Ronald Reagan rides a horse—a familiar photo opportunity for presidents. But Reagan was an amiable ...

Ronald Reagan rides a horse—a familiar photo opportunity for presidents. But Reagan was an amiable cowboy; his smile and sense of humor were his most disarming weapons. In 1966 just after the election, when reporters asked him what sort of governor he would be, Reagan, a former actor, answered, “I don’t know. I’ve never played a governor.” Three months into his presidency, moments after he was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt, he took his wife’s hand. “Honey,” he said, “I forgot to duck.” While being wheeled into the operating room, he quipped to the surgeons, “I hope you are all Republicans.”