‘The Living Part’ of Reagan Complex Bogs Down : Institutions: The Center for Public Affairs was conceived as an academic research area. But it stands idle and is no longer a cornerstone of the project.

In the early 1980s, the Ronald Reagan Center for Public Affairs was described as “the living part” of a proposed library complex at Stanford University designed to honor Reagan and house his presidential papers.

The actor-turned-politician and his wife, Nancy, were “particularly enthusiastic” about the prospects of an ambitious academic research center, W. Glenn Campbell, director of the Stanford-based Hoover Institution, said at the time. “What they do not want is a museum that becomes a dead depository for a lot of papers.”

Now, as the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library prepares to open near Simi Valley, 124,000 square feet have been devoted to the museum, library, archives and gift shop. As for the Ronald Reagan Center for Public Affairs, 17,000 square feet of basement office space has been set aside, but most of it stands empty. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, which built the library and will run the center, says that space eventually will be filled up and flourish. But it is clear that the center no longer is a cornerstone of the initial library project.

Why?

Foundation leaders say it is simply a matter of timing. Critics wonder whether it is a matter of shifting priorities.

“We’ve focused on getting the library built, getting it staffed and everything moved in and in place and opened,” said Lodwrick M. Cook, chairman of the Reagan foundation and chief executive officer of Arco. “Once that is done, we will focus on the center.”

Cook said the center’s direction “will flow from the (former) President’s thinking about what he wants it to be and how he wants it to be. He will have discussions with . . . the foundation about it.

“We will move in the direction that he feels is appropriate. There is nothing locked in at this time.”

At a special event Sunday to thank his former aides and campaign workers, Reagan made a brief mention of the center.

“Not too far down the road, I hope we will be coming together again, to the opening of our public affairs center. It will provide a place for conferences, symposia and other events and a place for scholars to interpret our movement for the generations to come.”

But for now, it appears, those plans will have to wait.

Years ago, the public affairs center was not only a key element but a sticking point in the initial plans to locate the library complex at Stanford.

As Reagan intimates saw it, the academic research and conference center would have been run by the semiautonomous Hoover Institution, a leading conservative think tank with close ties to Reagan Administration officials.

At the time, Hoover housed more than 20 tons of documents, papers and tapes from Reagan’s gubernatorial Administration, 1980 presidential campaign and the “Death Valley Days” TV series.

The plans, however, drew fire from a group of Stanford faculty members long concerned about the relationship between the university and Hoover. In reaction, the Reaganites initially said there would be no library on campus without a public affairs center, but backed off and agreed to house it off campus.

When objections to the library complex persisted, the site was moved to Ventura County.

Without a direct connection to a university or think tank, the Reagan center could now have a difficult time building up a head of steam, experts say.

In Boston, the John F. Kennedy Library’s plans to house a public policy center fell by the wayside when the site was moved from Harvard Square to the Dorchester section of Boston over fears of traffic congestion. Moreover, the Carter Center, the most successful of its kind, is housed near Atlanta’s Emory University.

Some staunch Reaganites are also privately wondering whether the Reagan foundation will even be interested in using the center as a springboard for furthering the conservative philosophy espoused by the Reagan Administration.

In coming months, former Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, Secretary of the Interior William P. Clark and assistant for domestic affairs Martin Anderson are being replaced as foundation trustees. The move has left a bad taste in the mouths of such longtime Reagan advisers as Lyn Nofziger, who wrote recently that the President’s loyal friends have been ousted in favor of “the rich and beautiful people with whom (Nancy) has surrounded herself.”

In a recent interview, Anderson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, said: “As far as I know, they’re still planning to move ahead with the center.”

The center, Anderson said, “should be the jewel of the library.”

“This is what transforms what would otherwise be an archive and exhibit area into a presidential library,” he said.