I also thought the administration was a disaster in the arena of national security. While it was cutting back on our military power, we were losing ground to Communism in much of the globe. The morale of our volunteer army was plummeting, our strategic forces were growing obsolete, and nothing was being done to reduce the threat of a nuclear Armageddon that could destroy much of the world in less than a half-hour's time. There were other serious problems: unemployment, inflation, and interest rates were climbing and it looked as if administration policies would lead the nation into a serious recession.

But perhaps worst of all, it seemed to me that America was losing faith in itself. Almost every day, the president was sending a message to the American people that America had passed its prime, that Americans were going to have to get used to less in the future, that we should not have the same hopes for the future that we once did, and that we had only ourselves to blame for it. As the months passed and the problems got worse, I received more and more calls urging me to run for president, so I decided to run in 1980.

If I won in, I would turn seventy shortly after Inauguration Day and become the oldest president in history. The truth is, I felt thirty-nine or younger. I didn't feel any different or any older than the way I'd always felt. But I realized it was inevitable that the press would focus attention on my age. I'd never taken naps or dyed my hair, but that hadn't stopped reporters from suggesting I did.

When I'd announced my decision to run for the Republican presidential nomination, the field was already crowded; with seven candidates already in the race, it promised to be a long campaign. As I had in 1976, I told my campaign staff that I intended to abide by the Eleventh Commandment: I'd attack only Democrats while trying to let the voters know where I stood. The first battleground in the 1980 presidential contest was considered the Iowa caucuses. George Bush practically lived in Iowa before the caucuses and he won by a narrow margin. This loss was a real shocker and a big disappointment to me. I think the loss in Iowa had really whipped up my competitive fires, and I didn't want to lose again.

As I've said, I have often wondered at how our lives can turn on what seem like small or inconsequential events. That winter, a brief and seemingly small event, one lasting only a few seconds, occurred in a high school gymnasium in Nashua, New Hampshire, and I think it helped take me to the White House. In the final days before the election in New Hampshire, I think almost everybody except the other candidates agreed that the primary had settled down to a race between George Bush and myself, with Bush the front runner.

When the Nashua Telegraph offered to sponsor a debate between the two of us on the Saturday evening preceding the election, we both accepted. Understandably, this brought howls from the other candidates. In protest, one of them, Senator Bob Dole, complained to the Federal Elections Commission that by financing a debate between only two of the seven candidates, the newspaper was making an illegal campaign contribution to the Bush and Reagan campaigns. The commission agreed with him, so my campaign offered to pay the full cost of the debate - a few thousand dollars - and they accepted.

I thought it had been unfair to exclude the other candidates from the debate. Most of them were also campaigning in New Hampshire that weekend, and since we were now sponsoring and paying for it, I decided to invite them to join the debate. Four of the other candidates - Bob Dole, Howard Baker, John Anderson, and Phil Crane (John Connally was campaigning elsewhere) - accepted. When we walked on to a platform set up for the debate at the Nashua High School gymnasium Saturday night, there was one table, two chairs, and six candidates. When he spotted the four other candidates, Jim Baker, George Bush's campaign manager, protested and said George would not participate in the debate as long as they were part of it. Since I had invited them, I couldn't go along with him and exclude the other candidates, so we were at an awkward impasse. George just sat frozen in his chair, not saying anything; I sat in the other chair with the four other candidates standing behind me, looking embarrassed in front of two or three thousand people while being literally told they had to leave.

Unable to understand what was going on, the audience hooted and hollered an urged us to proceed. I decided I should explain to the crowd what the delay was all about and started to speak. As I did, an editor of the Nashua newspaper shouted to the sound man, "Turn Mr. Reagan's microphone off." Well, I didn't like that - we were paying the freight for the debate and he was acting as if his newspaper was still sponsoring it. I turned to him, with the microphone still on, and said the first thing that came to my mind: "I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Breen." Well, for some reason my words hit the audience, whose emotions were already worked up, like a sledgehammer. The crowd roared and just went wild. I may have won the debate, the primary - and the nomination - right there.

I continued to campaign for the remaining days until the election. When the polls closed, I learned I had won the seven-way New Hampshire primary with fifty-one percent of the vote. In retrospect, this was really the pivotal day of the whole primary campaign for me. Shortly after New Hampshire, all the candidates except George Bush dropped out, and then, near the end of May, he dropped out too.

In early July, when Nancy and I arrived at the Republican National Convention in Detroit, it appeared I had more than enough delegate votes to win the nomination and the next thing on my agenda was choosing a running mate. The delegates were waiting for me at the Joe Louis Arena to announce my decision. The obvious choice was George Bush. When I announced my decision to the throng of delegates crowded into the arena, they rose to their feet with a tremendous roar. The roof almost came off. As George and I stood there together, it was almost as if we were putting the party back together again. I then asked the delegates to join me in a silent prayer. Now George and I faced the challenge, together, of beating Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.

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