Former US President Ronald Reagan 's health is deteriorating and he could have only weeks to
live, a US source close to the situation said today.
"I was told it could be soon - it could be weeks, it could be months," the US source said. Reagan, now 93, has long suffered from the brain-wasting Alzheimer's disease.
The source said Reagan 's condition had worsened in the past week. "The time is getting close," he said, but added: "It is not like it is going to be tomorrow."
The White House has been told about Reagan 's deteriorating condition, but officials have declined to comment.
In May, Reagan 's wife Nancy made an impassioned call supporting controversial stem cell research, saying it could help find a cure for Alzheimers, which had taken her husband "to a distant place where I can no longer reach him".
Reagan , a film star turned politician, was U.S. president from 1981 to 1989. Reagan was voted into office on a flag-waving conservative revival that changed America's political and economic landscape
for years.
He became the first right-wing president in 50 years; the first in 30 years to serve two terms; and the first to spend a trillion dollars on peacetime defence and witness a doubling of the national debt.
He was thrust into his gravest crisis with the disclosure in November 1986 that the United States had sold arms to Iran in 1985-86 and diverted proceeds to U.S.-backed Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua.
Reagan declared himself guilty of nothing but poor judgment, and Congressional hearings in 1987 backed him on one central point: witnesses said he was never told about the Contra funds.
He left office two weeks shy of his 78th birthday, by far the oldest president the United States had ever had and more popular than any predecessor in history.