You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.

The former chief of staff at the White House during Reagan's presidency, Don Regan,

tells a story of how shortly after he became Reagan's chief of staff, there was an alert.

There was smoke in the White House.

Guards scurried everywhere throughout the property to find out the source of the smoke.

Finally, they traced it.

It was the president's study.

And they put the fire out pretty easily.

But the interesting thing was,

the whole time, President Reagan was there working at his desk in the study. He heard the disturbance. He noticed the smoke. But he stayed at his desk, even as it got a little more difficult to read due to eye irritation.

He continued to look at his documents and mark them as he was prone to do.

Finally, the guards suggested to the president that he find another room to do his work in.

That's fine, he said, Hadn't want to bother anybody.

To Don Regan, he saw it as evidence of Reagan's style.

He hesitated to make decisions, preferred to defer.

He'd assume someone else was taking care of an action.

And for a man blessed with the power of the leader of the free world,

he didn't always want to seem to be using it.

He didn't always want to seem to be using it. and I don't see that it has been a fiasco or a great failure of any kind.

This podcast series is a dozen Ronald Reagan's.

I'm now at episode eight.

It's taken an entire year.

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