Snapshots of life in the Golden State. : Some Notable No-Shows at Reagan Library Opening

It looked like a Madame Tussaud’s wax exhibit come to life: five presidents, six first ladies, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and John Kennedy Jr., Bob Hope, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jimmy Stewart, James Watt, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Sonny Bono, James Baker, Merv Griffin and Phyllis Schlafly all in one place.

But some at the recent dedication of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library were struck by the number of foot soldiers, family members, friends and high-ranking officers of the Reagan Revolution missing out on the action.

Reagan Foundation publicists have steadfastly refused to release their guest list. But among the notables not in attendance were Reagan’s daughter Patti Davis, Frank Sinatra, George Deukmejian, old Reagan hands such as Lyn Nofziger, and high-ranking Administration officials and Iran-Contra players including John Poindexter, Ollie North, Donald Regan and Robert (Bud) McFarlane.

Davis says she declined because “it was a celebration honoring his presidency and the Reagan ideology--which I obviously didn’t embrace.”

Deukmejian’s office said the ex-governor “had a very full schedule” and Sinatra’s said the Chairman of the Board had “other commitments.”

Longtime political aide Nofziger decided not to show up because “it would have been a little uncomfortable for the Reagans and also for me.” In a recent newspaper opinion piece, Nofziger blasted Reagan for allowing wife, Nancy, to oust longtime loyalists from the Reagan Foundation board in favor of “the rich and beautiful people with whom she has surrounded herself.”

Double dip: Hope and Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, pulled the conservative’s equivalent of a visit to both Disneyland and Universal Studios in a single day, topping off Reagan’s Simi Valley shindig by attending an evening reception at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda.

There, the only President ever to resign gave his guests a personal analysis of the coming presidential race. Nixon’s advice to President Bush: Shift the focus away from yourself and onto Congress with the slogan, “Clean house.”

The real thing: The Reagan library’s full-size White House Oval Office replica would make a Hollywood set director proud.

“Wait till you see the Oval Office,” the ex-actor turned President proudly told reporters at a pre-dedication tour. “You’ll think we stole something.”

Indeed, former White House aide Ken Duberstein says the office setting is so accurate that it includes a small flaw in the rug’s Presidential Seal that Reagan once pointed out to him. Rather than holding 13 arrows, he said, the eagle on the seal clutches only 10.

While the replica accurately represented Reagan’s tenancy, it was missing some of the flourishes of other presidencies, such as a famous feature of Nixon’s Oval Office--secret taping equipment.

SLOW READ, SLOW BURN

Low gear: Henry A. Waxman is considered among the more intellectual members of Congress. So it was more than a bit startling when he recently began reading aloud with the speed of a first-grader before the Energy and Commerce subcommittee.

The Los Angeles congressman resorted to the slow-read tactic to give his aides enough time to round up sufficient Democratic support for a Medicaid measure he was pushing. That drew the ire of the committee’s ranking Republican, Rep. William E. Dannemeyer of Fullerton.

“Mr. Chairman,” Dannemeyer objected, “this is making a mockery of the rules of this House!”

Waxman responded by grabbing a copy of the House rules and reading them just as slowly. He eventually won the vote, by a 16-6 margin.

WITNESS FOR THE EXECUTION

Macabre plan: Just weeks after a Burbank group proposed a state ballot initiative calling for public executions, condemned murderer Lawrence Sigmond Bittaker has come up with his own twist.

Bittaker, convicted of the 1979 torture murders of five teen-age girls in Los Angeles County, is offering to sell “tickets” to his execution to the highest bidder.

In a missive to The Times, Bittaker described himself as an “indigent, Death Row prisoner exhausting fed habeas (appeals).” Bittaker also enclosed a copy of a witness rights contract he says he will forward to the winning bidder.

EXIT LINE

“Los Angeles gets a lot of bad raps for smog, traffic, flighty people, airheads. But the feeling around (here) was there are still good things about Los Angeles--like Magic Johnson.”

--A misty-eyed Manhattan Beach medical equipment salesman Michael Lebbin, reacting to the news that the Lakers’ superstar is infected with the human immunodeficiency virus.

California Dateline appears every other Monday.

Foreign Students in California Colleges

California had the highest number of foreign students enrolled in colleges and universities in the United States in 1990-91. They accounted for 14% of all foreign students enrolled nationally, based on the Institute of International Education’s survey of 2,879 accredited U.S. post-secondary institutions. Among the 10 colleges with the most foreign students, USC ranked second and UCLA 10th. Below are the five states and the five colleges with the highest foreign student enrollment.

FOREIGN STUDENT STATE ENROLLMENT 1990/91 California 55,168 New York 40,558 Texas 26,205 Massachusetts 23,320 Florida 20,700 INSTITUTION Miami-Dade Community College 5,757 USC 3,886 Univ. of Texas, Austin 3,867 Boston University 3,633 Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison 3,565

SOURCE: Institute of International Education, San Francisco

Compiled by Times editorial researcher Tracy Thomas