“She looks a little frail,” said Betsy Bloomingdale, a close friend of Mrs. Reagan, speaking from her home in California as she prepared to attend the burial there Friday night. “But she is very strong inside. She is. She has the strength. She is doing her last thing for Ronnie. And she is going to get it right.”

Mrs. Reagan’s friends were not alone in talking of her composure and resolve this week, on display from the intimate first service at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Monday, where the former first lady brushed the coffin with her cheek, through a state funeral that drew every living president and leaders from around the globe. But they said it, like everything else involving the former first lady this week, was testimony to Mrs. Reagan’s fastidiousness and the attention she had always paid to the details of her husband’s life.

There were, as she intended, no surprises here.

“She was determined to get through this,” said another friend of the family’s, who asked not to be identified. “It’s the role she’s been given to play. It’s her last thing for him.”

The planning began while Mr. Reagan was still in the White House and continued with regular meetings through the years. It was Mrs. Reagan, a friend said, who asked that former President George Bush speak at the funeral, who chose the chorus that would sing, and who helped devise what amounted to an elaborate cross-country funeral timed to the setting of the sun over the Pacific Ocean.

One of her friends noted, after the funeral ended here, that the service could not have been more punctual, making sure that the Boeing 747 carrying Mr. Reagan’s body would beat the sunset.

For Mrs. Reagan, these few days marked a period of visibility and demand on her unlike anything she has experienced since her husband left office in January 1989.

She flew back and forth across the nation. She attended four public ceremonies marking her husband’s death. During less than 48 hours in Washington, while she stayed at Blair House across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, she accepted sympathy calls from, among others, President Bush, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

For Americans whose last vivid memory of Mrs. Reagan was delivering a speech in his honor at the 1996 Republican presidential convention the past few days provided a blur of sorrowful images of a woman who seemed too stunned to cry, and who was so frail that one friend described her as “nothing more than skin and bones.”

After the ceremonies in Washington, and the motorcade back to Andrews Air Force base outside Washington, Mrs. Reagan walked uncertainly up the stairs to the Air Force 747 with the United States of America emblem on the side transporting her husband’s coffin home. She had had almost slipped through the door when she stopped and turned around.

Mrs. Reagan looked to the crowd and the cameras, removed her oversize glasses, and with a whisper of a sad smile, waved her hand and blew a kiss in a final salute to Washington. It was as if it were more than 15 years ago, and her husband the president was back at her side as they boarded Air Force One.

“A lot of what’s going on here is she is in a lot of shock and you kind of put one foot in front of he other,” said Sheila Tate, her friend and former press secretary. “I’ve just been amazed at how well she’s held together.”

“She’s always risen to the occasion,” Ms. Tate said. “When he got shot. When he got cancer. When she got cancer. She’ll be fine.”

Her friends said that it was unthinkable that Mrs. Reagan would lose control of her emotions in the midst of a memorial that she took such care to help plan. Yet they described moments of stability that they could not begin to fathom. How she never lost her composure, at least in public. How she appeared to be comforting President Bush, as much as he comforted her, when he escorted her the final few steps to her seat at the Washington Cathedral.

How on her unsteady walk down the aisle and out of the church again, this small, slightly stooped figure, appearing alone even in a church filled with thousands of people who would call themselves her friend, she looked back and forth, murmuring “thank you” to those who had come.

“She behaved with great grace and dignity,” said Myra Gutin, an expert on first ladies at Rider University in New Jersey for 20 years. “For me it was reminiscent of Jacqueline Kennedy at J.F.K.’s funeral. The same sense of grace and forbearance.”

In the White House, Mrs. Reagan endured criticism as being too controlling and, at times, manipulative, historians said. But that perception has eased over the years, and perhaps more so than ever over the last few days.

“It’s really a passage for her as much as it was for her husband,” said Lewis Gould, a University of Texas historian emeritus who is editing a biography series, “Modern First Ladies.” “She’s moved into the same category that Lady Bird Johnson has: a revered, grande dame of public life.”

Some of Mrs. Reagan’s friends said they expected that she would be urged by Republicans to play a role at the party’s convention in two months, or in Mr. Bush’s re-election campaign. But friends said that the former first lady was unlikely to accept such partisan invitations.

“She will focus on the Reagan legacy and not partisan politics,” said Kenneth Duberstein, who was chief of staff in Mr. Reagan’s White House.

Casey Ribicoff, a friend of Mrs. Reagan’s, and the widow of former Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff, who also suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease, said that Mrs. Reagan would probably spend weeks responding to the outpouring of mail to her over the last few days.

“I have no doubt that Nancy will rest and sort things out,” Mrs. Ribicoff said. “When reality sets in, that’s when you become exhausted.”

LA Times — Lasting Memories Gleaned Along the Final Leg

As thousands of mourners lined the route, Ronald Reagan ended his long journey Friday with a stately 28-mile procession through a California landscape of farmland, freeways and suburbs.

Throngs of well-wishers had planted themselves at viewing spots hours before the plane bearing Reagan’s flag-draped casket touched down at Point Mugu Naval Air Station. Proceeding at a solemn pace, the limousine convoy of security officers, family members and dignitaries left the base at 5:05 p.m. and arrived at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley about 90 minutes later.

Along the way, the 40th president’s entourage rolled past cabbage fields and condominiums, peering out at crowds who saluted, waved flags and held their small children up to see a slice of history.

Sporting U.S. flag earrings, Nancy Goguen of Calabasas and her whole family were decked out in red, white and blue as they waited.

“Coming out here for us crosses political lines,” said Goguen, a retired school secretary and lifelong Democrat. “It has to do with showing support for a really good man.”

At the naval base at Point Mugu, more than 1,000 employees silently gathered on the tarmac as Reagan’s casket was borne to his hearse by a military honor guard.

When Nancy Reagan emerged from the plane, the crowd erupted with shouts of “We love you, Nancy!” Appearing weary, she waved and smiled before slowly descending the ramp.

Outside the base’s gates, the procession glided through the tilled green fields lining Las Posas Road toward the mountains in the distance.

At a fruit stand amid fields of sod, several hundred spectators gazed down the road as a U.S. flag and a banner emblazoned with a strawberry fluttered at half-staff. When the motorcade’s California Highway Patrol motorcycle escort approached with blue lights flashing, some onlookers clambered onto car roofs. One woman wrapped a pillowcase around her waist with the hand-painted words: “God bless.”

Spectators jammed overpasses spanning the Ventura Freeway. Outside shopping centers and subdivisions, they jammed the sidewalks, eager for a last chance to pay tribute.

In Camarillo, crowds stood five-deep in spots, with many people toting children, video cameras and flags. For those without the American symbols, two vendors circulated through the throng, hawking them at $5 each.

Matt Lorimer, 36, of Camarillo carried a sign that said “Stem Cells Yes,” a nod to Nancy Reagan for her recent advocacy of the controversial research.

His 4-year-old son, Miles, has autism and can’t yet speak. Advocates say stem-cell research may help in the struggle against autism and Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicted Reagan.

At Spring Meadow Park in Thousand Oaks, neighbors set up lawn chairs and dipped into coolers for sodas and wine. On a blanket under a shade tree, seven children listened raptly as Rena Roberts, 35, of Newbury Park read to them about Abraham Lincoln from a book called “True Stories of Great Americans.”

Roberts, a friend and their children had arrived in the park seven hours earlier to get front-row seats for the motorcade. When it had passed, a man nearby played “God Bless America” on his trombone.

Near Los Robles Regional Medical Center, John McCauley, 50, joined the crowd. His wife, Stacy, 34, had given birth to a girl shortly before noon and insisted that John snap a photo of the passing funeral procession for their newborn’s scrapbook.

When his daughter is older, McCauley said, he would tell her how “one of the most popular presidents of all time passed by the hospital on the day you were born.”

The Westlake Village resident would also tell her how he and his wife had spontaneously decided on little Ella’s middle name.

“I said, ‘Why not Reagan?’ ” McCauley said. “And she said, ‘That’s awesome.’ “

The hearse carrying the body of Former President Ronald Reagan makes its way on Lynn Road in Thousand Oaks heading for the Reagan Presidential Library for funeral services.(Anne Cusack / LAT)

Thousands line the route of the 101 Freeway to watch the motorcade carrying the remains of former President Reagan from Point Mugu naval base to the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
(Ricardo DeAratanha / LAT)

An honor guard carries the flag-draped casket of former President Reagan during final services at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.(Spencer Weiner / LAT)

Marine Sgt. Ethan Rocke weeps as he salutes the Honor Guard carrying
the flag-draped casket of former President Reagan (Spencer Weiner / LAT)

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher bows before the casket of former President Reagan at his burial site at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. (Bryan Chan / LAT)

Navy Capt. James Symonds presents the U.S. flag to former First Lady Nancy Reagan. The flag covered the casket of her husband, former President Reagan. (Bryan Chan / LAT)

Late roundups of the services at the National Cathedral:

LA Times — Eulogies Praise Ideals and Legacy

President Bush’s eulogy for Ronald Reagan on Friday was uplifting, but determinedly nonpolitical. His father, former President George H.W. Bush, was personal and emotional, mingling affectionate jokes with tears.

But it was former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who delivered the bluntest message about Reagan’s conservative political legacy during the funeral at Washington National Cathedral.

“Others saw only limits to growth,” Thatcher, long Reagan’s closest ideological ally abroad, said in a videotaped tribute. “[Reagan] transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity. Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with the Soviet Union; he won the Cold War.”

As the week of mourning for Reagan drew to a close, the debate over the 40th president’s place in history briskly resumed — with conservatives lauding his accomplishments and liberals arguing, a bit gingerly, that his record also had flaws.

But that is what happens whenever a well-loved president dies, historians said. If Republicans hold Reagan up as an icon and dedicate their national convention in New York this summer to his memory, they will be doing the same thing Democrats did after the deaths of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945 and John F. Kennedy in 1963.

“What you’re seeing is the first brushstrokes of history,” said historian Robert Dallek, who wrote biographies of Kennedy and Reagan. “You get these opening salvos, both pro and con; then things settle down.”

At the cathedral, where the elaborate protocol of a state funeral combined with traditional Episcopal rites, the tone was solemn and restrained — the opposite of the heated partisan debates that dominated Reagan’s long political career.

President Bush focused on Reagan’s ideals, his grace and his religious faith, and touched only lightly on his politics — to praise his role as leader of the modern conservative movement in American politics.

“In the space of a few years, he took ideas and principles that were mainly found in journals and books, and turned them into a broad, hopeful movement ready to govern,” Bush said.

“President Reagan was optimistic about the great promise of economic reform, and he acted to restore the reward and spirit of enterprise,” Bush said, apparently referring to Reagan’s tax cuts. “He was optimistic that a strong America could advance the peace, and he acted to build the [military] strength that mission required.”

But where Bush carefully avoided any temptation, during an election year, to link Reagan’s causes with his own, Thatcher, who is no longer running for office, showed no hesitation in pressing the ideological advantage.

“[Reagan] had firm principles — and, I believe, right ones,” she said in her tribute, which she videotaped several months ago after a series of small strokes made it difficult for her to speak in public.

“He did not shrink from denouncing Moscow’s ‘evil empire,’ ” she said. “But he realized that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors. So the president resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point, until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own failures. And when a man of goodwill did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and offer sincere cooperation.”

The “man of goodwill” she cited, former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, was also in the congregation at the funeral, but was not among those chosen to deliver a eulogy.

Gorbachev has praised Reagan’s role as a peacemaker, but he has long objected to the argument — made by Thatcher and other conservatives — that Reagan’s military buildup produced the collapse of communism.

“All that talk that somehow Reagan’s arms race forced Gorbachev to look for some arms reductions, etc., that’s not serious,” Gorbachev told the Washington Post this week. “The Soviet Union could have withstood any arms race.”

Instead, Gorbachev said, he decided to reform the communist system because it was failing economically. “The country was being stifled by the lack of freedom,” he said. “We were increasingly behind the West.”

Dallek said Thatcher’s retelling of the Reagan era struck him as “out-and-out partisan history,” but added: “That’s what happens at a time like this: Politicians appropriate whatever part of the history they want to use, and invoke it.

“It’s not fabrication as much as gilding the lily. It’s hagiography, and it’s sort of inevitable,” he said. “We’re nowhere near being able to see a balanced picture of Reagan, because it’s only 15 years after he left office. We don’t have the [internal White House] documents yet.”

Another historian, Barton J. Bernstein of Stanford University, said a similar phenomenon occurred after the death of another well-loved president, Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963.

“The first books written about Kennedy were written by men who had worked for him, like Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Theodore Sorensen,” Bernstein said. “They were in the unusual position of being both participants and historians of the events in which they participated … and their work was eloquent but, let’s say, flawed.”

Even today, according to the Gallup Poll, Kennedy is ranked by most Americans as the greatest president of modern times, though he was in office for less than three years. Reagan comes in second.

But Reagan was not always so popular. When he was in office from 1981 through 1989, his average approval rating was 53% — “slightly below average” for modern presidents, Gallup reported this week.

After he left office, Reagan’s approval in voters’ eyes ranged between 50% and 54%, Gallup said, until the announcement in 1994 that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. After that, the former president rose significantly in Americans’ eyes.

But Dallek said he thought it was not only sympathy that won Reagan higher standing.

“The last 15 years or so have been a period of great acrimony in our politics,” he said. “Reagan had a gift for inspiring people with the idea that Americans, no matter what their politics, have shared values and that the country has a bright future.”

In this election year, Dallek said, Reagan’s image as a unifier has been enough to make him more popular than he was when he was in office.

WaPo — Reagan Hailed as Leader for ‘the Ages’

A poor kid in the America that Ronald Reagan extolled could end up a movie star, a millionaire, president of the United States — or, in his case, all three. That storybook life turned its last page yesterday with a funeral fit for a king.

Beneath the towering vaults of Washington National Cathedral, about 3,700 mourners — leaders of government, heads of state, captains of industry, brokers of power — sat rapt as the 40th president, who died last Saturday at 93, was commemorated by his admirers and commended to his God.

The pomp was nearly unprecedented in American annals, more than two extraordinary hours of thundering organ, swelling chorus, haunting silences and eloquent prayers. Eulogies were spoken by two presidents and two prime ministers.

“Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now,” said President Bush, echoing words once spoken upon the death of Abraham Lincoln, “but we preferred it when he belonged to us.”

After the funeral, the late president’s body rode one last time to Andrews Air Force Base and one last time home to California aboard a presidential jet. He was buried near sunset on the grounds of the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, in a simple service featuring tributes from his three surviving children. Former first lady Nancy Reagan, stoic through nearly a week of somber rituals, surrendered to her grief after being handed the flag that had covered her husband’s coffin.

So ended the nation’s farewell to a man judged by fans and critics alike to have ranked among the most consequential presidents of the past century, a man credited by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher yesterday with having “won the Cold War.”

Washington’s first state funeral in more than 30 years — the first held in the cathedral since 1969 — came off without incident and caused less disruption than some had feared. Security at the invitation-only ceremony was tight but not oppressive, and D.C. police reported few traffic jams despite the comings and goings of scores of motorcades. Crowds along the route from the Capitol, where more than 100,000 people visited Reagan’s coffin as it lay in state, were easily managed.

Under gray, sprinkling clouds, a time capsule opened, and out stepped the men and women who strove and clashed, rose and fell, won and lost in an age that seems long ago and far away. Former president Gerald R. Ford, who beat back Reagan’s bid for the 1976 Republican nomination, chatted with former president Jimmy Carter, who lost to Reagan four years later.

The small, aged frame of former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger belied a handshake still tight as a vise grip. Former secretary of state Alexander Haig still likes his suits cut snug and styled a bit flashy.

In from the cold came such sinning Reaganauts as budget director David Stockman, who spilled the beans on the Reagan administration’s failure to pay for its tax cuts, and national security adviser Robert McFarlane, who executed the arms-for-hostages exchange that became known as Iran-contra. Welcomed inside was former representative Kent Hance of Texas, a card-carrying Reagan Democrat who once whipped a young challenger named George W. Bush.

Bygones were bygone.

At least they were inside the cathedral, where United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who opposed the Iraq war, chatted animatedly before the service with the pro-war British prime minister, Tony Blair. Outside, there were a few protesters scattered among the curious and the reverent along Wisconsin Avenue NW. The District’s Anti-War Network, for example, held signs cataloguing Reagan’s victims the poor, El Salvador, people with AIDS and so on.

In his eulogy, President Bush noted that Reagan was never afraid of controversy; indeed, he was the standard-bearer of a conservative assault on the New Deal orthodoxy that once dominated Washington.

Thatcher concurred: “Ronald Reagan knew his own mind,” she said in a tribute videotaped several years ago when her voice began failing. It was played in the cathedral as she sat listening, her face fixed in that familiar look of steely dignity. “He had firm principles and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly. He acted upon them decisively.”

But a state funeral is only partly about a president. It is also about a nation. Depending on the planners and the times, the rituals can emphasize majesty or the common touch. Reagan and his supporting crew were masters of every variety of public event; they put Hollywood’s production values at the service of the presidency as never before. The president who promised to restore American greatness and confidence was especially partial to the sweeping, the stirring, the spectacular.

So his team pulled out all the stops.

A funeral years in the planning — Nancy Reagan met every six months or so with key advisers to update preparations — began with the gradual arrival of the guests, who had colored dots discreetly marked on the back of their tickets. Black dots sat way in the back; status-conscious Washingtonians soon figured out that orange was better, red better still and yellow quite exalted. Twenty-five heads of state converged on the cathedral, and 11 former heads of state, and 180 ambassadors or foreign ministers.

At 10 a.m., the U.S. Marine Corps Chamber Orchestra began playing Bach, but the crowd kept talking, glad-handing, back-slapping old friends, strange bedfellows and would-be allies. Many people fell naturally into the capital’s distinctive conversational pose: side by side but facing slightly apart, talking to one another while scanning the room for bigger fish.

The floral displays were enormous and profuse, like small white trees. The sea of dark suits was dotted with ceremonial robes on foreign leaders and a few women in GOP gold.

By 10:20, the former presidents had arrived: Ford, Carter, the elder George Bush and Bill Clinton, who rested his hand on Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s shoulder as his Supreme Court appointees, Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, chatted nearby.

At 10:45, the crowd was called to its seats as the orchestra played a segment of Mozart’s “Requiem.” The U.S. Armed Forces Chorus launched into two lush and complex anthems by the English composer William H. Harris; soon, the enormous church filled with the buttery tenor of Ronan Tynan singing Schubert’s “Ave Maria.”

Then a hush descended. Discreetly placed television monitors showed the arrival outside of the hearse bearing Reagan’s coffin and the motorcade carrying his family. A bell tolled once, hauntingly. The faint sound of “Ruffles and Flourishes” was heard from outside, and the congregation rose as one for “Hail to the Chief” at dirge tempo.

The official service started five minutes ahead of schedule, and by 11:27, the coffin, weighing more than 700 pounds, was moving slowly down the center aisle, borne by eight strong servicemen. They moved in silence, led by two boys and a girl bearing the cross and candles, then by the Joint Chiefs of Staff decked with ribbons and stars. The Reagan family arrived last, as the coffin was placed on a red bier in the center of the cathedral, Reagan’s head to the west.

Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” read a passage from the Book of Isaiah, first in Hebrew then in English. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, appointed by Reagan to be the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, read from John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon to his fellow Pilgrims aboard the Arabella bound for Massachusetts Bay Colony.

“We shall be as a city upon a hill,” she intoned — one of Reagan’s favorite images — “the eyes of all people are upon us.”

Quite powerful — but, as Reagan liked to say, you ain’t seen nothing yet. After two verses of the elegant hymn “Jerusalem” sung by the Cathedral Choir, the organ roared to life and the boy sopranos floated their ineffable descant into the ether. Thatcher’s face then appeared on the monitors to deliver her accounting of the work she and Reagan did together.

“Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself,” she said. “He sought to mend America’s wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk. Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit.”

Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney portrayed an affable and humble friend. Former president George H.W. Bush got the congregation laughing. He remembered that Reagan once was asked, “How did your visit go with Bishop Tutu?”

“He replied, ‘So-so,’ ” Bush said.

Bush also choked up, briefly, when he tried to sum up his personal relationship with a man he had battled for the 1980 Republican nomination. “As his vice president for eight years,” Bush said, “I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life. . . . He fought hard for his beliefs. But he . . . never made an adversary into an enemy.”

The elder Bush emphasized qualities of kindness, humility and good manners. His son, speaking in the same cathedral where he rallied the nation to war after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, chose to stress Reagan’s resolve in the face of criticism.

“He acted to defend liberty wherever it was threatened. . . . When he saw evil camped across the horizon, he called that evil by its name,” the president said. “There were no doubters in the prisons and gulags where dissidents spread the news, tapping to each other in code what the American president had dared to say. There were no doubters in the shipyards and churches and secret labor meetings where brave men and women began to hear the creaking and rumbling of a collapsing empire.”

Soon, the stony expanse of the cathedral was ringing with the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” — not some somber version, but the rousing arrangement made popular by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Former senator John Danforth of Missouri, an Episcopal priest, called on Americans to bring light to a world dark with terror and chaos. Tynan gloried in the old hymn “Amazing Grace.” The congregation lost its voices in the organ ebullient “Ode to Joy.”

And, to muffled drums, the flag-covered coffin was carried back into the day.

Near 1 p.m., the cathedral began to empty. President Bush stopped to shake hands with his predecessor, Clinton. Bush’s opponent in the bitter election of 2000, Al Gore, left his seat in front of Bush political strategist Karl Rove. Liberal Kennedys filed out not far from proto-conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Left and right, old and young, high and low: Just behind comedian Joan Rivers walked Polish anti-communist hero Lech Walesa.

So much symbolism, you might say.

Yet, as Mulroney explained, quoting former French president Francois Mitterand, being president of the United States is not just a job; it is a role. In death as in life, Ronald Reagan reminded the world that symbols matter.

Note: The photo archives are linked in the sidebar of the story above. I’ve been unable to figure out the direct link to the galleries, although I can link each individual picture. The pictures below are on my own server space, with the captions and attributions taken exactly from the LA Times gallery.

Reagan biographer Edmund Morris shares a moment with the former president.
(Reagan Library)

Reagan throws out the first pitch at the Los Angeles Dodgers’ home opener against San Diego Padres on April 12, 1991. (UPI)

Nancy watches as Maureen kisses her father during a campaign rally May 1, 1992, in Redondo Beach for Maureen’s run for Congress. (AP)

Reagan speaks at the Republican National Convention in Houston on Aug. 17, 1992. (AP)

A piece of the Berlin Wall is the backdrop for Reagan and his former national security adviser, Colin Powell, in 1993. (FRANCINE ORR / Los Angeles Times)

Reagan joins Presidents Ford, Carter, Bush and Clinton at President Nixon’s funeral on April 27, 1994. (MARK BOSTER / Los Angeles Times)

The Reagans welcome Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko to their Bel-Air home in 1994. (VINCE COMPAGNONE / Los Angeles Times)

Reagan celebrates his 84th birthday at a private party in 1995. (AP)

Reagan and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher meet at Reagan’s office in 1996. (AP)

Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole meets with Reagan in Los Angeles in 1996. (Reuters)

The former president visits with schoolchildren at the Ronald W. Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley in 1997. (File photo)

Reagan displays his book, “A Shining City,” published in 1998. (Reuters)

Text of Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney Eulogy of Former President Reagan

MULRONEY: In the spring of 1987, President Reagan and I were driven into a large hangar at the Ottawa airport to await the arrival of Mrs. Reagan and my wife Mila prior to departure ceremonies for their return to Washington.

MULRONEY: We were alone except for the security details.

President Reagan’s visit had been important, demanding and successful. Our discussions reflected the international agenda of the times: the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union and the missile deployment by NATO, pressures in the Warsaw Pact, challenges resulting from the Berlin Wall and the ongoing separation of Germany, and bilateral and hemispheric free trade.

President Reagan had spoken to Parliament, handled complex files with skill and good humor, strongly impressing his Canadian hosts. And here we were waiting for our wives.

When their car drove in a moment later, out stepped Nancy and Mila looking like a million bucks. And as they headed towards us, President Reagan beamed. He threw his arm around my shoulder. And he said with a grin, “You know, Brian, for two Irishmen, we sure married up.”

In that visit, in that moment, one saw the quintessential Ronald Reagan: the leader we respected, the neighbor we admired, and the friend we loved, a president of the United States of America whose truly remarkable life we celebrate in this magnificent cathedral today.

Presidents and prime ministers everywhere, I suspect, sometimes wonder how history will deal with them. Some even evince a touch of the insecurity of Thomas Darcy McGee, an Irish immigrant to Canada who became a father of our confederation.

MULRONEY: In one of his poems, McGee, thinking of his birthplace, wrote poignantly, “Am I remembered in Erin? I charge you speak me true. Has my name a sound, a meaning in the scenes my boyhood knew?”

Ronald Reagan will not have to worry about Erin because they remember him well and affectionately there. Indeed they do.

From Erin to Estonia, from Maryland to Madagascar, from Montreal to Monterey, Ronald Reagan does not enter history tentatively. He does so with certainty and panache.

At home and on the world stage, his were not the pallid etchings of a timorous politician. They were the bold strokes of a confident and accomplished leader.

Some in the West, during the early 1980s, believed communism and democracy were equally valid and viable. This was the school of moral equivalence.

In contrast, Ronald Reagan saw Soviet communism as a menace to be confronted in the genuine belief that its squalid underpinnings would fall swiftly to the gathering winds of freedom, provided as he said, that NATO and the industrialized democracies stood firm and united. They did. And we know now who was right.

Ronald Reagan was a president who inspired his nation and transformed the world. He possessed a rare and prized gift called leadership, that ineffable and magical quality that sets some men and women apart so that millions will follow them as they conjure up grand visions and invite their countrymen to dream big and exciting dreams.

I always thought that President Reagan’s understanding of the nobility of the presidency coincided with that American dream.

One day, in Brussels, President Mitterand, in referring to President Reagan, said, “Il a vraiment la notion de l’estate”; rough translation: “He really has a sense of the state about him.”

MULRONEY: The translation does not fully capture the profundity of the observation.

What President Mitterand meant is that there is a vast difference between the job of president and the role of president.

Ronald Reagan fulfilled both with elegance and ease, embodying himself that unusual alchemy of history and tradition and achievement and inspirational conduct and national pride that defined the special role the president of the United States of America must assume at all times at home and around the world.

La notion de l’estate; no one understood it better than Ronald Reagan. And no one could more eloquently summon his nation to high purpose or bring forth the majesty of the presidency and make it glow better than the man who referred to his own nation as a city on the hill.

May our common future and that of our great nations be guided by wise men and women who will remember always the golden achievements of the Reagan era and the success that can be theirs if the values of freedom and democracy are preserved, unsullied and undiminished until the unfolding decades can remember little else.

I have been truly blessed to have been a friend of Ronald Reagan. I am grateful that our paths crossed and that our lives touched. I shall always remember him with the deepest admiration and affection.

And I will always feel honored by the journey that we traveled together in search of better and more peaceful tomorrows for all God’s children everywhere.

MULRONEY: And so in the presence of his beloved and indispensable Nancy, his children, his family, his friends and all of the American people that he so deeply revered, I say au revoir today to a gifted leader and historic president and a gracious human being.

And I do so with a line from Yeats, who wrote, “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say, ‘My glory was that I had such friends.’”

The Text of Baroness Margaret Thatcher’s Eulogy of Former President Reagan

We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man. And I have lost a dear friend.

In his lifetime Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America’s wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk.

Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause - what Arnold Bennett once called ‘the great cause of cheering us all up’. His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation - and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire.

Yet his humour often had a purpose beyond humour. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria, one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure.

And perhaps they signified grace of a deeper kind. Ronnie himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. As he told a priest after his recovery ‘Whatever time I’ve got left now belongs to the Big Fella Upstairs’.

And surely it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan’s life was providential, when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed.

Others prophesied the decline of the West; he inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom.

Others saw only limits to growth; he transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity.

Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with the Soviet Union; he won the Cold War - not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends.

I cannot imagine how any diplomat, or any dramatist, could improve on his words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit: ‘Let me tell you why it is we distrust you.’ Those words are candid and tough and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust.

We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan began to reshape with those words. It is a very different world with different challenges and new dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the world he inherited on becoming president.

As Prime Minister, I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. We talked regularly both before and after his presidency. And I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president.

Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm principles - and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly, he acted upon them decisively.

When the world threw problems at the White House, he was not baffled, or disorientated, or overwhelmed. He knew almost instinctively what to do.

When his aides were preparing option papers for his decision, they were able to cut out entire rafts of proposals that they knew ‘the Old Man’ would never wear.

When his allies came under Soviet or domestic pressure, they could look confidently to Washington for firm leadership.

And when his enemies tested American resolve, they soon discovered that his resolve was firm and unyielding.

Yet his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth.

Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion; but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform.

Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow’s ‘evil empire’. But he realised that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors.

So the President resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own failures. And when a man of goodwill did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation.

Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than that large-hearted magnanimity - and nothing was more American.

Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his achievements. Ronald Reagan carried the American people with him in his great endeavours because there was perfect sympathy between them. He and they loved America and what it stands for - freedom and opportunity for ordinary people.

As an actor in Hollywood’s golden age, he helped to make the American dream live for millions all over the globe. His own life was a fulfilment of that dream. He never succumbed to the embarrassment some people feel about an honest expression of love of country.

He was able to say ‘God Bless America’ with equal fervour in public and in private. And so he was able to call confidently upon his fellow-countrymen to make sacrifices for America - and to make sacrifices for those who looked to America for hope and rescue.

With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. And so today the world - in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev and in Moscow itself - the world mourns the passing of the Great Liberator and echoes his prayer “God Bless America”.

Ronald Reagan’s life was rich not only in public achievement, but also in private happiness. Indeed, his public achievements were rooted in his private happiness. The great turning point of his life was his meeting and marriage with Nancy.

On that we have the plain testimony of a loving and grateful husband: ‘Nancy came along and saved my soul’. We share her grief today. But we also share her pride - and the grief and pride of Ronnie’s children.

For the final years of his life, Ronnie’s mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again - more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him. And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven’s morning broke, I like to think - in the words of Bunyan - that ‘all the trumpets sounded on the other side’.

We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God’s children.”

The Text of Former President George H. W. Bush’s Eulogy of Former President Reagan

GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Our friend was strong and gentle.

Once he called America hopeful, big hearted, idealistic, daring, decent and fair. That was America and, yes, our friend.

And next, Ronald Reagan was beloved because of what he believed. He believed in America so he made it his shining city on a hill. He believed in freedom so he acted on behalf of its values and ideals. He believed in tomorrow so the great communicator became the great liberator.

He talked of winning one for the Gipper and as president, through his relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev with us today, the Gipper, and yes Mikhail Gorbachev, won one for peace around the world.

If Ronald Reagan created a better world for many millions it was because of the world someone else created for him.

Nancy was there for him always. Her love for him provided much of his strength, and their love together transformed all of us as we’ve seen — renewed seeing again here in the last few days.

And one of the many memories we all have of both of them is the comfort they provided during our national tragedies.

Whether it was the families of the crew of the Challenger shuttle or the USS Stark or the Marines killed in Beirut, we will never forget those images of the president and first lady embracing them and embracing us during times of sorrow.

So, Nancy, I want to say this to you: Today, America embraces you. We open up our arms. We seek to comfort you, to tell you of our admiration for your courage and your selfless caring.

And to the Reagan kids — it’s OK for me to say that at 80 — Michael, Ron, Patti, today all of our sympathy, all of our condolences to you all, and remember, too, your sister Maureen home safe now with her father.

GEORGE H.W. BUSH: As his vice president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life. I learned kindness; we all did. I also learned courage; the nation did.

Who can forget the horrible day in March 1981, he looked at the doctors in the emergency room and said, “I hope you’re all Republicans.”

(LAUGHTER)

And then I learned decency; the whole world did. Days after being shot, weak from wounds, he spilled water from a sink, and entering the hospital room aides saw him on his hands and knees wiping water from the floor. He worried that his nurse would get in trouble.

The good book says humility goes before honor, and our friend had both, and who could not cherish such a man?

And perhaps as important as anything, I learned a lot about humor, a lot about laughter. And, oh, how President Reagan loved a good story.

When asked, “How did your visit go with Bishop Tutu?” he replied, “So-so.”

(LAUGHTER)

It was typical. It was wonderful.

And in leaving the White House, the very last day, he left in the yard outside the Oval Office door a little sign for the squirrels. He loved to feed those squirrels. And he left this sign that said, “Beware of the dog,” and to no avail, because our dog Millie came in and beat the heck out of the squirrels.

But anyway, he also left me a note, at the top of which said, “Don’t let the turkeys get you down.”

GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Well, he certainly never let him get him down. And he fought hard for his beliefs. But he led from conviction, but never made an adversary into an enemy. He was never mean-spirited.

Reverend Billy Graham, who I refer to as the nation’s pastor, is now hospitalized and regrets that he can’t be here today. And I asked him for a Bible passage that might be appropriate. And he suggested this from Psalm 37: “The Lord delights in the way of the man whose steps he has made firm. Though he stumble, he will not fall for the Lord upholds him with his hand.”

And then this, too, from 37: “There is a future for the man of peace.”

God bless you, Ronald Wilson Reagan and the nation you loved and led so well.

Transcript: President Bush Eulogizes Ronald Reagan

Mrs. Reagan, Patti, Michael and Ron, members of the Reagan family, distinguished guests, including our presidents and first ladies, Reverend Danforth, fellow citizens, we lost Ronald Reagan only days ago but we have missed him for a long time.We have missed his kindly presence, that reassuring voice and the happy ending we had wished for him.

It has been 10 years since he said his own farewell, yet it is still very sad and hard to let him go.

Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now, but we preferred it when he belonged to us.

In a life of good fortune, he valued above all the gracious gift of his wife, Nancy.During his career, Ronald Reagan passed through a thousand crowded places, but there was only one person, he said, who could make him lonely by just leaving the room.

America honors you, Nancy, for the loyalty and love you gave this man on a wonderful journey and to that journey’s end.

Today, our whole nation grieves with you and your family.

When the sun sets tonight off the coast of California and we lay to rest our 40th president, a great American story will close.

The second son of Nell and Jack Reagan first knew the world as a place of open plains, quiet streets, gas-lit rooms and carriages drawn by horse.

If you could go back to the Dixon, Illinois, of 1922, you’d find a boy of 11 reading adventure stories at the public library or running with his brother Neil along Rock River, and coming home to a little house on Hennepin Avenue.

That town was the kind of place he remembered where you prayed side by side with your neighbors.And if things were going wrong for them, you prayed for them and knew they’d pray for you if things went wrong for you.

The Reagan family would see its share of hardship, struggle and uncertainty.

And out of that circumstance came a young man of steadiness, calm and a cheerful confidence that life would bring good things.

The qualities all of us have seen in Ronald Reagan were first spotted 70 and 80 years ago.As the lifeguard in Lowell Park, he was the protector, keeping an eye out for trouble.

As a sports announcer on the radio, he was the friendly voice that made you see the game as he did.

As an actor he was the handsome all-American good guy, which in his case required knowing his lines and being himself.

Along the way certain convictions were formed and fixed in the man.

Ronald Reagan believed that everything happens for a reason and that we should strive to know and do the will of God.He believed that the gentleman always does the kindest thing.He believed that people were basically good and had the right to be free.He believed that bigotry and prejudice were the worst things a person could be guilty of.He believed in the golden rule and in the power of prayer. He believed that America was not just a place in the world, but the hope of the world.

And he believed in taking a break now and then, because, as we said, there’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.

Ronald Reagan spent decades in the film industry and in politics, fields known on occasion to change a man.But not this man.From Dixon to Des Moines to Hollywood to Sacramento to Washington, D.C., all who met him remembered the same sincere, honest, upright fellow.

Ronald Reagan’s deepest beliefs never had much to do with fashion or convenience.His convictions were always politely stated, affably argued, and as firm and straight as the columns of this cathedral.

There came a point in Ronald Reagan’s film career when people started seeing a future beyond the movies.The actor Robert Cummings recalled one occasion.

“I was sitting around the set with all these people and we were listening to Ronnie, quite absorbed.I said, ‘Ron, have you ever considered some day becoming president?’

“He said, ‘President of what?’

“‘President of the United States,’ I said.

“And he said, ‘What’s the matter?Don’t you like my acting either?’”

(LAUGHTER)

The clarity and intensity of Ronald Reagan’s convictions led to speaking engagements around the country, and a new following he did not seek or expect.

He often began his speeches by saying, “I’m going to talk about controversial things.”And then he spoke of communist rulers as slave masters, of a government in Washington that had far overstepped its proper limits, of a time for choosing that was drawing near.

In the space of a few years, he took ideas and principles that were mainly found in journals and books and turned them into a broad, hopeful movement ready to govern.

As soon as Ronald Reagan became California’s governor, observers saw a star in the west, tanned, well-tailored, in command and on his way.In the 1960s his friend Bill Buckley wrote, “Reagan is indisputably a part of America and he may become a part of American history.”

Ronald Reagan’s moment arrived in 1980.He came out ahead of some very good men, including one from Plains and one from Houston. What followed was one of the decisive decades of the century as the convictions that shaped the president began to shape the times.

He came to office with great hopes for America.And more than hopes.Like the president he had revered and once saw in person, Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan matched an optimistic temperament with bold, persistent action.

President Reagan was optimistic about the great promise of economic reform, and he acted to restore the rewards and spirit of enterprise.He was optimistic that a strong America could advance the peace, and he acted to build the strength that mission required.

He was optimistic that liberty would thrive wherever it was planted, and he acted to defend liberty wherever it was threatened.

And Ronald Reagan believed in the power of truth in the conduct of world affairs.When he saw evil camped across the horizon he called that evil by its name.

There were no doubters in the prisons and gulags, where dissidents spread the news, tapping to each other in code what the American president had dared to say.There were no doubters in the shipyards and churches and secret labor meetings where brave men and women began to hear the creaking and rumbling of a collapsing empire. And there were no doubters among those who swung hammers at the hated wall that the first and hardest blow had been struck by President Ronald Reagan.

The ideology he opposed throughout his political life insisted that history was moved by impersonal tides and unalterable fates. Ronald Reagan believed instead in the courage and triumph of free men and we believe it all the more because we saw that courage in him.

As he showed what a president should be, he also showed us what a man should be.

Ronald Reagan carried himself, even in the most powerful office, with the decency and attention to small kindnesses that also define a good life.

He was a courtly, gentle and considerate man, never known to slight or embarrass others.

Many people across the country cherish letters he wrote in his own hand to family members on important occasions, to old friends dealing with sickness and loss, to strangers with questions about his days in Hollywood.

A boy once wrote to him requesting federal assistance to help clean up his bedroom.

(LAUGHTER)

The president replied that, “Unfortunately, funds are dangerously low.”

(LAUGHTER)

He continued, “I’m sure your mother was fully justified in proclaiming your room a disaster…

(LAUGHTER)

“… therefore you are in an excellent position to launch another volunteer program in our nation.

(LAUGHTER)

“Congratulations.”

See, our 40th president wore his title lightly, and it fit like a white Stetson.

In the end, through his belief in our country and his love for our country, he became an enduring symbol of our country.

We think of the steady stride, that tilt of the head and snap of the salute, the big screen smile, and the glint in his Irish eyes when a story came to mind.

We think of a man advancing in years with the sweetness and sincerity of a scout saying the pledge.We think of that grave expression that sometimes came over his face, the seriousness of a man angered by injustice and frightened by nothing.

We know, as he always said, that America’s best days are ahead of us.But with Ronald Reagan’s passing, some very fine days are behind us.And that is worth our tears.

Americans saw death approach Ronald Reagan twice in a moment of violence and then in the years of departing light.He met both with courage and grace.In these trials, he showed how a man so enchanted by life can be at peace with life’s end.

And where does that strength come from?Where is that courage learned?It is the faith of a boy who read the Bible with his mom. It is the faith of a man lying in an operating room who prayed for the one who shot him before he prayed for himself. It is the faith of a man with a fearful illness who waited on the Lord to call him home.

Now death has done all that death can do, and as Ronald Wilson Reagan goes his way, we are left with the joyful hope he shared.

In his last years he saw through a glass darkly.Now he sees his savior face to face.

And we look for that fine day when we will see him again, all weariness gone, clear of mind, strong and sure and smiling again, and the sorrow of this parting gone forever.

May God bless Ronald Reagan and the country he loved.

Other coverage:

LA Times - Nation Bids Farewell at Cathedral

USA Today - Reagan praised as ‘enduring symbol of our country’

AP - Nation bids final farewell to Reagan

UPDATE: More photos from the LA Times:

Former President George Bush gives a eulogy during the funeral service for former President Reagan at the Washington National Cathedral.
(Carolyn Cole / LAT)

President George Bush speaks about former President Reagan during
the service held at the Washington National Cathedral. (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

President George Bush bows his head in honor of former President Reagan at the funeral service held at the Washington National Cathedral. (Carolyn Cole / LAT)

British Prince Charles and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher exit
the cathedral following funeral services at Washington National Cathedral in Washington D.C. (Damon Winter / LAT)

R.W. Apple, Jr. — Legacy of Reagan’s Presidency Now Begins the Test of Time [RSS]

Clearly, Mr. Reagan died a respected, perhaps even a beloved man, although the affection was far from universal, as is true for any public figure. In office, his popularity, though dented, survived the Iran-contra affair, but popularity is never a reliable test of greatness. Harry S. Truman, now counted among the near-greats if not the greats, retrospectively admired for his prosecution of the cold war, left office with an approval rating of only 23 percent. Warren G. Harding, now disdained, whose stated ambition was to be remembered as the country’s “best-loved president,” came close to that goal after his sudden death in 1923.

It could be argued that Mr. Reagan’s greatest triumphs came in his role as chief of state rather than as chief of government. He was often ignorant of or impatient with the policy minutiae that preoccupy most occupants of the Oval Office, sometimes with unfortunate consequences (as when Oliver North ran amok in the Iran-contra affair, for instance). But his extraordinary political gifts carried him through — his talents as a communicator, his intuitive understanding of the average American, his unfailing geniality even after being hit by a would-be assassin’s bullet, his ability to build and sustain friendships across partisan lines (as with Tip O’Neill, for instance).

Those gifts — and his conviction that words counted for far more in politics than mere deeds — enabled him to convince large majorities that as long as he was in charge, it would remain “Morning in America.” They made it possible for him to redraw the nation’s political map, moving the center so abruptly to the right that even Bill Clinton would proclaim the end of “big government,” and to remold his party in his own image. They gave him the eloquence to lead the country in mourning after the Challenger disaster and to celebrate “the boys of Pointe du Hoc” near Omaha Beach on the 40th anniversary of D-Day.

***

Success in war underpins the claims to greatness of many presidents. Jackson wins the plaudits of historians for broadening the character of American democracy by extending the franchise. But he was a celebrated soldier long before he became president, as were Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose standing among historians and other commentators has increased markedly since he left office. Lincoln, F.D.R., Truman and James K. Polk (the victor in the Mexican War) were all wartime commanders in chief.

Mr. Reagan spent World War II, the global conflict fought and won by his generation, making training films in Hollywood. But he came to power as the cold war was nearing a denouement, and he did all he could to hasten the process by beefing up the American military and then, in Berlin, boldly challenging Soviet leaders to “tear down this wall.” After that, it would have been hard for Mikhail S. Gorbachev to believe that Americans had lost their will to resist Soviet power, and he joined with Mr. Reagan to bring the long struggle to a conclusion. It was the result of 45 years of aggressive allied containment, but the commander in chief, as always, got much of the credit.

What evidence is there of Reagan’s “conviction that words counted for far more in politics than mere deeds”? Certainly, words are important—the bully pulpit is arguably the single most important power of the presidency—but Reagan’s two terms were filled with action. Indeed, far more of it than Clinton’s two terms. I’m not sure why Reagan’s lack of combat service in WWII has much to do with his presidential legacy four decades later, but Reagan volunteered for such service and was instead assigned to serve in a capacity where he was more useful to the Army. We’ll get to Gorby later.

Paul Krugman — An Economic Legend [RSS]

In the movie “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” a reporter defends prettifying history: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” That principle has informed many of this week’s Reagan retrospectives. But let’s not be bullied into accepting the right-wing legend about Reaganomics.

Here’s a sample version of the legend: according to a recent article in The Washington Times, Ronald Reagan “crushed inflation along with left-wing Keynesian economics and launched the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.” Actually, the 1982-90 economic expansion ranks third, after 1991-2001 and 1961-69 — but even that comparison overstates the degree of real economic success.

The secret of the long climb after 1982 was the economic plunge that preceded it. By the end of 1982 the U.S. economy was deeply depressed, with the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression. So there was plenty of room to grow before the economy returned to anything like full employment.

The depressed economy in 1982 also explains “Morning in America,” the economic boom of 1983 and 1984. You see, rapid growth is normal when an economy is bouncing back from a deep slump. (Last year, Argentina’s economy grew more than 8 percent.)

And the economic expansion under President Reagan did not validate his economic doctrine. His supply-side advisers didn’t promise a one-time growth spurt as the economy emerged from recession; they promised, but failed to deliver, a sustained acceleration in economic growth.

Inflation did come down sharply on Mr. Reagan’s watch: it was running at 12 percent when he took office, but was only 4.5 percent when he left. But this victory came at a heavy price. For much of the Reagan era, the economy suffered from very high unemployment. Despite the rapid growth of 1983 and 1984, over the whole of the Reagan administration the unemployment rate averaged a very uncomfortable 7.5 percent.

In other words, it all played out just as “left-wing Keynesian economics” predicted.

In the movie “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” a reporter defends prettifying history: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” That principle has informed many of this week’s Reagan retrospectives. But let’s not be bullied into accepting the right-wing legend about Reaganomics.

Here’s a sample version of the legend: according to a recent article in The Washington Times, Ronald Reagan “crushed inflation along with left-wing Keynesian economics and launched the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.” Actually, the 1982-90 economic expansion ranks third, after 1991-2001 and 1961-69 — but even that comparison overstates the degree of real economic success.

Well, except that inflation has been at bay ever since and unemployment has remained historically low. And, of course, eight-year averages are rather silly way of looking at unemployment figures—they were very high when he took office and went up for a couple of years before plummeting. Most obviously, though, it’s rather funny to talk about the economic expansion of 1982-90 and 1991-2001 as if they were two totally separate events rather than a minor correction in the midst of a two decade trend. Krugman does get the movie right, though—Reagan was a big John Wayne fan.

Lawrence Martin — Gorby had the lead role, not Gipper

It was Mikhail Gorbachev, who with a sweeping democratic revolution at home and one peace initiative after another abroad, backed the Gipper into a corner, leaving him little choice — actors don’t like to be upstaged — but to concede there was a whole new world opening up over there.

As a journalist based first in Washington, then in Moscow, I was fortunate to witness the intriguing drama from both ends.

In R.R., the Soviet leader knew he was dealing with an archetype Cold Warrior. To bring him around to “new thinking” would require a rather wondrous set of works. And so the Gorbachev charm offensive began.

This is simply an absurd version of history. Certainly, the fact that Gorby was in office was critical to the events that followed. He was a visionary leader who understood that the Soviet system was badly broken and needed Glasnost and Perestroika. Remember, though, that his intent was to rescue the Communist system and maintain dictatorial control, not preside over the collapse of an empire and the total repudiation of the system to which he’d dedicated his life. Reagan’s goal was achieved beyond his wildest expectation; Gorby failed miserably. That said, Apple is clearly right: There was a lot of history before Reagan came to office and, surely, others deserve a lot of credit. Certainly, though, Reagan deserves top billing among the world leaders who brought down the USSR.

Charles Krauthammer — Reagan Revisionism

“Optimism” is the perfect way to trivialize everything that Reagan was or did. Pangloss was an optimist. Harold Stassen was an optimist. Ralph Kramden was an optimist. Optimism is nice, but it gets you nowhere unless you also possess ideological vision, policy and prescriptions to make it real, and, finally, the political courage to act on your convictions.

Optimism? Every other person on the No. 6 bus is an optimist. What distinguished Reagan was what he did and said. Reagan was optimistic about America amid the cynicism and general retreat of the post-Vietnam era because he believed unfashionably that America was both great and good — and had been needlessly diminished by restrictive economic policies and timid foreign policies. Change the policies and America would be restored, both at home and abroad.

UPDATE:
Drudge points out that, during the 1988 campaign, then-Dukasis Lt. Governor John Kerry said some unkind things about Reagan.

1988 Flashback: Kerry calls Reagan Presidency “Moral Darkness” in convention speech
Fri Jun 11 2004 12:32:42 ET

*** The Boston Globe Archives | July 21, 1988 | Walter V. Robinson ***

ATLANTA — Michael Stanley Dukakis, a self-described “very, very long- shot” candidate just 16 months ago, last night became the Democratic nominee for president and his party’s best hope to win the White House since 1976. Earlier, Sen. John F. Kerry took to the convention hall podium, telling the delegates that the “moral darkness” of President Reagan’s presidency will soon end.

“A Republican president once reminded us, ‘There is absolutely nothing to be said for a government of powerful men with the ideals of pawnbrokers,’ ” Kerry said.

“That president’s name was Theodore Roosevelt. And today Theodore Roosevelt would be ashamed to be a Republican.”

Said Kerry: “It is time we once again had a government of laws and not of lawbreakers.”

At least Kerry has the sense not to say this sort of thing this week.

Of interest mainly to locals: WaPo — Road Closures Planned in District on Friday

Major roads will be closed and traffic in parts of the District will be disrupted Friday as the funeral procession for former president Ronald Reagan travels from the Capitol to the Washington National Cathedral in the morning and then to Andrews Air Force Base in Suitland, Md., after the services.

Friday’s service will bring to an end three days of ceremonies honoring the 40th president, whose coffin will be flown back to California on Friday afternoon for a burial service at the Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

President Bush has declared Friday a national day of mourning and closed the federal government for the day. The District government and schools also will be closed Friday.

District police announced that several roads will be closed for stretches along the route that Reagan’s casket is driven Friday. Between 10:30 and 10:45 a.m., the procession will head west from the Capitol to Constitution Avenue NW, turn south on 3rd Street NW, continue west on Independence Avenue NW and then go north on 17 Street NW. From there, the motorcade will continue west on Pennsylvania Avenue NW, turn north on 22nd Street NW, turn west on Massachusetts Avenue NW and north on Wisconsin Avenue NW to Washington National Cathedral.

All of those streets and intersecting ones will be closed around 10 a.m. and will not reopen until the procession passes, District police said.

Additionally, several roads surrounding the cathedral will be cordoned off from 9 a.m. until Reagan’s casket departs sometime around 1:45 p.m. Those include Macomb Street NW on the north, Massachusetts Avenue NW on the south, 34th Street NW on the east and Idaho Avenue NW on the west.

Residents with proof of residence will be allowed onto the streets, police said.

After leaving the cathedral, the procession will head south on Wisconsin Avenue, turn east on Massachusetts Avenue and south on Waterside Drive before merging onto Rock Creek Parkway. The procession will follow Rock Creek to Independence Avenue, then to Maine Avenue, east on the Southeast/Southwest Freeway, south on Route 295 and, lastly, south on Suitland Parkway to Suitland Road onto Andrews Air Force Base.

In addition, motorcades bringing other dignitaries to the service could disrupt traffic on other streets, officials warned.

Metro officials said they expect brief delays on bus routes while the roads are closed. Because of the holiday, disabled and elderly riders who subscribe to MetroAccess must call (301) 562-5360 to schedule those trips, officials said.

Metrorail set a ridership record on Wednesday, when passengers made 850,636 trips on the subway — the highest level in a single day in the system’s 28-year-history. Officials attributed the mark to hoards of everyday workers and people who came to see Reagan’s casket, all of whom were directed by officials to take mass transit to get around numerous road closures.

The mark shattered a previous record set on Jan. 20, 1993, when 811,257 passengers crowded on for Bill Clinton’s inauguration. Typical weekday Metro ridership in the spring usually hovers between 670,000 and 690,000, according to Metro officials.

Update: NYT has a nice retrospective, “Ray Charles, Bluesy Essence of Soul, Is Dead at 73” [RSS] today (Friday). A taste:

Mr. Charles brought his influence to bear as a performer, songwriter, bandleader and producer. Though blind since childhood, he was a remarkable pianist, at home with splashy barrelhouse playing and precisely understated swing. But his playing was inevitably overshadowed by his voice, a forthright baritone steeped in the blues, strong and impure and gloriously unpredictable.

He could belt like a blues shouter and croon like a pop singer, and he used the flaws and breaks in his voice to illuminate emotional paradoxes. Even in his early years he sounded like a voice of experience, someone who had seen all the hopes and follies of humanity.

Leaping into falsetto, stretching a word and then breaking it off with a laugh or a sob, slipping into an intimate whisper and then letting loose a whoop, Mr. Charles could sound suave or raw, brash or hesitant, joyful or desolate, insouciant or tearful, earthy or devout. He projected the primal exuberance of a field holler and the sophistication of a bebopper; he could conjure exaltation, sorrow and determination within a single phrase.

In the 1950’s Mr. Charles became an architect of soul music by bringing the fervor and dynamics of gospel to secular subjects. But he soon broke through any categories. By singing any song he prized — from “Hallelujah I Love Her So” to “I Can’t Stop Loving You” to “Georgia on My Mind” to “America the Beautiful” — Mr. Charles claimed all of American music as his birthright. He made more than 60 albums, and his influence echoes through generations of rock and soul singers.

Joe Levy, the music editor of Rolling Stone, said, “The hit records he made for Atlantic in the mid-50’s mapped out everything that would happen to rock ‘n’ roll and soul music in the years that followed.”

“Ray Charles is the guy who combined the sacred and the secular, he combined gospel music and the blues,” Mr. Levy continued, adding, “He’s called a genius because no one could confine him to one genre. He wasn’t just rhythm and blues. He was jazz as well. In the early 60’s he turned himself into a country performer. Except for B. B. King, there’s no other figure who’s been as important or has endured so long.”

For more, see:

AP — Grammy-Winner Ray Charles Dies at 73

USA TODAY — Can’t stop loving the legendary Ray Charles sound