Tributes Paid to Reagan Legacy

As the family of former President Ronald Reagan remained in seclusion Sunday, officials announced a week of memorial events on both coasts that will include an overnight viewing at Reagan’s library near Simi Valley, and the first presidential state funeral in Washington in more than 30 years.

The family was trying to rest for the “long six days ahead of them,” Joanne Drake, Reagan’s chief of staff, said at a press conference at the Santa Monica mortuary where Reagan’s body lay Sunday.

Reagan died Saturday at his Bel-Air home at 93. Drake said Nancy Reagan was grieving, though she was grateful for the prayers, flowers and impromptu memorials that appeared in the nation’s capital, at her husband’s boyhood home in Illinois, and outside the Santa Monica mortuary, where mourners left bags of Reagan’s beloved jellybeans.

In the last decade of his life Reagan suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and retreated from public life. His wife had said as recently as last month that his health was getting worse.

“I can tell you most certainly that while it is an extremely sad time for Mrs. Reagan, there is definitely a sense of relief that he is no longer suffering, and that he has gone to a better place,” Drake said.

The White House said that on Friday, the day of Reagan’s funeral, all government departments would be closed with the exception of those deemed essential for national security, defense “or other essential public business.” Friday has also been designated as a national day of mourning.

In France, President Bush paid tribute to Reagan in remarks commemorating the 60th anniversary of the D-day invasion.

“Twenty summers ago, another American president came here to Normandy to pay tribute to the men of D-day,” Bush said. “He was a courageous man himself and a gallant leader in the cause of freedom.”

Sen. John F. Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, suspended all campaign activities until after Reagan’s burial Friday. Two fundraising concerts that were to be held in Los Angeles and New York were postponed.

In Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president, recalled how he and Reagan moved from an adversarial relationship -- as the heads of the two dominant nuclear superpowers -- to one of cooperation as they agreed to reduce their arsenals of nuclear weapons.

Gorbachev recalled that he and Reagan “were destined to meet in the most difficult years of the 20th century, when we felt on both sides that we faced the threat of nuclear war.”

“I take the death of Ronald Reagan very hard,” he said.

Reagan’s family members spent the weekend taking calls from famous well-wishers, including President Bush; Luci and Lady Bird Johnson, the daughter and widow of former President Johnson; former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; Secretary of State Colin Powell; evangelist Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth; actor Charlton Heston and senators John McCain and Ted Kennedy, Drake said

Reagan began making his own funeral plans two decades ago. It was his wish to be memorialized in both Washington and California, where he became a movie star and later launched his political career, serving two terms as governor. He picked his own burial site on the west lawn of the presidential library.

Reagan also said he wanted the public to take part in his memorial services. From noon today until 6 p.m. Tuesday, Reagan will lie in repose in the lobby of the mission-style library for closed-casket visitation through the night, after a motorcade carries his body from Santa Monica. Moorpark College, which is near the library, will cancel classes for two days to provide parking for thousands of expected mourners. No parking will be allowed at the library itself. Shuttle buses will run from the campus starting at 11 a.m. today.

Military personnel from each branch of the armed forces will guard the body of the former commander-in-chief, whom some credit with helping bring the Cold War to a peaceful end. Every card and flower brought by visitors will be photographed and documented in a book that will be given to the family, said Barbara Owens, a U.S. military spokeswoman.

Planning and security for the California events alone will require the help of 450 military personnel and hundreds of local police. The motorcade from Santa Monica to the library will cover approximately 45 miles. No details about the route or possible street closures had been released by Sunday evening.

On Wednesday morning, Nancy Reagan and her family will arrive at the library to escort Reagan’s body to the East Coast.

After a private departure ceremony, a motorcade will take them to the Naval Base Ventura County in Point Mugu. From there, they will fly to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Reagan’s body will be carried in a procession to the U.S. Capitol, the last few blocks by horse-drawn carriage. He will lie in the rotunda, where visitors can pay their respects from Wednesday through Friday morning.

On Friday at 10:45 a.m., the former president’s body will be taken by motorcade to the Washington National Cathedral for the funeral service.

Honorary pallbearers will be Frederick J. Ryan Jr., chairman of the board of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation; entertainer Merv Griffin; Michael K. Deaver, a former deputy chief of staff; Charles Z. Wick, a movie-industry investor; and John Hutton, a physician who cared for Reagan while he was in the White House.

The body will then be flown back to California on Friday for an evening ceremony that will be closed to the public. It will include a four-plane flyover, a 21-gun salute and music from military bands and the U.S. Army chorus.

The torrent of public remembrance and mourning started humbly Saturday at Santa Monica’s Kingsley & Gates, Moller & Murphy Funeral Home, where one visitor had placed a straw cowboy hat, an American flag and a single red flower.

By Sunday morning, the memorial had overtaken the lawn, with dozens of bouquets, balloons, and signs.

“God bless the Gipper,” one read.

“Thank you for changing the world,” read another.

Mina Sims, 46, was one of the first visitors outside the funeral home on Saturday. She returned Sunday morning to keep vigil for Reagan. Sims had left a card on the lawn, in front of the fountain and near the flag at half-staff that read: “God bless you on your journey home.”

“My being here is to honor him and recognize the great soul he was,” she said. “I will stay here as long as I can, just lending support.” A few miles away at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, Pastor Mark Brewer offered a prayer of thanks for the man who joined the congregation about 30 years ago.”God, we thank you for Ronald Reagan,” Brewer said. “We thank you for his strength, Lord, ... the war against secular communism, God; for his love and belief in this country, his optimism.”

Mike Hooper, the church’s executive director, said Reagan once donated dozens of shirts for homeless and needy people in downtown Los Angeles. The director of the donation program “saw these shirts were monogrammed and had French cuffs. She told him, ‘The people downtown can’t afford cufflinks.’ The next day, he sent boxes and boxes of cufflinks.”

Hooper admired Reagan’s deep faith. “Because of his position, it was hard for him to be saying the word ‘God’ in public,” Hooper said. “From the political point of view, he was probably one of the first guys that broke that barrier down. Now George Bush doesn’t have any concerns about saying God.”

Members of the Mulholland Drive church gathered on a terrace overlooking the hazy San Fernando Valley after the 9 a.m. service. Over coffee, they chatted about their confusion in seeing helicopters over Bel-Air on Saturday and remembered the affectionate relationship Reagan shared with his wife.

Doris Anderson, who has worshiped at Bel Air Presbyterian for 18 years, used to sit next to Ronald and Nancy Reagan near the back of the middle section of the church, when the pair attended regularly. The Secret Service, they remembered, would always sit to the right of him in the pew and behind them.

“You can’t help but feel sad,” the Northridge resident said. “There are not too many of him in this world.”

On Hollywood Boulevard, a stream of admirers visited Reagan’s Walk of Fame star. Russ Rentschiler, a former Los Angeles police officer and now a U.S. Postal Service worker, said he cast his first-ever vote for Reagan at a Monrovia polling place when he was 23.

Like others, Rentschiler, 43, said Reagan’s death has caused him to reflect on the influence Reagan had on the nation’s character. He remembered his parents disparaging the counterculture mind set of the 1960s and the malaise of the 1970s. Rentschiler said the country was poised for a change.

“We needed a shot in the arm,” he said. “And he was at the right place at the right time. He came and said, ‘Look, this is who we are, these are the sacrifices we made to get here, this is what we have to do.’ ”

Next to the Ronald Reagan State Office Building in Los Angeles, Conrad Bennett, a 56-year-old homeless man, sat on the sidewalk reading a paper announcing Reagan’s death.

Reagan’s opponents regularly blamed him for ignoring the problems of the poor and the homeless. But Bennett -- a well-spoken former kitchen worker who said he can’t afford to stay in the nearby cheap hotels -- said Reagan, like all presidents, took a lot of unfair blame for economic problems.

Reagan, he said, should be remembered as “a great president” for his contribution to foreign relations.

“The tearing down of the Eastern Bloc -- that was a great attribute to his presidency,” he said.

Times staff writer Daniel Hernandez contributed to this report.