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About 10% of Americans between the ages of 65 and 75 are senile. The President clearly is not. Doctors watching the debate saw no signs of slurred speech or outright memory loss, the usual telltales. They did suggest that Reagan should be regularly tested for mental acuity. Though Reagan promised in 1980 that he would undergo testing for senility if elected, so far he has not. Earlier this year he told an interviewer that he would take the tests "only if there was some indication that I was drifting ... Nothing like that has happened."
The slow response time that Reagan showed in the debate is not uncommon among older people. Said Dr. James Spar, a geriatrics psychiatrist at UCLA: "It's the kind of forgetfulness that when you reach back for a fact, it isn't there. But 20 minutes later, it comes back to you." Stress, not age, may explain Reagan's slips. "Any of us could be capable of that kind of performance live on national TV," said Dr. William Applegate, a geriatrics expert at the University of Tennessee.
There is no reason to believe that Reagan's intelligence is diminishing. "The competence of an individual does not change much with age," said Dr. T Franklin Williams, director of the National Institute on Aging. "Many people in their 80s and 90s are quite capable of being President." Gerontologists point out that China is vigorously run by Deng Xiaoping, 80, and that half the members of the Soviet Politburo are over 70.
Reagan has aged less visibly in office than most of his modern predecessors. Indeed, his robust example may undermine the notion that age necessarily saps vigor. Said Spar: "Nowadays people between 65 and 75 are statistically more like young people than they are like old people." At about age 75, many people cross a vaguely defined line between what gerontologists call "young-old" and "old-old." They become less vigorous and more infirm. But doctors caution that the effects of aging vary greatly from person to person, and that Reagan is on the young side of old.
Reagan aides profess not to be worried about the age issue. White House polls show fewer than 10% of the respondents expressing concern about Reagan's age and, says one adviser, "so far the effect on how people say they are going to vote is zero." Some point out, in a kind of backhanded defense of their boss, that he was mentally loose and sometimes sloppy with facts even when he was young. But that does not settle the question. "The real danger isn't that [his debate miscues] connote an age problem," said former Reagan Campaign Manager John Sears. "They raise questions about his competence."
That was the issue Mondale seized on. For weeks he has tried to depict Reagan as a dangerously detached leader who skates by the hard problems of governing. The debate provided more ammunition. Mondale told TIME: "The President must have control of the central facts in order to lead his government. If you don't have that, you can't lead."