Bush Visits Reagan’s New Digs; Plaudits, View Stretch Forever

It was a regular mutual admiration society. Poppy and Dutch. Timberwolf and Rawhide. George and Ron. Two presidents couldn’t say enough nice things about each other Wednesday as George Bush, 96 days into his presidency, stopped by Century City to visit Ronald Reagan, 96 days out of his.

Reagan: “I think he’s doing just fine. . . . I’m pleased to have him here.”

Bush: “I have a lot more to learn from President Reagan. . . . The respect for him around the world knows no bounds.”

The last time these two met was at the inauguration, Jan. 20. Since then, the roles have altered. George Bush now leads the “Free World.” And protocol ranks Reagan behind Bush, Dan Quayle, Jim Wright and William Rehnquist, and declares that he be addressed as Mr. Reagan, not Mr. President.

Reagan Takes Lead

Yet after spending eight years at the head of the table, it was Reagan, looking jolly and wearing probably the only brown suit in all of Century City, who took the lead, comfortably fielding several of the “Mr. President” questions. Bush, eight years in the wings, sat edgily forward on the sofa, hands clasped, watching Reagan when he spoke and looking bashful when Reagan praised him. Next to Bush on the sofa was a red needlepoint cushion stitched in mirror-image Rs, and around its edges the saying, “Forever the hills.”

They were already seated--”one President on the sofa, one President in the easy chair,” an aide had described it--when reporters crossed the Berber-carpeted floors of Reagan’s new executive digs: top floor, corner office, ocean view, 34 floors up in the pink-granite and glitter-glass Fox Plaza building.

This being Los Angeles, some of the press corps had been siphoned off to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at the news that Lucille Ball had died. But enough remained to fill the small office, where the two presidents were already talking about their wives’ health.

“Barbara’s recovered, doing fine,” Bush was saying.

“Nancy was ill, too. Had a thing called walking pneumonia,” Reagan said.

Has Undimmed Scenery

Outside was the kind of rare and radiant Technicolor day that never failed Reagan’s advance people: quartz-bright sunshine and a view of the Santa Monica Bay, undimmed from Point Dume to Palos Verdes Peninsula.

“I proved to (Bush) I was a Californian,” Reagan said. “We stood in the window, and I showed him that you can see Catalina from here.”

That prompted a question to Bush about offshore oil drilling. “I don’t know that anyone’s proposing that right now,” he replied. “But you know my position on that, strong environmental concerns and strong concerns about this country becoming further dependent on foreign oil. And I’m convinced that the proper balance can be found.”