President Bush lauded "my predecessor and mentor" as he led the tribute Monday at the dedication of Ronald Reagan's $70 million presidential library on a rustic California hillside.
Three other former presidents - Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter - were also on hand for what Bush called "a historic occasion" with their wives and a sixth first lady, Lady Bird Johnson.In his remarks, Bush hailed the 80-year-old Reagan as "an American original . . . a visionary, a crusader and a prophet in his time.
"Ronald Reagan predicted that communism would land in the dustbin of history and history proved him right," said Bush. Reagan's defense buildup "paid off for every American in the sea and sand of the gulf," he said.
"He was the great communicator and also the great liberator," the 41st president said of the 40th. "No leader since Churchill used words so effectively to help freedom unchain our world."
The dedication drew more than 4,000 people to the hillside retreat in this town 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles. The audience included celebrities and scores of people who served with Reagan in his two terms as governor of California and eight years at the White House.
Bush called it "a privilege to help dedicate this library of my predecessor and mentor."
Recalling Reagan's roots in Dixon, Ill., and his days as a sportscaster for WHO radio in Des Moines, Bush said, "Ronald Reagan came from the heart of America, geographically and culturally."He said Reagan "sought to enlarge opportunity, not government. So Ronald Reagan lowered taxes and spending, cut inflation and helped create the longest peacetime boom in American history."
Secretary of State James Baker, just back from the Middle East peace conference in Madrid, joined Bush in flying to California to honor the man he served as White House chief of staff and treasury secretary.
En route to the event, presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater - who also served Reagan in the same capacity - said: "It's quite a class reunion."
"It's kind of a sentimental trip for almost everyone on President Bush's staff as well as President Bush, because we've all had a close association with President Reagan and with many of the other presidents as well," Fitzwater told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Carter missed last year's inaugural of the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, Calif., which the other presidents attended, but he returned from election-monitoring duties in Zambia to be on hand this time. Reagan helped dedicate Carter's library in Atlanta in 1985.
"I think it's proper that all the presidents be there and I think it's going to be a very nice event," Bush said Sunday. He praised Carter's "extraordinary effort to be there."
Although the five presidents were seen smiling, they have had somewhat chilly relations since their respective years in the Oval Office.
Bush has had limited contact with Reagan, and Carter seems to still harbor bitterness about his 1980 defeat.
Other than pardoning Nixon, Ford has minimized contact with the disgraced ex-president. Nixon is still trying to cleanse his name and emerge as a respected elder statesman.
He recently offered some unsolicited advice to Bush: Don't be seen playing so much - whether it is golf, fishing, boating, tennis or jogging - all of which the president still does with a passion.
Reagan is 80. Nixon and Ford are both 78, and Carter and Bush are both 67.
The Reagan facility, built with private donations, already houses 55 million documents, a miniature White House, a replica of the Oval Office and a three-ton chunk of the Berlin Wall. It is the nation's tenth presidential library.
The Spanish Mission-style library, much of it below ground, is nestled on a wooded hillside 50 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. It is midway between Reagan's Bel Air home and his Santa Barbara ranch.
Bush recently chose Texas A&M University in College Station as the home for his presidential library.
After flying to California this morning, Bush and his wife, Barbara, were to spend 3 1/2 hours at the library, including a luncheon for the presidents and their wives, then return to the White House late tonight.
Of the presidents, Carter is the only Democrat, reflecting Republicans' grip on the White House for all but four of the past 23 years.
Reagan, a former actor and two-term governor of California, gave a press preview of the library on Friday, quipping to reporters, "I like to meet with the press every decade or so."
The Reagan library, like all but Nixon's, will be run by the National Archives.
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Presidential libraries
1. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, N.Y., dedicated 1946, museum in June 1941.
2. Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Mo., opened July 1957.
3. Herbert Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa, opened August 1962.
4. Dwight D. Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas, opened May 1962, museum November 1954.
5. John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, opened October 1979.
6. Lyndon Baines Johnson Library at the University of Texas campus in Austin opened May 1971.
7. Gerald R. Ford Library at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor opened April 1980. The museum in Grand Rapids opened September 1981.
8. Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta opened October 1986.
9. Ronald Reagan Library is scheduled to open November 4, 1991 at Simi Valley, Calif.
10. Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio, is the only library and museum not operated by the National Archives. It is supported by private donations.
11. Richard Nixon in Yorba Linda, Calif., opened in July 1990 as a privately funded, private library.