Weeklong memorial for Ronald Reagan

LOS ANGELES – Throngs of mourners headed to California yesterday to pay their final respects to Ronald Reagan in the first of several public events planned this week to honour the 40th US president’s last wish that ordinary Americans be given a chance to say goodbye.

After a private ceremony for family and close friends at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, where the former president will lie in state, there will be a public viewing until this evening, when his body will be flown to Washington. There, a horse-drawn wagon, accompanied by a single drummer, will carry Reagan’s body to the Rotunda of the US Capitol, where his remains will again lie in state from tomorrow evening to Friday morning.A funeral service will be held at the National Cathedral in Washington on Friday with President George W Bush and other world leaders in attendance.The body will be flown back to California on Friday, where a private sunset burial will be held on a hillside overlooking the ocean at the Reagan Library.Reagan died at his Los Angeles home on Saturday at the age of 93 after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.Friday will be also designated as a national day of mourning for the popular ex-president, celebrated for hastening the end of the Cold War and reviving American spirits as he reshaped the Republican Party into a dominant, conservative political force.Bush declared Friday a federal government holiday.A spokesperson declined to give details of Reagan’s last days but said his beloved wife of 52 years, Nancy, and their two children, Patti Davis and Ronald Prescott Reagan, were at his bedside when he died.Reagan’s son, Michael, adopted during his first marriage to actress, Jane Wyman, arrived moments after the president died.The first presidential funeral in Washington since Lyndon Johnson’s in 1973 will pose a major security challenge for a city on high alert against terror threats following the attacks of September 11, 2001.Meanwhile, the tributes to Reagan continued to pour in.President Bush, visiting France to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, hailed Reagan as a “gallant leader in the cause of freedom.”The father of Soviet Perestroika reform, Mikhail Gorbachev, praised Reagan, his partner on the world stage, as a great leader who dared to change the tide in relations between the Cold War superpowers.Gorbachev said his dialogue with Reagan “kick-started the process, which ultimately put an end to the Cold War.”On Sunday, mourners in Los Angeles, including several in military uniforms, congregated around Reagan’s star on Hollywood Boulevard and nearby Santa Monica where Reagan’s body was being prepared for burial.Some left flowers and notes.Last month, Nancy Reagan made a rare speech in which she described her husband’s last days suffering from Alzheimer’s.”Ronnie’s long journey has finally taken him to a distant place, where I can no longer reach him,” she said, urging support for stem cell research to help cure Alzheimer’s.- Nampa-ReutersThere, a horse-drawn wagon, accompanied by a single drummer, will carry Reagan’s body to the Rotunda of the US Capitol, where his remains will again lie in state from tomorrow evening to Friday morning.A funeral service will be held at the National Cathedral in Washington on Friday with President George W Bush and other world leaders in attendance.The body will be flown back to California on Friday, where a private sunset burial will be held on a hillside overlooking the ocean at the Reagan Library.Reagan died at his Los Angeles home on Saturday at the age of 93 after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.Friday will be also designated as a national day of mourning for the popular ex-president, celebrated for hastening the end of the Cold War and reviving American spirits as he reshaped the Republican Party into a dominant, conservative political force.Bush declared Friday a federal government holiday.A spokesperson declined to give details of Reagan’s last days but said his beloved wife of 52 years, Nancy, and their two children, Patti Davis and Ronald Prescott Reagan, were at his bedside when he died.Reagan’s son, Michael, adopted during his first marriage to actress, Jane Wyman, arrived moments after the president died.The first presidential funeral in Washington since Lyndon Johnson’s in 1973 will pose a major security challenge for a city on high alert against terror threats following the attacks of September 11, 2001.Meanwhile, the tributes to Reagan continued to pour in.President Bush, visiting France to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, hailed Reagan as a “gallant leader in the cause of freedom.”The father of Soviet Perestroika reform, Mikhail Gorbachev, praised Reagan, his partner on the world stage, as a great leader who dared to change the tide in relations between the Cold War superpowers.Gorbachev said his dialogue with Reagan “kick-started the process, which ultimately put an end to the Cold War.”On Sunday, mourners in Los Angeles, including several in military uniforms, congregated around Reagan’s star on Hollywood Boulevard and nearby Santa Monica where Reagan’s body was being prepared for burial.Some left flowers and notes.Last month, Nancy Reagan made a rare speech in which she described her husband’s last days suffering from Alzheimer’s.”Ronnie’s long journey has finally taken him to a distant place, where I can no longer reach him,” she said, urging support for stem cell research to help cure Alzheimer’s.- Nampa-Reuters