-- "Three years into his first term as president ... I was feeling the first shivers of concern."

-- "Watching the first of his two debates with 1984 Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale, I began to experience the nausea of a bad dream coming true. ... My heart sank as he floundered his way through his responses."

-- "In July 1989, barely six months out of office, ... surgeons opening his skull to relieve pressure [during a previously unreported surgery] on the brain emerged from the operating room with the news that they had detected what they took to be probable signs of Alzheimer's disease."