Exclusive Photos Inside Nancy and Ronald Reagan's Private World

Presidential Photojournalist Roger E. Sandler shares his personal archives.

Presidential Photojournalist Roger E. Sandler is sharing photos from his personal archives.

“She was glamorous,” he added of the former first lady. “She had great taste. It was something she told me that she couldn’t help but have, having gone through the heyday of old Hollywood.”

Sandler said the Reagans had a “tremendous love affair.”

Mrs. Reagan “most preferred traveling” with her husband, “and he felt more at home, if you will, on the road when his wife was with him,” said Sandler. “Whether it was a car, a bus, a train or an airplane, they always sat side by side.”

The photojournalist described Mrs. Reagan as “a loving wife whose whole life was devoted to her husband and her husband’s well-being.”

“I don’t know how this woman existed once he was in the throes of Alzheimer’s,” Sandler said of the president’s struggles with the disease. “It naturally and expectantly took a great toll on her, and how she was able to last for those 12 years, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows.”