A blessing was offered by Bishop John Bryson Chane and the dismissal by Bishop Theodore Eastman of the Episcopal faith. Other participants included the Catholic archbishop of Washington, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, and the archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Demetrios.
The band also performed “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “The Mansions of the Lord,” which Rick Ahearn had recommended after watching We Were Soldiers.78 The music was majestic and was majestically performed by the U.S. Marine Chamber Orchestra and was accompanied by the singers of the United States Armed Forces Chorus. Mrs. Reagan, chaperoned again by General Jackman, walked slowly but deliberately out of the church behind the coffin of her beloved Ronnie.
As the procession withdrew as directed by ushers—some had a plane to catch—the band played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” The bells of the National Cathedral rang forty times, tolling for Reagan as America’s fortieth president. The building of the National Cathedral had begun in 1907 and construction was halted many times for lack of funds. The bells had only been installed forty years earlier,79 and now the forty-year-old bells tolled forty times for the fortieth president. At 1:15 p.m. (EST), the sound of bells rang from churches across the nation. They also tolled forty times.80 Then, only the muffled sound of military drums could be heard as the crowd slowly made its way toward the door.
And then a remarkable thing happened.
As the uniformed funeral party proceeded through the doors of the back of the National Cathedral and started their way down the granite stairs, a bright ray of sunlight sliced through the grey, overcast sky to momentarily shine on the casket of Ronald Reagan.
On the day of his inauguration in January 1981, it had been an overcast day, but at an inspirational moment the clouds parted that day, too, and the sun shone on the platform where Reagan was speaking.
The same had happened to another man of Illinois, another man of God, Abraham Lincoln, at his inauguration in 1865.
The crowd filed out right after the ceremony—mostly silently—to the dour day and dozens of television cameras, but there was also a fair amount of handshaking and air kissing and networking and gawking. Henry Kissinger was in big demand by the camera crews, and he gladly complied with every interview request. It was clear who was there to mourn Reagan and who was there to celebrate Washington society. In contrast to Kissinger, when a reporter asked Bill Buckley for an interview he said, “No, I won’t.”81
Among the Reaganites it was different. They knew each other almost by instinct. From Sacramento, from the campaigns, from the White House, from the offices in Century City to the Library, and the rest of the post-presidency, they gathered in small clutches, touching, hugging, kissing, crying, many somber and sad. For them it wasn’t just that a president had died. It wasn’t just that a monumentally successful president had died. It wasn’t just that a man of stunningly high character and good will had died. For the Reaganites, it was something deeper. For the Reaganites, it was more personal.
They had their own treasured stories of Reagan and Mrs. Reagan. Stories of speeches and events and meetings, of conversations and picnics and meals, of policies and jokes and tragedies and fights and primaries and elections, they went on and on. It was rarely one-upmanship either. Sure, some complained about Jim Baker or Dick Darman or an errant cabinet member, but more often than not they celebrated each other. They treasured and respected the others’ stories and experiences of their cause of working for Ronald Reagan, the cause of saving Western Civilization, the cause of American intellectual conservatism. Though some might have experienced difficulty explaining it, they all understood it easily. They all believed in it. And they knew Ronald Reagan believed in it too.
His passing was the passing of an era.
He was their friend, their inspiration, their hero, their rock. They were Reaganites, had been Reaganites, and would always be Reaganites. They were proud of this and knew others were envious. Their obituaries would say they had worked for Reagan, and each was proud to have had that honor. Their lives had been defined by the Gipper, and their pride abounded.
Immediately after the services at the National Cathedral, the members of the Reagan Alumni Association gathered—five hundred strong—for a reception at the Reagan Building and the last meeting of the Reagan cabinet. It was an impressive event organized by the Association’s longtime director Lou Cordia.
Present were UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Transportation Secretary Jim Burnley and Attorney General and Reagan confidant Ed Meese, Secretary of Energy Jim Edwards, U.S. Trade Representative Bill Brock, and National Security Advisor Bud McFarlane. All told, fifteen former Reagan cabinet members assembled at a long table in front of the audience and held forth. Also in attendance were Ann McLaughlin, a former Secretary of Labor, and Don Hodel, Energy Secretary. And a personal favorite of the Reagans, Richard Schweiker, former Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Gipper’s foresworn running mate in 1976. Another personal favorite of the Reagans, Bill Clark, a former Secretary of the Interior, was also among the thousands gathered in the Cathedral and now at the last Reagan cabinet meeting.
The event had the feel of a high school reunion, everyone wondering how it was that everyone had gotten older except themselves. There was lots of catching up, sharing tales from those halcyon days of almost twenty years earlier, and lots of gossip. Some had moved away from Washington but many had not. Many had become a part of the permanent Washington they had vowed never to join back in 1980 and 1981, more than thirty years earlier. Still, it was for most of them a glorious and tumultuous time. They never doubted what their mission was or doubted the commitment of the man who led them on that mission.
Dick Allen, one of the original Reaganites, along with Marty Anderson, spoke to the audience. There was a moment of silence for three recently departed members of the Reagan circle, Don Regan, Sam Pierce, and Malcolm Baldrige. Meese told the bittersweet gathering, “We came to change a nation, and we changed the world.”82
The legacy talk accelerated. Some doubted the success of Reaganomics, the policy about which Reagan had once quipped, “The best clue that our program is working is our critics don’t call it Reaganomics anymore.”83 Of the economy, it was true that Reagan had added to the national debt, but the annual deficit was falling in his last years in office and discretionary federal spending as a percentage of the GDP fell. He did substantially increase military spending but many said if this was the price to free millions of people and win a Cold War, America got off cheap. On the matter of the size and scope of government, the overall size escaped the budgetary knife, but the growth in the size of the private economy under Reagan had multiplied at a faster rate and pace, thus diminishing the influence of the national government.
More importantly, petty and cumbersome regulations had been rolled off the backs of the American entrepreneur. All in all, Reagan had put a fence around the government, protecting the private citizen from its unethically long reach. But the phrase “supply-side” and “Laffer Curve” would always be conjoined with the word controversial in the minds of the nation’s journalists.84 It was reported that a Bush aide said supply-side economics was the work of “charlatans and cranks.”85
Regarding controversy, the long analysis of Reagan’s career in the Chicago Tribune said George W. Bush had been a “more consistent” ideologue than Reagan. No wonder conservatives at the time liked to josh, “Why do you think they call them ’stories’?” The writer Jon Margolis cited the breaking of treaties by Bush as evidence of conservatism. He claimed that the growth of executive authority in the presidency was part of conservatism, which any first-year college student at Hillsdale would say was nonsense. He ascribed some of Reagan’s successes to “luck.” He also mistakenly claimed that “large majorities” disagreed with Reaga
n’s policies. It was true that while often during his presidency Reagan was more personally popular than some of his policies, those goals and programs nonetheless enjoyed wide support.
The “analysis” by Margolis went downhill from there: “In fact, the impression of Reagan as an extremely popular president is a myth carefully orchestrated by that conservative political apparatus, which is still at it, attempting to establish Reagan memorials all across the country . . .”86
And the old chestnut that “Reagan exacerbated inequality” was pulled out and thrown at his legacy without substantiation, natch. The long, harsh, gratuitous piece over which Margolis had labored concluded, “Reagan started his adult life as an entertainer, and he never stopped performing.”87
Others were debating anew the “Reagan on the money” matter.88 Some said it was too soon. But others pointed out that FDR was tooled on the dime the year after he died, Kennedy appeared on the half dollar the year after his death,89 and Eisenhower had gone on the one dollar coin two years after his passing. Jennifer Harper, a top journalist with the Washington Times, reported that as of June 2004, some “62 sites around the globe” are “named for former President Ronald Reagan—with more in the works.”90
Fortunately, some unexpected but favorable comments about the Reagan presidency were coming from Richard Neustadt at Harvard, who said, “Mr. Reagan restored the presidency to ’a place of popularity, influence and initiative . . . both pacesetter and tonesetter, the nation’s voice to both the world and us . . .” At the University of California, another liberal historian Samuel Kernell said Reagan had “cast a long shadow” and compared him favorably to FDR, courageous talk from Ground Zero for Reagan bashing. And from Cornell came yet another historian, Walter F. LaFeber, who said his “contribution to ending the Cold War” was his greatest achievement and that it “would have been very difficult for a Democrat to have done that.”91
Only Reagan could go to Moscow.
Jeff Greenfield was not a historian but he was a well-regarded political commentator and writer. He had cut his teeth in liberal politics working for Robert Kennedy and Democratic causes. Still, “Communism fell on his watch, and we know from his letters this guy was a lot more than a well-spoken actor.”92
Another aspect of the Reagan legacy was told by columnist Mark Shields, who interviewed an old Eureka football teammate Franklin Burghardt, who told of the story in 1930 when he and another black player could not stay at a “whites only” hotel, and Reagan took the two to his home where his parents warmly greeted them for the evening. Still, Shields could not understand how Reagan had once opposed the Civil Rights Bill. (He did so on the basis of privacy and the right of association guaranteed in the First Amendment.) Shields blamed Reagan for homelessness. But he credited him with setting a new standard for presidential debates, in that Reagan did not duck debating Walter Mondale in 1984 even as he was coasting to his reelection, unlike LBJ in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1972. Reagan’s courageous and risky decision would force all future occupants to debate regardless of their standing in the polls.93
Joanne Drake had a first-row place on American history, and as a valued member of the inner circle, she had many responsibilities for the week. But she also had many memories. She remembered how the Secret Service agents refused to ride in cars, despite the heat and humidity. They walked even though the director informed them they could ride. “They adamantly put their foot down,” she said of the agents.94
Another poignant memory was the trip from the National Cathedral back to Andrews Air Force Base through the run-down, poorer parts of Washington, which included Anacostia, and through the poorer suburbs in Maryland. Unexpectedly, thousands of citizens turned out here as well. One rider said, “You pass by all of those homes. Those old homes . . . These are middle-class Americans of every color, of every age, of every size, of every economic stature. Scout troops, people in uniforms, veterans, children, mothers, fathers, students . . . I was in tears.”95
Michele Woodward, riding in the same motorcade, had similar recollections, a similar front-row seat to history. “And there were African American women with their hands over their hearts. There were African American firefighters and Asian firefighters and Hispanic firefighters.” Woodward was helping with press advance. For a man who was supposedly old-fashioned, Reagan had many women in positions of authority over the many years. Still, Woodward said as they sped through Anacostia, “I was boo-hooing like a baby.”96
Reagan’s longtime press aide Mark Weinberg summed up what was on the minds of the people lining the streets that week.
He made peoples’ lives better. He made the world better. He made the world safer. He gave them hope and opportunity. Jobs were better, incomes were better, homes. Things were better, and they missed that. And they wanted to thank him, I think as best they could. If you could stand there and wave a flag as the hearse passed by, it’s your way of saying thank you.97
As with everything this week, the hearse and motorcade arrived on schedule at Andrews Air Force Base and Reagan’s coffin was discretely and gently placed on the plane at the back on the catafalque, secured in place.
The crowd watched, knowing he would never be in Washington again. They watched, knowing they’d never see him again. The finality of it all crushed many, silent tears streaming down their faces in the cool, grey, overcast day.
At the foot of the jet ramp, Nancy Reagan had paused for a long time to thank many of the people who’d worked so long and hard over the past week, and she was seen smiling, clearly grateful for the work done. Michele Woodward recalled that Nancy Reagan had arranged for the unpaid, sleep-deprived core group, who had planned seamlessly the week’s events, to be there as “departure greeters” much to their surprise.98 And then Nancy went through, one by one, and thanked each for his or her dedication and tireless work. They were deeply touched.
Mrs. Reagan walked slowly up the ramp of the big plane, and at the top turned to give a long and generous wave to the mostly weeping crowd, a wan smile on her face. Then she blew a light kiss and disappeared into the plane, the low rumble of the engines primed for takeoff.
The band played Antonín Dvořák’s “Going Home.”99 Dvořák was a Czech composer who had spent a summer in Iowa—Reagan’s neck of the woods—drawing inspiration from the American heartland while working in New York as the director of the National Conservatory. While in Iowa he composed “The American String Quartet Op. 96.”100 There was something lyrical, symmetrical, about the connection between Dvořák, who supported the liberation of his countrymen from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with that of Reagan’s opposition to a later empire, supporting another Czech artist, a playwright, Václav Havel, in another struggle for Czech freedom.
Maybe the real music of the world was human freedom.
Ronald Reagan left Washington for the very last time. His signature song was “California, Here I Come.” And so it was.
The big plane gathered speed and hurtled down the runway, it lifted easily into the air, gaining altitude, to the applause of the crowd on the tarmac, and then quickly disappeared into the overcast sky. This last group in Washington to see Reagan off did not disperse quickly, as if they wanted to hold on to this moment for as long as they could.
The jet raced across the heartland and left behind the dreary weather of the East Coast. Flying above the Midwest a couple of hours later, it dropped altitude over Tampico, Illinois, Reagan’s birthplace. There was nary a cloud in the sky.
The pilot then dipped his wings, a final salute to the folks there in Reagan’s hometown.
CHAPTER 9
“SIGNAL: RAWHIDE’S LAST ARRIVAL”
“I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each an
d every life.”
For the first time, a week under the unceasing glare of the international spotlight, and only at the very end, Nancy Reagan finally broke down. Crying uncontrollably over the loss of her husband, over his coffin, over his gravesite. Shoulders rounded, the tiny woman was weeping, stricken, and could be clearly seen whispering, “Oh, Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie.” She touched his coffin lightly.
“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.”1
As she gently laid her head on the newly flagless casket, her hands caressing it, Ron and Patti stood forlornly on either side of her and Michael stood sadly behind her. Each individually and together a picture of acute sadness. They were a small family that had just become smaller. All tenderly touched Nancy, letting her know they were there and she was not alone.
Then Nancy leaned to her right, clutched the folded American flag with her left hand, covered her face partially with the other, and pressed on son Ron’s chest. Patti protectively closed in toward her mother and Mike tried to hold it together, a stricken look on his face too.
The four of them were alone at the tomb. As the world watched in silence, the Reagans were now oblivious to all. This was not a stage. This was not a performance. This was not an act. This was a grieving widow saying good-bye to her husband for the last time. This was three sad and fatherless children saying good-bye to their father for the last time. Long before he was president of the United States and Leader of the Free World, he was “Ronnie” and “Dad” and before that “Daddy.” Even during and after his eight monumental years in the White House he was always Ronnie and Dad.
This was the first time they were referred to as “the Reagans” without him.
The strength of will with which Nancy had carried herself for the past week—the past ten years, the past many years—had finally drained away, and she was just another disheartened and saddened and lonely widow. Their fifty-three years together had been far, far better than worse but at the last, death had indeed finally parted them.
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