Library Holds Little-Known Treasures for Area Teachers : Simi Valley: Reagan facility’s basement contains millions of presidential documents, preserved in special boxes. Educators are among the first to be invited to look.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library recently added a new exhibit to its collection: a 1967, Halloween-orange Chevrolet station wagon that Nancy Reagan used for grocery shopping when she was California’s first lady.

An insignificant piece of history, maybe, but a good example of the kind of up-close and personal detail that the museum is able to provide on the life of the former President and his wife.

And yet the library’s real treasure remains hidden away, out of public view, said Denise Aiani, director of continuing education at Cal Lutheran University.

In the basement, stored and preserved in special acid-free boxes, is a gold mine of information, millions of presidential papers with untold history, she said.

And Aiani is determined that elementary and secondary school teachers be among the first to explore available records from the archives.

Last fall, Aiani began working with library officials to set up the Presidential Scholars Institute, which is designed to educate teachers about how to incorporate information gathered at the library into lesson plans they can use in the classroom.

“There is so much that is available to educators,” she said. “But teachers don’t even know the library is here. They don’t know the extent of the information or the help that is available to them.”

The information comes in the form of government reports, letters, memos, newspaper clippings, diaries, photographs and other documentation that reveal much about the day-to-day life of the President.

Most of the storehouse of records will not be available for years, if not decades, because of a variety of restrictions imposed to protect everything from national security to the confidentiality of advice from presidential confidants.

For this reason, many historians and serious presidential scholars have said they will wait until after the turn of the century before they begin to sift through the documents to discover new insights into the Reagan administration.

Yet, some documents have been released and 104 researchers visited the library during its first year of operation, many of them graduate students, college faculty members and journalists. And, some of the documents available for public viewing contain interesting tidbits.

One example is a 1988 letter from then-Gov. Bill Clinton thanking President Reagan and his wife for a Christmas card. Making light of their political differences, the future President signed the letter with the following message:

“I appreciate the kindness and courtesy you both have shown me, as an errant Democrat, these last few years.”

But the library’s research materials are not limited to Reagan, said Greg Cumming, an archivist who assists Aiani’s students. There are also copies of documents relating to other Presidents and a wide variety of other topics, he said.

“We’re not the temple of so-and-so,” Cumming said.

“We want people to know that there’s more here than just Ronald Reagan.”

Among the most fascinating items that Aiani and her students came across is a 1974 report written by a government official who meets with former President Nixon at his home in San Clemente to discuss plans for his pardon.

In the report to President Ford, the official tells how he had never met Nixon before and is stunned by his sad physical and mental state.

“He appeared to demonstrate a sense of nervousness or almost fright at meeting me in person,” the official wrote. “My first impression and the one that continues with me to this day, was, unhappily, one of freakish grotesqueness . . ..

“I met a man whom I might more reasonably expect to meet at an octogenarian nursing home. He was old. Had I never known of the man before and met him for the first time, I would have estimated his age to be 85.”

The official goes on to describe how at the end of the awkward meeting, Nixon, appreciative of the respect shown him during the meeting, insists on giving his visitor his own personal pair of presidential cuff links and a Richard Nixon signature tie pin.

“There aren’t any more of these in the world,” Nixon assured the official, who noted that the former President was on the verge of tears.

The original document is in Ford’s presidential library in Grand Rapids, Mich. But a copy is available at the Reagan library. And Aiani said it is this kind of information that humanizes the presidency by bringing a personal perspective to what was happening behind the scenes during a time of crisis.

“When I first saw this, I said, ‘Wow, do you know what you have here?’ ” Aiani said.

The six teachers who took Aiani’s course last fall used this kind of information to develop lesson plans for students.

Pete Orozco, a social science teacher at Fillmore Continuation School, said he helped put together a lesson detailing a week in the President’s life.

He said the week that he chose to examine was right after Reagan left the hospital following his attempted assassination. Orozco said he was amazed at the hectic schedule the President had to keep in terms of meetings, speeches and other duties.

“I got a better idea of what the President actually does,” he said. “If I had to wake up in the morning and I saw a calendar like that, I don’t think I’d get out of bed.”

Orozco said that he can use the information he collected to show students exactly what the President does on a daily basis so that they have a better understanding and appreciation of his job.

Cathy Case, a kindergarten teacher and part-time instructor at Cal Lutheran, said she developed a lesson plan for students in grades two to five called “Your Opinion Counts.”

Using her interest in the environment, Case decided to do her research on a 1988 campaign to create a national park on the tiny South Pacific island of American Samoa, a territory of the United States.

Case discovered that 4,000 Samoan children had written letters to President Reagan urging him to support the establishment of a national park, which would help protect the island’s rain forest and its unique plants and animals. The government eventually agreed to establish the park.

Case said that the lesson she developed can be used to teach elementary students about geography, the environment and the process by which a national park is created. But perhaps most important, she said, is that young students will learn about the democratic process and how they too can play a part in government decisions.

The lesson plan includes letters written by the Samoan students as well as addresses of key government officials.

Case said she wants to go back and put together another lesson plan on Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor for junior high and high school students.

All of the lesson plans that have been developed are available for teachers to use free of charge and can be obtained from either the Reagan library or the Pearson Library at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

Aiani said she hopes that teachers will take advantage of the lesson plans and the library’s research facilities.

“The whole idea is to empower teachers to do it themselves,” she said. “If you’re going to be an effective teacher you have to continually update your skills and your knowledge.”

Meanwhile, applications are now being taken for the Presidential Scholars Spring semester, she said. Enrollment is limited to seven students, so there is a review process that all applicants must undergo, Aiani said.

She said that it helps to have some type of research background, but that it is not required. The course costs $65, with an extra $25 for semester credit.

Those who are accepted receive a free one-year pass to the library, special tour opportunities and advance notice of special events.

Ralph Bledsoe, director of the Reagan library, said he hopes that the program will inspire a large contingent of area schoolteachers and their students to conduct research at the archives.

“We are an education facility,” he said.