Last Act

by Craig Shirley

  She whispered a farewell “I love you.”

  Later, Nancy was heard to say, repeatedly, “I can’t believe he’s gone.” As one observer that day remarked, “She had been expecting his death, but not really preparing for it.”2

  A few hours earlier, the big silver, blue, and white plane had actually been a few minutes early landing at Naval Air Station Point Mugu, and the party on board dallied a bit after landing so as to get the timing to ensure Reagan could be buried right at sunset. As the coffin and the small group of passengers were off-loaded, a marine band performed “Ruffles and Flourishes” four times and then “Hail to the Chief.” The Military District of Washington explained in a flurry of helpful press releases, “Ruffles are played on drums and flourishes on bugles. They are sounded together, once for each star of the general officer being honored . . . Four ruffles and flourishes are the highest honor and are played for presidents.”3

  All of this was broadcast live on C-SPAN, as so much of the Reagan funeral had been broadcast on the reliable cable system, most of it without commentary. Nancy Reagan, escorted yet again by General Jackman, was seen gently waving with a surprised smile on her face as the large crowd waved and yelled praises to her.

  There were five family limousine cars, the first carrying Nancy, Patti, Ron, and his wife, Doria. Michael and Colleen Reagan and their children Cameron and Ashley were in the second. In the third was Maureen’s widowed husband, Dennis Revell, and his fiancée, Diana Wilson; and on Nancy’s side of the family, the Davis family members in the fourth; and Peterson family members in the fifth. Other cars in the motorcade carried VIPs such as Fred Ryan and his wife, Genevieve; Mike and Carolyn Deaver; Reverend John Danforth and his wife, Sally; Dr. John Hutton; and columnist Hugh Sidey, among others.4

  Some thirty miles away at the top of a small foothill in the Santa Susana Mountains that overlooked the blue Pacific, some seven hundred people waited patiently, exchanging pleasantries and introductions. Some were helped along by the wine being served, though most stuck to water or soda pop or iced tea. Like most funerals, there was always nervous energy and awkwardness before the actual ceremonies began. Mawkishness was frowned upon but so, too, was excessive laughing or humor.

  The entire week had been scripted and practiced and rehearsed and polished and planned out and thought out, and while the planners thought there would be a respectful turnout of the American people, who knew? They’d gotten a pretty good inkling the first day Reagan lay in repose in the lobby of the Library five days earlier, when more than one hundred thousand people showed up and then, as Reagan lay in state in the U.S. Capitol, again there was a larger-than-expected turnout, with hundreds of thousands sweltering in line for hours on end to pay their last respects. But nothing prepared them for the spontaneous outpouring they were about to encounter for the entire thirty miles from the Point Mugu naval base all the way to Simi Valley.

  When the motorcade arrived at the Library, the call went out over the agents’ and staff’s radios, “Signal: Rawhide’s last arrival.” This sent all who heard the broadcast into renewed quavers of tears. Along each stop and start for the past week, and for his presidency, the Secret Service and advance team always said, “Signal: Rawhide arrival” and “Signal: Rawhide departure.”5

  Over the years, the media had reported sometimes that the Reagan children were fighting with their parents or with each other or disagreed with his politics, and Reagan confided in his diary the couples’ intermittent exasperations with their children.6 Truth be told, though, many presidents, like many citizens, had problems with their children and their families. John Adams’s son Charles was a drunk and the black sheep of the family. James Madison’s stepson John Payne Todd was an inveterate gambler and cost his mother her beloved Montpelier because of his debts. Lincoln had his hands full with son Robert and his own wife, Mary Todd. (No relation to John Payne Todd is believed.)

  FDR’s children often said they never really knew their parents. The tales of Alice Roosevelt Longworth and the headaches she caused her father, Theodore Roosevelt, were legion. Eisenhower’s son John was a WWII vet but also a philanderer, and other presidents had more than their share of problems with ne’er-do-well children and family members. Billy Carter was a bad news buffet all by himself. Both Johnson and Nixon were troubled by brothers who never measured up, associated with shady characters, and nary a month but what it seemed a new Clinton relation was discovered. The Reagan children’s problems seemed pretty tame by comparison.

  By the time of the announcement of their father’s affliction, each had—for the most part—become responsible individuals, and all had reconciled more or less with their father and mother and stepmother.

  Both Maureen’s death and their father’s Alzheimer’s had brought them together, and the public squabbling had ceased. In Reagan’s death his family had found life together, as a page was turning in history.

  “The man who once declared it morning in America was laid to rest at sunset Friday.”7

  Magnolias encircled the gravesite where Reagan was now and Mrs. Reagan would one day be buried. Patti later said the week of mourning had not been a burden but helpful as “all of it kept us above the waterline.”8

  At noon that day, at every U.S. military base in the world, there was a 21-gun salute in honor of the Gipper. At dusk on Friday, June 11, there was a 50-gun salute at every American military base in the world.9 The television ratings were off the scale, but that was the way it often was with Reagan. Indeed, the funeral of Ronald Reagan would be one of the ten most watched events in broadcasting history, drawing nearly twenty-one million viewers according to Nielsen Media Research.10

  Said Lou Cannon, “This was a genuine outpouring of feelings for somebody they cared about who had died.”11 President of the Alzheimer’s Association Sue Tatangelo was taken aback when she overheard a Secret Service agent “weep and quietly step out into the aisle where he could grieve alone.”12 Cannon was astonished at Nancy Reagan’s physical and emotional endurance over the past week and indeed, the past ten years. Cannon was also close to Joanne Drake, and over the years he’d get calls about stories regarding Reagan’s condition and he’d call Joanne, who was confident to share anything new with him knowing he’d keep it confidential or handle it diplomatically. Cannon and Nancy had known each other for years, and for him she felt comfortable wearing old clothes, so comfortable she once told the scribe, “There’s times that I don’t know him. That I can’t get beyond that barrier.”13

  By now the often harsh reportage and commentary over the past week—and the past fifty years—had nearly melted away. No one was mocking “the Gaze” now, but rather universally applauding Nancy Reagan for her courage, her fortitude, her grace under pressure, and all she’d done for the cause of Alzheimer’s research.

  There could be no doubt that the sheer gravity of the outpouring from average American citizens, those who showed up in California and Washington and a hundred other places in America and around the world to give respect to the Great Egalitarian, made a lasting impression on the Great Elites. Nor was there any doubt they also came to support Nancy. Thousands of citizens took the time to write letters to the editors of newspapers and make themselves heard on the Internet and on talk radio. Most of the letters were not from the elderly but from the young Americans who wished to pay tribute to the wise and grandfatherly and consequential man they knew as their president. Others wrote praising the courage and dignity of Nancy Reagan.

  As Fred Ryan noted, each time someone criticized Reagan on the network or cable shows earlier in the week the “switchboard would light up” with people telling the commentators to knock it off.14

  Numerous times during the week network anchors had complained about the “over-coverage” of the Reagan funeral, according to Gail Shister of the Phi
ladelphia Inquirer. Oddly, Dan Rather had quoted darkly from Shakespeare, “To paraphrase Mark Antony, I think, by and large, that the good that men do should live after them, and the evil should be interred with their bones.”15 It was so oddly incongruous, but it was not unusual for Rather to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

  Tom Brokaw was more rational, saying that journalists had an obligation to put Reagan’s life in perspective, “to put his whole life and his political career in context.”16

  Six days earlier the elites were out of sync with the citizenry, but by the day of the Reagan committal some had changed their tune and a few were even singing Reagan’s praises. Even the cartoonists, who’d been especially vicious in their treatment of the Gipper over the years, had grown respectful, even kind. Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution depicted on one panel a Republican elephant and a Democratic donkey in boxing shorts and boxing gloves, pummeling each other. But in the next panel they stood side by side, arms at their sides, heads bowed, at a flag-covered casket bearing the name “Reagan.”17

  Even the organized Left was mostly silent. No doubt there was grousing and complaining on college campuses and in the drinking salons of American liberalism and leftism. A small group gathered at the trendy Visions Bar Noir in Washington to drown their sorrows at the national grief for Reagan. They just couldn’t understand how anybody ever supported this yahoo to begin with. He wasn’t like them; he actually liked the country and her people, and never subscribed to their favorite elixirs of cynicism and sameness.

  A writer described these sullen liberals as the “evil twins of Alex P. Keaton of ’Family Ties.’ ” Family Ties was a popular comedy of the 1980s that depicted two aging lefties from the 1960s raising a son who was a Reagan conservative. Other Reagan haters who gathered drank drinks named the Gipper and the Bonzo, ate jelly beans, and watched Bedtime for Bonzo and The Killers, and though their group was most definitely in the minority, they consoled themselves with the belief that they cared more.18

  Also, some gays gathered and they, too, were outspoken critics of Reagan, somehow blaming him for AIDS. As reported in the Washington Post, a gay pride festival was going on in Washington. “The braless women were marching along 17th Street, near DuPont Circle, shouting ’What do you want? Dyke Rights! When do you want it? Now!’ ” In a bar in DC, a gay man told a reporter, “I think it’s kind of fitting. He gets buried on the night we’re all here.”19

  Musicians also were down on Reagan as many songs and bands of the 1980s and 1990s ripped him, including those performed by the Dead Kennedys, Ramones, and the Violent Femmes.20

  Other than that, there had been very few organized protests against Reagan, and it wasn’t due just to the heat. Some on the Left had truly mixed feelings about Reagan, who was in his heart a classical liberal. John Patrick Diggins, a longtime liberal and academic, had opposed Reagan his entire life, including his days at Berkeley while Reagan was in Sacramento, but had later in life come around to appreciate Reagan.

  The debate over the legacy had only begun, including the meaning of the “Reagan Doctrine.” What was never debated was Reagan’s faith. He invoked it often and said in his inaugural remarks of 1981 his belief that God intended man to be free. “We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free.”21 Reagan was infused with both natural law and natural rights.

  In sharp contrast with some other liberals, former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta said of the Reagan remembrance, “It was good for the country to go through something like this. It was an important time out for us to recognize that, for all the problems we face in the country, we have some incredible strengths as a people and to a large extent Reagan represented that kind of larger picture about what this country is all about.”22

  The LA Times had no front-page coverage the day of the Reagan funeral. While Fox and ABC planned extensive coverage of the evening committal ceremonies, NBC would abbreviate their coverage, and CBS chose not to cover the ceremonies in favor of regularly scheduled programming that included JAG and 48 Hours.23

  David Nyhan, longtime liberal writer for the longtime liberal Boston Globe, said derisively of Reagan, “He demonstrated for all to see how far you can go in this life with a smile, a shoeshine and the nerve to put your own spin on the facts.”24

  But at the other end of the spectrum, Cal Thomas gently wrote, “He lingered too long for his own good, but not long enough for his beloved Nancy and the many others who loved and admired him.”25

  The immediately recognizable blue-and-white Boeing 747 plane—Air Force jet call sign “SAM 28000”—had departed Washington earlier that day and was heading for California through the thick mist above Andrews Air Force Base. The strains of “Going Home” being played echoed in the ears of any who were in its proximity.26 As with the entire week, this last ceremonial event was open to the media. The only exception would be the plane trip back to California.

  The flag-draped coffin bearing Reagan’s remains was secured near the rear of the plane. The manifest was not nearly filled and people easily moved about the cabin as it winged its way back toward the West Coast. The official count, not including crew, was fifty-three with all the principal players, including the Reagan family, the honorary pallbearers, and staff.27

  Seated at the back with Reagan’s remains was his military detail, including General Jackman. Nancy Reagan and the children wandered back from time to time, each taking the occasion to smooth the flag over the casket. The flight took approximately five hours back to Point Mugu, where it seemed like an eternity ago they had departed for Ronald Reagan’s last political tour of America. Now he was heading back home, back to the California hills he loved so much, once and for all.

  The motorcade in California was pretty much the same as in Washington, only in Reagan’s final journey Mike Reagan and his family had their own car and Nancy Reagan’s stepbrother Dr. Richard Davis and his wife, Patricia, and their son Geoffrey also had their own limousine.28 It was estimated the drive from Point Mugu to the Library would take about forty-five minutes—moving at twenty miles an hour.

  Reagan was on the final leg of his last journey. It would be memorable and unforgettable for all. The week of public mourning for the passing of the fortieth president had impacted and impressed everyone, but this last spontaneous demonstration truly blew everyone away, including Nancy Reagan. Beginning at the gates of Point Mugu and for the thirty miles to the Library, hundreds of thousands of people turned out to pay their respects, to wave flags, to shed tears, and to honor a president all had grown to respect and many had grown to love. The funeral planners had hoped to have some citizens to line Presidential Drive up to the Library but this was way far beyond what any had imagined.

  “The 101”—as the divided highway was called—was a parking lot for the entire route as the funeral cortege passed slowly by on the other side. The national media had never before witnessed a similar, spontaneous outpouring, and it was broadcast live on national television. Joanne Drake said, “I’ve never seen so many people in my whole life.”29 Drake was a strong woman, but even the old actor Fess Parker noted “tears flowing down [her] face, wiping them away . . .”30

  The younger Jim Lake, son of Reagan’s old press aide Jim Lake and one of the principal advance men on Jim Hooley’s team, was in charge of this portion of Reagan’s return home. The younger Lake had grown up marinated in national politics and as a child being patted on the head by every Republican office holder. As an adult, he’d worked on the Reagan campaigns and in the administration, seeing history up close and personal, such as being at Reykjavik for the summit between Reagan and Gorbachev.31

  He, like everyone else, was stunned. “The farm workers in the fields who stopped working and stood in silence with their hats held over their hearts.” Overp
asses had fire engines displaying giant American flags, and firefighters saluting and crying, and police officers saluting and crying, and Mexican farm workers saluting and crying, and housewives, and blue-collar workers and white-collar workers, and the elderly and the young—just an amazing outpouring of Americans from all walks of life—all brought together by their respect and affection for Ronald Reagan. Lake saw an old ranch hand holding up a sign, “All Cowboys Return Home. Welcome Home Mr. President.”32

  Lake cried like a baby. He was not alone.

  At the presidential library, the exclusive list of around seven hundred guests33 was beginning to gather. Several places for lemonade and iced tea had been set up and the weather had cooled since earlier in the week. This list was almost exclusively Nancy and Ronald Reagan’s friends, dinner companions, and acquaintances from Hollywood and entertainment, but also some folks who had worked for and with the Reagans over the years. Nancy’s friends—“The Girls”—were there, including Betsy Bloomingdale, Marion Jorgensen, and Jane Dart; Wayne Newton was there as was Mickey Rooney, and Kirk Douglas, and Norman Lear, and Bo Derek, and Tommy Lasorda. And Tom Selleck and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, former governor Pete Wilson, Frank Sinatra’s widow Barbara, Wayne Gretzky, and George Shultz were there.

  It was an eclectic crowd and notably not terribly political. Reagan’s doctor from Yellowstone Neurosurgical, Dr. John Moseley, who’d removed the subdural hematoma the Gipper had suffered after being thrown from a horse in Mexico and hitting his head, was there. Moseley and his wife Cheryl, in attendance, had also gone by the funeral home and took note of the people who “put up their own little memorials, cards and memorabilia . . . people from Africa, Central America, Poland, etc. . . .”34