The Presidency: Your Leadership Is Demanded

This time it was different. The majesty of the White House, the Marine sentries, the presidential panoply--none of it overwhelmed the audience as it had only a couple of years before. These were a dozen of the nation's top businessmen, and they were worried as they pulled up chairs in the Roosevelt Room with Ronald Reagan, incoming Chief of Staff Donald Regan and their inner circle.

Robert Beck, chairman of both the Prudential Insurance Co. of America and the Business Roundtable, was polite but very plainspoken. Businessmen were frightened by the deficits. They had all concluded there was no chance the...