I have to admit, when Reagan first ran, unsuccessfully, for President, I had some doubts. I didn’t know much about him other than he was the Governor of California. I was suspicious and wondered how qualified a Hollywood actor was for the position of President of the United States.

I ran across this tidbit online. It’s so typical of Ronald Reagan, I just had to post it.

Ronald Reagan received Secret Service protection for the first time when he ran unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination in 1976. One day as he was preparing to drive from his Los Angeles home to his ranch near Santa Barbara, an agent noticed that he was wearing a gun and asked what it was for.

“Well, just in case you guys can’t do the job, I can help out,” Reagan replied.

Years later, he confided to an agent that on his first presidential trip to the Soviet Union in May 1988, he had carried a gun in his briefcase.

In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect, Ronald Kessler