Budget Director Goes Ape for the First Senior Citizen

President Bush took his 65th birthday in stride by going on a “longer-than-customary” run. “I wanted to show that 65 can still do three miles,” Bush said during his run at Ft. McNair, an Army post overlooking the Potomac River in Washington. Wearing blue shorts with the insignia MSU and a white T-shirt, he jogged with Secret Service agents and Joseph Bagnerise Jr., the son of Col. Joseph Bagnerise, the post commander. Later, the Marine Band played “Happy Birthday” and Budget Director Richard G. Darman--dressed in a gorilla outfit--pranced on the White House lawn as Bush departed by helicopter for Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on the first leg of a trip to the West. The gorilla wore a red sash that read “kinder, gentler” and carried gas-filled balloons marked “education,” “S&L;” and “clean air.”

--Bush’s predecessor, Ronald Reagan, has been offered an honorary knighthood--the highest royal honor Britain bestows on Americans, Burke’s Peerage said. The former President, who is in London on his first visit since leaving the White House in January, will be the guest of Queen Elizabeth II at a Buckingham Palace lunch Wednesday, but nobody would say whether she would give him an award then. Harold Brooks-Baker, publisher of Burke’s Peerage, which chronicles British aristocracy, said “we understand” the knighthood has been offered “and will be accepted either this trip or his next trip, which is expected to be next spring.” Brooks-Baker said Reagan was offered a knighthood “because of his special contribution to the British government under (Prime Minister Margaret) Thatcher.”

--A memorial to women in the military moved a step closer to reality when design teams based in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Georgia were selected as finalists in competition to build the monument at the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery. Retired Army Brig. Gen. Wilma L. Vaught, president of the Women in Military Service for America Foundation, said three of the four would each receive a $10,000 prize. The jury recommended that the fourth team’s entry be considered as an alternate, in case one of the top three dropped out. But Vaught said the foundation decided to make it a finalist because it was the only design that included a cultural-educational center. The winner is to be chosen in November. The memorial, authorized by Congress, is to be built with private funds on a four-acre site at the ceremonial gate to the cemetery.