Reagans Break Ground Near Simi for Library

President Reagan, wielding his engraved, chrome-plated shovel like an expert sodbuster, broke ground Monday at a pastoral Ventura County setting for the $43-million library that will hold his White House papers and other mementos of his political career.

The 77-year-old President, who will leave office in two months, focused on the legacy of his eight years in the White House as he addressed 375 guests at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

“This is a most humbling moment for me,” Reagan said, his wife Nancy at his side with a shovel of her own. “This library will allow scholars of the future to cast their own judgment on these years, and I would not presume to predict the result of their research.

“But I have to believe that scholars of good will, upon examining the historical record that will be contained herein, will judge our efforts well. But as for us, at present, we can only say this: We have done our best, and we pray it has been enough.”

By the end of 1987, $32.5 million had been raised privately by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation to build the $43-million library. Foundation officials have refused to identify any of the donors, many of whom gave in response to a $2.5-million direct-mail and telemarketing campaign.

Tax or Private Support

A controversy lingers over who should pay the more than $1.5 million a year it will cost to operate the new facility. Presidential libraries are maintained and operated by the National Archives and Records Administration. Congress, concerned about the escalating size and cost of presidential libraries, passed a law in 1986 requiring that the presidential foundations responsible for building the libraries establish endowments to help maintain them.

White House aides argued that the bill should not apply to a sitting president, and Congress agreed to exempt Reagan. However, Democratic senators who sponsored the bill wrote Reagan earlier this year asking him to “comply voluntarily.” Congressional aides said the President has not responded.

Asked Monday whether the foundation would establish such an endowment, former Atty. Gen. William French Smith, a close Reagan friend and chairman of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, answered: “That law does not apply to us, but what we do remains to be seen.” He said the foundation had not had time yet to consider the issue.

However, in a letter to National Archivist Don Wilson in April, Smith made it clear that the foundation would raise money to carry out special programs and research at the library, as most presidential foundations have done, but had no plans to pay maintenance costs.

Instead, he wrote, the foundation will try to install “separately metered electricity, heating and air conditioning” for the privately run foundation offices that will occupy 27,000 square feet of the building. He added that maintaining the site and providing security for the building was the responsibility of the federal government.

If the Reagan foundation decided to comply with the new law, it would have to raise roughly $8 million more.

“This is a President whose Administration has consistently called for greater private enterprise involvement in such endeavors,” said a spokesman for Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.), who drafted the letter to Reagan seeking voluntary compliance with the new law. “We would still very much like for the President to consider voluntarily complying. We’d also still like an answer to the letter.”

The library site is located off Madera Road in the Tierra Rejada greenbelt between Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks and offers a panoramic view of the Pacific. The land was donated by the Blakeley Swartz real estate firm.

Construction of the library is expected to begin this week, and if all goes well the library will open Feb. 6, 1991, Reagan’s 80th birthday.

The President and First Lady each overturned several shovels of earth to inaugurate construction of the mission-style library, which will house at least 55 million documents, ranging from menus of official state dinners to the first draft of his March 23, 1983, “Star Wars” speech inaugurating the Strategic Defense Initiative. The engraved shovels used for the ceremony also will be displayed.

The library will contain gifts to the Reagans from foreign governments, such as a pair of silver worry beads Reagan received while visiting the Great Wall in China in 1984. Samples of the thousands of letters from well-wishers sent to Reagan after he was shot March 31, 1984, and while he was recuperating from cancer surgery in 1985 will be kept at the library, said Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the National Archives.

The ground-breaking audience, which included numerous local officials, was serenaded by 300 band members from Ventura County high schools. Actor Charlton Heston led the gathering in the Pledge of Allegiance.

While the President went at the task like a polished ranch hand, the First Lady nearly stumbled as she attempted to heft a shovel of dirt. Also participating were two of Reagan’s closest California aides, former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III and William Clark, former national security adviser and interior secretary.

Reagan, who stopped off at the ceremony on his way to a Thanksgiving holiday at his ranch near Santa Barbara, told the assembled admirers that “in this stunning setting, we begin to pay our debt” to the forefathers of the nation “by breaking ground for this library that will bear my name and house the collected ruminations of and reflections of the presidency that has borne my name as well.”

Tracey Kaplan reported from Simi Valley and Laurie Becklund from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Peter H. King also contributed to this story.