Last Act

by Craig Shirley

  If the Cathedral and the week had been for President Reagan, this last event was in many ways for Nancy Reagan. She was heard sadly saying, “I can’t leave him here.”35

  Next to and terraced slightly above the Library facilities were two large parking lots filled with dozens and dozens of satellite trucks and microwave antennas. There were also hundreds of print reporters, radio reporters, and photographers. The media turnout that included so many Reagan critics brought to mind what Bill Buckley once said when Eleanor Roosevelt passed away: “Some came to pay their last respects, others to make sure.”36

  Around the nation more people wrote of the times they remembered meeting the Gipper. An entertaining columnist with the Peoria Journal Star wrote of meeting Reagan in 1975 at a press conference in which Jerry McDowell was the only member of the press in attendance. “His words weren’t particularly memorable although . . . Reagan could make you misty-eyed talking about what he had for dinner the night before.” Reagan had just given a speech in Peoria and was playing coy about the possibility of taking on the incumbent Gerald Ford, but McDowell recalled, “There was a certain connection that Reagan could make, the eye contact, the honesty of a smile, that would carry him far beyond a chance meeting of a reporter and politician in the winter 29 years ago.”37

  All week Reagan staffers had been conducting interviews with the media, and the press staff was happily encouraging them to do so. Better to have them on the record celebrating the life and times of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, adding to the pages of history rather than Reagan bashers and wounded opponents trying to make their own history. Hooley had never done a television interview in his life but now someone with the Library’s public relations staff asked him to do an interview with CBS. He replied, “I don’t do those things,” and the staffer said, “Jim, I think you should do this one. It’s ok. You’re not going to get in trouble.” He complied, but later said of the interview, “I never saw it.” Hooley also recalled that in the early planning of the Reagan funeral there was an aide who wanted to make it into a fundraiser, but he was long gone by June 11.38

  The Library was awash in flowers and cards and letters and telegrams, each expressing condolences. Fashion maven Gloria Vanderbilt wrote, “People talk of closure . . . there is never closure, there is nothing left but acceptance and the courage to go on.” Sending their commiserations were Bobby Short, Brooke Astor, Tish Baldrige, Henry Grunwald, George McGovern, George Steinbrenner, Ron Lauder, and Ambassador Evan Galbraith and his wife “Bootsie.” Also, Micky Roosevelt wrote, “When he entered a room, he brought sunshine with him.”

  Respected journalist Hugh Sidey, who’d grown up in the Midwest listening to Dutch Reagan broadcast Cubs games, sent a tender letter. And Katie Couric, Barbara Walters, Norman Lear, John Travolta, Howard Keel, Larry King, Bob Colacello, William Kristol, Chris Matthews, and other celebrities and media noteworthies sent notes. And Andy Williams and Joanna Carson, Carol Burnett, Burt Bacharach and Phyllis George, Lorna Luft, Suzanne Somers, Don Rickles, Kathryn Crosby and Pat Lawford, David Niven, Jr., and Tony Danza, and thousands of others. The entire Sinatra family sent notes, including Nancy Sinatra and her brother Frank Jr.39 So did Rich Little, who’d entertained at the Reagan White House five times and who had exchanged impressions of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart (Reagan was awful according to Little) and Truman Capote (Reagan was excellent according to Little) with Reagan.40

  From the administration and friends of the administration, there were notes from George Shultz and Rudy Giuliani, Rupert Murdoch, and Bob and Maria Tuttle. Lyn Nofziger wrote Nancy a kindhearted note: “Just let me say there are two things I am convinced of; He would not have been president if it had not been for you and the world is surely a better place because he was president.”41 For all the guff Nancy had taken over the years, people were coming to recognize that she was far more than just the fashion maven she’d been mercilessly caricatured as being. In fact, she was tough. She was tough because she had to be tough. While tough, she was also thoughtful and kind, which so many who had received phone calls each year on their birthdays would come to know. Mike Deaver, Jim Baker, Dennis LeBlanc, and many, many others got calls and cards and gifts over the years.

  Historian and conservative chronicler Lee Edwards wrote a thoughtful note. So did Kathy Osborne, Reagan’s longtime secretary, as did Peggy Grande and Dick and Claire Schweiker, and Mark Weinberg and Mark Rosenker. Even Ann Regan, the wife of the late Don Regan, who had been unceremoniously fired as Reagan’s chief of staff and denounced Nancy Reagan before he left, penned a note. Their disagreement was all in the past now. Another voice from the past writing a sympathetic letter was Jane Wyman, Reagan’s first wife. Jamie Lee Curtis, David Hyde Pierce, Christopher Reeve, and other actors sent either notes or letters.42

  By week’s end, there were hundreds of thousands of letters and notes. And each would eventually be answered. All were read and some were answered personally by Mrs. Reagan. And gifts by the thousands, many of which spoke to Reagan’s loves. There were cowboy hats and books and American flags of all sizes, and jars and jars of jelly beans. There were framed pictures of Reagan, bordered by red, white, and blue or black crepe. There were Bibles and poems. Marilyn A. Hayes sent a poem “escribed on a plaque” titled, “Your Ronnie.”

  A letter written by Boy Scouts and lots of candles were sent as gifts. There were all sorts of flowers, real and imitation. Roses and dried flowers and wreaths. Someone thoughtfully sent horseshoes. There were “Beanie Babies” and a “rose porcelain tea pot and cup for one person” left by a Tommy Nichols. There were campaign buttons, and a “National Defense Medal,” and a sign that proclaimed “Heaven is Reagan Country.” There was a Notre Dame cap and images of Jesus and “24 Christmas cards one for each day in dec. [sic] addressed to Nancy.” There were “Christmas tree napkins” and an “Uncle Sam snow globe that plays God Bless America.”

  A gift was sent by “Mrs. Mason’s Kindergarten Class” and “Boy Scouts troop 007 and 99” and a gift of signed condolence books from the Nixon Library, married couples, and families and individuals.43 Most of the gifts were from Americans but all were from people who were both mourning and celebrating the life and times of Ronald Reagan.

  Some of the most heartfelt notes to Nancy Reagan came from political rivals like Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. “President Reagan was one of our nation’s greatest treasures, and we have admired his commitment to his values, his sense of humor and his consummate leadership . . . The courage and strength with which he faced his illness are further testaments to his character,” wrote the former president and First Lady.44

  Tony Blair, President and Laura Bush, Dick and Lynne Cheney, Queen Elizabeth, James A. Baker III, Margaret Thatcher, Donald Rumsfeld, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Jack Kemp, Mitt Romney, Gray Davis, the famous and powerful political leaders of America and the foreign dignitaries of the world, by the hundreds, sent notes to Nancy Reagan.45

  Baker said with heartfelt grief to Nancy, “Let me say again how proud I am of having had the privilege of serving this truly beautiful human being . . . because of who he was and the principles he believed in he changed America—and the world.”

  Presidential daughters Julie Nixon Eisenhower and Luci Baines Johnson were fulsome. Eisenhower shared a poem, which began: “Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep . . .” and Johnson spoke of the bond between all presidential families and the special kind of pain they feel. Former president Bush simply wrote, “I loved your man, my president. I really did.”46

  After the departure ceremonies at Point Mugu, the motorcade began the almost thirty-mile trip to Simi Valley and Reagan’s final resting place. Bob Boetticher, the funeral director, again was behind the wheel of the hearse carrying Reagan. He was the chief embalmer of the Reagan and Gerald Ford funerals.

>   As they made their way, at first it was just a pedestrian or two waving or saluting or placing their right hand over their hearts. Many were making the Catholic sign of the cross. But the trickle quickly became a flood of humanity. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of men and women of all ages, all creeds and races, all economic backgrounds, lined the interstate Route 101 waving American flags, cheering for him, cheering for her, welcoming Ron and Nancy Reagan home. It was astonishing. It was a natural, but unplanned, outpouring of emotion that was not one of the details ever considered by the funeral planners.

  Migrant workers in sweaty shorts and dirty overalls stood in the flatbeds of rusted pickup trucks, their hats off in deference to the most successful president many of them had ever known. The roads were clogged with people, so much so that traffic stopped but no one complained. They got out and cheered and applauded and put their hands over their hearts, and Mrs. Reagan asked the driver to slow down so she could wave to the thousands and draw strength from the last and final spontaneous outpouring for her husband. But it was also for her, for Nancy Reagan. Many of the signs mentioned her, as in “God Bless you, Nancy,” and “Our Prayers are with you, Nancy.” They cheered her and applauded her.

  A man stood in the sweltering heat for hours with his little children. When asked why, he replied, “I want my kids to see a real hero, to be a part of history, and to remember this day when a great man was honored like no other.”47

  The hearse pulled up in front of the Library. The casket was carried inside and gently placed for a moment on the catafalque while the family gathered and the dignitaries could be escorted to their seats.

  The honor guard shouted, “Pre—sent Arms!”48 Then the flags of the three branches of the military were lowered with only the flag of the president of the United States still upright. A gentle breeze stirred the banners.

  Then the military pallbearers went through the next ceremony at the Library that was the playing of “Presidential Honors,” also known as “Ruffles and Flourishes”—played only for a president—and then “Hail to the Chief,” which was the last time it was ever performed for Ronald Reagan.49

  The arrangements for the final interment had always called for a late afternoon or evening sunset service so the timing was critical for the funeral cortege to arrive at the right time. The planners had come up with an ingenious system whereby nearly everything was adjusted quickly so as to keep the sun in the right position, regardless of where it was, so the stage, the chairs, the entire proceedings rotated. The final staging was elegantly framed by the magnolia trees.

  As the coffin was carried to the grey granite half-circle crypt, a sole bagpiper, Eric Rigler, played “Amazing Grace” leading “the casket to the dais.”50 Only moments before, the American flag covering Reagan’s coffin had been folded by U.S. servicemen in tri-corner fashion, some said to remind citizens of the three-pointed hat worn by Americans during the Revolutionary War. The thirteen folds that went into the ceremonial retiring of the flag were steeped in both Christian and American history and tradition, fathers, mothers, and family. The thirteen folds, of course, represented the original thirteen colonies, and the ceremony itself was reserved for men and women who wore the uniform for their country—including police and firefighters—and, of course, commanders in chief, though Reagan had also been active duty in the army as a captain during World War II. As cannons fired, military personnel had to take care to ensure that brushfires were not started on the hillside.

  Captain James A. Symonds, commander of the USS Ronald Reagan, presented the flag from the Reagan coffin, and bending to his knee, repeated the phrase to Nancy Reagan that was painfully familiar to countless other widows of fallen soldiers and sailors, “On behalf of the president of the United States, the United States Navy, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.” Symonds could barely control his own grief. Nancy used her handkerchief. Symonds had practiced the simple but all-important ceremony repeatedly because he kept breaking down crying.51 A lone bugler played “Taps.”

  Those attending the small ceremony and those millions watching on television did likewise. The flag given her was the same that had flown over the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 1981, the day he’d been sworn in as the fortieth president of the United States. The crew of the USS Ronald Reagan had earlier dedicated a wreath to the memory of the man who was the inspiration for the giant, nuclear-powered projection of American power and purpose.52 The naming of the super carrier was the first time an American naval vessel had been so designated after a living individual.

  It seemed as if the funeral planners had left absolutely nothing to chance. Everything about the week had meaning, substance, irony, and poignancy. Even those things beyond the ken of the planners only added to the richness of the seven days of Reagan.

  In Las Vegas, the lights along the strip of the “City of Lights” were dimmed for three minutes, not for Reagan the Vegas performer who had bombed there years earlier, but for Reagan the president and world leader, who had wowed the audience. The dimming of the lights was a signal honor as it had only been done for John Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and George Burns.53

  At the grave, the Reagans’ pastor, Reverend Michael Wenning of the Bel Air Presbyterian Church, said, “We began this day and it seemed the heavens were weeping. We have come from sea to shining sea to the soil he loved so much and where his body will remain.”54 Four F-14s then thundered overhead. (One small flap was Wenning went on too long and the over flight had to be waved off until he finished.55)

  Reagan’s remains were covered in blue fabric and placed on the stage before the seated audience. The setting sun and the Pacific served as background behind the lectern at the rear of the Library, in the out of doors, facing west.

  All three of the Reagan children spoke—approximately five minutes each. All aroused some memory of their father’s ability to stir, to move, and to inspire a crowd, as well as make them laugh through their tears. Ron spoke of his father’s grace and charm, Michael spoke of his father’s kindness toward he and other children, and Patti spoke of the lessons of life and death and renewal he’d taught her. “My father never feared death. He never saw it as an ending.”56 In a piece she’d just penned for Newsweek, Miss Davis wrote, “No one ever saw all of him. It took me nearly four decades . . . to sit silently with him and not clamor for something more.” Before coming to terms with him on his terms, she wrote, “I resented the country at times for its demands on him, its ownership of him.”57

  In his eulogy, Mike said, “I knew him as dad.” His comments were sweet but also tinged with a bit of loneliness. He’d floated between Jane Wyman’s world and his father’s world ever since the divorce. Still, he was gracious. “Last Saturday, when my father opened his eyes for the last time, and visualized Nancy and gave her such a wonderful, wonderful gift.” He also mentioned his departed and beloved sister Maureen.58

  For all the contretemps over the years, Ron had once said his father was the guy who didn’t just watch boys playing football in the backyard, he was the father who went out and played with them. In his encomium he said that his father loved to pull on earlobes and that his father was a gentleman and gave his son lessons in being a gentleman. He told a funny story about how his father gave the thumbs-up signal, and how he wanted it to catch on in the country, and how a protester used “an entirely different hand gesture. Dad saw this and without missing a beat turned to us and said, ’You see? I think it’s catching on.’ ”59 The audience chuckled.

  But Ron assumed a political edge when he said his father “never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage,”60 and some people shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

&
nbsp; Patti remembered the tenderness her father showed when one of her pet goldfish died and how together they dug a tiny grave. “He told me that my fish was swimming in the clear blue waters in heaven and he would never tire and he would never get hungry . . . He was free.” After hearing how wonderful heaven was for her departed goldfish, “I suggested that perhaps we should kill the others so they could also go to that clear blue river and be free.”61 Again, the audience chuckled. She made reference to her father’s eyes opening at the end. Her grief was powerful. “Ultimately, I lost him as a woman who had asked his forgiveness but still couldn’t quite forgive herself for the wounds she’d inflicted,” she said.62

  Mike talked about a note his young son received from his grandfather. “Some guy got $10,000 for my signature. Maybe this letter will help you pay for your college education.”63 The Gipper added a postscript to the note reminding his grandson that he was president of the United States, Mike told the appreciative crowd. He told of how his father never brought up the topic of adoption, but of the good times of riding and swimming together. Mike was the adopted son but had also known his father longer than nearly anyone present, including Nancy. Ron said his father was “honest, compassionate, graceful, brave.”64

  Each in his or her own way was charming, evocative of their father’s grace and ability to move an audience.

  Nancy Reagan sat in the front row watching, but noticed that the seat behind her she’d reserved for Dennis LeBlanc was empty. The seating at the event had been tightly controlled and each seat had a premium. All assignments were personally approved by Nancy Reagan or by Fred Ryan and Joanne Drake. The Reagans often gave Dennis gifts and never forgot his birthday. Few men had spent as much intensely personal time alone with Reagan, and in those nearly thirty years Dennis almost never heard Reagan say anything derogatory about anyone.65