Being president isn't everybody's cup of tea

But Ronald Reagan's private diaries reveal that he also managed to fret about a social faux pas, such as when the Prince of Wales - "a most likeable person" - visited the White House and his tea was served American-style.

"The ushers brought him tea - horror of horrors, they served it our way with a tea bag still in the cup. It finally dawned on me that he was just holding the cup and then finally put down on a table. The prince said: 'I didn't know what to do with it'."

Such was Reagan's folksy persona, that even when he privately fretted that Armageddon was near, he refused to spell it out, using even mild swear words such as 'hell' and 'damn'. The revelation from Reagan's journals, some of which are published in the latest edition of Vanity Fair this week, is one of many in an emerging portrait of an uncomplicated, amiable president who struggled to strike the balance between the grave responsibility of his office and the frustration of trying to keep peace within his own family.

Reagan's private thoughts were kept in a series of maroon leather diaries. Trouble with his children was a painful experience that Reagan, who died at 93 in June 2004, often chronicled.

Writing about problems with his son Ron, Reagan wrote: "Ron called this evening all exercised because SS [Secret Service] agents had gone into their apartment while they were in California to fix an alarm on one of his windows. I tried to reason with him that this was a perfectly OK thing for them to do... I told him quite firmly not to talk to me that way and he hung up on me. Not a perfect day."

Reagan recalled being shot in the 1981 assassination attempt when he wrote that "suddenly there was a burst of fire from the left".

After being shoved to the floor of his car by a Secret Service agent, Reagan wrote: "I sat up on the edge of the seat almost paralysed by pain. Then I began coughing up blood which made both of us think: 'Yes, I had broken a rib and it had punctured a lung'."

Events in the Middle East concerned him so much that Reagan wrote on 15 May, 1981: "Sometimes I wonder if we are destined to witness Armageddon." Then on 7 June: "Got word of Israel bombing of Iraq - nuclear reactor. I swear I believe Armageddon is near."

He also reveals that he wore a bullet-proof vest during a speech during which he asked the Soviet Union to join the US in eliminating medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe: "Funny - I was talking peace, but wearing a bullet-proof vest. It seems Gaddafi put a contract on me."

Reagan also wrote frequently of his love of Nancy and how comforting that was. A few weeks before he was shot at in 1981, Reagan wrote: "Our wedding anniversary; 29 years of more happiness than any man could rightly deserve."