This is John Batchelor. My conversation with Max Boot continues in the new week. Ronald Reagan,

a successful governor, two terms in California. It challenges Jerry Ford, the President of the United

States for the nomination in 76 and loses. And here is the surprise. Ronald Reagan chooses to run again, as Max Boot very carefully explains, a surprise in 1980 at the age of 69.

Max Boot from his new book, Reagan, his life and legend, on Reagan's decision to run.

Again, I think she would have been Reagan's decision to run.

Again, I think she would have been perfectly happy not to run.

I think Reagan himself was the architect of his own presidential ambition.

And, you know, he was certainly bucking the trend because, you know, a lot of people expected that after the 1976 primary loss,

and he was, you know, 65 years old, people expected he would retire. But no, he, he came back

at the, at the ripe old age of 69 to seek the presidency.