Ronald Reagan, 40th president, dies at age 93
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Reagan, 93, died Saturday following a 10-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Nancy Reagan and children Ron and Patti Davis were at the couple’s Los Angeles home when Reagan died at 1 p.m. of pneumonia, as a complication of Alzheimer’s, said Joanne Drake, who represents the family. Son Michael arrived a short time later, she said.
President Bush on Sunday paid tribute to Reagan during a D-Day commemoration at Colleville-sur-Mer, France, that drew leaders from more than a dozen countries.
“Twenty summers ago, another American president came here to Normandy to pay tribute to the men of D-Day. He was a courageous man, himself, and a gallant leader in the cause of freedom. And today we honor the memory of Ronald Reagan,” Bush said, prompting applause.
Reagan’s body was expected to be taken to his presidential library and museum in Simi Valley and then flown to Washington to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. His funeral was expected to be at the National Cathedral. The body was to be returned to California for a sunset burial at his library.
Five years after leaving office, the nation’s 40th president told the world in November 1994 that he had been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s, an incurable illness that destroys brain cells. He said he had begun “the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life.”
Although fiercely protective of Reagan’s privacy, the former first lady let people know his mental condition had deteriorated terribly. Last month, she said: “Ronnie’s long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him.”
He lived longer than any U.S. president, spending his last decade in the shrouded seclusion wrought by his disease, tended by his wife, Nancy, whom he called Mommy, and the few closest to him. Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton are the surviving ex-presidents.
Across the nation, people took pause upon learning of Reagan’s passing. The U.S. flag over the White House was lowered to half-staff within an hour and there were moments of silence at ballparks and at the Belmont Stakes.
From his home in Rancho Mirage, former President Ford said, “Ronald Reagan was an excellent leader of our nation during challenging times at home and abroad. We extend our deepest condolences and prayers to Nancy and his family.”
Reagan began his life in a four-room apartment over the general store in Tampico, Ill. Before he was elected president, Reagan racked up an impressive resume working first as a radio sports announcer, then as an actor and a two-term governor of California.
At 69, Reagan was the oldest man ever elected president when he was chosen on Nov. 4, 1980, by an unexpectedly large margin over incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter.
Near-tragedy struck on his 70th day as president. On March 30, 1981, Reagan was leaving a Washington hotel after addressing labor leaders when a young drifter, John Hinckley, fired six shots at him. A bullet lodged an inch from Reagan’s heart, but he recovered.
Over two terms, from 1981 to 1989, Reagan retooled the Republican Party in his conservative image, fixed his eye on the demise of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism and tripled the national debt to $3 trillion in his single-minded competition with the other superpower.
His famed “Star Wars” program drew the Soviets into a costly arms race it couldn’t afford. His 1987 declaration to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the Berlin Wall — “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” — was the ultimate challenge of the Cold War.
Gorbachev on Sunday hailed Reagan as a great president and said he was distraught by news of his death, the Interfax news agency reported.
“Reagan was a statesman who, despite all disagreements that existed between our countries at the time, displayed foresight and determination to meet our proposals halfway and change our relations for the better, stop the nuclear race, start scrapping nuclear weapons, and arrange normal relations between our countries,” Gorbachev said.
“I do not know how other statesmen would have acted at that moment, because the situation was too difficult. Reagan, whom many considered extremely rightist, dared to make these steps, and this is his most important deed,” the former Soviet leader was quoted as saying.
“Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired,” former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said Saturday.
At the time of his retirement, his very name suggested a populist brand of conservative politics that still inspires the Republican Party.
In his second term, Reagan was dogged by revelations that he authorized secret arms sales to Iran while seeking Iranian aid to gain release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Some of the money was used to aid rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua.
Despite the ensuing investigations, he left office in 1989 with the highest popularity rating of any retiring president in the history of modern-day public opinion polls.
He is survived by his wife, Nancy; three children, Michael, from his first marriage and Patti Davis and Ron from his second. His oldest daughter, Maureen, from his first marriage, died in August 2001 at age 60 from cancer.
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On the Net: Reagan Library official Web site: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu