The Reagan Diaries

As a former history student, the idea of reading a president's diaries from when he was in office is exciting. Especially if that president is Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan saved his most private and dramatic thoughts for a handwritten book -- a diary in which he recalled his running frustration with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, his fear that Armageddon was near and coughing up blood on the day he was shot.

Diary excerpts, released by Vanity Fair magazine on Tuesday, also reflect on the troubled relationship he had with his son Ron, his preoccupation with the "mad clown" Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his personal chemistry with Mikhail Gorbachev during arms-control talks.

Reagan hand-wrote diary entries every day of his eight years in office from 1981 to 1989 except for when he was in the hospital after being shot on March 30, 1981, about which he wrote, "Getting shot hurts."

The full version of "The Reagan Diaries" will be published on May 22 by HarperCollins, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

The book can be pre-ordered at Amazon and the Vanity Fair excerpts are here.