NEW YORK -- Barbara Walters is back with another television special and this time she delves into the minds of President Reagan and his wife, Nancy.
The one-hour glimpse of the great White House way airs March 24 at 8 p.m. EST, just before the Academy Awards telecast on ABC.
'We put our feet up and talked,' Walters said.
Naturally, some of the talking was about movies, a subject dear to the Reagans' hearts. We learn that the Reagans have seen 45 movies this year -- 40 more than the average American -- including every one that is up for an Oscar. Walters also discusses Nancy Reagan's worrying, the president's 'Teflon Ron' image, their experience with cancer, and the new book by the president's daughter, Patti Davis, which, while billed as fiction, appears to paint an unflattering portrait of the presidential parents.
Although it is the first indepth, one-on-one interview with the president since his re-election, very little of the interview deals with hard news subjects such as the budget, the deficit, the nuclear arms negotiations with the Soviets or the upheaval in the Philippines.
It is Walters' way to ask the offbeat and sidetrack the obvious, as when on one of her earlier specials she asked Barbra Streisand whyshe had not had a nose job.
Because of that, Walters expects to be roundly criticized by the press for her choice of subjects. But she believes the public will get what it wants.
'We may very well be criticized by the press but not by the public - why didn't they ask this and why didn't they ask that,' Walters said in a telephone interview.
'However, I felt that they (the Reagans) are really such superstars now. We've had political people on in the past on these specials. People don't really want to see it. They click off. You can put the president on and they click off.
'This is, after all, the Academy Awards night. Our idea of even using President and Mrs. Reagan is very different. It's the prime time entertainment period. We've always done superstars. What we hope is you feel you have seen the person in a different way than before and perhaps gotten to know them better.
'It is not done so that we ask him what he thinks of Mrs. (Corazon) Aquino or the Nicaraguan problem.'
Walters secured the interview by writing the Reagans and their White House staffers and telling them of her plan to air the interview right before the Academy Awards, which traditionally attracts one of the largest television audiences of the year.
Last year, 65 million people watched the movie superstars parade on stage to accept the Oscars.
The session was taped on the day Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos was fleeing his country. But instead of dwelling on a timely subject such as the problems in the Philippines -- she had to keep in mind that the interview wouldn't air for a month -- Walters preferred 'the kinds of questions not being asked on the evening news.'
How many movies had they seen? How do they feel about the president's brush with cancer and how it was handled? Why does he like old movies so much more than the ones being made today?
'On Academy Awards night people don't want to sit down at that point and hear a hard news interview,' she said.
Walters hints that there will be revelations, but she doesn't want to give them away before the show. She said two questions were particularly 'tough.'
'There were two questions, one was about the children. I saved that until the end of the interview. I knew it was not something they wanted to talk about. I actually read from (Davis') book and asked how do you feel about this.'
Then she tackled the subject of Reagan's IQ.
'I asked the president, I said, there are those who don't think you are very bright and you can't be in a room alone without a staff member. You're called the 'Teflon president.' Are you aware of it?' Reagan was.
We also learn how Nancy Reagan selects flowers and dinner menus for the White House and that she worries a lot.
She interviewed Reagan in the Oval Office. There also is a peek into the president's private study, the place where he watched the Challenger explosion and where he generally eats lunch alone -- usually a bowl of soup.
There was one other revelation. Walters asked Reagan if there was anything he would change about the last year and a half since re-election and the president said, yes, there is one thing he would change.
'I don't want to tell you what it was,' she said, saving it for the viewers.
Walters left the White House with some impressions about the place and the people who live there.
'I find him as charming as he is hard to penetrate.' she said of Reagan. 'He deflects everything with a smile and his easy way.' As for his wife, 'Everything reflects on her face. You know when you hit home.'
