Reagan's Yankee doodles

NERO, THEY SAY, played the fiddle to soothe the strains of high office; Ronald Reagan merely doodled.

A collection of Mr Reagan's idle drawings have come up for auction at the premier Los Angeles bidding house, Butterfield & Butterfield, providing insight into the workings of a presidency marked by long naps, consultations with astrologers and confusion over the precise location of certain Latin American countries. Using the White House's mint green stationery, Mr Reagan produced pages of relatively accomplished illustrations - a horse's head, a monocled society gent, a chubby baby, even a cowboy with Stetson and bandana bearing a resemblance to Mr Reagan in his youth.

"Dear Buzzy," the president writes to his Californian leather-working friend Buzzy Sisco at the bottom of one doodle-filled page, "here are some doodles just to show I'm not always busy. Best regards, Ronald Reagan."

The president's secretary adds on a separate type-written sheet: "I know he welcomed the opportunity to take a few relaxing minutes away from his schedule to do this for you."

The doodles, which will be sold tomorrow, are part of a long correspondence with Mr Reagan collected by the Sisco family from the early 1970s on.