RONALD REAGAN IN PRIVATE: A Memoir of My Years in the White House

Kuhn first met Reagan in 1975, when Kuhn was a 23-year-old Ohio farm kid who had voted for McGovern in 1972. Kuhn had been recruited to work for a Republican candidate during the 1974 primaries and made a "surprisingly easy" switch: "I found that I was attracted more to a particular candidate than to a particular ideology." Working the next year for Reagan, then governor of California, as a campaign "advance man" (prepping rally sites), Kuhn traveled with Reagan as he challenged Ford for the 1976 presidential nomination and returned for the successful 1980 campaign ("a spiritual and moral crusade to revive the heart of America"). After four years as a presidential appearance advance man (Kuhn was elsewhere during the assassination attempt), he became Reagan's executive assistant in 1984. Kuhn's admiring anecdotes about Reagan's interpersonal interactions form the heart of the book. Reagan's reactions to Reykjavik, Iran-Contra and myriad other '80s events are also here, and unfailingly admired by Kuhn. Light and light-filled, Kuhn's version of morning in America gives tender and specific recollections of its glossy surfaces, but not much more. (Aug.)

Forecast: Reagan's death has already been overshadowed by subsequent events, but Kuhn's access level was high, and Reagan buffs will come for fresh anecdotes.