NEW YORK - Ronald Reagan saved his most private and dramatic thoughts for a handwritten book - a diary in which he recalled his running frustration with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, his fear that Armageddon was near and coughing up blood on the day he was shot.
Diary excerpts, released by Vanity Fair magazine yesterday, also reflect the troubled relationship he had with his son Ron, his preoccupation with the "mad clown" Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his personal chemistry with Mikhail Gorbachev during arms-control talks.
Reagan hand-wrote diary entries every day of his eight years in office from 1981 to 1989 except when he was in the hospital after being shot on March 30, 1981, about which he wrote, "Getting shot hurts."
"I sat up on the edge of the seat almost paralysed by pain. Then I began coughing up blood."
The Reagan Diaries will be published on May 22. The brief entries offer the actor-turned-politician's views on world affairs as they happened, and how he still thought about his Hollywood days, whether lamenting the death of Fred Astaire - or promising Jimmy Stewart he would look into banning the colourisation of black-and-white movies.
Reagan also revealed he wore a bullet-proof vest during a speech at the National Press Club in a he which he asked the Soviet Union to join the US in eliminating medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe. "Funny - I was talking peace but wearing a bullet-proof vest. It seems Gaddafi put a contract on me."
