Ron Reagan

Re "To GOP, He's Dishonoring His Father," July 19: The Democrats have enlisted Ron Reagan to speak on stem-cell research at their convention, causing Republicans to go into paroxysms of outrage over his repudiation of his father's principles and his consorting with the enemy. But the GOP itself is happily trotting out that renegade Georgia Democrat-in-name-only Zell Miller, whose sole and exclusive purpose for speaking at the Republican convention is to cloak himself in his party affiliation and then trash John Kerry.

A Ronald Reagan boomlet is sweeping the nation, thanks in no small part to an army of conservative admirers who have never missed a chance to buff his image ? and then use it for their own ends. Nothing looms larger for Reagan worshippers than the centennial of his birthday on Feb. 6. FOR THE RECORD: Reagan: A Jan. 23 Op-Ed on Ronald Reagan said that he signed the START I nuclear arms treaty. Reagan proposed the treaty; President George H.W. Bush signed it. ? Fittingly, Californians were first off the mark to celebrate their local hero: On Jan. 1, the Reagan Presidential Foundation and Jelly Belly, the jelly bean company that filled candy dishes at the Reagan White House, sponsored the first-ever Rose Parade float memorializing a president.

The gods visit the sins of the father upon the children, as the saying goes, and just as Ronald Reagan went from "Bedtime for Bonzo" to "Death Valley Days" to the White House, son Ron can't seem to make up his mind what he wants to be. After being a dancer, writer and TV journalist, the younger Reagan's latest career choice is also his worst. The guy thinks he's funny. He's not, and the proof lies in the latest "Cinemax Comedy Experiment," titled "Ron Reagan Is the President's Son."

My Father at 100 A Memoir Ron Reagan Viking: 228 pp., $25.95 "Hinckley had loaded his pistol with a type of exploding bullet charmingly marketed as a Devastator," writes Ron Reagan, describing John Hinckley Jr.'s 1981 attempt to assassinate his father, President Ronald Reagan. "It was the sixth and final shot that first hit not Dad but the armor-plated side of the presidential limousine. The armor did its job admirably well, but with disastrous consequences. As it was deflected, the bullet flattened into a dime-sized disk before striking my father, slicing into his chest beneath his left arm and lodging in his left lung, barely an inch from his heart, still unexploded.

My Father at 100 A Memoir Ron Reagan Viking: 228 pp., $25.95 "Hinckley had loaded his pistol with a type of exploding bullet charmingly marketed as a Devastator," writes Ron Reagan, describing John Hinckley Jr.'s 1981 attempt to assassinate his father, President Ronald Reagan. "It was the sixth and final shot that first hit not Dad but the armor-plated side of the presidential limousine. The armor did its job admirably well, but with disastrous consequences. As it was deflected, the bullet flattened into a dime-sized disk before striking my father, slicing into his chest beneath his left arm and lodging in his left lung, barely an inch from his heart, still unexploded.

Ron Reagan, a former contributor to "Good Morning America" and host of his own syndicated talk show, will be a correspondent for the prime-time newsmagazine that Fox plans to introduce later this year. Also named a correspondent on the weekly series was Andria Hall, who has spent the past eight years as an anchor, reporter and producer at WCVB-TV in Boston.

Ron Reagan, who has been reporting for "Good Morning America" since last February, will get a chance to host the morning program Monday, ABC says. Reagan, son of President and Nancy Reagan, will fill in for vacationing David Hartman that day, with Denise Yamada sitting in for co-host Joan Lunden. "I noticed they waited for Labor Day to give me my break, when all of three people will be watching," Reagan quipped.

The Soviet Union has turned down a request by ABC's "Good Morning America" to have Ron Reagan, the President's son, tour the country for a series of stories about Soviet life, an ABC spokesman said today. "We're disappointed," said John Goodman, a producer for the program. "But hopefully they'll reconsider." "Good Morning America" sent a request on Dec. 23 to the Soviet television agency asking permission for Reagan to tour the country from Jan. 19 to 30, Goodman said.

For some reason, there was a flurry of queries by reporters and possibly some raised eyebrows at ABC News when the President's son disclosed this week that he will become an on-camera reporter for ABC-TV. Did this mean, some wondered, that Ron Reagan, 27, a free-lance writer, would cover fires, floods, pestilence and wars, or maybe even become part of the White House press pack and get to shout questions at his dad just like Sam Donaldson?

Ron Reagan, son of the former President and Nancy Reagan, will co-host a syndicated daytime talk show starting next year, MCA Television announced. Also featuring Cristina Ferrare, the show promises to be "spontaneous, upbeat, informative and fast paced," MCA said Tuesday. It will be taped before an audience at Universal Studios, where the pilot is being made. "It's obvious from the moment they're seen together that Cristina and Ron have a natural working chemistry.

Ronald Reagan's son suggests in a new book that his father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer's disease while he was in the White House. The memoir quotes excerpts from Ron Reagan's book "My Father at 100," published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA). Reagan's son writes that he believes his father would have left office before his second term ended in 1989 had the disease been diagnosed then. U.S. News & World Report was the first to break the publishing embargo.

New talk show: Ron Reagan, son of the late President Ronald Reagan, will host a talk show on MSNBC with Monica Crowley. Premiering Tuesday, "Connected: Coast to Coast" will air weekdays at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. * More Emmys: The National Television Academy will stage its first Emmys en Espanol ceremony June 3 to honor leading personalities in the Spanish-language TV business.

Re "To GOP, He's Dishonoring His Father," July 19: I greatly admire Ron Reagan for refusing to check his brains and independence at the door and take advantage of the many lucrative offers that surely must come his way from supporters of his father. So now that he is taking a public stand and professing his own beliefs, the neocons feel compelled to trash him for his courage. The neocon Republicans, like fundamentalists the world over, want to tell everyone else what to do, say and even think; the Democrats don't, and therein lies a major difference in the parties as they are constituted today.

Speaking of "Saturday Night Live," Ron Reagan is giving a speech next week at the Democratic National Convention. Judging from the reaction, you would think the younger son of the late president was going to reprise that long- ago "SNL" skit in which he played himself, home alone in the White House, dancing in his skivvies a la Tom Cruise in "Risky Business." Democrats are ecstatic over being able to embarrass the Republicans.

Re "To GOP, He's Dishonoring His Father," July 19: The Democrats have enlisted Ron Reagan to speak on stem-cell research at their convention, causing Republicans to go into paroxysms of outrage over his repudiation of his father's principles and his consorting with the enemy. But the GOP itself is happily trotting out that renegade Georgia Democrat-in-name-only Zell Miller, whose sole and exclusive purpose for speaking at the Republican convention is to cloak himself in his party affiliation and then trash John Kerry.

Ronald Reagan's spiritual heirs will fill the halls of the Republican National Convention in late August, but the Democrats have secured his flesh and blood for a prime-time spot at this month's bash in Boston. Ron Reagan, the late president's 46-year-old son, plans to use the global platform of the Democratic National Convention to endorse embryonic stem-cell experiments, an area of research that some think his father would have opposed but which his mother supports.

He'd benefited and suffered from his famous name. He'd been praised and reviled, saluted and cursed. He'd been written about and gossiped about. He'd taped shows about religion, comedy, steroids and rap music, always turning the spotlight on someone else. And now he was on national television again, and someone was asking him : "There were all these rumors that you were gay. I wanted to ask you about that."

Ron Reagan is dispensing with the usual show-business hyperbole and ego, admitting he could become the latest addition to the long list of unsuccessful late-night talk show hosts. "There's no guarantee," said Reagan, 33, whose "The Ron Reagan Show" debuts Monday on KTTV Channel 11. "It's a very tough market now. I won't kid you. There are people who are very nervous about this show because it isn't following the formula of a desk, couch, celebrity show. We're trying to do something different.

Ron Reagan, a former contributor to "Good Morning America" and host of his own syndicated talk show, will be a correspondent for the prime-time newsmagazine that Fox plans to introduce later this year. Also named a correspondent on the weekly series was Andria Hall, who has spent the past eight years as an anchor, reporter and producer at WCVB-TV in Boston.

Ron Reagan's third report for cable's E! Television, "In Censors We Trust" (at 8 a.m. today, 2 p.m. Thursday and 6 a.m. Saturday), offers the same kind of broad, thoughtful coverage of a difficult issue that he brought to the earlier "The Whole World Is Watching" and "See How They Run." Don't think that Reagan's stylish duds makes him a cute stand-up for the camera, and little else.