Officials, common citizens join capital farewell to Reagan, ‘a graceful and gallant man’

MARK SHERMAN

Thursday, June 10, 2004 | 9:10 a.m.

WASHINGTON - They came in limousines and dark suits, attesting to their high station, then they came in shorts and T-shirts, after waiting through the night. The mighty and the average paid tribute to Ronald Reagan, the 40th president, lying in state under a soaring dome where Americans once said goodbye to Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

Boy scouts in khaki shorts and neckerchiefs, office workers with ID tags around their necks, tourists with children in tow, an American Indian in feathered headdress, all came to pay their respects and slowly file past Reagan's casket, draped in the stars and stripes of the American flag.

"Getting them up this morning was hard, but I think they'll look back on it as something they'll remember," said Susan Frays, who roused her three sons at 4 a.m. Thursday to make the trip into Washington from nearby Waldorf, Md. The family waited in line 21/2 hours for their turn in the Capitol Rotunda.

"They'll say, 'I was there, I was there,"' said her husband, Parko.

Official Washington hailed Reagan as "a graceful and gallant man," in Vice President Dick Cheney's words Wednesday night.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., speaking at the state funeral ceremony opening the 34-hour period of Reagan's lying in state, said, "It is altogether fitting and proper that he has returned to this Capitol Rotunda, like another great son of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, so the nation can say goodbye."

Once the dignitaries had left, tens of thousands of average Americans began to stream through the Rotunda, undeterred by hours of waiting outside in sweltering heat. The public viewing goes on continuously until Friday morning.

An estimated 5,000 people were viewing the casket every hour.

At midmorning Thursday, several thousand people stood in a line that snaked along the western end of Capitol Hill and around the Capitol reflecting pool. The mood was serious but not somber. Large fans helped cool those waiting in the steamy heat, and bottled water was available as well.

Among those waiting to enter the Capitol early Thursday was Glynn Crooks, 52, of Prior Lake, Minn., who said he is a vice chairman of a Sioux tribe there.

"He makes me think of the old West, and this is part of the old West," Crooks said.

Reagan's casket lay in state in the center of the Rotunda, a room ringed with statues of some of his predecessors and paintings depicting the founding of the nation.

It rests beneath "that big white dome, bulging with new tax revenues," as Reagan would say in his frequent criticism of the Congress. But the scolding was forgotten Wednesday.

His body was flown in from California on one of President Bush's jets and brought to the Capitol on a century-old, horse-drawn caisson for an honor last accorded a president in 1973 when Lyndon Johnson died.

Crowds 15 deep watched the procession advance slowly up Constitution Avenue. A riderless horse with boots reversed in the stirrups followed the caisson, and drums sounded, marking the cadence of the marchers.

Cheers broke out briefly for Reagan's widow, Nancy, riding in a limousine at the head of the procession. She waved repeatedly, looking wan.

"God bless you, Nancy," a man cried out.

Most members of Congress, much of Bush's Cabinet, four Supreme Court justices and a large contingent of diplomats attended the service. Former Vice President Dan Quayle was one of only a few former officials who crowded into the Rotunda.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., gazed at Reagan's casket when the funeral ended. Kennedy, of course, was present in 1963 when his brother, President Kennedy, was eulogized in the Capitol following his assassination.

After the building was opened to the public, some people left crying, but others got on their cell phones to ask if they had been seen on television.

Reagan, who died Saturday at 93 at his home in Los Angeles, will be buried Friday in a sunset ceremony on the grounds of his presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif.

Bush planned to come back from the Group of Eight meeting of leading industrial nations in Georgia on Thursday and, with his wife, Laura, call on Mrs. Reagan at Blair House, the official guest residence across the street from the White House.

Aides said Bush also would visit the casket Thursday evening. Bush and his father, who was Reagan's vice president and succeeded him in the White House, will be among the eulogists Friday.

The day was not without drama of a different kind as well. The Capitol was briefly emptied a few hours before the funeral was to begin after police feared an airplane was heading toward the building.

They quickly determined that the small plane, carrying Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher to the funeral, had lost radio transmission and was not a threat.

When Fletcher entered the Rotunda later Wednesday, the roar of fighter jet engines that were part of the ceremony could be heard in the room.

At least 100 people on the National Mall were treated for heat-related illnesses, said Alan Etter of the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department.