A Day in the Life of the New President: Ronald Reagan

An intimate look behind White House doors at the emerging Reagan style

The amiable visage and quick humor that Ronald Reagan displays in public indicate a President unchanged by his first weeks of residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. For a closer look, TIME White House Correspondent Laurence I. Barrett spent most of Lincoln's Birthday at Reagan 's elbow, an exclusive vantage point that enabled him to watch the President at staff conferences, meetings with dignitaries, and ceremonial events. Eleven crowded hours revealed important differences between Reagan the candidate and Reagan the incumbent. Barrett's report:

It is 8:45 a.m. in the Hall of First Ladies on the ground level of the White House, and Reagan seems aware that he is exactly five minutes behind schedule. He leaves the elevator that has brought him from breakfast with his wife in the family quarters, bids a smiling "Hi, hi" to Secret Service agents and strides so quickly down the red carpet that the entourage must scurry to keep up. Reagan is not a morning person. He wakens at an unpresidential 7:30 or 7:45 (vs. 6 a.m. for Jimmy Carter). Today's 8 o'clock call from the White House switchboard found the Reagans already risen from their king-size bed.

He crosses the Rose Garden colonnade to the Oval Office, where he greets his personal secretary, Helene von Damm, with a boast. "Look what I did last night," he says, handing her a plump folder of papers read and signed. Also awaiting him, as they do each morning, are two of his top aides, Edwin Meese and James Baker. "The only reason I'm late," says the leader of the free world, "is that I had to oil my face." Though his Secret Service code name is Rawhide, the Southern Californian is finding it difficult to adjust to central heating. It leaves his skin too dry.

Reagan takes his black leather swivel chair, while Meese and Baker perch on either side of the massive oak desk.

The third member of the staff troika, Michael Deaver, joins them. The three advisers have already had their own breakfast meeting and participated in a larger gathering of two dozen staffers, refining plans for the day and the near future. Now Reagan and the trio talk in clipped sentences as they exchange papers. Reagan asks Meese about a pending investigation. "Don't we have to goose them a bit?" Reagan inquires. "Gee, it's been going on for two years."

As Governor and as candidate, Reagan had a reputation for disdain of detail. During the transition period, his "detachment" became a byword on both coasts. Now, preoccupied with the major speech on fiscal policy he will give in a few days, he raises a question about simplifying a point in his proposed tax-reduction plans. "I'm just thinking about the guy doing his return," Reagan explains. Meese says that the new tax rate tables will deal with the problem. Something else is rankling Reagan. His instinct is to cut the capital gains levy sooner rather than later. Says he: "This concern is doing us out of something far more stimulating [to the economy]."