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"I have to tell you," Reagan goes on, "Queen Elizabeth is a most charming, down-to-earth person. It didn't surprise me a bit to hear how she handled that intruder. Incidentally, she's a very good rider." When the two of them rode near Windsor Castle, he says, it was "not like in the parades where it has to be traditional sidesaddle. It is called the forward seat, the modern riding, and you knew that she was in charge of the animal."
The Queen is one of the world's great stage presences, and Reagan fondly recalls his dinner in the castle. "At this magnificent banquet at which you had close to 200 people at a single table, you sit in the middle, the Queen and I on one side and Nancy and Prince Philip on the other. When the toasts are over, the two of us exit down that table. The footmen pull the chairs back, and the Lord Chamberlain precedes us walking backward. I suddenly saw this tiny figure beside me walking along waving her hand. She's steering him. She said to me, 'You know, we don't get those chairs even, and he could fall over one and hurt himself.' "
But if the images of these friends are etched deeper in Reagan's mind, the view of his principal adversary Leonid Brezhnev is elusive and even receding. "I had met him ten years ago. That was when he was at San Clemente. And I did write him when I was in the hospital, after my little episode. I wrote him a handwritten letter. I will admit that the diplomatic corps was shocked and was not quite sure that handwritten letters should be written. But it was delivered. I reminded him of our meeting, then I asked whether it is not governments that get in the way. What would a summit meeting be like if it were between the people of our two countries? How much they would have in common with each other—the raising of a family, the desire to work at the work of their choice. And I just said, 'Some day, maybe we can sit down and talk about what do their people and our people really want.' I must say I was a little disappointed. Quite a bit later an answer came, and I think it was less personal than my letter had been. It showed the hand of the bureaucracy." Now, of course, there is a mystery for Reagan. He does not know how much Brezhnev is still in charge.
Mostly, Reagan's mind is back home. He uses the phone on Air Force One to rally support for the tax bill. It is vital to meet what he believes is the country's greatest need: "to get those people back to work who want to work."
There is another part of the problem. "Once this recession is under control," he says, "we're going to have to face that there has been such an increase in the work force, we've got to look at our economy as to how we create the new jobs."
He sees another pressing need: "To reawaken that American spirit of self-reliance, community pride, where the first reaction to a problem isn't 'Let's call Washington.'" Here, believes Reagan, there is progress, shown by the hundreds of examples of community enterprises that are being catalogued by a task force. He mentions one, the handicapped mother maintaining a family on a pittance but still able to write how blessed she is. When he got the letter, Reagan recalls that he said, "Good Lord, here is an American who has not been asking for a thing."