Former President Ronald Reagan says he forgives would-be assassin John Hinckley and prays that "he should have some healing for himself,"
"I found out he wasn't thinking on all cylinders," Reagan said of Hinckley Thursday night during an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live."During the hourlong interview, Reagan also said he thinks Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev would make a successful U.S. politician and said he likes convicted former aide Oliver North, although he wouldn't discuss the Iran-Contra scandal in detail.
Asked whether he forgives Hinckley, who was found innocent by reason of insanity of trying to assassinate the president in March 1981, Reagan said, "Yes."
"I added him to my prayers that, well, if I wanted healing for myself and maybe he should have some healing for himself," Reagan said.
Hinckley wrote a letter published in The Washington Post in 1984 in which he asked that Reagan "forgive me for my past madness."