Bush, Reagan, Ford to Attend Opening of the Nixon Library

President Bush and his two Republican predecessors will join Richard M. Nixon next month for the opening of his long-awaited presidential library in Yorba Linda as the political thaw surrounding the Watergate President continues, officials said Monday.

Jimmy Carter, the only Democrat elected President since Nixon resigned in 1974, sent his regrets. A spokeswoman said Carter wanted to attend the July 19 event but has a previous commitment.

The occasion will be the first meeting of the four living Republican presidents since Bush was elected. Nixon’s ailing wife, Pat, also is expected to make her first public appearance since leaving the White House in 1974.

“We already have a tremendously exciting event,” said Hugh Hewitt, director of the Nixon library foundation. “Everything else is just gravy.”

The library dedication, which will be open to the public, is scheduled for 9 a.m. on the site where Nixon was born in 1913 near a citrus grove in a tiny white clapboard house.

About 1,500 people also are invited to a private, black-tie dinner at the Century Plaza. It was unclear whether Bush or former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford planned to attend both events.

Hewitt said the White House had not yet officially confirmed that Bush would attend the dedication, but an Administration official told The Times that Bush was going.

Nixon has enjoyed a return to the public spotlight because of a new book he has written on Watergate, a planned public television appearance and a visit to Washington where he was heralded as an elder statesman. The presence of Bush, Reagan and Ford also represents an easing in the attitude of elected officials toward the former President.

The privately funded $21-million library is scheduled to open July 20--almost 17 years after Nixon left office. In contrast, the Carter and Ford libraries are already operating; Reagan’s is under construction and scheduled to open next February in Simi Valley.

Nixon’s 84,000-square-foot library will contain no original papers from his years in the White House. Instead, it will house copies of documents from his presidential term, as well as materials from his terms in Congress and as vice president, plus book manuscripts, private papers and White House diaries.

Times staff writer James Gertzenzang contributed to this story