"I Love People"

Ronald Reagan is not a man given to introspection. When asked to reflect on the source of his personal appeal or his uncanny sense of the national pulse, he is likely to answer (as he does on many topics) with an anecdote. In an interview in the Oval Office last week with TIME White House Correspondents Barrett Seaman and David Beckwith, the President gave glimpses into his character and popularity by reminiscing about events in his life that helped shape his outlook.

"Maybe it goes back to a small-town beginning in which you were aware of how people rallied around whenever there was a need," replied the native of Dixon, Ill., when asked if he felt a special relationship with the American people. "And then, another plus that I would repeat if I had to do it over again: I went to a quite small college, and in a small college there is no way you can be anonymous . . . I don't think even like is enough of a word. I love people."

Reagan bristles at the notion that he is not popular among the nation's poor and among those who think his policies are harsh and uncharitable. It is only "propaganda," he insists, that his budgets have cut heavily into federal programs for nutrition and hunger. "We were poor when I was young, but the difference then was the Government didn't come around telling you you were poor," he says, harking back to the tradition of community help from sources other than the Government. "My mother, God rest her soul, was the kindest, God-loving person I have ever known. She was always finding some family or someone that needed help and that we could help, and yet we were poor . . . I think back on all the places along the line where somebody stepped out of line and helped--and it's always been that way--the people that lent a hand at the time when you needed a hand."

His skills as a communicator, Reagan notes, are integral to his political success. "I believe in taking the big issues to the people," he says, paraphrasing Jefferson's belief that the "American people, if they know all the facts, will never make a mistake." It was a talent he learned in an earlier career. "The very soul of show business is communicating. There's an old rule in Hollywood that when your face is up there on the screen in a close-up, if you don't believe the line you're speaking, the audience will know it, and they won't believe it either." He still takes an oddly detached view of his no-longer-new job. "Maybe some people have 'become' President, but I've never thought of it that way," he says. "The presidency is an institution over which you are given temporary control or possession."

One secret to Reagan's appeal, which is also the source of much criticism, is that he relates far more easily to the plight of individual citizens than to social problems in the abstract. "Letters from someone who has finally resorted to writing to you because they think all else has failed, and then be able to solve their problem and getting something done is, I think, one of the great rewards this job has to offer." As an actor in Hollywood, he recalls, he was shown a letter by his father from a girl who said she was dying and wanted an autographed picture. Reagan at first refused, saying the letter was probably phony, but his father talked him into it. "Two weeks later I received a letter from a nurse in the hospital that told me that the girl who'd written had died holding my picture in her hands." It taught him a "lifetime lesson," Reagan recalls, "that never again will I feel that impatient or come that close to saying no to anyone."