Reagan Is Hailed as He Tells Bush to Win for Gipper

President Reagan transformed the New Orleans Superdome on Monday night into an arena of tribute to his eight years in office while placing the mantle of Republican leadership on George Bush and telling his vice president to “Go out there and win one for the Gipper.”

Bush arrives in this steamy Gulf Coast city this morning, but on Monday night, the Republican National Convention belonged to Reagan, who gave the party faithful a mixed-media valedictory summing up his presidency.

In a speech intended to transfer, as much as possible, the affection the delegates clearly felt for Reagan to his vice president, the President listed his qualifications for the next President:

“It will take someone who has seen this office from the inside, who senses the danger points, will be cool under fire and knows the range of answers when the tough questions come.

“That’s the George Bush I’ve seen up close--when the staff and Cabinet members have closed the door and when the two of us are alone,” Reagan said.

“George played a major role in everything that we have accomplished in these eight years,” Reagan declared.

At the same time, the 77-year-old Reagan delivered a powerful political valedictory to his presidency that in one stroke bathed the delegates and television audience in nostalgia while denying that he has reached the twilight of his life.

“Twilight, you say?” No, Reagan said, it is “a new day--our sunlit new day--to keep alive the fire so that when we look back at the time of choosing, we can say that we did all that could be done. Never less.”

The President and First Lady Nancy Reagan entered the Superdome an hour and a half before he was scheduled to speak, receiving a thunderous four-minute standing ovation set off by the familiar “Hail to the Chief.”

Bringing symbols of the nostalgia of the evening, one delegate waved a 1980 Reagan campaign poster, showing the grinning, tanned candidate in a cowboy hat. Another waved a sign proclaiming: “Reagan for King.”

Guided Tour

But the emotion of the evening peaked even before the President strode purposefully to the front of the podium--when a recorded Reagan offered a guided tour of his videotaped scrapbook commemorating his two terms in office. It was an electronic collage of now-familiar scenes: Reagan in Red Square, Reagan on the beach at Normandy, and, yes, Reagan on horseback.

The five-minute standing ovation he received after the film eclipsed the shorter farewell the delegates accorded Reagan after he spoke.

Still, the President’s speech was interrupted by applause approximately five dozen times, by an audience that cheered his every criticism of Democratic presidential nominee Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. He received prolonged applause when he declared that during his 2,765 days in office, “not one inch of ground has fallen to the Communists” and when he criticized “those liberal elites who loudly proclaim that it’s time for a change.”

And when he saluted a reduction in government red tape, as a result of a Bush task force, and said, “George was there,” he brought the delegates to their feet as they turned the floor of the Superdome into a shimmering mass of blue Bush signs shining under the television lights.

Just as Bush’s speech to the convention Thursday night is viewed as the most important he will give in his quest for the presidency, the President’s speech Monday night was, perhaps, the most important Reagan will give for Bush.

Overriding Goal

It was written with the overriding goal of answering the question that echoed derisively throughout the Democratic National Convention--”Where was George?”--and of defining the still largely unknown Bush as a central figure throughout the two terms of the Reagan Administration.

It was Bush, said Reagan, who won support among the European allies to accept Pershing 2 missiles--a deployment that the Administration credits with leading to the Soviet willingness to negotiate the abolition of the superpowers’ medium-range nuclear missile arsenals.

And the speech was written to remind voters what the Administration has accomplished--”the road has been glorious, indeed,” Reagan said, employing the upbeat outlook on which his speeches for years have been anchored--and thus to remind them of what is at risk of disappearing if the White House is turned over to a Democrat.

“None of our achievements happened by accident, but only because we overcame liberal opposition to put our programs in place. Without George Bush to build on those policies, everything we have achieved will be at risk,” he said.

‘We Are the Change’

“We hear talk that it’s time for a change. Well, ladies and gentlemen . . . we are the change,” Reagan said.

In an address sprinkled with statistics, the President brought his audience back to the beginning of the decade, when, he said, interest rates reached 21%--just less than half that now--and “people waited in gas lines as well as unemployment lines.”

When the Republican Party nominated him in Detroit eight years ago, he said, “it was a summer of discontent for America around the world. Our national defense had been so weakened, the Soviet Union had begun to engage in reckless aggression, including the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.” Soviet troops are now leaving that war-torn Central Asian nation.

‘Juices Flowing’

Reagan approached the speech, said its principal architect, Kenneth L. Khachigian, “with the competitive juices flowing.”

He said that while there was no need to define Bush as a conservative or as having Reagan’s “blessing,” there was “a felt need to remove any doubt from anyone’s mind that Ronald Reagan thinks George Bush is fully qualified.”

“With George Bush, I’ll know, as we approach the new millennium, our children will have a future secure with a nation at peace and protected against aggression; we’ll have a prosperity that spreads the blessing of our abundance and opportunity across all America,” Reagan said, adding, in a dramatically lowered voice:

“So, George, I’m in your corner. I’m ready to volunteer a little advice now and then, and offer a pointer or two on strategy, if asked. I’ll help keep the facts straight or just stand back and cheer. But George, just one personal request: Go out there and win one for the Gipper.”

It was a line that was one of his most famous as an actor--the deathbed scene of football player George Gipp in “Knute Rockne--All American.”

Suggested by Wife

And it was a line that Nancy Reagan suggested for the speech when she and the President met alone with Khachigian at their ranch northwest of Santa Barbara last month when Khachigian began work on the address.

As they worked on the speech, Reagan assistants decided that they would ignore the possibility that the President would overshadow Bush.

But one senior assistant to the President said: “Politics is not a cautious sport. You have to go for it. You can’t run in check. Reagan will be Reagan and Bush will be Bush. Tonight is Reagan’s night.”

Besides, said Khachigian, “by Wednesday, the convention will belong lock, stock and barrel to George Bush and by Thursday evening, the President’s speech will be a warm memory, but Bush will be the new lover.”

Political Valedictory

For the President and his audience, the emotion-filled night was one of beginnings and endings: It marked what his aides have freely called his political valedictory, although he is expected to play an active role in Bush’s campaign in the coming weeks. But it also marked the beginning of Republican efforts to move beyond an era in which, his partisans argue, the Reagan stamp has changed the nature of political debate.

For many, the President’s speech triggered an outpouring of nostalgia.

Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas said on the convention floor: “I’ve worked with Ronald Reagan for eight years. I love the President. There won’t be another like him for a long time.” Earlier, Gramm, who will nominate Bush on Wednesday night, declared flatly: “We’re not going to have a conservative visionary President.”

Moist Eyes

In the California delegation, Bush and Kemp signs were relegated to the floor, even underfoot. Some members, such as Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle of Huntington Beach, got moist-eyed as they watched the Reagan film--which was televised without interruption on CNN. It was interspersed with commentary on other networks.

The film also brought tears to Gayle Wilson, wife of Sen. Pete Wilson, who sat a few rows behind her husband, her eyes glistening.

But Reagan’s speech brought a mixed reaction from his fellow Californians.

“I thought it was going to be more of a nostalgic speech,” said Rep. William M. Thomas of Bakersfield. “I’m pleased he really supported Bush. . . . I’d just as soon not have the climax here. That should come later with the Bush speech if he does what he’s supposed to.”

One California delegate even seemed to get a little impatient. “Frankly, it (Reagan’s speech) was a little longer than what I was expecting,” said Carol Marshall, who is running for the California Senate in the 3rd District in Northern California.

‘The Best Man’

But Ky Ngo, who came to California from Vietnam in 1975, knows Reagan as a President and as an anti-Communist. “He’s the best man in the world,” said Ky passionately.

And the most emotional member of the delegation was Ingrid Azvedo, who wept openly into a yellow tissue, so overcome at one point that she had to set down her camera to wipe her eyes. She has lived in Sacramento for 30 years, long enough to remember the Reagan gubernatorial years. But it was another and older memory that made her cry. She had to stop and swallow and take a deep breath before she could even speak of it.

“I was born and raised in Nazi Germany, and I never knew true freedom until I came to America. And when Ronald Reagan became our President, he gave me more hope, more love for my country than any man I’ve known. . . . I love him and I love Nancy. There never ever will be anyone like him.”

Staff writers Sara Fritz, David Lauter, Keith Love, Claudia Luther, Patt Morrison, Richard E. Meyer, George Skelton, Robert Scheer and Henry Weinstein contributed to this story.