Reagan Feted by a Festive Capital : Starts His Day With Snowman, Ends With Gala

On the eve of being sworn in for his second term in office, President Reagan built a snowman with his grandchildren Saturday, had a private lunch with California friends and spent the evening at a gala, being feted by Frank Sinatra and a star-studded cast.

Thousands of Reagan’s supporters, many swathed in mink in the windy, frigid weather, spent the day rushing from party to party, while Jesse Jackson led 750 demonstrators past the White House and said his goal was to remind the Administration that the nation “is not all private airplanes and limousines.”

Ceremony at Noon Today

The President and vice president are to be sworn in at the White House at noon today, when the Constitution decrees that their first term ends. But because Jan. 20 falls on a Sunday, the formal oath-taking in front of the Capitol will take place on Monday. The President will then deliver his second Inaugural Address, and the ceremony will be followed by a parade to the White House and an evening of formal balls.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said the inaugural address would be less than 20 minutes long and would commit Reagan to tax simplification, the budget freeze, strategic defense and arms reduction, although it will not offer specific tactics for implementing those ideas.

For anyone involved in the four-day, $12.5-million inaugural festivities, it was a busy if not frantic day.

Vice President George Bush addressed 3,700 young Republicans, saying: “Polls and strategy are interesting, but they are not what move politics. Ideas, your ideas, move politics.”

And at a press conference Bush told members of the Texas news media, “I don’t believe I’ve ever been in better shape nationally with the political party, and yet I honestly don’t know what I’m going to say,” about the question of running for President in 1988.

In the morning, Reagan, wearing a suede jacket, casual slacks and boots, joined his grandchildren, Cameron, 6, and Ashley, who is almost 2, in the Rose Garden, helping them place charcoal eyes and a carrot nose on a snowman. Their father, Michael Reagan, also helped.

The Michael Reagan family has been staying at the White House since Thursday, signaling the end of a dispute that became public when First Lady Nancy Reagan disclosed that the President’s eldest son was estranged from the family.

After the snowman-building, the President and his wife crossed Pennsylvania Avenue to attend a private lunch at Blair House with some of their “kitchen cabinet” friends from California: Publisher Walter H. Annenberg, steel millionaire Earle M. Jorgensen, investor Armand S. Deutsch and William A. Wilson, the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

Other guests included Bush, Atty. Gen. William French Smith, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Z. Wick, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Michael K. Deaver, White House counselor Edwin Meese III, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, Secretary of the Treasury Donald T. Regan, Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige and Secretary of the Interior William P. Clark.

Bush had to leave the President’s lunch early to accept a 1,400-pound steer, a “Bum Steer Award” given to him in fun by Texas Monthly magazine. The magazine awarded Bush the animal for trying to claim a $123,000 tax deduction on his home in Kennebunkport, Me., on the grounds that it was his legal residence. The magazine reasoned that any Texan who would claim to live in Maine deserves a bum steer.

On Capitol Hill, the pro-Reagan lobbying group Citizens for America threw a reception for the President’s conservative supporters to honor two of their favorite Administration officials, Meese and U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick.

At the Sinatra-produced gala in the evening, the President and Mrs. Reagan were saluted with kind words by Elizabeth Taylor, Charlton Heston and Jimmy Stewart.

Mikhail Baryshnikov and New York break dancers danced for them. Sinatra, Dean Martin, the Beach Boys, Lou Rawls, Crystal Gayle, Donna Summer and Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers were among those who sang for the First Family.

Comedian Don Rickles honored the President in his own way.

“Did you see some of his movies? Stiffs,” Rickles told the black-tie crowd of 6,000.

“I personally voted for Willkie.”

But Ray Charles was the one who brought chills to the crowd as he closed the performance with his rendition of “God Bless America.”

The elegantly dressed guests, who paid at least $125 each, were sent through metal detectors and had their bags searched before the performance.

While the older generation took in the lunches and parties Saturday, 3,700 youths invited to the inauguration from around the country attended a Youth Leadership Forum in the morning, hearing addresses by Bush, astronauts Joe Allen and Anna Fisher, Peace Corps Director Loret Ruppe, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Burt and Rep. John G. Rowland (R-Conn.), the youngest member of Congress at age 27.

Rowland seemed to capture the flavor of the weekend’s youth festivities when he said to them: “We all see that America’s youth is no longer burning flags or marching against the draft, preaching negativism or damning authority.”

A youth concert Saturday evening featured Kool and the Gang.

Today, Reagan and Bush are scheduled to attend a youth pageant at the Jefferson Memorial, but the steadily dropping temperatures, already in the 20s, were threatening to hold down attendance. Young people who do not want to don tuxedos and evening gowns also have a special informal ball planned for them on Monday night, when eight black-tie inaugural balls will be scattered across the city.