Nancy Reagan, with Maj. Gen. Galen B. Jackman, waves to the crowd after arriving in California.
A military honor guard carried the casket of former President Ronald Reagan from the National Cathedral in Washington today
Nancy Reagan visited her husband"s casket in the Capitol Rotunda on Friday before the funeral cortege departed for the National Cathedral.
U.S. Army Major General Galen B. Jackman escorted Nancy Reagan to the funeral services at the National Cathedral.
The funeral was the final public commemoration of Mr. Reagan after a week of remembrance and pageantry.
The late president"s widow prepared to leave for the funeral services at the National Cathedral.
President Bush and former President Bill Clinton looked on as the casket of Mr. Reagan was brought into the National Cathedral.
Mr. Reagan was remembered at his pageantry-filled funeral as a leader who embodied America"s optimism.
Former President Ronald Reagan"s casket inside the Capitol"s Rotunda.
President Bush and the first lady, Laura Bush, paying tribute before former President Ronald Reagan"s casket
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the former president of the Soviet Union, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the new interim president of Iraq, Sheik Ghazi Ajil al-Yawar, joined the thousands who came to the Capitol to pay tribute.
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Sioux Native American Glynn Crooks waved a feather as he paid his respects.
Thousands of people, from Eagle Scouts and construction workers to the famous and powerful, paid tribute on Thursday to former President Ronald Reagan at the Capitol Rotunda.
Edward Tisnado, a Vietnam veteran, reflected on his feelings about former President Ronald Reagan after filing past his casket.
Overnight visitors took a break early on Thursday from the long wait to view the body of former President Ronald Reagan. Some people who came in groups took turns holding a place in line outside the Capitol.
Funeral and Burial Details ?11:30 a.m.: National funeral service at cathedral. ?1:15 p.m.: Departure ceremony. ?1:45 p.m.: Motorcade leaves cathedral for Andrews Air Force Base. ?2:45 p.m.: Reagan aircraft leaves Andrews for California. ?7:45 p.m.: Aircraft arrives at Point Mugu Naval Air Station. ?9 p.m.: Motorcade arrives at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. ?9:15 p.m.: Private interment service at library. ?10:30 p.m.: Interment ceremony concludes.
WASHINGTON, June 11 -- The body of Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, was flown back to California for burial today after a pageantry-filled funeral here in which he was eulogized as a leader who embodied America"s optimism and deepest precepts, and as an unpretentious man who poked fun at himself and loved to feed the squirrels on the White House lawn.
The Boeing 747 carrying Mr. Reagan"s coffin, his widow, Nancy, his children, and a number of family friends and associates, including former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain, touched down late in the day at Point Mugu Naval Air Station, in Ventura County. The funeral party"s final leg of the journey was by motorcade to the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, near Los Angeles.
Mr. Reagan"s body was being interred there in a sunset ceremony overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The burial closes a week of mourning that reached its climax today with an elaborate funeral service in Washington"s National Cathedral, after which the aircraft bearing his coffin flew over the American heartland whose values Mr. Reagan sought to embrace and espouse.
``He believed that America was not just a place in the world but the hope of the world,"" President Bush told the cathedral gathering. But Mr. Bush said that despite Mr. Reagan"s profound sense of mission for himself and his country, ``our 40th president wore his title lightly, and it fit like a white Stetson.""
Leaders on the world stage, past and present, spoke similar words in a service whose solemnity was laced with the kind of humor that even Mr. Reagan"s detractors acknowledged as one of his great gifts, in life and politics alike.
The service was filled, too, with poignant reminders of fleeting time.
``We lost Ronald Reagan only days ago, but we have missed him for a long time,"" Mr. Bush said, alluding to the Alzheimer"s disease that cast Mr. Reagan"s mind adrift long before his body surrendered. ``We have missed his kindly presence, that reassuring voice, and the happy ending we had wished for him. It has been 10 years since he said his own farewell, yet it is very sad and hard to let him go. Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now, but we preferred it when he belonged to us.""
Lady Thatcher, while present at the cathedral service, was not deemed by her doctors physically fit to speak today. And so the cathedral gathering heard a tribute that she recorded on videotape several months ago.
``Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than his large-hearted magnanimity,"" Lady Thatcher said, ``and nothing was more American."" While resolute in purpose and guided by an unwavering moral compass, ``he saw the many sides of truth,"" Lady Thatcher said.
And so, she went on, Ronald Reagan was able to see the Soviet Communist system for ``the evil empire"" that it was, while holding out hope that ``a man of good will might emerge from its dark corridors.""
That man, of course, was Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader with whom Mr. Reagan struck a bond that hastened the end of the Cold War. Mr. Gorbachev was present today, sitting next to Lady Thatcher. Elsewhere in the audience were Prince Charles of Britain, King Abdullah of Jordan and the four surviving former presidents of the United States.
The first President Bush, who served Mr. Reagan as vice president for two terms, said Mr. Reagan never practiced mean-spirited politics. ``Politics can be cruel, uncivil,"" Mr. Bush said. ``Our friend was strong and gentle. Once he called America hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent and fair. That was America and, yes, our friend.""
Mr. Bush"s voice faltered for a moment, seeming to belie the oft-told accounts of how he and Mr. Reagan were not really close, as he said he had learned so much at his side, and not just about governing. ``I learned kindness,"" Mr. Bush said. ``We all did."" The late president"s widow, seated in front with her children, smiled now and then through her obvious fatigue on this gray, drizzly day that contrasted so starkly with the steaming heat of the past few days.
Mr. Reagan"s kindness was such, Mr. Bush said, that when he was in the hospital only days after being shot on March 30, 1981, he got down on hands and knees to clean up a water spill so a nurse would not get in trouble. And just before leaving the White House, Mr. Reagan fretted that the squirrels on the lawn might be bothered by the Bush family dogs, Mr. Bush recalled. ``He loved to feed those squirrels,"" Mr. Reagan"s successor recalled.
Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada said he felt blessed that his and Mr. Reagan"s paths had crossed, and that he would always consider him a friend and good neighbor.
``Ronald Reagan does not enter history tentatively,"" Mr. Mulroney said. ``He does so with certainty and panache. At home and on the world stage, his were not the pallid etchings of a timorous politician, they were the bold strokes of a confident and accomplished leader.""
The Rev. John C. Danforth, an Episcopal minister, who is a former senator from Missouri and now President Bush"s choice to become ambassador to the United Nations, said the life of Mr. Reagan, which ended last Saturday at age 93, symbolized a victory of light over darkness.
``If ever we have known a child of light, it was Ronald Reagan,"" he said. ``He was aglow with it.""
The rare gathering of four former presidents, Gerald R. Ford, the elder Mr. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, summoned questions of when, if ever, they might be together again. Mr. Ford turns 91 next month. Mr. Bush turns 80 on Saturday, and Mr. Carter will reach that milestone on Oct. 1.
At around 10:30 a.m. today, Mr. Reagan"s coffin was taken by military honor guard from the Rotunda at the Capitol for the four-mile journey to the cathedral, arriving about 11:10 a.m. As the motorcade made its way through blocked-off streets, the Irish tenor Ronan Tynan delivered a powerful rendition of ``Ave Maria"" in the cathedral, accompanied by the United States Marine Band Orchestra and the Armed Services Chorus.
Sitting in the front row at the cathedral were President Bush and his wife, Laura, Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, and former President Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.
Immediately behind Mr. Bush were his parents, and former President Carter with his wife, Rosalynn, and Mr. Ford and his wife, Betty.
At noon, 21-gun salutes were sounded at every United States military base with the artillery and manpower to do it. At dusk there will be another worldwide round of 50-gun salutes.
Nothing was left to chance at the cathedral, where guests include Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, and former President Lech Walesa of Poland.
During his first year in office, at the age of 69 in 1981, Mr. Reagan asked Mr. Bush, who was then his vice president, to speak at his funeral. And because he was proud of appointing the first woman to the Supreme Court, Mr. Reagan extended a similar invitation to Justice Sandra Day O"Connor.
And it was Mr. Reagan who chose what Justice O"Connor read today: John Winthrop"s 1630 sermon that inspired Mr. Reagan"s own description of America as a shining ``city upon a hill.""
A number of years ago, Mr. Reagan asked Lady Thatcher, who in her days as prime minister of Britain was known as ``The Iron Lady,"" to speak at his last rites. The two shared the same political philosophy and had become fast friends.
Mr. Mulroney and Lady Thatcher, as well as Mr. Gorbachev, were among those who paid private visits on Thursday to Blair House, the presidential guest house opposite the White House where Nancy Reagan has been staying.
Mr. Gorbachev, the former Soviet president, started in office in the 1980"s as an avowed opponent of Mr. Reagan, a cold war enemy of the United States.
But after a series of summit meetings, in which the two men found common ground, the Russian and the American came to recognize each other"s goals and talents. On Thursday, Mr. Gorbachev who visited Mr. Reagan"s coffin in the Capitol Rotunda, recalled how the two had gone from lecturing each other to calling each other by their first names.
Mr. Reagan"s honorary pallbearers were friends from throughout his life: a former aide, Michael K. Deaver; Frederick J. Ryan Jr., who helped plan the funeral; the entertainer Merv Griffin; his White House physician, John Hutton; and Charles Wick, a former Hollywood producer and former head of the United States Information Agency.
The coffin, tightly encased in the same American flag that flew on his inauguration day, Jan. 20, 1981, was actually carried by ``body bearers"" drawn from each of the military services.
After the cathedral service, Mr. Reagan"s coffin was transported in a motorcade to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, not far from the capital. The Boeing 747 carrying him, his widow, their children, Lady Thatcher and others took off at 2:45 p.m., disappearing only moments later into the low cloud cover.
More than a few commentators have said it is still too soon to assess Mr. Reagan"s place in history. They have noted, too, that he was a man of paradoxes. He was genial but seemingly without close friends; he spoke of God but seldom attended church during his presidency; he spoke of old-fashioned family, home and hearth, yet he was the first president to have been divorced; and his family had some of the divisions common to modern American families.
But whatever the final verdict of history, few would dispute what President Bush said in the cathedral: ``When the sun sets tonight off the coast of California and we lay to rest our 40th president,"" he said, ``a great American story will close.""