stem-cell research that may affect the AIDS epidemic. But I don’t know. These are still the early days.”

But not so early that advances in the treatment of AIDS-related illnesses haven’t already been made. Stem cells can be used to repair the cells that HIV damages and help rebuild the immune system. For example, stem cells have been found to be useful in the treatment of AIDS-related lymphoma. Often chemotherapy is avoided with this type of cancer because doctors believe that patients’ chances of surviving the therapy are not too good. And, besides killing cancer cells, chemotherapy also destroys white blood cells already weakened by HIV. Newly developed stem-cell technologies can preserve a small collection of white blood cell-producing stem cells outside of the patient’s body during chemotherapy and, after the regimen, bone marrow stem cells are returned. In this way, the patient’s immune system is restored and their chances of surviving chemo improve. Researchers at UCLA and City of Hope (a cancer hospital), among other sites, have also successfully grafted stem cells containing a therapeutic anti-HIV gene into the bone marrow of HIV-positive individuals.

Ron’s own personal experiences provided the impetus for his interest in stem-cell research. In 1994, his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and, for ten years, Ron watched him deteriorate. One of the first manifestations of Alzheimer’s is a declining ability to express oneself verbally. “This is a guy who loved nothing more than to be in a room full of people and start telling stories, or entertain telling jokes,” he says in his rich, deep, resonant tone. “To see that go away and to see him trapped, in a sense, without being able to express himself is awful.” Ron is emotional; his eyes are teary. “The early stages are often the hardest because the person afflicted with the disease realizes that something is wrong. You can see them struggling to communicate and they realize they can’t anymore. It gets to be very frustrating for them, and that’s painful for all involved.” 

Ron first read about stem-cell research in a scientific publication shortly after cells were isolated in 1998. “It fascinated me because of the almost magical aspect of it. The idea that you can take one of your skin cells, put it into a donor egg, and generate embryonic stem cells that only have your DNA—which eliminates the possibility of tissue rejection—and re-inject those cells into your brain, heart, bloodstream, whatever, and cure a disease...,” Ron enthuses. “I don’t think it occurred to me then that the federal government would stand in the way of that kind of research. But lo and behold,” he laughs mischievously, “good ol’ George W. Bush decided that he would.

“It amuses me when he boasts being the first President to fund embryonic stem-cell research. Well, they were only isolated in 1998. He’s the first President that could have offered any federal funding. But his position is morally incoherent. He, as an Evangelical Christian, has decided that disrupting the development of these early-stage embryos—which are, after all, just bundles of cells—is murder. Well, he’s entitled to that belief,” sighs Ron. “The fact of the matter is that these collections of cells are not human beings. They have the potential to become human beings and that’s where their magic is. That potential is what makes them so vital and important. But they’re not human beings.” 

As many of us are well-aware, the Reagan administration stood in the way of AIDS research but it seems, according to Ron, the parallel stops there. Reagan first heard about AIDS when it was still called GRID (gay-related immune deficiency) in the early eighties. He was living in New York, dancing with the Joffrey Ballet troupe, and had just married. “Doria and I have had many friends and colleagues die from AIDS. We were good friends with Perry Ellis and his partner, Laughlin, who both died of AIDS. We’ve lost too many people,” he says sullenly, slightly looking away. Sounds of sea gulls fly over.

Reagan remembers how people, at first, didn’t realize the potential threat of this disease. “This led to the tragic foot-dragging in my father’s administration in terms of getting to funding and leaping on this right away,” insists Reagan, crossing his legs. “I don’t defend that in any way. When people talk about it I just remind them it wasn’t that my father was, as that Showtime movie [The Reagans] suggested, callous in his heart. I just think he wasn’t really aware of it, due in large part, because Presidents tend to be isolated and cocooned. He’s not walking the streets everyday, hanging out with people and talking to folks. And the people who surrounded my father in his administration were not highly motivated. AIDS was seen in the early days as a disease that affected gay men and junkies, essentially, and that’s not a big Republican constituency,” he chuckles slightly, with a nod. Back then there were “people who think like [President Bush’s political advisor] Karl Rove: ‘This isn’t our problem. Let the Democrats take care of it. Those are their folks to deal with.’” Focused, he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “My mother has always had friends in the gay community, and she was more plugged in than my father would have been. He was more of a man’s man, a rancher, hung out with guys like cops. Not that cops can’t be gay but he wasn’t quite attuned. I remember my mother and I talking to my father about AIDS, and his attitude was, ‘Huh, no kidding? I had no idea. I didn’t realize the implications of this, nor how big it was.’” It wasn’t long after Ron and Nancy spoke to the President that the Reagan administration began dealing with the AIDS epidemic.

Today, Ron is wary about the way America is handling the continuing AIDS epidemic. “Look at AIDS and how it has been pushed aside. Diseases have a shelf life in this country—flavor of the month. You can understand it. I mean, there are a lot of diseases, and terrible, tragic stories that go along with all of them, and we have short attention spans. Your magazine is doing some positive work, and that is helpful,” he comments as he briefly looks out the window at the autumn trees and the traffic flow on Fourth Avenue. “I guess the best way is to explain to people about the science and the reality of the science but in a plain-spoken way. In America, if you have money, then you have access to drug cocktails and AIDS is survivable. But in other parts of the world, where these cocktails are not available, like in Africa and Asia, you are seeing huge numbers of people being infected. America doesn’t see that; AIDS is somewhere else. It’s places we don’t vacation. So we don’t want to know about it.” He becomes more intense and is dead-on serious. “But the social consequences of this are going to be enormous. You’re going to have tremendous numbers of orphans. They’re going to be susceptible to all sorts of violent ideologies as whole generations of adults are wiped out. It is an unfolding calamity.

“Some people think this epidemic is ‘history.’ If something wasn’t on TV last season it might as well be ancient Rome. It’s just a tragedy. Our educational system has a lot to do with that. Let’s talk to our kids! By the time kids become sexually active let’s start having realistic discussions about what the field of play is like,” he says vehemently placing his teacup on the end table. He’s fired up, centered, and expressive. “Viruses are rugged and determined. They don’t care! They’re looking for targets of opportunity. A gay man is as good as a straight woman. In Africa, it’s not a homosexual disease. AIDS has spread throughout the population. We have this sense that AIDS is somehow isolated in a certain community because of lifestyle, and this is nonsense.

“If we start ignoring the behavioral prescriptions and proscriptions around unprotected sex, we’re going to see a mutating virus that is more virulent and no longer susceptible to [any of] the drug cocktails. Then what?” he asks with widening eyes, “Then what?!” He pauses a moment, takes a deep breath, slowly shaking his head from ceiling to floor, and answers, “Then we’ll see the same kind of calamity happening here that is now happening in other countries—that would be horrific.”

THE REAGAN REPORT

on Bush

“Bush has a great sense of entitlement. This is a man who has never really succeeded at anything in his life.  It’s all been a ‘gimme’ for him, his father’s connections and all that. He spent most of his younger life in a dissolute unconcerned way. How can you be his age in the Sixties with the Viet Nam war going on and not really care one way or other?  He could have done what John Kerry did. He could have said, 'Well, it’s not fair just to send poor folks over there to fight.  I have an obligation if I’m going to support my country.'  He doesn’t care.  Instead, he went to the Champagne Squadron in Texas and then didn’t even show up much for that.  Skipped his medical exam, lost his flight status, which is a curious thing.  It’s not really about what he did thirty years ago, he was a kid, you know, that’s not important.  But the fact that he lied about it now is important.” 

“He was Governor of Texas, which is almost a ceremonial post.  The Governor is not even in charge of the budget. Two years into his term they came to him wanting him to run for President.  Why did they come to him? Because he had the last name Bush.  And because, I think, he was easily manipulated. In George Bush, I believe they have found that empty vessel and I imagine they are quite satisfied with that and are really eager for another four years of pouring of whatever they want into this empty teacup.”

on father

“My Dad was born in 1911. The Titanic was in dry dock, and Babe Ruth wasn’t playing major league baseball yet. He grew up in a pre-Oprah world. Men of that generation were not much given to sort of spilling their guts and their emotions all over the place. So, he could be slightly distant in that sense. I was very fond of my father. As a man, he was one of the most admirable people I’ve ever known. He was a deeply decent human being. If you gave him a nickel too much in change at the store, he’d walk five miles back to return that nickel. There was no bullshit with my father in that sense. I always admired him for that.”

“My father was a terribly brave man. I never knew him to demonstrate any physical fear.  Even when he was shot and nearly killed he was joking with the doctors in the emergency room. I’m sure at the time, his foremost concern was, ‘How do I put these people at ease.’ Here he was bleeding to death from a gunshot wound and he was worried about making sure everybody else was okay.  You know, immediately after coming out of surgery he was forgiving the man who shot him.”

on being first son

“I remember I was writing an article for Playboy magazine on the first Summit meeting in Geneva with Gorbachev and my father. I was there when they first met; I was behind the scenes. I had to promise not to write about any of it; nevertheless, I was literally listening at the door as they talked. Not too many people get that opportunity….To sit in the Oval Office and watch what goes on. It’s a privilege, and I never took it for granted.”

on fame

“My wife and I live a very private life. We don’t allow people to come to our house to do interviews. I’m not bothered too much in Seattle. People are pretty laid back.  A while back I remember Rupert Murdoch, who published the National Star, took off on my wife and her elderly parents in just a terrible, vicious personal way.  I don’t cotton to that stuff. If you want to say something about me, fine, but have the guts to say it to my face.”

on death 

“My wife is a Buddhist so I try and take a Buddhist perspective on death. We’re all going to die it’s just a question of when. So you try and deal with impermanence, which is a reality. Nothing lasts; everything fades.  This is life. That is the Universe we live in. The stars will go out eventually. We were, and then we’re not. I don’t need a god to live a good life. That’s a matter of my own conscience. I think this is the afterlife, in a way. This is the reality we’re presented with so you better make peace with it or else you’re going to be fighting your entire life against what is the overwhelming reality of the universe.”

on politics

“George Bush drifted through most of his life getting handouts basically. Failing in business but always walking away himself with a pile of cash even if his partners and investors took a bath.”

“I was a [Ralph] Nader protest voter in 2000 until the race tightened up and even then I was an ‘anybody-but-Bush-kind-of-person.’”

“I can’t say that there is anyone in the Democratic Party right now whom I’d say I’d be head over heals about in terms of getting to the White House. Barack Obama is somebody to watch.  He won’t be ready by 2008, he just needs to be in the game a little longer and prove himself.”

“Before our generation ends, America will see an African-American or a woman, or both, in the White House, and it will probably happen through the Vice Presidential route.”

“Al Sharpton is a lot of fun.  He really isn’t running for President, he’s running for himself.  He’s like Buchanan. Because of their position, they can speak their mind from their heart.”

on keeping fit

“When I grew up my parents wouldn’t have Coca Cola in the house—too much sugar and caffeine. We couldn’t watch television during the day, so we’d go out and play.

I used to be a runner but several years ago developed tendonitis in my achilles. My wife and I walk a lot. She’s a vegetarian, and an incredible cook.  My downfall is if she gets into a baking phase I can gain five pounds in a day!

I went to the gym for a while but I got bored with that. I do pushups everyday.  I think if you had one exercise to do for your upper body, pushups would be it because it involves almost every muscle in your upper body.  I have taken yoga but don’t do it regularly.  I do still stretch but not as much as I should.  I can’t do the splits anymore though, I mean, when ya get a little older how often do you need to do that [he guffaws]?!”

on ballet

“I miss dancing but I don’t miss the career aspect. That’s really why I left.  I looked around at some of the older dancers and thought, you know, I don’t want to be that in ten years. What disappointed me the most was that I thought once you get into a major ballet company it’s going to be a collaborative artistic effort.  What I found was what starts in ballet school continues through the company life in which dancers are treated as children and they’re not given any control over their lives.  They’re not brought in as full partners. And, I thought, I can’t put up with that now as a twenty-five year old, I’m certainly not going to be able to put up with it as a thirty-five year old.”

on people

Chris Matthews [his MSNBC co-anchor]: He’s been good to me. I admire that he displays passion for issues.

Patti Davis [his sister]: Patti is a very warm and engaging spirit.  I wish her the best.  She’s had some hard knocks in her life, and she would admit that she’s not always made the right decisions in various respects but she does have a good heart.  She never gives up. She always keeps trying, and I admire that very much.

Robert Joffrey: A very interesting character. He was a tiny little fellow.  I didn’t know him enormously well; we didn’t hang out together. Mostly I knew him from rehearsals but he was a man who gave himself and gave his life to his art, wholeheartedly. He never held back. That’s a remarkable thing. A very bright, well read man, and a great-dedicated dancer. Ballet was his life. Lived it right to the end.

Jane Wyman [his father’s first wife]: I only met her a couple of times. There’s not much I can say about Jane. I wish her the best.

His Mom: My mother has had a more difficult life than some people realize but she found the great love of her life in my father [Ron becomes emotional]. And she stood by him throughout his illness in a brave way. She is to be commended for that. She’s a very dignified person.

Pat Buchanan: We disagree on almost everything except the Iraq war. But I have to say, as forceful as he can be on the air with the hand-chop and all of that, Pat Buchanan off the air is a terribly sweet guy—a gentleman, good to everyone around him. He’s even tempered.

Gene Kelly: I know him predominately because he recommended a ballet studio to my father, where I ended up studying. He is one of the great, athletic dancers of all time. 

Christopher Reeves: He was an enormous spirit!  This is a guy who is so brave.  I can’t imagine being in a situation like him trapped in this body, and not giving up.  He never gave up hope.  He always kept fighting for himself and others, as well. I can only hope to be that brave.

Ron names one word to describe himself: Curious.

REAGAN RESPONDS

Do you have a favorite TV sitcom of all time?

The Simpsons. I also like the British shows Faulty Towers, Monty Python, and The Office.

Where is you favorite place to disappear to?  Where do you go to recharge your batteries?

The mountains—the Cascades and the Alpine Lakes region. I like to put a pack on my back, go off for a few days and just wander around, often alone.

Do you have a favorite movie of all time?

Wings of Desire.  And, Withnail and I.

What kind of relationship did you have with your father?

I was going to say a fairly close relationship but I suppose compared to other families that wouldn’t really apply. Our Reagan family tends to be slightly atomized.  At one point, there were two separate families of course.  My Dad was married previously having two kids in that marriage; then two kids in the other. My father and I related very well on a sort of physical level.  He was a very athletic guy and so we would really connect over a game of touch football, a swimming race, or that kind of thing. We almost had a telepathic intuitive kind of relationship when it came to sports.  We just related very well in that sort of way. 

Of the many people you have met, is there one in particular who impressed you or inspired you the most? 

I’ve been struck less in my life by the obvious suspects. I’ve met, or at least talked to every President since Nixon. I had a conversation with Bill Clinton on the phone the other day.  He’s the only President that I haven’t actually met in person. I’m more struck by people whose names I don’t know.  For instance, I went to Ethiopia a couple summers ago to do a pilot for ABC that never got picked up. I’d never been to Africa before. Suddenly I found myself in a place where the Middle Ages are still going on.  We went to a little town in the north called Axom. We were supposed to be looking for the arc of the covenant [he laughs]; it’s a sort of mystery thing that they claimed was in Axom. But what was more interesting, more effecting to me was the people there and the level of poverty. You literally had people crawling towards you with their hands out, pointing to their mouths. Children leading their blind grandparents up to you asking for handouts [Ron becomes visibly emotional, his voice deepens and cracks while his eyes fill with tears]. That kind of poverty is just extraordinary. That kind of need is so affecting.  I just wished I had brought more money, or medicines with me.  I just didn’t realize what I was getting into. It was a last minute thing I was asked to do.  Those people have affected me more than any of the sort of ‘high and mightys’ that I’ve met.

Is there anyone you’d like to meet that you haven’t met yet?

Aung San Suu Kyi (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Burma dissident). I’m very impressed by people who put their own lives, health, and safety on the line for other people. I’d like to meet Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.

 

Dann Dulin interviewed Dustin Hoffman for the October issue.

December 2004