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CNN Live Event/Special

SPECIAL REPORT: REMEMBERING RONALD REAGAN

Aired June 07, 2004 - 13:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, Miles. I'm here with Anderson, sitting not too far from the library where a color guard is waiting. And we've been told that the motorcade, as you've been saying, is just minutes away.
Anderson, I have not had a chance before today to visit this library. This clearly is a day like no other for this building that was put together to recognize his presidency.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It's a remarkable sight, actually. One doesn't get a sense of quite how large it is. it's on dozens of acres in Simi Valley.

The library was founded in 1991. And as Ronald Reagan was often quick to point out with private funds, not with government money, part of the presidential library system.

But the hearse is just few minutes away, we are told. It will drive up just behind us here, go to the library there where as you see on the left hand side of your screen, an honor guard is waiting. Representatives from each branch of the service. From the Marines, from the Navy, from the Coast Guard, from the Army, from the Air Force, all there representing all branches of service out of respect for the former president.

WOODRUFF: And this is a ceremony, Anderson, that has been in the works for some time. The planning for this funeral has been under way literally for years.

I think it's that case that they expanded the time that Ronald Reagan's body would lie in repose here because frankly they wanted to move everything in Washington back a day to accommodate the G-8 summit with not only President Bush but other world leaders meeting down in Georgia. And in order to do that, they had to move everything back. And I think the body will be lying in repose a day longer than they had originally planned.

It will come here this morning, California time. Be here all day today, all day tomorrow. And then Wednesday morning flying back to Washington.

COOPER: And one of the most remarkable things -- and as we've been following the hearse all along as it moves down the freeway, I'm not sure if you can tell so much by the pictures, but people all along that ways have been coming out, people the sides of the highway. As I drove up to this site about an our or so ago, there was a grouping of people outside the entrance to the library. They are waiting with signs. They just wanted to be here to be part of it, to witness not only history, but to also pay their respects.

And there are family there with very small children. It is very moving as you drive across these roads, as you follow the hearse, to see all the people who have come out and who are pausing out of respect.

WOODRUFF: And it is an outpouring the likes of which we really have not seen. We talked earlier about comparing it to the funeral of John F. Kennedy.

Of course that was different because he was a president assassinated in office. Ronald Reagan left office a number of years ago, and he's been out of sight for the last ten years or more. We have not seen him at all.

And I think that in a way that has almost added to the Reagan -- the aura of Ronald Reagan because he has been someone we haven't seen.

COOPER: It's also interesting, the sort of generational range of the people who have come out to see him. I mean, you have a lot of people -- you know, Ronald Reagan, the oldest president elected office, he was 69 years old when he took over, celebrated a birthday soon after that.

But there were so many young people who were really drawn to what they called the Reagan Revolution, so many people in their early 20s. I talked to Dinesh D'Souza yesterday, CNN analyst, who was part of that, in his 20s, went to Washington following Reagan.

Even though he was an older president, the oldest president, his appeal really did cross over generations.

WOODRUFF: And I think in that way you can compare him to John F. Kennedy.

We've mentioned several times that it's been about 30 years since the last president lay in state at the United States Capitol. That of course was Lyndon Johnson.

But I think, again I keep going back to the parallels with Kennedy because even though he was a president who died in office under very horrific circumstances, there is a -- almost a cult around this president.

And as you said, an entire generation who really got interested in politics for different reasons. I mean, people came into the, you know, followed John Kennedy for one set of reasons, they followed Ronald Reagan because his idea of smaller government and fighting communism appealed at that time.

COOPER: Absolutely. WOODRUFF: It was something that had been building strength since Barry Goldwater in the early '60s. Ronald Reagan didn't come into his own until almost 20 years later. But he was the embodiment of that once he reached the White House.

COOPER: And even those who didn't agree with his politics, didn't agree with his message or his plans often couldn't help but like him. I mean he was a man who not only had a great humor, a willingness to sort of poke fun at himself as much as anything else.

And really seemed to enjoy himself in the White House. I mean, there's authors who did quotes of his -- we see some movement there from the Honor Guard as the hearse gets closer.

But people -- when Ronald Reagan was at the White House he enjoyed himself. He liked the role. He liked the office. I remember him talking about seeing photographs of other presidents sort of slumped down and he'd sort of reference the isolation of the Oval Office. He really had none of that.

WOODRUFF: And he had that wonderful quote toward the end of his presidency where he said, "Nobody ever said you could die from overwork, but I'm not going to take the risk." I mean he was somebody who sought balance in his life. Absolutely he worked hard. Absolutely he did his homework.

But he also took time to, as you say, enjoy life and to see, you know, to see the funny, the quirky side of things.

COOPER: Well I remember hearing -- Michael Deaver talked yesterday on the television about him. And telling an incident where he had given the president his schedule for the next three months. And the president said to Michael Deaver, "I don't see any ranch time on this schedule."

And Mr. Deaver said, "Well, you know, the press has sort of attacked you for going to the ranch so much." And he said, "I don't care. I don't care what they say. You know, I need to go to the ranch. It's going to help me live longer and that's what matters."

WOODRUFF: Well, you know, I covered the White House for the first couple of years of Reagan's presidency, Anderson. And his staff did fight constantly this perception that he wasn't a hard worker and that he didn't read broadly and so forth because it was out there that he was a delegator. He wasn't a hands-on kind of president.

But on the other hand he has so inspired the people around him. He did delegate. He gave them a reason to want to work hard for him. And in many ways, I think symbolized the kind of leader that Americans want in a president. They want someone who is strong, someone who stands by his beliefs.

And as you just said whether they agree or disagree with the philosophy, they want somebody who is going to make America proud, who's going to stand up and, you know, fight for this country. And that is the perception of Ronald Reagan. I'm here with Anderson Cooper at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. The motorcade carrying Nancy Reagan, other members of the family, her children, getting closer to the library.

And, Anderson, as I'm sitting here with you, we are a little bit in front of the driveway where Mrs. Reagan and the motorcade will come by. There's a flag, an American flag posted every few feet along the road. We can hear the helicopters.

COOPER: The motorcade obviously very close. The helicopters, which have been following the motorcade, flying now overhead, over us. The hearse will roll up this driveway. It's quite a long drive from the moment -- we're now seeing some of the vehicles.

WOODRUFF: I think this is the motorcade coming in. We're seeing highway patrol who are leading the way. They're pulling into the parking lot area where the news media are gathered. And there is a huge media collection here. And now we're seeing more of the motorcade coming in.

COOPER: And as you see now, that is the motorcade there, first driving up the driveway. As we said, it's a long, winding drive up this road to this library in Simi Valley, California, where Ronald Reagan will ultimately be laid to rest on Friday in a plot that has long been planned out that he and Mrs. Reagan picked out together.

There was some controversy at first as to whether or not they would be buried on this site. That was worked out. It was unanimously agreed upon by the local city council here, that it would be allowed, and Ronald Reagan will be laid to rest Friday.

WOODRUFF: You know, Anderson, this is a beautiful site. We are looking out over the mountains of Ventura County, and somebody said we're maybe 12, 15 miles from the ocean. I don't know the geography. Maybe...

COOPER: On a clear day from the burial site, they say you can see the ocean.

WOODRUFF: From here, which has to be part of the reason that this site was chosen by Mrs. Reagan and President Reagan and others. He was part of the decision making when all this came about a number of years ago.

It is overcast here in Southern California today. I think very much in keeping with the mood. Somebody said to me, well, this is what you have every morning here. It's the ocean haze that rolls in and sometimes gets burned off and sometimes it doesn't.

COOPER: They are anticipating thousands of people really to come over the next 24 hours, 48 hours, to view, pay their respects, pay their condolences to the president, to the family.

WOODRUFF: Mrs. Reagan is riding in one car with the two children she and Ronald Reagan had together, Ron Reagan and Patty Davis. And in the car behind them is -- I'm looking at -- is security, but then there is what they are calling a family limo with Michael Reagan, who was the son of Ronald Reagan and his first wife.

COOPER: Adopted by Jane Wyman.

WOODRUFF: Here we go right now. This is the motorcade coming, approaching the library.

COOPER: The honor guard standing in anticipation waiting, as they have been. The hearse is now passing us by. Draped in the American flag, you can see through the window Ron Reagan Jr. looking out at the press corps.

This is just the beginning of a week-long remembrance, a week- long reflection in celebration of the life of Ronald Reagan. He will lay in repose here after a private ceremony. We believe over the next hour or so, there will be this private ceremony, then the public around noon Pacific Time will be allowed in a very controlled way to come in -- no cameras, no bags. They will be bussed in, in individual buses; thousands of people over the next 48 hours anticipated to come to this site.

Ron Reagan Jr., Patty Davis, waiting for their mother to exit the limo.

WOODRUFF: I was saying, Anderson, in the limousine behind them is Michael Reagan, who was the son of Ronald Reagan and his first wife, Jane Wyman, and his family, and following them a limousine with the widower of Maureen Reagan. Of course, she was the daughter of Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman. She passed away of cancer not long ago. Her widower, Dennis Revell, and his fiance are in that car.

COOPER: Ronald Reagan of course died surrounded by his family, by Mrs. Reagan, by Patty Davis, by Ron Reagan Jr., a family which had really come together over these last several years, come together to care for the ailing president.

WOODRUFF: And a very small group of pallbearers selected. And some of those pallbearers are here, Charles Wick, the California businessman, longtime confidante of Ronald Reagan. I talked with Charles Wick's son, Doug Wick, this morning, and he said his father and mother were just devastated by Ronald Reagan's passing, even as they know in many ways a relief because of the suffering that he had been through with Alzheimer's for the last 10 years.

Also, among the pallbearers and among those you see this morning -- Merv Griffin and Fred Ryan chief of staff.

We're going to listen in a little bit as this color guard prepares for the body of Ronald Reagan to be carried into the library here at Simi Valley.

(MUSIC)

REV. MICHAEL WENNING, BEL AIR PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: The Lord our God is in our midst. And as we were in the procession I couldn't help think of the love and outpouring that has begun in the nation for a great president, great world leader and a faithful servant of almighty God. And So we come to hear the words of love.

Jesus said heaven and earth that pass away, but my words that never pass away. Listen to hear the word of God. God is our refuge and strength, the very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the mountains shake and the heart of the sea, tho its waters roar and foam, and though the mountains tremble with its tumult, be still, and know that I am God.

I am exulted among the nations. I am exalted in the earth. The Lord of host is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.

And, Nancy, you will remember one time when we visited we shared the 23rd Psalm so let me read it again.

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters, He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies. He anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over. surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

The Lord Jesus Christ said, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Let us pass from death unto life."

And as I was looking as you were looking at all the outpouring of love, I just felt this wonderful verse that we needed to share. What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or nakedness or distress or persecution or famine or sword?

Know in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, no height or depth shall be able to separate us from the love of god which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And finally, just a few versus from the last book of the bible where the Apostle John has been condemned to the Island of Patmos, and he has a vision of a new heaven and the new earth. And he writes these words which I share with you for your comfort as you begin this journey of remembrance.

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for a husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, See, the dwelling of God is with people. He will dwell with them and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away."

And may God bless His rich work for your hearts this day and every day.

Please join with me in prayer.

Eternal and almighty God, as we have begun this day to honor the life of Your servant, Ronald Reagan, I would pray especially for his dear family.

I pray, oh Lord God, would You give them an extra strength, a sense of Your peace and Your comfort, through the many greetings and the many miles which they must travel from one coast to our nation's capital.

I pray You would grant them sleep at night, a refreshing of tired bodies and weary spirits. May they be rejuvenated each day and greeted knowing that You are their strength, their Lord, and their righteousness.

Grant, oh Lord God, that our hearts will be deeply moved and touched by the wonderful memories of this very special human being. Thank You for the partnership that he and Nancy have shared together for the wonderful example that they have been to us all.

And to the nation, grant, oh Lord God, that you would be with their family, be we pray with Patti and Michael and Ron and their loved ones.

Be with us as the nation, oh Lord God, for truly Your word tells us if one suffers we all suffer together, and we have come this day to begin the preparation of our final respect, we thank You that this world is a better place because he was here.

And we thank You for the pride that he instilled for remember minding us of the great nation that under Your guidance we are. And may Your peace go with us from this place, touching every heart.

For we ask these things as we pray the prayer that you have taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done as earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptations but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

WOODRUFF: A striking picture of Patti Davis sitting next to her mother with her arm on her mother's lap. That connection, that crucial connection that this family is a family that's come together. Ron Reagan sitting next to Patti. Michael Reagan there, son of Ronald Reagan and his first wife Jane Wyman. COOPER: A family which has really come together, as you said, over the last several years, over these last dark difficult years as Ronald Reagan has done his last journey.

WOODRUFF: And missing, of course, the daughter, another daughter, Maureen Reagan who passed away just over a year ago.

COOPER: Who during the time they were in the White House was often in the White House with a well-known figure at that time.

WOODRUFF: Outspoken. She disagreed with her father on the question of abortion, of choice. And she was quite outspoken about it.

The minister we heard is from the Presbyterian Bel Air Church. This is a church in Bell Air, in the Los Angeles suburbs where the Reagans came to live after his presidency. And we've been hearing today that the Reagans attended that church, pretty regularly after they came back to California before the former president became ill.

At 82 years of age, Nancy Reagan really has been the pillar of strength holding this family together. But more than anything, Anderson, supporting her husband as he made that long journey into the darkness.

From 1994 when it was revealed to the world that he had Alzheimer's, she has been the public face of Ronald Reagan. We have not seen him publicly since then. And she has carried that burden. She has been -- you know, we hear the term caregiver. She has been the caregiver extraordinaire.

COOPER: She really has at that.

I want to read from the last letter Ronald Reagan wrote in 1994. November 5, 1994. That letter, that handwritten note that he made very public in which he announced Alzheimer's. I'm just going to read to you the closing two paragraphs.

"In closing let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave you with the greatest love for this country for ours and eternal optimism for its future.

"I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."

WOODRUFF: And at the time he wrote that letter, no one could have possibly known that it would be ten years later -- that was in January of 1994. Here we are ten and a half years later, almost. And Ronald Reagan is beginning what the minister called a journey of remembrance that will allow the nation to celebrate the life of this extraordinary man and to pay the respects on both coasts.

Here in California for the next day and a half and then in Washington, D.C., the city where he served as president, for two days. I'm sorry -- yes, for two days. And then come back to California on Friday where he will return to this library and his final resting place.

COOPER: The journey of remembrance continues for a man who has entire life made an extraordinary journey from the small apartment above a bank in Tampico, Illinois.

Born into a poor family. His father, mother, hardworking, sometimes unemployed. They moved round a lot from that small town in Illinois, growing up in Dixon, Illinois, coming to Hollywood, finally to the corridors of power at the White House.

Ronald Reagan will finally at the end of this week on Friday return home to California, his beloved state, where he will be finally laid to rest.

WOODRUFF: And it really was an extraordinary American life. It was the -- you know, we talk about the America story.

You can hear state patrol motorcycles in the background where Anderson and I are sitting.

It was the classic American story. A boy grows up, as Anderson said, in a family with very little. There are all the stories about his father having been an alcoholic but his mother now was the one who encouraged him and lifted him up.

COOPER: And also introduced him to the theater and really sort of got...

WOODRUFF: That's right.

COOPER: ... sparked his acting bug. And one of the -- so many great little details about the life of Ronald Reagan. When he first moved to Hollywood and first became successful and started making money, one of the first things he did is brought his parents out here as well as his brother out there. And he moved them out here where his parents spent the rest of their lives.

WOODRUFF: And somewhere along the way -- I mean, we know that he worked in radio. He found his way to Hollywood after a couple of different jobs. But somewhere along the way growing up he developed that extraordinary optimism that all of us associate with Ronald Reagan today, and that even his political opponents, even the people who disagree with his philosophy, John Kerry seized on that in the statement that he made.

He said, no matter what anyone thinks of the policies of Ronald Reagan, this was a man with an optimism that was infectious, that captured the imagination of an American people. The car carrying Nancy Reagan and family members has now pulled away from the Reagan Library. And the remains of Ronald Reagan will lie in state until Wednesday morning with a ceremonial color guard surrounding him.

These -- we are told these are troops who have flown out to California from Washington, D.C. They are part of what is called the Military District of Washington. They represent the Army, the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard. And there will be a changing of the guard every 30 minutes, Anderson.

COOPER: It is a very public occasion, of course, and yet there have been very private moments. We just saw Nancy Reagan as she approached the casket, the flag-draped coffin, putting her head down for a moment on the American flag, stroking the American flag, as the reverend did there as well.

A very private moment, of course, for a family that has been both public and private these last few years, more and more private. Nancy Reagan still keeping somewhat of a public schedule, making speeches. Just about a month or so ago in an event she did say that her husband had reached a point where he was beyond her, even her.

It is extraordinary when you think that they have been married for 52 years. She has said -- I think she said on "LARRY KING" about two years ago that they completed each other. And it is hard, I think, for those who know her, those who know the family, to imagine one without the other.

WOODRUFF: It really is. And I had interviewed Michael Deaver for a report, a piece that I did on Ronald Reagan not too long ago. And he talked about not even the children could get -- that bond was so close and so tight between Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan, that extraordinary marriage.

And you know, it has been said, but I'll say it again, at a time when marriages kind of come and go in this country and we hear about politicians straying from marriage, this was a marriage -- it was his second marriage but this was a marriage that lasted. And it was something, I think, that everyone admired. There were issues with the children, they have had -- the children have kept their distance in some ways. But as we have just seen, Ron Reagan, Patti Davis, and also in the group, Michael Reagan.

COOPER: And through it all, no matter what happened in the presidency and the years after, Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan had each other. The family, as you said, at times had differences, estrangement, and yet those two together were inseparable. One can only imagine her pain at this time.

WOODRUFF: And it's -- you know, you look at the -- and also at the ceremony of this, I don't think any of us can overstate how tricky, how complicated it is to put together a series of events such as what we're going to see unfold this week. Every day of this week, ceremony, here in Simi Valley, and then later in the week in Washington. The caisson that will be drawn by horses through the streets of Washington. Lying in state at the Capitol. Then the funeral at the National Cathedral. All of this very carefully orchestrated for the American public.

But combining with it, Anderson, as you were just saying, letting the family mourn at the same time. And you know, they are in a position where they have had time to prepare for this, they have known this day was coming. They didn't know exactly when, of course, but they have had time to think about this, to think about how they were going to say their good-byes. And I know I have talked to Nancy Reagan about this in recent years. I know they welcomed -- the family welcomed the idea that they were going to be able to say good-bye in a way they could control.

COOPER: I remember earlier you were talking about Ronald Reagan's optimism. There was a quote that he wrote in his high school yearbook that I love that I think shows that even from a very young age that optimism was there. And it's sort of inexplicable, because, I mean, he did grow up in very difficult circumstances. I think at one point he said he wasn't born on the wrong side of the tracks, but he was awfully close, he could hear the train whistle. And his high school motto, it said, "life is just one sweet song, so let the music begin." And I think he had that spirit, that sense really throughout his days.

WOODRUFF: And Americans want that. I think what we've learned is that through thick and thin and the 43 presidents we have had, modern America, in any event, Americans want a president who can give them a reason to look up, no matter how tough times are. And Ronald Reagan gave them that. So even -- again, even those who may not have agreed with every one of his policies, they could see that this is someone who appealed to their better angels, which I think was another line that he used.

COOPER: And as you see the honor guard still around the casket as they will be as Ronald Reagan lies in repose, we anticipate within the hour the public starting to come up here, starting to be allowed now that the family has left. Standing by in Washington for us, Robert Dallek, presidential historian, also the author of "Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism."

Robert, as you look at these images, what goes through your mind?

ROBERT DALLEK, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I am struck by your commentary. And I share your feeling that Reagan was an extraordinarily buoyant personality. And I think the mystery of -- this comes to him growing up so poor, circumstances in the 1930s. And I think he probably took his cue from Franklin Roosevelt, who, as we all know, was extraordinarily upbeat about America, about the country's prospects despite the terrible depression that passed through in the 1930s.

And you know, he borrowed -- Reagan borrowed from FDR the idea that he should begin as president giving radio talks on Saturday mornings. And of course, that was an original FDR idea, the Fireside Chats. And of course, presidents continue to do it to this day.

And so I think part of the spirit that Reagan brought to the presidency, the buoyancy, the sort of upbeat mood was in part a legacy from FDR. And of course, he was -- Reagan was, a committed New Dealer early on in his career. And the fact that he shifted politics, however, didn't mean that he lost this perspective that a president needed to be a positive optimistic leader. WOODRUFF: Robert Dallek, have we seen -- when was the last time we have seen this sort of ceremony around the death of a president, a former president? I mean, he's been out of office 15 1/2 years.

DALLEK: Yes.

WOODRUFF: And we -- as we have been saying, we haven't seen him in person for a decade. When have we seen this kind of ceremony on both coasts and extending over this many days?

DALLEK: Well, you nobody, Judy, it is extraordinary because when there was the public ceremony surrounding Lyndon Johnson's passing, he had been out of office for only four years and gone back to Texas. He was in the public eye somewhat, not a great deal. But I think what this speaks to is the extraordinary continuing hold that Reagan has on the country's imagination.

As both of you were saying, there is a kind of spirit that he continues to convey to the country. You know what I have been impressed by in watching the coverage of his passing over the last couple of days is the extent to which the country is sad, people are mourning, but I think they are also inspirited because we have been through so much acrimony over the last few years in our politics.

And there has been such a sort of sour mood about politics. And John McCain talks about the cynicism which has entered into it. And I think the public embraces Reagan again as the sort of thing they would much prefer, which is an upbeat, positive, outlook on politics and the society and the country's future.

And so I think that this ceremony which we're seeing now is a kind of fulfillment of the mood that Reagan left behind when he left office in 1989 but continued to exist to this day.

COOPER: Robert Dallek, we'll come back to you shortly. Let's go -- Thelma Gutierrez is standing by in Moore Park (ph) nearby where people have begun to gather, people have started to get onto buses so that they can come up and pay their respects to the president. Thelma, what is it like down there?

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, the first shuttle left a few minutes ago. I can tell you this is a very massive undertaking. This is a spot, as you had mentioned, where the shuttles are actually loading people. Before the public actually loads the shuttles they have to go through a very rigorous screening process.

You can see the canopies that are set up right behind me, Secret Service here are checking bags, wanding people. Then they begin to board one of two dozen shuttles which will run continuously through midnight tomorrow.

Now a long line has formed out here at the college, hundreds of people have brought lawn chairs. Some who camped out through the night actually have brought blankets. And some of the people in that line told me they came as far away as New York City to the east and Arizona to the west. They told us they wanted to pay tribute to President Reagan and to show their support for his family, also, to be a part of a historical event. The first man in that line, Anderson, told me he arrived at midnight last night. There you can see the very long line of people waiting to board the shuttles.

There will be two dozen buses out here. They will move 2000 people an hour. They are expecting between 45,000 and 60,000 people over two days. And in that line, we have seen young, old, we have seen people in wheelchairs and even a few military people, a couple of Marines in their dress blues -- Anderson.

COOPER: Thelma, you were saying some 45,000 to 60,000 people over the course of these next hours. Remarkable testament I think to the love that so many people have still to this day for Ronald Reagan even though, as Judy has said, he's been out of office now for quite some time and out of the public eye for quite some time.

Have you talked to people down there, Thelma? Are they people who lived through the Reagan years? Or are they people who sort of came to know him as they -- as he left office?

GUTIERREZ: Well, Anderson, you know, the responses have been varied. We talked to one woman who said that she actually felt a connection to the president when it was announced that he had Alzheimer's. After all, she said, her mother had Alzheimer's as well.

So she felt a very personal connection there. Then we talked to other folks who said they had been following his career since his acting days, people who were senior citizens. Talked to others who were just children who said that they had just heard about Ronald Reagan and that they had heard about him from their parents. That they felt this need to be here alongside their parents. So the responses have been varied out here.

COOPER: Thelma Gutierrez, we'll come back to you shortly. A lot to cover, a lot to talk about in these next several hours -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: That's right. For the last few minutes we've been watching as the body of Ronald Reagan was brought to the library here in Simi Valley, California. And a place where it will lay in rest for the next few days. We're going to talk in just a minute, Anderson, with someone who wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan, Dana Rohrabacher. He is now a congressman from California. But he was right inside the White House for some of the most critical moments of the Reagan. We'll be back with that in just a moment as our live coverage of Ronald Reagan's journey of remembrance continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: A little over half an hour ago this was the scene here at the Reagan Library, Simi Valley, California, as the flag-draped casket carrying the body of Ronald Reagan brought into the library, former first lady Nancy Reagan, prominent among those, small group who came with Ronald Reagan where he will lie in repose for two days and then return here Friday to the place that will be his final resting place.

COOPER: An honor guard from Washington flown up especially for this, honor guards representing each of the branches of service, Marines, the Navy, the Air Force, the Army, the Coast Guard. Each will stand watch over the next two days.

Ronald Reagan lies here in repose at this library, this library he loved so much. It was founded and opened up in 1991, where all the documents from the Reagan years are stored, will be studied over the years. Several thousand people, they are anticipating 45,000 to 60,000 people will file past this coffin over the next two days as Ronald Reagan begins what the minister today called "journey of remembrance."

WOODRUFF: Some of those people standing in line waiting until -- since midnight last night to get a chance to come to pay their respects. We're going to start to see some of them in just a few minutes. This, again, is the scene that played out just a little more than half an hour ago as the honor guard placed the flag-draped casket carrying the body of Ronald Reagan in the place where it will stay for the next two days.

We -- as we know, the body of Ronald Reagan will go on Wednesday, Anderson, from here to Washington where there will be even more thousands of mourners who will pay their respects to the late president as his body lies in state at the U.S. Capitol. Our Joe Johns, congressional correspondent, is there now.

Joe, maybe give us a sense of what lies in store in the next few days to come.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Judy, it will be a fairly extraordinary week of tributes. We do expect the Congress as early as tomorrow to pass resolutions honoring the former president. We also expect a resolution essentially allowing the use of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda for the president's body to lie in state.

We do have some pictures just to give you an idea, file tape, of course, of what it looks like. It is, again, a pretty extraordinary scene in the United States Capitol, and an honor reserved only for a very few, very special Americans.

As you might expect, this week of tributes in Washington is going to bring along with it a great deal of security. We can show you a graphic to give you a sense of it. As it stands now, this has been designated a national security special event, that means heightened security, not just for the U.S. Capitol Police, who always guard this area, but also for the metropolitan Washington D.C. police, the Secret Service, a variety of others including the U.S. Park Police.

Now, we are told they have already canceled leave and told their officers not to put in for leave at least during this week. As well we're told they are supposed to be bringing down officers -- additional officers from New York to work the crowds.

A huge crowd, of course, is expected to file past the casket of the former president over a period that extends about 24 hours or so. This, again, is all because of security here in Washington, D.C. that will have so many police officers. As you know, the nation's capitol is a very different place from the way it was 30 years ago when such an event was last held, that, of course, being the funeral and the services for Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Judy, back to you.

WOODRUFF: All right, Joe Johns, thanks very much, at the Capitol. In a way, Anderson, I think what is going on here at the presidential library in Simi Valley, is a kind of rehearsal for that because this is lying in repose, that will be lying in state. This is a smaller version, I think, in a way of what we'll see in Washington.

COOPER: And of course, the president will return here on Friday for the final ceremony which they say will be around sunset Friday evening, a private ceremony as President Reagan is interred. We're joined now in Washington by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. He, of course, was a press secretary for Ronald Reagan in the 1976 and 1980 presidential campaign. He is actually, sorry, joining us from Los Angeles. He has also served as a speech writer under President Reagan.

Congressman, thanks for being with us today.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R), CALIFORNIA: That was assistant press secretary, by the way. I was assistant press secretary to Lyn Nofziger.

COOPER: I'm sorry. OK. As you heard the news of President Reagan's death, what first went through your mind?

ROHRABACHER: Well, you know what, I thought to myself, he hung on for so long, it was this long good-bye, and maybe there was so reason for it. And it's clear to me now the reason that he hung on, that God kept him alive for so long, was so that when he left, we would deeply appreciate and understand the significance of his contributions to America and to the world.

Had he died right after he left office, people still wouldn't have come to grips at that time with the overwhelming change that he had brought to this world and to our country. Now everyone is singing those accolades.

WOODRUFF: Congressman Rohrabacher, you were just reminding us, you not only worked as a speech writer you also worked in the press operation. What was it like trying to write for Ronald Reagan. Here was a man who wrote for himself for so long. What was that -- give us a little sense of what it was like?

ROHRABACHER: Well, first of all, Ronald Reagan was a terrific writer himself. I had never written a speech for anyone prior to going to the White House and been a journalist. And then I ended up writing speeches for Ronald Reagan. And I thought that -- he sat us down and taught us what he wanted in his speech and he did a lot of editing the first six months. Then, of course, we knew. I have a picture with me here, if you want to take a look at that. This is Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office and obviously telling us what -- conferring with the speech writers, that's me. I think that's over one of the radio addresses. And I have one other picture that might be of interest.

This is Ronald Reagan meeting with his speech writers. That's me in the light blue suit and the beard, I might add. And if you can notice, Ronald Reagan is telling us, he's making a point. He's telling us exactly what he wanted. And we learned how to write and communicate Reagan-style.

And he always said, be positive, talk about solutions, find good things to say about people that will inspire other people. And make sure you're talking about the fundamental principles that are guiding your decisions so people can have faith in what you're doing, as in good faith. And speak in a way that people can understand. And always tell a little funny story.

And he taught us all about it. He was -- and let me add, Reagan, you know, there's another picture here I'd like to share with you, a story. This is a picture, it was taken on Air Force One. And I remember this incident very well because this -- over on this side is Judge Clark who was the national security adviser at the time. And Judge Clark -- and we were preparing -- I was on Air Force One on a trip to California to prepare Reagan speeches that he would give on an upcoming swing through Latin America.

And Judge Clark had just told us that one of the leaders in Latin America was going to be very mean and nasty to Reagan when we landed and sort of belittle him in order to make him -- build himself up with this macho thing in Latin America. And I remember telling Reagan, look, I'll write a speech for us here, and you are going to have the material you need, you can cut the legs out from under this guy, beat him up in front of his people. He ain't going to be belittling us.

And Reagan went, oh, no, Dana, that's exactly the opposite of what we should do. We should be saying so many nice things about him. Praise him for everything that he has ever done. Learn the good things he has done and praise him and say nice things so he'll be embarrassed to say bad things about us. And you know, that's exactly what we did. That was his approach and it worked.

COOPER: Congressman, there were those at a time, especially early on in the Reagan years, who sort of said that the president really wasn't hands on. I think "TIME" called him 9 to 5 president, and yet that image seemed to change over time. People, and especially now have -- seemed to have more of an appreciation of just how involved he was in what came out of the Oval Office and in speeches and in speech writing. Talk a little bit about that as you saw it.

ROHRABACHER: He set the strategy. He didn't need to know all the details. And he knew if he got bogged down in the details like Jimmy Carter did -- Jimmy Carter was a fine person but he got so bogged down in the details he couldn't govern. Instead Ronald Reagan inspired people and set the long-term goals. And he understood that very well. And he was not -- but he was not going to be deterred from that strategy that he set down. For example, everyone singing his praises now about the "Tear Down the Wall" speech, which was one of the most significant addresses he gave because right up until the moment he got on the platform, all of his senior staff people were begging him not to say. "tear down the wall."

They were telling him it would reignite the Cold War. Only his speech writers -- Colin Powell gave him another speech two days before that and said, all of your senior advisers except your speech writers want you to give this speech instead. Reagan read it through, "tear down the wall" had been extracted and he looked up to Colin Powell and said, well, no, I think I'll use the one I've got, thank you.

And he changed history. And let me add, the day after that speech, we got some intelligence information that Gorbachev wasn't angry. He wasn't going to reignite the Cold War. Instead Gorbachev told his senior staff, oh my gosh, we've got to find a way to bring down the wall and save face, because once this guy Reagan grabs onto your leg like a dog, he ain't going to let go. And all of a sudden Reagan was the hero and of all the people who told him not to give the speech, some of them were -- claimed to have written the speech.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: Well, I know for you it was not only an honor to write speeches for the president, but probably an honor to have President Reagan deliver those speeches, because really no one gave a speech, delivered a speech like the "Great Communicator." Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, thanks very much for being on the program.

ROHRABACHER: Well, no other president -- I couldn't have written for any other president that would have done these things. Thank you.

COOPER: That is certainly true, Congressman, thank you. Our special coverage, "Reagan Remembered," continues in our next hour. We'll talk with former Attorney General Ed Meese. He served President Reagan, of course, as the attorney general, he will be our special guest. We will be right back.

WOODRUFF: And you have got to love a guest who brings his own visuals as Dana Rohrabacher. And we thank you him for that. Just a quick plug for our own "LARRY KING." Tonight his guest will be Gerald Ford -- former president Gerald Ford, and on Tuesday night his guest will be former President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush. We'll be right back with more coverage of Ronald Reagan's journey of remembrance.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: They come out of respect, out of gratitude to be a part of history. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole part about it is, is to be able to pay tribute to the greatest American that I think we ever had in the White House.

ANNOUNCER: It is the first day of public viewing of the flag- draped coffin of America's 40th President, Ronald Wilson Reagan. In this hour, we continue sharing some of the memories of his life and the reactions to his passing.

Now, more of our special report, "Remembering Ronald Reagan." Live from his presidential library in Simi Valley, California, Judy Woodruff and Anderson Cooper.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Welcome back on behalf of Anderson and me. It is noon here on the West Coast, where the first official service honoring and celebrating the life of Ronald Reagan has just concluded.

A short time from now, the former president's casket will be made availability for public viewing. In fact, there are buses that have pulled up in front of the library. And I think we are just seconds away from ordinary Americans being able to walk by and pay their final respects to the man, the President they admired so much, and I think many of them would sad they loved as a leader.

COOPER: There the honor guard executing a salute to the casket before the public begins to make their entrance. You can see people getting off the first bus. That is the first group of people here. They are anticipating anywhere from 45,000 to 60,000 people here over the next two days.

This picture, of course, less than an hour ago, Mrs. Reagan being brought in following the casket, the flag-draped coffin of her husband, then followed by Patti Davis, Ron Reagan, Michael Reagan. They sat as a minister delivered a short statement, spoke of this as a journey of remembrance, said that the country was better off for Ronald Reagan having been in this world.

WOODRUFF: The casket was placed at a position inside the library where the family could first pay its respects. And now, as we say, the public is starting to come in to say their good-byes to Ronald Reagan.

As Anderson was saying, it was really a ceremony mixing ceremony, mixing the kind of formal ceremony with a very private farewell. We all were watching as Nancy Reagan put her head down ever so briefly on this casket covered with the flag that holds the body of the man she loved so much, the man who was really her life. The man...

COOPER: Fifty-two years. I mean, it is just extraordinary.

WOODRUFF: Fifty-two years of marriage. Extraordinary.

COOPER: And a marriage which those who watched it up close, as you did when you were covering the White House, described as extraordinarily intimate. They had a bond which sometimes even to the exclusion of other members of their family, some have said, brought them together and kept them together. As she said, I think, on "LARRY KING" two years ago, they completed each other. Her life began, she said, "when she met Ronnie." I believe that's what she said.

WOODRUFF: It was very touching. I think now we are watching first members of the public. We presume many of them are Californians, but we are seeing one bus after another pull up now in front of the Reagan Library. And as Anderson said, the numbers expected to be 50,000 people, somewhere in that category. It's really impossible to predict. A lot of security around here, but we know that the affection for this man so great that a lot of people don't mind waiting hours in line, having to park their cars and ride a shuttle bud to get over to this library to say good-bye to someone they admired so much.

COOPER: They have to park their cars a distance from here in Moorpark. That's where CNN's Thelma Gutierrez is standing by.

Thelma, what is the scene there? Because we are already seeing many of the buses, the first people here coming to view President Reagan. What is it like where you are, Thelma?

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the first seven shuttles have already left the parking lot here at Moorpark College. As you can imagine, security here is extremely tight. In fact, the media is being kept in one area, far away from the public, as they clear the screening process.

I want you to take a look right behind me at the canopies. This is where the Secret Service is screening some of the people who are going through. They are going through five metal detectors that are out here, they're checking backs. From there, you can see that there is a long line. They make their way to the shuttles, and then they begin their five-mile trip to the library.

Now, the line begins to form out here at about midnight. It started with just a few families. And then by daybreak, there were hundreds of people in the line.

They had brought pillows and blankets and lawn chairs. One woman told us that she's a New York Democrat who admired President Reagan. And the first man in line told us that he was here and he was not going to miss the opportunity to actually see the President. He arrived at midnight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't get much sleep. But you know what? The whole part about it is, is to be able to pay tribute to the greatest American we've had in the White House.

GUTIERREZ: And you have been now waiting, sir, for how many hours?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What time is it? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is 10:00.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been waiting for 11 hours.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The boys are tired. They got up at a quarter to five this morning to get a good position. And one is conked out and the other one is hanging on. So they just laid it all out and they made their own little area here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTIERREZ: And here you can see all the people who are waiting to board the shuttles that will be pretty much moving continuously for the next 48 hours. There are about two dozen buses, they're going to move 2,000 people an hour. And again, Anderson, they are expecting between 45,000 to 60,000 people to view the President and make their way toward the library.

Back to you.

COOPER: A somber day. Despite all those crowds, there is, of course, a somber mood here. People respectful, people quiet, filing past the casket, as you can see there. Something we will be watching now for the next 48 hours or so, until President Reagan is brought one final time to Washington, D.C., one final journey of remembrance there before being returned here to Simi Valley, to this library, where he will be laid to rest on a hill on Friday evening -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: We keep talking about the mix, Anderson, of solemnity with celebration of his life and what he meant to people. The historian, Robert Dallek, has been with us this morning and into the afternoon.

I want to ask you, Robert Dallek, you know, how do you account for the outpouring that we are beginning to see out here, and that I think we fully expect to see in Washington for Ronald Reagan? What was it about this man?

ROBERT DALLEK, HISTORIAN: Well, you know, the term "the great communicator," Judy, captures it all, says it all, because he came to the presidency after a period of what people at the time called malaise. Remember we passed through that Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson's credibility gap and Johnson's departure from the presidency under a terrible cloud. And then even more so, the cloud that covered Richard Nixon's presidency, a terrible situation with Watergate and the only President in the country's history to have resigned.

And Gerald Ford had that truncated presidency. Jimmy Carter a one-term presidency.

And so Reagan comes along and he recreates the kind of spirit, kind of hope, optimism about the country, about where it's going, the track it's on. And remember, during the Olympics in 1984, he says, "The pride is back, made in the USA." And I think that has been somewhat lost again over the last 15 or so years. And it still sticks with Reagan. It still attaches to him. And I think people see this as a moment when they can recreate that mood by remembering him and by celebrating his life and his presence.

WOODRUFF: How much do you think, Robert Dallek, Ronald Reagan, the affection that people feel, the extraordinary admiration, how much is that enhanced, do you believe, by the fact that he has been literally out of sight for the last 10 years?

DALLEK: Well, you know, there's something about one might say being (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It forms a slate on which you can write anything.

You know, I have written about John Kennedy, and Kennedy also has this extraordinary hold on the public's imagination. And he was President for only 1,000 days. But the fact that he was there such a brief time I think people can write on to his slate of his presidency almost anything they want.

And so over the last 10 years, Reagan was out of the public eye, he's not a controversial figure anymore. People can simply remember the positive things about him, and that's what they're doing now, rather than thinking about the controversies that swelled up during his presidential term, during his eight years.

For the last 10 years or so, they've been thinking about what a buoyant and attractive character he was. And now again it very much comes into focus with all the coverage of his passing.

COOPER: Robert, it is, of course, easy from this distance to sort of paint a very simple portrait of this man, but he was extraordinarily complex. Nancy Reagan herself has said -- and I'm paraphrasing her -- said, everybody sort of thinks he's sort of this easygoing guy, but he's actually very complex. And there was -- I have heard people who knew him talk about there was only a certain point that you reached, and beyond that you couldn't get. Talk about that a little.

DALLEK: Yes. You know, Anderson, the most successful presidents have really been sort of, in some ways, hidden characters. Edmund Morris tried to write a book -- or did write a book about Reagan. He was in the White House, had a chance to observe him up close. But I think he would be the first to say that he found it very difficult to get to know the man, to get past a certain friendliness, a certain charm, a certain amiability.

But there was a hidden Ronald Reagan. And this has been true, I think, of our most successful presidents. They understand that being president is a stage upon which you are acting, and that you have to be reserved in a certain way. You have to hold back.

And people -- there has to be some aura, some mystery about you. And Reagan had that. Franklin Roosevelt had that to a great extent.

Harold Ickes, who was the secretary of interior, used to tell the story that he said once to Roosevelt, "You are the dammed hardest man to work for." And Roosevelt said, "Why, because I'm so tough?" And Ickes said, "No, no, because you play your cards so close to the vest."

Well, I think that's what most effective presidents do. They are not so open with people.

Who really new Reagan that well? Even his closest advisers. That was true for Kennedy, too. People like Ted Sorenson and others have said they didn't know him all that well. And people close to Roosevelt, like Harry Hopkins, they didn't have a clear feel for what exactly -- was going on in the man's mind. So I think this is part of a pattern with presidents.

COOPER: Robert, we are watching people filing past the coffin now. We have received word that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is here, Judy. We haven't seen him yet, though, have we?

WOODRUFF: We have not. We were told he would be here at about this time. And so we of course will expect him to pass by, along with his wife, Maria Shriver.

It's interesting, as Robert Dallek talks about how important that little bit of mystery and that distance is in the success of our political leaders to have Arnold Schwarzenegger coming through. I think you are watching in this newly-elected governor of California somebody who watched Ronald Reagan very closely and who, I think, in many ways, has tried to keep that blend of, yes, I will tell you a little bit about my life, but you're not going to know everything. That was very much the case of Ronald Reagan.

We have seen in this country -- you know, we live at a time when everything is out there. You know, we've got television around the clock, radio. You know, you've got people, reporters who are happy to write about every aspect of your life trying to carve out a little bit of privacy and trying to keep a zone of privacy, I think none other than Hillary Clinton maybe coined that phrase. But trying to keep something private and something mysterious is -- and out of public view, is harder than ever, ever before. And I think that's why we make note of it as something that Ronald Reagan, and as Robert said, FDR and a few others were able to do.

COOPER: And there were those who, during the Reagan years of the White House, who said that the president was distant and remote. And I think it was probably Nancy Reagan in large part who felt very protective of her husband and felt the need to create those zones of privacy and those times when it was just them, and the times of beyond just the public face of the president giving time for the man, and for them as a couple.

WOODRUFF: All right. We are continuing to watch the public walk by to pay their final respects at the flag-draped casket bearing the remains of Ronald Reagan.

The men and women who represent Americans in the Congress are also pausing today to remember the nation's 40th president. We're going to get a little reaction to Ronald Reagan's passing from Capitol Hill when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: The governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, paying his respects with his wife, Maria Shriver, at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, paying his respects to the late President Ronald Reagan.

COOPER: Governor Schwarzenegger a man who has had his own distinctly American journey from Austria, of course, to Hollywood, where he's become a huge superstar, to the corridors of power in Sacramento, with the governor of California. Not to make too much of an analogy, but a similar journey Ronald Reagan took from a small town in Illinois.

WOODRUFF: No question. Very -- you can see similarities. And I think it's interesting, Anderson, that they are coming in with other ordinary folks.

I mean, they didn't ask to get a private moment of their own. They are coming in with the crowd, spending a few minutes, paying respect, paying their respects. But they are there with the public who, as we said, have been standing in line, some of them, for hours to stop and have a word or just a quiet thought.

COOPER: People bringing their children in. Obviously, children too young to have known the Reagan years in the White House, yet children who have no doubt grown up hearing their parents talk about Ronald Reagan.

We talked before about the appeal of Reagan really across generations. For those who followed him, there were so many young people. I mean, I remember being in high school during the Reagan presidency, and there were so many young people who not only became interested in politics for the first time, but that sense of optimism and that sense of possibilities, whether it was true or not, I think inspired an awful lot of people.

WOODRUFF: Coming at a time when the country had been through some really tough times. And we just heard Bob Dallek mention it, between Vietnam, Watergate, malaise, economic problems. Of course the Cold War had gripped this country. Ronald Reagan came along and said I'm going to do something about that, we're going to build up the defenses of this country.

He took money away from other programs to put it into the military. But he stood tall for the United States. And Americans will always respond to that.

Again, these are live pictures from the Reagan Library, Simi Valley, California. Live pictures of the casket bearing the body of Ronald Reagan. It has been laying there just a little more than an hour. And just a few minutes ago, the public began to come through to pay their respects.

COOPER: The family made these decisions, these final preparations for the body being here. Once the body is sent to Washington, the military district of Washington, the MDW take over the planning of it. But even all along, the family can make changes, can decide the order of things, how everything will play out over the next five days or so, beginning, again, what the minister called this journey of remembrance for this man who changed America.

WOODRUFF: We've talked about it a good deal today, but the history books are no doubt going to remember Ronald Reagan for those famous one-liners. And, in fact, the late president was known as the great communicator, among other nicknames. Here now, CNN's Bruce Morton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They called him the great communicator because he was. He said it and people paid attention.

RONALD WILSON REAGAN, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

MORTON: OK. The deficit went up and the problem got bigger, but you remembered what he said. He settled an argument over who should speak in a 1980 New Hampshire debate with one line.

REAGAN: I am paying for this microphone...

MORTON: It's originally from an old Spencer Tracy movie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't you shut me off. I'm paying for this broadcast.

MORTON: But if an actor can't borrow a line, who can? And sometimes the one-liners really mattered. Presidents of both parties had worked to contain the Soviet Union. But Ronald Reagan made more progress than most. Arms reduction and a challenge.

REAGAN: Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.

(APPLAUSE)

REAGAN: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

MORTON: The man who wrote the speech said the State Department fought that line for three weeks, but Reagan used it and the wall came down during his successor's presidency. A successor he wished well with a line from one of his old movies about a Notre Dame football player named George Gipp.

REAGAN: But George, just one personal request. Go out there and win one for the Gipper.

(APPLAUSE)

MORTON: But what Ronald Reagan communicated best was optimism. He came to office in a country shaken, made cynical by Watergate and the war in Vietnam. He saw instead a shining city on a hill. He used the phrase often and talked about it in his farewell address in 1989.

REAGAN: In my mind, it was a tall, proud city, built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, god-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.

MORTON: Ronald Reagan on the shining city he dreamed of and worked to build.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: In Ronald Reagan's final speech, televised speech, which you just saw, he talked about America as being a great city on a hill, about it being a windswept, god-blessed, teeming with people of all kinds. Ronald Reagan will be buried on a hill here at the library, and today it is windswept, god-blessed and teeming with people of all kinds.

Ronald Reagan's brand of economics was controversial and personal. It still bears his name: Reaganomics. Did it work? We'll take a look at that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back to our continuing coverage, remembering the life of Ronald Reagan. As President Reagan helped renew American optimism partly by defeating inflation and reviving the economy, Peter Viles recalls Reaganomics.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REAGAN: Ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago? Economists.

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Most Americans were not. The prime rate then was 15 percent. The Misery Index, inflation, plus unemployment was above 20 percent. The stock market had gone nowhere except down for 15 years.

BRUCE BARTLETT, NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS: The magnitude of the problem was so great that there were a great many responsible economists who though we'd have to go through something like the equivalent of another great depression.

VILES: Reagan's plan was optimistic, bold and widely ridiculed. George Bush called it voodoo economics. It was to cut taxes, increase defense spending, starve the rest of the government, and somehow balance the budget.

REAGAN: In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

VILES: He convinced Congress to cut taxes and to stay the course during the recession of 1982, and ultimately did what presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter could not. He beat inflation.

On his watch, it fell from 12.5 percent to 4.6. The jobless rate fell to 5.4 percent. The economy added 16 million new jobs. The stock market rallied. Even after that 1987 crash, it gained 147 percent in the Reagan era.

STEVE MOORE, CLUB FOR GROWTH: The tragedy really is that Ronald Reagan, arguably the most important economist of the 20th century, never one the Nobel Prize in economics. But when you think about it, this is a man who really had as profound an impact on economics as any of the economists, whether you're talking about Milton Friedman or John Maynard Keynes.

VILES: His economic success was not total. He never did balance the budget. The deficit widened.

WALTER MONDALE, FMR. VICE PRESIDENT: Some of the strategies that were used during his administration lead to enormous deficits, lead to some of the things we are seeing again today, which can lead to higher interest rates, distorted value of the dollar that hurts us in trade.

VILES: His influence lives on. It was Reagan who made Alan Greenspan Fed chairman, who dealt labor unions a lasting defeat by firing striking air traffic controllers, whose free market policies still alive in Washington had their roots in a Jeffersonian ideals: the government is best which governs least.

Peter Viles, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: And in many ways, that is what Ronald Reagan is so remembered for, Anderson, that economic philosophy, distinct. It was shrink the government, get spending down on domestic programs, but spend more on defense programs, as this country was fighting communism back then.

COOPER: He also I think -- just several weeks since the administration said that he characterized the economic state of the country as the worst since the great depression. And he said we need to try something different, and that's what we're going to do. And he certainly did that.

WOODRUFF: Well, we're going to hear more from the people who are gathering to pay their final respects to Ronald Reagan in just a moment.

COOPER: We'll also talk with longtime Reagan confidante and former U.S. attorney general, Ed Meese. CNN's special coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WOODRUFF: Welcome back to this CNN special report, "Remembering Ronald Reagan." I'm Judy Woodruff, reporting from the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, along with Anderson Cooper.

COOPER: Judy, public viewing is now under way here at the Reagan Library. It has been now for about 45 minutes or so. A short funeral service for Ronald Reagan wrapped up here last hour. Not so much a funeral service, more a remembrance. The family standing, sitting in front of the coffin of Ronald Reagan, as an honor guard stood around the flag-draped coffin.

Later, Mrs. Reagan approached the coffin, stroking the flag. At one point, laying her head down for a moment on the flag.

WOODRUFF: And now we are seeing hundreds of Californians, what we are told will be eventually tens of thousands of Californians who will make their way to the Reagan Library to have their private thoughts, to talk with their children, with their family members, with friends about what Ronald Reagan meant to them and meant to this country. And Anderson and I were just commenting on how some people come dressed very formally, others causally. They feel, you know, for them, this is a comfortable thing for them to do.

COOPER: And we have seen this all morning, all long all along the route that Ronald Reagan's body took to get here from the funeral home in Santa Monica. People came, some just on the side of the road. Some people just waving small American flags.

Some people even gathered down because early on you could not gain access to this library. You still can't walk around here. But there were people gathered at the entrance to the library, sitting there in chairs, and just sort of wanting to be part of it, wanting to see and silently, in some cases, pay their respects, as they have for the last 48 hours or so.

WOODRUFF: It is so interesting to think about what's going through their minds. And we're going to be talking to some of them as the day goes on.

When he was elected in 1980, Ronald Reagan chose as the chief policy adviser a veteran from his staff as governor in California. And I want to apologize, because there are a lot of vehicles around where Anderson and I are, and that noise keeps popping up in it the background.

COOPER: And the vehicles you are hearing are buses, which are just coming one after the other. Some 45,000 to 60,000 people expected here over the next 48 hours.

Ed Meese, of course, was later named attorney general. He joins us now from Washington.

Attorney General Meese, thanks very much for being on the program with us today. I want to ask you, 1966, you joined Ronald Reagan's staff. I think you were the district attorney in a county in California. What was it that first drew you to Ronald Reagan back in 1966 when you first met him? What did you see in him?

EDWIN MEESE, FMR. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I was a deputy district attorney in Alameda County. What I saw in Ronald Reagan was a very intelligent man. I was impressed. I had never met him before.

He asked me to -- or his staff asked me to meet with him in December. He had been elected governor, but he hadn't taken office yet, and he was assembling his office. And so I spent a half-hour with him.

I was impressed by his knowledge of a lot of things that I knew quite a bit about in law enforcement and criminal justice, and was amazed at how quickly he assimilated information as we discussed some of those issues. And in that half-hour, we actually kind of put together some ideas for a strategy to deal with things like capital punishment and the unrest on the campuses, things such as that. And then at the end of the half-hour, he offered me the job as his legal affairs secretary, which I accepted on the spot, and then drove home trying to figure out how to explain to my wife we were moving to Sacramento.

COOPER: I'm sure that conversation must have been very interesting. 1966, this was just two years after Ronald Reagan made that famous televised speech for Barry Goldwater, which many sort of credit as his entree into politics, the first time many people nationally met Ronald Reagan. The man you met in 1966, how different was he from the president you served under some 20s years later?

MEESE: Well, I would say he was remarkably the same. Obviously, as president, he had a good deal more experience in dealing with political matters. But in terms of his ability to communicate, his clarity in vision, and particularly his leadership skills, I would say he was basically the same man with 20 years of experience. But he was still the same optimistic and friendly person, cheerful person that I grew to enjoy working for back in the 1960s.

WOODRUFF: Ed Meese, one of the things I think -- and I want to say hello, because I haven't seen you in a number of years.

MEESE: Right. I loved you.

WOODRUFF: I covered you when you were, of course, in the White House. One of the things I think we are still trying to understand about Ronald Reagan is here was a man who clearly had very deeply-held conservative views, and yet he was able to reach out to those who were pragmatists. When he got to the White House, he reached into the campaign of his opponent, George H. W. Bush, to Jim Baker to be his chief of staff, and then he went on to have both what were called the pragmatic group and then the more true believers, if you will, of which I think I count you in that second group.

How do you explain this about Ronald Reagan?

MEESE: Well, I think he was a person that realized that you needed a lot of skills. He wanted to have some people in the White House who understood Washington, who could deal with matters pertaining to Congress and the news media, both of which were quite different than the California legislature or the news media in a state.

And so he appreciated the need for experience. And what he did was he combined that with people who knew him well and knew his policies, and his philosophy, and it worked. And I think one of the reasons why he was able to reach over and attract -- and persuade people, say Democrats, people who were more liberal, was he had a way of taking complex subjects and explaining them in simple terms.

And he ultimately had the last refuge. If he couldn't persuade Congress, he was willing to go over their heads and persuade the people. And I think that was one of the keys to his success.

So after a while, he didn't have to use the nuclear weapon of going to the people. Congress respected that they had to deal with this person.

WOODRUFF: So as people wrestle with the Ronald Reagan -- you know, how much of Ronald Reagan was conservative, how much was pragmatic, you are saying he was a conservative, but he was pragmatic at the same time?

MEESE: Well, that's right. He was pragmatic. He would always say it's better to take half a loaf today if you can get it than to get nothing. And then he would come back around and try to get the rest of the loaf later on.

WOODRUFF: What -- and Ed Meese, when there was disagreement on the staff, how did he resolve it?

MEESE: Well, he liked to hear all the various sides to an issue. One thing he was very good at was listening. And he didn't like to have lengthy memos. He felt that those were pretty sterile in expressing views.

He liked to have people argue things out in front of him in the cabinet meetings. He set up the cabinet as the primary focal point for decision-making. And he met with the cabinet frequently, probably more frequently than almost any recent president, either as a cabinet as a whole or as a cabinet council, including the National Security Council. And after he heard all the views then he would make his decision. And he felt that as long as he got all the information, or as much as was readily available, he would make good decisions. And, indeed, that's what he did.

WOODRUFF: Former Attorney General Ed Meese, thank you very much for being with us on this day, sharing your remembrances of the former president. Thank you.

Before his career in politics, Ronald Reagan, of course, made a name for himself in Hollywood. Still to come, we'll look at Reagan's acting career.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COOPER: Welcome back to our continuing coverage, "Remembering Ronald Reagan." "LARRY KING LIVE," of course, will have President Ford and former President Bush on later on this week.

You are looking at a live pictures, as mourners continuing to pay their respects to the late president. This is going to be happening for the next 48 hours or so, as Californians, young and old, people who knew Reagan personally, people who remembered him as president, and people who have grown up since he left office but have followed him these last difficult 10 years or so come to pay their final respects.

WOODRUFF: My guess is, Anderson, it's a cross-section of Americans, Californians primarily, paying their respects. Although clearly people coming from nearby states, from other states, will be coming to the Reagan Library at Simi Valley to pay their respects as well. This is a remarkable day.

We have not seen the likes of this in many, many years. We remember Richard Nixon was buried in California. There was a funeral service for him 10 years ago this year. But we didn't have any of the lying in state that we are going to have for Ronald Reagan. It was 20 years before that we had the services in Washington marking the death of Lyndon Johnson, and 10 years before that, of course, the tragic death and the assassination of John Kennedy.

We don't see these times, times like this very often in American life. And that is why we stop and we take note and we take a deep breath, and we think about what the life of this man meant to this country and to its people.

COOPER: And though we have not seen a day, an event like this for quite some time, as you said, since Lyndon Johnson laid in state many years ago, this is something which was planned for really from the time Ronald Reagan left office. The library has refined these plans, has gone over it, has really adjusted these plans, of course, over the years, as the situation has changed. But it is something which is a very private moment yet also very public, and something which has to be planned for very carefully.

WOODRUFF: It will be a measure of the affection with which the American people hold Ronald Reagan as we watch for the next five days, today through Friday, as Americans pay their respects.

Among the Americans stopping to remember Ronald Reagan and his legacy, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry. The senator has announced he is not continuing his public campaigning this week as the country mourns Ronald Reagan's death. More on all that now from CNN's senior political correspondent, Candy Crowley, in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Flying into Reagan National Airport Sunday night, John Kerry began a week operating below the radar.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have a lot to do, don't worry.

CROWLEY: The death of Ronald Reagan has silenced the '04 campaign trail. Camp Kerry canceled what he called over-political activities, which means tonight's glitzy Hollywood fundraiser with Streisand and company is out, pushed off until at least the end of the month. Likewise, Thursday's equally star-studded New York fundraiser and several routine events in between.

This morning, Kerry arrived at campaign headquarters, getting some policy briefings that were made. There are as well convention plans to make and the vice president to pick.

KERRY: Work, a lot of work. A lot of plans. No loss of anything to do.

CROWLEY: Fulfilling a promise to address a high school graduation in Ohio Sunday, Kerry's, whose first major work in Congress was investigating Iran Contra, paid tribute to the man he said lead with great race.

KERRY: President Reagan's belief in America was infectious. And because of the way he lead, he taught us that there was a difference between strong beliefs and bitter partisanship.

CROWLEY: Kerry plans to attend Friday's funeral in Washington. The campaign says it will not air any ads that day.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: In the end, the decision to suspend campaign activities for a week was a matter of both common sense and common courtesy by the Kerry campaign. But it also may turn out to be pretty good politics. We are now at a time where Kerry is trying to reach out to swing voters and to Republicans. Stopping to pause and remember Ronald Reagan is a pretty good place to start -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Candy, I guess the fact is that no matter what happens in a presidential campaign season, even the death of a beloved former president, it is going to become part of the fabric of this campaign. And it is clear that strategists on both sides, for George Bush and for John Kerry, are trying to figure out what this is going to mean for them.

CROWLEY: Well, sure. And I think as you heard in John Kerry's remarks, and his written statement yesterday, he has made much of this was a man who was optimistic about America, and this was a man who could disagree without being disagreeable. And that has been now a major part of what John Kerry has been saying as he reaches out into the middle, and that is, hey, this man, George Bush, came to Washington to kind of heighten the tone, and he hasn't. It's a bitter time.

So interesting that of the things that John Kerry hailed about Ronald Reagan was that. As for the Bush campaign, obviously this is a man who has been compared to Ronald Reagan. We've always said that George Bush, the son, is more Reagan than Bush. And they obviously have to be looking at that.

It's hard to tell, though, four or five months out. There are so many other things happening in the world, I think that the consensus I hear now as people sort of begin to talk about this is, by the time November rolls around, this will be less about Ronald Reagan and more about George Bush.

WOODRUFF: That's probably fair to say. Here we are in early June. We still have almost five months to go until this election. So both campaigns standing down, for the most part, and yet we will see George Bush certainly speaking at the funeral on Friday. And both campaigns continuing advertising this week, except on the day of the funeral, on Friday.

Candy Crowley, thank you very much.

And our live coverage here at the Reagan Presidential Library at Simi Valley, California, where the remains of President Reagan lie in repose for the American people to come and pay their respects. Our live coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Someone who covered Ronald Reagan and the White House years, former CNN Washington bureau chief, Frank Sesno, joins us now from New York.

Frank, good to see you today. Thanks for being with us.

Let's talk a little about this library, the Reagan Presidential Library. How important was it to President Reagan? And let's talk a little bit about how it came into being in 1991.

FRANK SESNO, FMR. CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was very important to the president and very important to the first lady because they wanted to have a place that would not -- and it's called not only the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, but also the Center for Public Affairs. We've seen it on the sign there.

They wanted very much to enshrine not just what he did in the papers, but what he stood for. And so with the generous help of a number of friends and a lot of active fundraising, they got this thing launched. And you have been out there. I'm sure you've had a chance to walk through it. But it's a very impressive place, and it chronicles -- you literally walk through the man's life, from his boyhood in Dickson, Illinois, through his radio and acting days.

And around one corner, in one of the most interesting and emblematic symbols in there is a gasoline pump. And that gasoline pump symbolizes so much of what America was all about when Ronald Reagan was running for -- successfully -- for the presidency in the 1980s. Gas lines, a sense of helplessness, a sense of the country, along with its hostages was actually being held hostage. And his campaign was very much focused on that degree of optimism and we don't have to accept the age of limits and malaise and all that kind of business. And that is much of what the library represents and captures, along with I think it's close to 1,300 book titles that have been written about Ronald Reagan, and a whole wall of magazine covers that he made from US News to The Economist to TIME and Newsweek. It's a remarkable place.

WOODRUFF: Frank, Ronald Reagan really adopted California as a home state. We know he was from the middle of America, Illinois. He came out here and fell in love with this state. How important is California in shaping who he was?

SESNO: Tremendously important. There are two things, Judy, I think that if you really want to understand Ronald Reagan you need to understand.

And the first one is the ranch. And he had more than one ranch, but the ranch we knew during his presidential days was his sanctuary. But more than his sanctuary, it was his expression of himself, open spaces, a place where he engaged in serious physical labor.

You know, they used to tell us when we were in the press pool or whatever down in Santa Barbara when the president was up at that ranch that he was chopping wood and clearing brush. And you heard it every day, and after a while we thought he had defoliated the place.

But the fact is, I spent time up at that ranch and walked around it, and there's an enormous amount of work. And you see his handiwork. There's this very large snaking fence around the place which he helped to cut, dig the holes for, and plant.

Mrs. Reagan would talk about him going out at the beginning of the day and coming back at the end of the day, hot and sweaty and all grimy. And he really did that.

Secondly, horses. Horses were very important in his life. And let me tell you one very moving story about horses.

He road them there with Mrs. Reagan, of course, and with his children. He also road the last time at the ranch. And one of his Secret Service agents, a man by the name of John Bartlett (ph), made that last ride with him.

And he tells the story of coming back after the last ride. It was after the Alzheimer's had been announced. And he said that he went to Mrs. Reagan and he said, "Mrs. Reagan, I don't think the president should ride anymore. I think it's dangerous." And Bartlett (ph) says Mrs. Reagan looked at him and said, "I can't tell him that, John. You do it."

So John Bartlett (ph) went over to the president, who was sitting on the patio, and he said, "Mr. President, I think it's too dangerous for you out there. I don't think you should do that." And he said the president stood up, put both hands on his shoulders, looked him in the eye and said, "I know." And that was it.

WOODRUFF: That's a very powerful remembrance. Frank Sesno, who has done an enormous amount of research into the life of Ronald Reagan, covered the Reagan White House. I think all of us who covered him, Anderson, know how much just that ranch meant everything to him.

COOPER: The ranch is now in private hands. A conservative group has it.

WOODRUFF: That's right.

COOPER: It was put on the market several years ago. It languished on the market for about a year or so, then it was bought. And they are trying to develop it really as a center for young conservatives.

WOODRUFF: CNN's coverage of the nation's good-bye to former President Ronald Reagan continues in just a moment.

COOPER: We're going to go back to Thelma Gutierrez, who is with the mourners going up to the Reagan Library. And our own Bill Schneider looks at how Ronald Reagan changed U.S. politics. And that he certainly did.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: This afternoon, the people of the United States and the world are saying farewell to Ronald Wilson Reagan. Members of the public have started filing past the former president's flag-draped coffin here at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Before the public viewing began, there was a short private service for the Reagan family. At its conclusion, Nancy Reagan bent over and placed her head briefly on the casket. The former first lady, who is 82 years old, has been a pillar of strength over the past ten years of her husband's illness, battle with Alzheimer's.

COOPER: And quite a battle it was. They, of course, have been together 52 years. And it is hard to imagine one without the other.

We witnessed a number of remarkable scenes today. As the hearse and its motorcade made its way alone the highway, it passed under a huge American suspended by two fire truck ladders as traffic in oncoming lanes paused.

This day's journey began, of course, at Santa Monica at a funeral home. Before going inside, former first lady Nancy Reagan and the couple's two children, Patti Davis and Ron Reagan, stopped outside to look over the makeshift memorial of flowers and flags and acknowledge the many who had come out to say good bye.

WOODRUFF: Anderson, today and for the rest of this day and again tomorrow, members of the public are going to be able to view President Reagan's casket here at his presidential library in Simi Valley.

Thelma Gutierrez is not far away from where we are. She's at Moorpark Community College where the mourners are coming. They're parking their cars and they are boarding shuttle buses which will take them here to the Reagan Library -- Thelma.

GUTIERREZ: Judy, you're right. We're about five miles away from you right now. The crowd numbers into the house to sands. In fact, the parking lot here is completely full. The city college actually had to close down to be able accommodate these crowds.

And it really is quite amazing. People started gathered out here about midnight and just to be able to have a chance to get on a shuttle to go up to the library. You have to jump through quite a few hoops.

First you have to get to the college which is about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. Then you have to find parking out here, you stand in long lines to get through security. There are five metal detectors here, you have to go through Secret Service which is checking every bag, jacket, wheelchair and stroller before they're even allowed to board the shuttle.

The line formed at midnight. It started with a few families. But by daybreak, hundreds were in line. And two hours after the shuttle started running, thousands were here.

They from are as far away from New York to the East and Arizona to the West.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ronald Reagan was the first president I voted for. I had a lot of respect for. I think he did lot of good things for our country and the world. And I wanted my kids to know who he was.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a New York Democrat. And I came because I'm patriotic.

GUTIERREZ: Did you know who president Reagan was?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well I wasn't alive that long because I'm not that old. But, so, not really. I didn't really know who he was. But I knew he loved and respected God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTIERREZ: You can see quite a large crowd gathered right in front of that bus there waiting to board and them make that five-mile journey up to the library.

You heard what some of the people had to say who were in line. A woman out here told me, Judy, that she also felt a connection to the president not just because she admired him as a leader, but because he, too, suffered from Alzheimer's, just as her mother did.

And she said that she felt such a connection to the Reagans and to the president because of all the things they had to deal with, with the disease -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Thelma, thanks very much.

I think it's interesting how many people are now beginning to understand or saying they do feel that connection because of Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's, a disease touching so many American families.

And what Nancy Reagan has done and what Ronald Reagan has suffered through, I think, for many people, became emblematic of the courage that is needed in all these families to get them through this long and difficult years of the disease, which, of course, takes its course in so many different ways.

Thelma, thank you very much.

COOPER: And their decision really to go public with it, Ronald Reagan wrote that just incredibly poignant, handwritten letter in 1994, basically announcing that he had been informed he had Alzheimer's. Such a moving letter. And their decision to go public.

WOODRUFF: And they didn't have to do that.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And they said in the letter very plainly that they wanted to because it might help other people.

WOODRUFF: You know, today, we feel much more comfortable talking about Alzheimer's openly because it is a debilitating disease. It's the kind of thing where in the final years the person doesn't recognize anyone around.

And knowing that the Reagans were able to go public with it, I think, has given many other people the strength to fight.

COOPER: All of us followed, of course that fight over the last ten years or so of Ronald Reagan's life. Ronald Reagan's body will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol in Washington beginning Wednesday night.

CNN congressional correspondent Ed Henry -- or Joe Johns is standing by with more on the preparations from Washington -- Joe. Oh, I'm sorry, Ed Henry is standing by -- Ed.

(CROSSTALK)

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're expecting about 100,000 people to file past the flag-draped coffin of Ronald Reagan. Beginning on Wednesday night, the Capitol will be open all night Wednesday leading to Thursday and then for another 24 hours leading overnight Thursday into Friday morning.

There was a memo distributed today by congressional officials to all senators. A private memo that revealed that this state funeral is now going to be referred to as a national security special event. That's an important destination. That gives the Capitol Police and federal law enforcement officials, puts them on a higher state of alert.

There's obviously going to be metal detectors. There also will be searches as you were talking about that are going on in California. They will be occurring here in the Capitol as well. You can also expect that visitors who pass the coffin will not allowed to be taking photographs. Also, as I mentioned, there will be searches.

And in about 30 minutes from now, all tours of the Capitol are going to shut down for the rest of the week. This way the Capitol itself can be secured.

While all that planning is going on behind closed doors by officials, senators are coming back into town and giving speeches on the Senate floor. A very emotional tribute started today. We expect them all week. Here's what Senator Elizabeth Dole had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH DOLE (R), NORTH CAROLINA: There is no doubt in my mind that President Reagan was welcomed into the gates of heaven with open arms. With the words, well done, good and faithful servant. Well done indeed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Anderson, the House was supposed to deal with an energy bill this week. The Senate was supposed to deal with a defense bill. Obviously two pressing matters. But most law makers are saying they're expecting most if not all of this legislative business to be scrapped this week so all that all of the attention could be on this historic state funeral -- Anderson.

COOPER: Ed Henry, thanks very much for that. And of course all eyes will be turning to Washington when President Reagan's body is flown there early Wednesday morning.

WOODRUFF: Anderson, I think just about everybody agreed that Ronald Reagan gets so much of the credit for helping to end the Cold War and thereby changing geopolitics of this world. His effect on the political arena was clearly significant.

He not only reshaped the Republican Party, but he helped to reshape politics itself. We get a little more on that part of story from CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Here's one of Ronald Reagan's achievements he never talked about. Reagan created the gender gap. It's still there.

Before 1980, men and women voted pretty much alike. Then when Reagan became the Republican standard barer, men rushed to his support. Women were reluctant. Why? R. REAGAN: Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

SCHNEIDER: Reagan believed in risk taking, huge tax cuts, and competition, deregulation and bold new ventures. "Star Wars."

Men go for risk taking and competition. Women tend to be more risk adverse. Despite his assurances, women feared Reagan would shred the safety net. They were also put off by his sometimes aggressive posture in world affairs.

The gender gap has become a permanent feature of American politics. The 2000 election was really two competing landslides, a landslide for George W. Bush among men, a landslide for Al Gore among women. Why? Same reasons, the Democrat promised to protect the safety net.

AL GORE, FRM. VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's just wrong for seniors to have to choose between food and medicine while the big drug companies run up record profits.

SCHNEIDER: While the Republican mocked the Democrat for being timid and risk averse.

GEORGE W. BUSH (R), 2000 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If my opponent had been at the moon launch, it would have been a risky rocket scheme.

SCHNEIDER: Here's another gap Reagan created. These days one of the biggest difference in American politics is between church going and non-church going Americans. The religious gap. In 2000, regular church goers went strongly for Bush. Less religious voters were for Gore.

That, too, started with Reagan. He was the first candidate to make a political appeal to religious voters. They felt threatened by activist federal judges and their rulings on abortion, school prayer, gay rights, evolution and pornography.

R. REAGAN: Those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom and open mindedness. Question: isn't the real truth, that they are intolerant of religion?

SCHNEIDER: Religion has become a major part of Republican ideology.

BOB WOODWARD, "WASHINGTON POST": Clearly religion plays a big role in Bush's life. He did say, when I asked about his father, he said, in terms of finding strength, "I appeal to a higher father," meaning God. And when he ordered war, he prayed, and he prayed that he be a good messenger of God's will.

SCHNEIDER: And since Reagan, a major source of division in American politics.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SCHNEIDER: There's one gap Reagan cannot claim responsibility for. The racial gap. Lyndon Johnson brought African-Americans into the Democratic party and it was Richard Nixon who used his southern strategy to give the GOP its southern white base -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: But for sure, we know that gender gap is still with us. The current polls show George W. Bush doing better among men and John Kerry doing better among women. One, just one of a number of Ronald Reagan's lasting legacies.

COOPER: Well, the nation's final farewell to Ronald Reagan will last all week. The former president's body lies in repose in California for the rest of today and all day tomorrow. Up to 60,000 people are expected to file past the casket. On Wednesday, it's going to be flown to Washington, arriving in the late afternoon. A funeral procession will bring it to the U.S. Capitol. At 7:00 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, there will be a ceremony at the Capitol then all night Wednesday as well as all day Thursday, the former president will lie in state in the Capitol rotunda. On Friday, the casket will be taken from the Capitol to the National Cathedral for a funeral service.

Ronald Reagan will then come back home. He will be flown back to California, arriving in time for a private burial service at sunset at the Reagan Library he and Nancy Reagan loved so much. Our coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: We're here, live coverage of the ceremony and now the public viewing of the casket of Ronald Reagan, that flag-draped casket. We'll be seeing that casket through this entire week, two days here in California, followed by 2 1/2 days in Washington and then back here to California. Our next guest -- I'm Judy Woodruff here with Anderson Cooper -- our next guest was the chairman of the powerful House ways and means committee when newly elected President Ronald Reagan presented his first tax package. Former Illinois Congressman Don is in Chicago to do a little reminiscing. Daniel Rostenkowski, your political philosophies couldn't have been more different. What was it like dealing with this man who had such strong views about taxes so different from yours?

DANIEL ROSTENKOWSKI, FMR. U.S. REP.: Judy, I don't think our philosophy was different. I think Reagan, after having graduated with a two-term service in California realized that in order to govern, you have to show some progress. Reagan came to Washington and brought certainly new ideas, but had tunnel vision about taxes, he thought that we were being taxed too high and the one thing he was going to do was lower the marginal rates and clean it up and clean up the code.

I felt the same way. And a remarkable meeting that I had with him, when we started to work on the '86 tax bill, probably in '85, I said to him, I said, "Mr. President, how serious are you about this tax bill?" I mean, because, you know, at the time, if you'll remember correctly, the Republicans weren't too enthusiastic about changing the code. He says, "I'm -- Dan, I'm darn serious about this." I said, "well, if you're serious and I can do something in the House, I want at least an understanding with you, that you will not criticize the bill until it's completed." He looked at me, said, "what do you mean by that?"

I said, "Well, Mr. President, if you start to analyze the bill and criticize it by paragraph, members of Congress will find excuses not to support it, and the support that you want for it will dwindle." I said, "I'd like to get a commitment from you that you won't say a thing about this tax bill until it's completed." He called Don Regan in. Don Regan was then his executive officer, and he said, "I just made a deal with Dan Rostenkowski here and I think he's got a good idea. Maybe I shouldn't say anything about the tax bill until it's completed." Judy, that was clever of Ronald Reagan, because Ronald Reagan wasn't a detail man. He looked at the big picture and he looked at the overpicture. So, on several occasions, when the press were analyzing the bill, he would say, "no, I made a commitment to the chairman I wasn't going to say anything about the bill."

The nice thing about that, is when I shook his hand, I knew I shook hands with an honorable man who, when giving his word, would stand by it. If there is anything that I admired about Ronald Reagan, and I say this respectfully, if he understood what you wanted to do and he agreed with you, you didn't have a better friend.

COOPER: Congressman, we have heard today from so many people who have said even though they might have disagreed with President Reagan, they found it almost impossible not to like the man. I'm sensing from what you said, the same feeling. Did it make it more difficult in some ways to disagree with him, when personally, you liked him?

ROSTENKOWSKI: Well, I think that the disagreements would come only when the media would start analyzing and saying things about the legislation that, in my opinion, weren't accurate. But Reagan never attacked me, at least, through the media. He would call and ask a question and then I would have to go to the White House and I would explain it to him. Reagan wanted to pass the tax bill. He wanted to write legislation. As a matter of fact, Anderson, I said to the president, because we're both from Illinois, I said, "Mr. President, do you want to make some history? We can write some pretty good tax law if we work together." And he says, "oh, absolutely, Dan, I'm very serious about this."

It was from that point on that I found that I had a friend. You know, Ronald Reagan, when Mrs. Reagan, when Nancy Reagan would go to California, he'd have about seven or eight of us over to the White House. And the ticket to the dinner party was bring a joke. I want to tell you something, Judy, Ronald Reagan is the best storyteller I've ever heard. He can tell a joke. These were -- it was kind of a bachelor dinner, too, so you can imagine some of the jokes weren't truly -- were truly colored.

COOPER: Well, we don't want to get in trouble with the FCC or anything. Congressman Rostenkowski, thank you so much for being with us today.

WOODRUFF: Hard to believe this man talking about Ronald Reagan and telling jokes is the same man who had, you know, liberal Democrat, they came at it from very different perspectives, coming together in the humanity.

COOPER: And that sense of humor is something we've heard so many people talk about Ronald Reagan, over and over again, his ability to poke fun at things but also himself as well.

WOODRUFF: No question. Our coverage continues. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: The mourners are paying their respects to the late president in public viewings here in California and, of course, in Washington all this week. In the Midwest, mourners are paying a special visit to the Ronald Reagan Museum at the President's alma mater, Eureka College. CNN's Jonathan Fried is in Eureka, Illinois -- Jonathan.

JONATHAN FRIED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Anderson.

COOPER: We're clearly having some audio problems with Jonathan. We'll try to go back to him.

WOODRUFF: You've got to tell that story you just told me about why Reagan went to Eureka College.

COOPER: Well, he went to Eureka College because he was in love with a young woman named Margaret and she was going there...

WOODRUFF: A minister's daughter.

COOPER: A minister's daughter and he went to Eureka College because she was going there and when he drove her there, he went straight to the admissions office and basically pleaded for a scholarship which he got. They took a gamble on him. He was known as "Dutch" (ph) on campus. But then Margaret went off for a year overseas, fell in love with a French guy and wrote a letter back that broke Ronald Reagan's heart.

WOODRUFF: These are the stories that you find when you look into this...

COOPER: He also said a quote I love he said about Eureka. He said, "as far as I'm concerned everything good that has happened to me, everything started here on this campus." He said that in 1980.

WOODRUFF: He is still held with enormous fondness in Eureka. There was a church service there yesterday and you could tell this is someone beloved in that community. Well, different angle here, Wall Street has its own tribute for President Reagan throughout the week. We're going to go there live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: Thank you for joining us for this special look back at the life and the career of the 40th president of the United States. His remains lying in repose just behind us at the Reagan Library in California. I'm Judy Woodruff.

COOPER: And I'm Anderson Cooper. Thanks very much for joining us. "CROSSFIRE" starts right now.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired June 7, 2004 - 13:51   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, Miles. I'm here with Anderson, sitting not too far from the library where a color guard is waiting. And we've been told that the motorcade, as you've been saying, is just minutes away.
Anderson, I have not had a chance before today to visit this library. This clearly is a day like no other for this building that was put together to recognize his presidency.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: It's a remarkable sight, actually. One doesn't get a sense of quite how large it is. it's on dozens of acres in Simi Valley.

The library was founded in 1991. And as Ronald Reagan was often quick to point out with private funds, not with government money, part of the presidential library system.

But the hearse is just few minutes away, we are told. It will drive up just behind us here, go to the library there where as you see on the left hand side of your screen, an honor guard is waiting. Representatives from each branch of the service. From the Marines, from the Navy, from the Coast Guard, from the Army, from the Air Force, all there representing all branches of service out of respect for the former president.

WOODRUFF: And this is a ceremony, Anderson, that has been in the works for some time. The planning for this funeral has been under way literally for years.

I think it's that case that they expanded the time that Ronald Reagan's body would lie in repose here because frankly they wanted to move everything in Washington back a day to accommodate the G-8 summit with not only President Bush but other world leaders meeting down in Georgia. And in order to do that, they had to move everything back. And I think the body will be lying in repose a day longer than they had originally planned.

It will come here this morning, California time. Be here all day today, all day tomorrow. And then Wednesday morning flying back to Washington.

COOPER: And one of the most remarkable things -- and as we've been following the hearse all along as it moves down the freeway, I'm not sure if you can tell so much by the pictures, but people all along that ways have been coming out, people the sides of the highway. As I drove up to this site about an our or so ago, there was a grouping of people outside the entrance to the library. They are waiting with signs. They just wanted to be here to be part of it, to witness not only history, but to also pay their respects.

And there are family there with very small children. It is very moving as you drive across these roads, as you follow the hearse, to see all the people who have come out and who are pausing out of respect.

WOODRUFF: And it is an outpouring the likes of which we really have not seen. We talked earlier about comparing it to the funeral of John F. Kennedy.

Of course that was different because he was a president assassinated in office. Ronald Reagan left office a number of years ago, and he's been out of sight for the last ten years or more. We have not seen him at all.

And I think that in a way that has almost added to the Reagan -- the aura of Ronald Reagan because he has been someone we haven't seen.

COOPER: It's also interesting, the sort of generational range of the people who have come out to see him. I mean, you have a lot of people -- you know, Ronald Reagan, the oldest president elected office, he was 69 years old when he took over, celebrated a birthday soon after that.

But there were so many young people who were really drawn to what they called the Reagan Revolution, so many people in their early 20s. I talked to Dinesh D'Souza yesterday, CNN analyst, who was part of that, in his 20s, went to Washington following Reagan.

Even though he was an older president, the oldest president, his appeal really did cross over generations.

WOODRUFF: And I think in that way you can compare him to John F. Kennedy.

We've mentioned several times that it's been about 30 years since the last president lay in state at the United States Capitol. That of course was Lyndon Johnson.

But I think, again I keep going back to the parallels with Kennedy because even though he was a president who died in office under very horrific circumstances, there is a -- almost a cult around this president.

And as you said, an entire generation who really got interested in politics for different reasons. I mean, people came into the, you know, followed John Kennedy for one set of reasons, they followed Ronald Reagan because his idea of smaller government and fighting communism appealed at that time.

COOPER: Absolutely. WOODRUFF: It was something that had been building strength since Barry Goldwater in the early '60s. Ronald Reagan didn't come into his own until almost 20 years later. But he was the embodiment of that once he reached the White House.

COOPER: And even those who didn't agree with his politics, didn't agree with his message or his plans often couldn't help but like him. I mean he was a man who not only had a great humor, a willingness to sort of poke fun at himself as much as anything else.

And really seemed to enjoy himself in the White House. I mean, there's authors who did quotes of his -- we see some movement there from the Honor Guard as the hearse gets closer.

But people -- when Ronald Reagan was at the White House he enjoyed himself. He liked the role. He liked the office. I remember him talking about seeing photographs of other presidents sort of slumped down and he'd sort of reference the isolation of the Oval Office. He really had none of that.

WOODRUFF: And he had that wonderful quote toward the end of his presidency where he said, "Nobody ever said you could die from overwork, but I'm not going to take the risk." I mean he was somebody who sought balance in his life. Absolutely he worked hard. Absolutely he did his homework.

But he also took time to, as you say, enjoy life and to see, you know, to see the funny, the quirky side of things.

COOPER: Well I remember hearing -- Michael Deaver talked yesterday on the television about him. And telling an incident where he had given the president his schedule for the next three months. And the president said to Michael Deaver, "I don't see any ranch time on this schedule."

And Mr. Deaver said, "Well, you know, the press has sort of attacked you for going to the ranch so much." And he said, "I don't care. I don't care what they say. You know, I need to go to the ranch. It's going to help me live longer and that's what matters."

WOODRUFF: Well, you know, I covered the White House for the first couple of years of Reagan's presidency, Anderson. And his staff did fight constantly this perception that he wasn't a hard worker and that he didn't read broadly and so forth because it was out there that he was a delegator. He wasn't a hands-on kind of president.

But on the other hand he has so inspired the people around him. He did delegate. He gave them a reason to want to work hard for him. And in many ways, I think symbolized the kind of leader that Americans want in a president. They want someone who is strong, someone who stands by his beliefs.

And as you just said whether they agree or disagree with the philosophy, they want somebody who is going to make America proud, who's going to stand up and, you know, fight for this country. And that is the perception of Ronald Reagan. I'm here with Anderson Cooper at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. The motorcade carrying Nancy Reagan, other members of the family, her children, getting closer to the library.

And, Anderson, as I'm sitting here with you, we are a little bit in front of the driveway where Mrs. Reagan and the motorcade will come by. There's a flag, an American flag posted every few feet along the road. We can hear the helicopters.

COOPER: The motorcade obviously very close. The helicopters, which have been following the motorcade, flying now overhead, over us. The hearse will roll up this driveway. It's quite a long drive from the moment -- we're now seeing some of the vehicles.

WOODRUFF: I think this is the motorcade coming in. We're seeing highway patrol who are leading the way. They're pulling into the parking lot area where the news media are gathered. And there is a huge media collection here. And now we're seeing more of the motorcade coming in.

COOPER: And as you see now, that is the motorcade there, first driving up the driveway. As we said, it's a long, winding drive up this road to this library in Simi Valley, California, where Ronald Reagan will ultimately be laid to rest on Friday in a plot that has long been planned out that he and Mrs. Reagan picked out together.

There was some controversy at first as to whether or not they would be buried on this site. That was worked out. It was unanimously agreed upon by the local city council here, that it would be allowed, and Ronald Reagan will be laid to rest Friday.

WOODRUFF: You know, Anderson, this is a beautiful site. We are looking out over the mountains of Ventura County, and somebody said we're maybe 12, 15 miles from the ocean. I don't know the geography. Maybe...

COOPER: On a clear day from the burial site, they say you can see the ocean.

WOODRUFF: From here, which has to be part of the reason that this site was chosen by Mrs. Reagan and President Reagan and others. He was part of the decision making when all this came about a number of years ago.

It is overcast here in Southern California today. I think very much in keeping with the mood. Somebody said to me, well, this is what you have every morning here. It's the ocean haze that rolls in and sometimes gets burned off and sometimes it doesn't.

COOPER: They are anticipating thousands of people really to come over the next 24 hours, 48 hours, to view, pay their respects, pay their condolences to the president, to the family.

WOODRUFF: Mrs. Reagan is riding in one car with the two children she and Ronald Reagan had together, Ron Reagan and Patty Davis. And in the car behind them is -- I'm looking at -- is security, but then there is what they are calling a family limo with Michael Reagan, who was the son of Ronald Reagan and his first wife.

COOPER: Adopted by Jane Wyman.

WOODRUFF: Here we go right now. This is the motorcade coming, approaching the library.

COOPER: The honor guard standing in anticipation waiting, as they have been. The hearse is now passing us by. Draped in the American flag, you can see through the window Ron Reagan Jr. looking out at the press corps.

This is just the beginning of a week-long remembrance, a week- long reflection in celebration of the life of Ronald Reagan. He will lay in repose here after a private ceremony. We believe over the next hour or so, there will be this private ceremony, then the public around noon Pacific Time will be allowed in a very controlled way to come in -- no cameras, no bags. They will be bussed in, in individual buses; thousands of people over the next 48 hours anticipated to come to this site.

Ron Reagan Jr., Patty Davis, waiting for their mother to exit the limo.

WOODRUFF: I was saying, Anderson, in the limousine behind them is Michael Reagan, who was the son of Ronald Reagan and his first wife, Jane Wyman, and his family, and following them a limousine with the widower of Maureen Reagan. Of course, she was the daughter of Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman. She passed away of cancer not long ago. Her widower, Dennis Revell, and his fiance are in that car.

COOPER: Ronald Reagan of course died surrounded by his family, by Mrs. Reagan, by Patty Davis, by Ron Reagan Jr., a family which had really come together over these last several years, come together to care for the ailing president.

WOODRUFF: And a very small group of pallbearers selected. And some of those pallbearers are here, Charles Wick, the California businessman, longtime confidante of Ronald Reagan. I talked with Charles Wick's son, Doug Wick, this morning, and he said his father and mother were just devastated by Ronald Reagan's passing, even as they know in many ways a relief because of the suffering that he had been through with Alzheimer's for the last 10 years.

Also, among the pallbearers and among those you see this morning -- Merv Griffin and Fred Ryan chief of staff.

We're going to listen in a little bit as this color guard prepares for the body of Ronald Reagan to be carried into the library here at Simi Valley.

(MUSIC)

REV. MICHAEL WENNING, BEL AIR PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: The Lord our God is in our midst. And as we were in the procession I couldn't help think of the love and outpouring that has begun in the nation for a great president, great world leader and a faithful servant of almighty God. And So we come to hear the words of love.

Jesus said heaven and earth that pass away, but my words that never pass away. Listen to hear the word of God. God is our refuge and strength, the very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the mountains shake and the heart of the sea, tho its waters roar and foam, and though the mountains tremble with its tumult, be still, and know that I am God.

I am exulted among the nations. I am exalted in the earth. The Lord of host is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge.

And, Nancy, you will remember one time when we visited we shared the 23rd Psalm so let me read it again.

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters, He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies. He anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over. surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

The Lord Jesus Christ said, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Let us pass from death unto life."

And as I was looking as you were looking at all the outpouring of love, I just felt this wonderful verse that we needed to share. What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or nakedness or distress or persecution or famine or sword?

Know in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, no height or depth shall be able to separate us from the love of god which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And finally, just a few versus from the last book of the bible where the Apostle John has been condemned to the Island of Patmos, and he has a vision of a new heaven and the new earth. And he writes these words which I share with you for your comfort as you begin this journey of remembrance.

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for a husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, See, the dwelling of God is with people. He will dwell with them and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away."

And may God bless His rich work for your hearts this day and every day.

Please join with me in prayer.

Eternal and almighty God, as we have begun this day to honor the life of Your servant, Ronald Reagan, I would pray especially for his dear family.

I pray, oh Lord God, would You give them an extra strength, a sense of Your peace and Your comfort, through the many greetings and the many miles which they must travel from one coast to our nation's capital.

I pray You would grant them sleep at night, a refreshing of tired bodies and weary spirits. May they be rejuvenated each day and greeted knowing that You are their strength, their Lord, and their righteousness.

Grant, oh Lord God, that our hearts will be deeply moved and touched by the wonderful memories of this very special human being. Thank You for the partnership that he and Nancy have shared together for the wonderful example that they have been to us all.

And to the nation, grant, oh Lord God, that you would be with their family, be we pray with Patti and Michael and Ron and their loved ones.

Be with us as the nation, oh Lord God, for truly Your word tells us if one suffers we all suffer together, and we have come this day to begin the preparation of our final respect, we thank You that this world is a better place because he was here.

And we thank You for the pride that he instilled for remember minding us of the great nation that under Your guidance we are. And may Your peace go with us from this place, touching every heart.

For we ask these things as we pray the prayer that you have taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done as earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptations but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

WOODRUFF: A striking picture of Patti Davis sitting next to her mother with her arm on her mother's lap. That connection, that crucial connection that this family is a family that's come together. Ron Reagan sitting next to Patti. Michael Reagan there, son of Ronald Reagan and his first wife Jane Wyman. COOPER: A family which has really come together, as you said, over the last several years, over these last dark difficult years as Ronald Reagan has done his last journey.

WOODRUFF: And missing, of course, the daughter, another daughter, Maureen Reagan who passed away just over a year ago.

COOPER: Who during the time they were in the White House was often in the White House with a well-known figure at that time.

WOODRUFF: Outspoken. She disagreed with her father on the question of abortion, of choice. And she was quite outspoken about it.

The minister we heard is from the Presbyterian Bel Air Church. This is a church in Bell Air, in the Los Angeles suburbs where the Reagans came to live after his presidency. And we've been hearing today that the Reagans attended that church, pretty regularly after they came back to California before the former president became ill.

At 82 years of age, Nancy Reagan really has been the pillar of strength holding this family together. But more than anything, Anderson, supporting her husband as he made that long journey into the darkness.

From 1994 when it was revealed to the world that he had Alzheimer's, she has been the public face of Ronald Reagan. We have not seen him publicly since then. And she has carried that burden. She has been -- you know, we hear the term caregiver. She has been the caregiver extraordinaire.

COOPER: She really has at that.

I want to read from the last letter Ronald Reagan wrote in 1994. November 5, 1994. That letter, that handwritten note that he made very public in which he announced Alzheimer's. I'm just going to read to you the closing two paragraphs.

"In closing let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave you with the greatest love for this country for ours and eternal optimism for its future.

"I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."

WOODRUFF: And at the time he wrote that letter, no one could have possibly known that it would be ten years later -- that was in January of 1994. Here we are ten and a half years later, almost. And Ronald Reagan is beginning what the minister called a journey of remembrance that will allow the nation to celebrate the life of this extraordinary man and to pay the respects on both coasts.

Here in California for the next day and a half and then in Washington, D.C., the city where he served as president, for two days. I'm sorry -- yes, for two days. And then come back to California on Friday where he will return to this library and his final resting place.

COOPER: The journey of remembrance continues for a man who has entire life made an extraordinary journey from the small apartment above a bank in Tampico, Illinois.

Born into a poor family. His father, mother, hardworking, sometimes unemployed. They moved round a lot from that small town in Illinois, growing up in Dixon, Illinois, coming to Hollywood, finally to the corridors of power at the White House.

Ronald Reagan will finally at the end of this week on Friday return home to California, his beloved state, where he will be finally laid to rest.

WOODRUFF: And it really was an extraordinary American life. It was the -- you know, we talk about the America story.

You can hear state patrol motorcycles in the background where Anderson and I are sitting.

It was the classic American story. A boy grows up, as Anderson said, in a family with very little. There are all the stories about his father having been an alcoholic but his mother now was the one who encouraged him and lifted him up.

COOPER: And also introduced him to the theater and really sort of got...

WOODRUFF: That's right.

COOPER: ... sparked his acting bug. And one of the -- so many great little details about the life of Ronald Reagan. When he first moved to Hollywood and first became successful and started making money, one of the first things he did is brought his parents out here as well as his brother out there. And he moved them out here where his parents spent the rest of their lives.

WOODRUFF: And somewhere along the way -- I mean, we know that he worked in radio. He found his way to Hollywood after a couple of different jobs. But somewhere along the way growing up he developed that extraordinary optimism that all of us associate with Ronald Reagan today, and that even his political opponents, even the people who disagree with his philosophy, John Kerry seized on that in the statement that he made.

He said, no matter what anyone thinks of the policies of Ronald Reagan, this was a man with an optimism that was infectious, that captured the imagination of an American people. The car carrying Nancy Reagan and family members has now pulled away from the Reagan Library. And the remains of Ronald Reagan will lie in state until Wednesday morning with a ceremonial color guard surrounding him.

These -- we are told these are troops who have flown out to California from Washington, D.C. They are part of what is called the Military District of Washington. They represent the Army, the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard. And there will be a changing of the guard every 30 minutes, Anderson.

COOPER: It is a very public occasion, of course, and yet there have been very private moments. We just saw Nancy Reagan as she approached the casket, the flag-draped coffin, putting her head down for a moment on the American flag, stroking the American flag, as the reverend did there as well.

A very private moment, of course, for a family that has been both public and private these last few years, more and more private. Nancy Reagan still keeping somewhat of a public schedule, making speeches. Just about a month or so ago in an event she did say that her husband had reached a point where he was beyond her, even her.

It is extraordinary when you think that they have been married for 52 years. She has said -- I think she said on "LARRY KING" about two years ago that they completed each other. And it is hard, I think, for those who know her, those who know the family, to imagine one without the other.

WOODRUFF: It really is. And I had interviewed Michael Deaver for a report, a piece that I did on Ronald Reagan not too long ago. And he talked about not even the children could get -- that bond was so close and so tight between Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan, that extraordinary marriage.

And you know, it has been said, but I'll say it again, at a time when marriages kind of come and go in this country and we hear about politicians straying from marriage, this was a marriage -- it was his second marriage but this was a marriage that lasted. And it was something, I think, that everyone admired. There were issues with the children, they have had -- the children have kept their distance in some ways. But as we have just seen, Ron Reagan, Patti Davis, and also in the group, Michael Reagan.

COOPER: And through it all, no matter what happened in the presidency and the years after, Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan had each other. The family, as you said, at times had differences, estrangement, and yet those two together were inseparable. One can only imagine her pain at this time.

WOODRUFF: And it's -- you know, you look at the -- and also at the ceremony of this, I don't think any of us can overstate how tricky, how complicated it is to put together a series of events such as what we're going to see unfold this week. Every day of this week, ceremony, here in Simi Valley, and then later in the week in Washington. The caisson that will be drawn by horses through the streets of Washington. Lying in state at the Capitol. Then the funeral at the National Cathedral. All of this very carefully orchestrated for the American public.

But combining with it, Anderson, as you were just saying, letting the family mourn at the same time. And you know, they are in a position where they have had time to prepare for this, they have known this day was coming. They didn't know exactly when, of course, but they have had time to think about this, to think about how they were going to say their good-byes. And I know I have talked to Nancy Reagan about this in recent years. I know they welcomed -- the family welcomed the idea that they were going to be able to say good-bye in a way they could control.

COOPER: I remember earlier you were talking about Ronald Reagan's optimism. There was a quote that he wrote in his high school yearbook that I love that I think shows that even from a very young age that optimism was there. And it's sort of inexplicable, because, I mean, he did grow up in very difficult circumstances. I think at one point he said he wasn't born on the wrong side of the tracks, but he was awfully close, he could hear the train whistle. And his high school motto, it said, "life is just one sweet song, so let the music begin." And I think he had that spirit, that sense really throughout his days.

WOODRUFF: And Americans want that. I think what we've learned is that through thick and thin and the 43 presidents we have had, modern America, in any event, Americans want a president who can give them a reason to look up, no matter how tough times are. And Ronald Reagan gave them that. So even -- again, even those who may not have agreed with every one of his policies, they could see that this is someone who appealed to their better angels, which I think was another line that he used.

COOPER: And as you see the honor guard still around the casket as they will be as Ronald Reagan lies in repose, we anticipate within the hour the public starting to come up here, starting to be allowed now that the family has left. Standing by in Washington for us, Robert Dallek, presidential historian, also the author of "Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism."

Robert, as you look at these images, what goes through your mind?

ROBERT DALLEK, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I am struck by your commentary. And I share your feeling that Reagan was an extraordinarily buoyant personality. And I think the mystery of -- this comes to him growing up so poor, circumstances in the 1930s. And I think he probably took his cue from Franklin Roosevelt, who, as we all know, was extraordinarily upbeat about America, about the country's prospects despite the terrible depression that passed through in the 1930s.

And you know, he borrowed -- Reagan borrowed from FDR the idea that he should begin as president giving radio talks on Saturday mornings. And of course, that was an original FDR idea, the Fireside Chats. And of course, presidents continue to do it to this day.

And so I think part of the spirit that Reagan brought to the presidency, the buoyancy, the sort of upbeat mood was in part a legacy from FDR. And of course, he was -- Reagan was, a committed New Dealer early on in his career. And the fact that he shifted politics, however, didn't mean that he lost this perspective that a president needed to be a positive optimistic leader. WOODRUFF: Robert Dallek, have we seen -- when was the last time we have seen this sort of ceremony around the death of a president, a former president? I mean, he's been out of office 15 1/2 years.

DALLEK: Yes.

WOODRUFF: And we -- as we have been saying, we haven't seen him in person for a decade. When have we seen this kind of ceremony on both coasts and extending over this many days?

DALLEK: Well, you nobody, Judy, it is extraordinary because when there was the public ceremony surrounding Lyndon Johnson's passing, he had been out of office for only four years and gone back to Texas. He was in the public eye somewhat, not a great deal. But I think what this speaks to is the extraordinary continuing hold that Reagan has on the country's imagination.

As both of you were saying, there is a kind of spirit that he continues to convey to the country. You know what I have been impressed by in watching the coverage of his passing over the last couple of days is the extent to which the country is sad, people are mourning, but I think they are also inspirited because we have been through so much acrimony over the last few years in our politics.

And there has been such a sort of sour mood about politics. And John McCain talks about the cynicism which has entered into it. And I think the public embraces Reagan again as the sort of thing they would much prefer, which is an upbeat, positive, outlook on politics and the society and the country's future.

And so I think that this ceremony which we're seeing now is a kind of fulfillment of the mood that Reagan left behind when he left office in 1989 but continued to exist to this day.

COOPER: Robert Dallek, we'll come back to you shortly. Let's go -- Thelma Gutierrez is standing by in Moore Park (ph) nearby where people have begun to gather, people have started to get onto buses so that they can come up and pay their respects to the president. Thelma, what is it like down there?

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, the first shuttle left a few minutes ago. I can tell you this is a very massive undertaking. This is a spot, as you had mentioned, where the shuttles are actually loading people. Before the public actually loads the shuttles they have to go through a very rigorous screening process.

You can see the canopies that are set up right behind me, Secret Service here are checking bags, wanding people. Then they begin to board one of two dozen shuttles which will run continuously through midnight tomorrow.

Now a long line has formed out here at the college, hundreds of people have brought lawn chairs. Some who camped out through the night actually have brought blankets. And some of the people in that line told me they came as far away as New York City to the east and Arizona to the west. They told us they wanted to pay tribute to President Reagan and to show their support for his family, also, to be a part of a historical event. The first man in that line, Anderson, told me he arrived at midnight last night. There you can see the very long line of people waiting to board the shuttles.

There will be two dozen buses out here. They will move 2000 people an hour. They are expecting between 45,000 and 60,000 people over two days. And in that line, we have seen young, old, we have seen people in wheelchairs and even a few military people, a couple of Marines in their dress blues -- Anderson.

COOPER: Thelma, you were saying some 45,000 to 60,000 people over the course of these next hours. Remarkable testament I think to the love that so many people have still to this day for Ronald Reagan even though, as Judy has said, he's been out of office now for quite some time and out of the public eye for quite some time.

Have you talked to people down there, Thelma? Are they people who lived through the Reagan years? Or are they people who sort of came to know him as they -- as he left office?

GUTIERREZ: Well, Anderson, you know, the responses have been varied. We talked to one woman who said that she actually felt a connection to the president when it was announced that he had Alzheimer's. After all, she said, her mother had Alzheimer's as well.

So she felt a very personal connection there. Then we talked to other folks who said they had been following his career since his acting days, people who were senior citizens. Talked to others who were just children who said that they had just heard about Ronald Reagan and that they had heard about him from their parents. That they felt this need to be here alongside their parents. So the responses have been varied out here.

COOPER: Thelma Gutierrez, we'll come back to you shortly. A lot to cover, a lot to talk about in these next several hours -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: That's right. For the last few minutes we've been watching as the body of Ronald Reagan was brought to the library here in Simi Valley, California. And a place where it will lay in rest for the next few days. We're going to talk in just a minute, Anderson, with someone who wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan, Dana Rohrabacher. He is now a congressman from California. But he was right inside the White House for some of the most critical moments of the Reagan. We'll be back with that in just a moment as our live coverage of Ronald Reagan's journey of remembrance continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: A little over half an hour ago this was the scene here at the Reagan Library, Simi Valley, California, as the flag-draped casket carrying the body of Ronald Reagan brought into the library, former first lady Nancy Reagan, prominent among those, small group who came with Ronald Reagan where he will lie in repose for two days and then return here Friday to the place that will be his final resting place.

COOPER: An honor guard from Washington flown up especially for this, honor guards representing each of the branches of service, Marines, the Navy, the Air Force, the Army, the Coast Guard. Each will stand watch over the next two days.

Ronald Reagan lies here in repose at this library, this library he loved so much. It was founded and opened up in 1991, where all the documents from the Reagan years are stored, will be studied over the years. Several thousand people, they are anticipating 45,000 to 60,000 people will file past this coffin over the next two days as Ronald Reagan begins what the minister today called "journey of remembrance."

WOODRUFF: Some of those people standing in line waiting until -- since midnight last night to get a chance to come to pay their respects. We're going to start to see some of them in just a few minutes. This, again, is the scene that played out just a little more than half an hour ago as the honor guard placed the flag-draped casket carrying the body of Ronald Reagan in the place where it will stay for the next two days.

We -- as we know, the body of Ronald Reagan will go on Wednesday, Anderson, from here to Washington where there will be even more thousands of mourners who will pay their respects to the late president as his body lies in state at the U.S. Capitol. Our Joe Johns, congressional correspondent, is there now.

Joe, maybe give us a sense of what lies in store in the next few days to come.

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Judy, it will be a fairly extraordinary week of tributes. We do expect the Congress as early as tomorrow to pass resolutions honoring the former president. We also expect a resolution essentially allowing the use of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda for the president's body to lie in state.

We do have some pictures just to give you an idea, file tape, of course, of what it looks like. It is, again, a pretty extraordinary scene in the United States Capitol, and an honor reserved only for a very few, very special Americans.

As you might expect, this week of tributes in Washington is going to bring along with it a great deal of security. We can show you a graphic to give you a sense of it. As it stands now, this has been designated a national security special event, that means heightened security, not just for the U.S. Capitol Police, who always guard this area, but also for the metropolitan Washington D.C. police, the Secret Service, a variety of others including the U.S. Park Police.

Now, we are told they have already canceled leave and told their officers not to put in for leave at least during this week. As well we're told they are supposed to be bringing down officers -- additional officers from New York to work the crowds.

A huge crowd, of course, is expected to file past the casket of the former president over a period that extends about 24 hours or so. This, again, is all because of security here in Washington, D.C. that will have so many police officers. As you know, the nation's capitol is a very different place from the way it was 30 years ago when such an event was last held, that, of course, being the funeral and the services for Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Judy, back to you.

WOODRUFF: All right, Joe Johns, thanks very much, at the Capitol. In a way, Anderson, I think what is going on here at the presidential library in Simi Valley, is a kind of rehearsal for that because this is lying in repose, that will be lying in state. This is a smaller version, I think, in a way of what we'll see in Washington.

COOPER: And of course, the president will return here on Friday for the final ceremony which they say will be around sunset Friday evening, a private ceremony as President Reagan is interred. We're joined now in Washington by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. He, of course, was a press secretary for Ronald Reagan in the 1976 and 1980 presidential campaign. He is actually, sorry, joining us from Los Angeles. He has also served as a speech writer under President Reagan.

Congressman, thanks for being with us today.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R), CALIFORNIA: That was assistant press secretary, by the way. I was assistant press secretary to Lyn Nofziger.

COOPER: I'm sorry. OK. As you heard the news of President Reagan's death, what first went through your mind?

ROHRABACHER: Well, you know what, I thought to myself, he hung on for so long, it was this long good-bye, and maybe there was so reason for it. And it's clear to me now the reason that he hung on, that God kept him alive for so long, was so that when he left, we would deeply appreciate and understand the significance of his contributions to America and to the world.

Had he died right after he left office, people still wouldn't have come to grips at that time with the overwhelming change that he had brought to this world and to our country. Now everyone is singing those accolades.

WOODRUFF: Congressman Rohrabacher, you were just reminding us, you not only worked as a speech writer you also worked in the press operation. What was it like trying to write for Ronald Reagan. Here was a man who wrote for himself for so long. What was that -- give us a little sense of what it was like?

ROHRABACHER: Well, first of all, Ronald Reagan was a terrific writer himself. I had never written a speech for anyone prior to going to the White House and been a journalist. And then I ended up writing speeches for Ronald Reagan. And I thought that -- he sat us down and taught us what he wanted in his speech and he did a lot of editing the first six months. Then, of course, we knew. I have a picture with me here, if you want to take a look at that. This is Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office and obviously telling us what -- conferring with the speech writers, that's me. I think that's over one of the radio addresses. And I have one other picture that might be of interest.

This is Ronald Reagan meeting with his speech writers. That's me in the light blue suit and the beard, I might add. And if you can notice, Ronald Reagan is telling us, he's making a point. He's telling us exactly what he wanted. And we learned how to write and communicate Reagan-style.

And he always said, be positive, talk about solutions, find good things to say about people that will inspire other people. And make sure you're talking about the fundamental principles that are guiding your decisions so people can have faith in what you're doing, as in good faith. And speak in a way that people can understand. And always tell a little funny story.

And he taught us all about it. He was -- and let me add, Reagan, you know, there's another picture here I'd like to share with you, a story. This is a picture, it was taken on Air Force One. And I remember this incident very well because this -- over on this side is Judge Clark who was the national security adviser at the time. And Judge Clark -- and we were preparing -- I was on Air Force One on a trip to California to prepare Reagan speeches that he would give on an upcoming swing through Latin America.

And Judge Clark had just told us that one of the leaders in Latin America was going to be very mean and nasty to Reagan when we landed and sort of belittle him in order to make him -- build himself up with this macho thing in Latin America. And I remember telling Reagan, look, I'll write a speech for us here, and you are going to have the material you need, you can cut the legs out from under this guy, beat him up in front of his people. He ain't going to be belittling us.

And Reagan went, oh, no, Dana, that's exactly the opposite of what we should do. We should be saying so many nice things about him. Praise him for everything that he has ever done. Learn the good things he has done and praise him and say nice things so he'll be embarrassed to say bad things about us. And you know, that's exactly what we did. That was his approach and it worked.

COOPER: Congressman, there were those at a time, especially early on in the Reagan years, who sort of said that the president really wasn't hands on. I think "TIME" called him 9 to 5 president, and yet that image seemed to change over time. People, and especially now have -- seemed to have more of an appreciation of just how involved he was in what came out of the Oval Office and in speeches and in speech writing. Talk a little bit about that as you saw it.

ROHRABACHER: He set the strategy. He didn't need to know all the details. And he knew if he got bogged down in the details like Jimmy Carter did -- Jimmy Carter was a fine person but he got so bogged down in the details he couldn't govern. Instead Ronald Reagan inspired people and set the long-term goals. And he understood that very well. And he was not -- but he was not going to be deterred from that strategy that he set down. For example, everyone singing his praises now about the "Tear Down the Wall" speech, which was one of the most significant addresses he gave because right up until the moment he got on the platform, all of his senior staff people were begging him not to say. "tear down the wall."

They were telling him it would reignite the Cold War. Only his speech writers -- Colin Powell gave him another speech two days before that and said, all of your senior advisers except your speech writers want you to give this speech instead. Reagan read it through, "tear down the wall" had been extracted and he looked up to Colin Powell and said, well, no, I think I'll use the one I've got, thank you.

And he changed history. And let me add, the day after that speech, we got some intelligence information that Gorbachev wasn't angry. He wasn't going to reignite the Cold War. Instead Gorbachev told his senior staff, oh my gosh, we've got to find a way to bring down the wall and save face, because once this guy Reagan grabs onto your leg like a dog, he ain't going to let go. And all of a sudden Reagan was the hero and of all the people who told him not to give the speech, some of them were -- claimed to have written the speech.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: Well, I know for you it was not only an honor to write speeches for the president, but probably an honor to have President Reagan deliver those speeches, because really no one gave a speech, delivered a speech like the "Great Communicator." Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, thanks very much for being on the program.

ROHRABACHER: Well, no other president -- I couldn't have written for any other president that would have done these things. Thank you.

COOPER: That is certainly true, Congressman, thank you. Our special coverage, "Reagan Remembered," continues in our next hour. We'll talk with former Attorney General Ed Meese. He served President Reagan, of course, as the attorney general, he will be our special guest. We will be right back.

WOODRUFF: And you have got to love a guest who brings his own visuals as Dana Rohrabacher. And we thank you him for that. Just a quick plug for our own "LARRY KING." Tonight his guest will be Gerald Ford -- former president Gerald Ford, and on Tuesday night his guest will be former President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush. We'll be right back with more coverage of Ronald Reagan's journey of remembrance.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: They come out of respect, out of gratitude to be a part of history. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole part about it is, is to be able to pay tribute to the greatest American that I think we ever had in the White House.

ANNOUNCER: It is the first day of public viewing of the flag- draped coffin of America's 40th President, Ronald Wilson Reagan. In this hour, we continue sharing some of the memories of his life and the reactions to his passing.

Now, more of our special report, "Remembering Ronald Reagan." Live from his presidential library in Simi Valley, California, Judy Woodruff and Anderson Cooper.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Welcome back on behalf of Anderson and me. It is noon here on the West Coast, where the first official service honoring and celebrating the life of Ronald Reagan has just concluded.

A short time from now, the former president's casket will be made availability for public viewing. In fact, there are buses that have pulled up in front of the library. And I think we are just seconds away from ordinary Americans being able to walk by and pay their final respects to the man, the President they admired so much, and I think many of them would sad they loved as a leader.

COOPER: There the honor guard executing a salute to the casket before the public begins to make their entrance. You can see people getting off the first bus. That is the first group of people here. They are anticipating anywhere from 45,000 to 60,000 people here over the next two days.

This picture, of course, less than an hour ago, Mrs. Reagan being brought in following the casket, the flag-draped coffin of her husband, then followed by Patti Davis, Ron Reagan, Michael Reagan. They sat as a minister delivered a short statement, spoke of this as a journey of remembrance, said that the country was better off for Ronald Reagan having been in this world.

WOODRUFF: The casket was placed at a position inside the library where the family could first pay its respects. And now, as we say, the public is starting to come in to say their good-byes to Ronald Reagan.

As Anderson was saying, it was really a ceremony mixing ceremony, mixing the kind of formal ceremony with a very private farewell. We all were watching as Nancy Reagan put her head down ever so briefly on this casket covered with the flag that holds the body of the man she loved so much, the man who was really her life. The man...

COOPER: Fifty-two years. I mean, it is just extraordinary.

WOODRUFF: Fifty-two years of marriage. Extraordinary.

COOPER: And a marriage which those who watched it up close, as you did when you were covering the White House, described as extraordinarily intimate. They had a bond which sometimes even to the exclusion of other members of their family, some have said, brought them together and kept them together. As she said, I think, on "LARRY KING" two years ago, they completed each other. Her life began, she said, "when she met Ronnie." I believe that's what she said.

WOODRUFF: It was very touching. I think now we are watching first members of the public. We presume many of them are Californians, but we are seeing one bus after another pull up now in front of the Reagan Library. And as Anderson said, the numbers expected to be 50,000 people, somewhere in that category. It's really impossible to predict. A lot of security around here, but we know that the affection for this man so great that a lot of people don't mind waiting hours in line, having to park their cars and ride a shuttle bud to get over to this library to say good-bye to someone they admired so much.

COOPER: They have to park their cars a distance from here in Moorpark. That's where CNN's Thelma Gutierrez is standing by.

Thelma, what is the scene there? Because we are already seeing many of the buses, the first people here coming to view President Reagan. What is it like where you are, Thelma?

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, the first seven shuttles have already left the parking lot here at Moorpark College. As you can imagine, security here is extremely tight. In fact, the media is being kept in one area, far away from the public, as they clear the screening process.

I want you to take a look right behind me at the canopies. This is where the Secret Service is screening some of the people who are going through. They are going through five metal detectors that are out here, they're checking backs. From there, you can see that there is a long line. They make their way to the shuttles, and then they begin their five-mile trip to the library.

Now, the line begins to form out here at about midnight. It started with just a few families. And then by daybreak, there were hundreds of people in the line.

They had brought pillows and blankets and lawn chairs. One woman told us that she's a New York Democrat who admired President Reagan. And the first man in line told us that he was here and he was not going to miss the opportunity to actually see the President. He arrived at midnight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We didn't get much sleep. But you know what? The whole part about it is, is to be able to pay tribute to the greatest American we've had in the White House.

GUTIERREZ: And you have been now waiting, sir, for how many hours?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What time is it? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is 10:00.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've been waiting for 11 hours.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The boys are tired. They got up at a quarter to five this morning to get a good position. And one is conked out and the other one is hanging on. So they just laid it all out and they made their own little area here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTIERREZ: And here you can see all the people who are waiting to board the shuttles that will be pretty much moving continuously for the next 48 hours. There are about two dozen buses, they're going to move 2,000 people an hour. And again, Anderson, they are expecting between 45,000 to 60,000 people to view the President and make their way toward the library.

Back to you.

COOPER: A somber day. Despite all those crowds, there is, of course, a somber mood here. People respectful, people quiet, filing past the casket, as you can see there. Something we will be watching now for the next 48 hours or so, until President Reagan is brought one final time to Washington, D.C., one final journey of remembrance there before being returned here to Simi Valley, to this library, where he will be laid to rest on a hill on Friday evening -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: We keep talking about the mix, Anderson, of solemnity with celebration of his life and what he meant to people. The historian, Robert Dallek, has been with us this morning and into the afternoon.

I want to ask you, Robert Dallek, you know, how do you account for the outpouring that we are beginning to see out here, and that I think we fully expect to see in Washington for Ronald Reagan? What was it about this man?

ROBERT DALLEK, HISTORIAN: Well, you know, the term "the great communicator," Judy, captures it all, says it all, because he came to the presidency after a period of what people at the time called malaise. Remember we passed through that Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson's credibility gap and Johnson's departure from the presidency under a terrible cloud. And then even more so, the cloud that covered Richard Nixon's presidency, a terrible situation with Watergate and the only President in the country's history to have resigned.

And Gerald Ford had that truncated presidency. Jimmy Carter a one-term presidency.

And so Reagan comes along and he recreates the kind of spirit, kind of hope, optimism about the country, about where it's going, the track it's on. And remember, during the Olympics in 1984, he says, "The pride is back, made in the USA." And I think that has been somewhat lost again over the last 15 or so years. And it still sticks with Reagan. It still attaches to him. And I think people see this as a moment when they can recreate that mood by remembering him and by celebrating his life and his presence.

WOODRUFF: How much do you think, Robert Dallek, Ronald Reagan, the affection that people feel, the extraordinary admiration, how much is that enhanced, do you believe, by the fact that he has been literally out of sight for the last 10 years?

DALLEK: Well, you know, there's something about one might say being (UNINTELLIGIBLE). It forms a slate on which you can write anything.

You know, I have written about John Kennedy, and Kennedy also has this extraordinary hold on the public's imagination. And he was President for only 1,000 days. But the fact that he was there such a brief time I think people can write on to his slate of his presidency almost anything they want.

And so over the last 10 years, Reagan was out of the public eye, he's not a controversial figure anymore. People can simply remember the positive things about him, and that's what they're doing now, rather than thinking about the controversies that swelled up during his presidential term, during his eight years.

For the last 10 years or so, they've been thinking about what a buoyant and attractive character he was. And now again it very much comes into focus with all the coverage of his passing.

COOPER: Robert, it is, of course, easy from this distance to sort of paint a very simple portrait of this man, but he was extraordinarily complex. Nancy Reagan herself has said -- and I'm paraphrasing her -- said, everybody sort of thinks he's sort of this easygoing guy, but he's actually very complex. And there was -- I have heard people who knew him talk about there was only a certain point that you reached, and beyond that you couldn't get. Talk about that a little.

DALLEK: Yes. You know, Anderson, the most successful presidents have really been sort of, in some ways, hidden characters. Edmund Morris tried to write a book -- or did write a book about Reagan. He was in the White House, had a chance to observe him up close. But I think he would be the first to say that he found it very difficult to get to know the man, to get past a certain friendliness, a certain charm, a certain amiability.

But there was a hidden Ronald Reagan. And this has been true, I think, of our most successful presidents. They understand that being president is a stage upon which you are acting, and that you have to be reserved in a certain way. You have to hold back.

And people -- there has to be some aura, some mystery about you. And Reagan had that. Franklin Roosevelt had that to a great extent.

Harold Ickes, who was the secretary of interior, used to tell the story that he said once to Roosevelt, "You are the dammed hardest man to work for." And Roosevelt said, "Why, because I'm so tough?" And Ickes said, "No, no, because you play your cards so close to the vest."

Well, I think that's what most effective presidents do. They are not so open with people.

Who really new Reagan that well? Even his closest advisers. That was true for Kennedy, too. People like Ted Sorenson and others have said they didn't know him all that well. And people close to Roosevelt, like Harry Hopkins, they didn't have a clear feel for what exactly -- was going on in the man's mind. So I think this is part of a pattern with presidents.

COOPER: Robert, we are watching people filing past the coffin now. We have received word that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is here, Judy. We haven't seen him yet, though, have we?

WOODRUFF: We have not. We were told he would be here at about this time. And so we of course will expect him to pass by, along with his wife, Maria Shriver.

It's interesting, as Robert Dallek talks about how important that little bit of mystery and that distance is in the success of our political leaders to have Arnold Schwarzenegger coming through. I think you are watching in this newly-elected governor of California somebody who watched Ronald Reagan very closely and who, I think, in many ways, has tried to keep that blend of, yes, I will tell you a little bit about my life, but you're not going to know everything. That was very much the case of Ronald Reagan.

We have seen in this country -- you know, we live at a time when everything is out there. You know, we've got television around the clock, radio. You know, you've got people, reporters who are happy to write about every aspect of your life trying to carve out a little bit of privacy and trying to keep a zone of privacy, I think none other than Hillary Clinton maybe coined that phrase. But trying to keep something private and something mysterious is -- and out of public view, is harder than ever, ever before. And I think that's why we make note of it as something that Ronald Reagan, and as Robert said, FDR and a few others were able to do.

COOPER: And there were those who, during the Reagan years of the White House, who said that the president was distant and remote. And I think it was probably Nancy Reagan in large part who felt very protective of her husband and felt the need to create those zones of privacy and those times when it was just them, and the times of beyond just the public face of the president giving time for the man, and for them as a couple.

WOODRUFF: All right. We are continuing to watch the public walk by to pay their final respects at the flag-draped casket bearing the remains of Ronald Reagan.

The men and women who represent Americans in the Congress are also pausing today to remember the nation's 40th president. We're going to get a little reaction to Ronald Reagan's passing from Capitol Hill when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: The governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, paying his respects with his wife, Maria Shriver, at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, paying his respects to the late President Ronald Reagan.

COOPER: Governor Schwarzenegger a man who has had his own distinctly American journey from Austria, of course, to Hollywood, where he's become a huge superstar, to the corridors of power in Sacramento, with the governor of California. Not to make too much of an analogy, but a similar journey Ronald Reagan took from a small town in Illinois.

WOODRUFF: No question. Very -- you can see similarities. And I think it's interesting, Anderson, that they are coming in with other ordinary folks.

I mean, they didn't ask to get a private moment of their own. They are coming in with the crowd, spending a few minutes, paying respect, paying their respects. But they are there with the public who, as we said, have been standing in line, some of them, for hours to stop and have a word or just a quiet thought.

COOPER: People bringing their children in. Obviously, children too young to have known the Reagan years in the White House, yet children who have no doubt grown up hearing their parents talk about Ronald Reagan.

We talked before about the appeal of Reagan really across generations. For those who followed him, there were so many young people. I mean, I remember being in high school during the Reagan presidency, and there were so many young people who not only became interested in politics for the first time, but that sense of optimism and that sense of possibilities, whether it was true or not, I think inspired an awful lot of people.

WOODRUFF: Coming at a time when the country had been through some really tough times. And we just heard Bob Dallek mention it, between Vietnam, Watergate, malaise, economic problems. Of course the Cold War had gripped this country. Ronald Reagan came along and said I'm going to do something about that, we're going to build up the defenses of this country.

He took money away from other programs to put it into the military. But he stood tall for the United States. And Americans will always respond to that.

Again, these are live pictures from the Reagan Library, Simi Valley, California. Live pictures of the casket bearing the body of Ronald Reagan. It has been laying there just a little more than an hour. And just a few minutes ago, the public began to come through to pay their respects.

COOPER: The family made these decisions, these final preparations for the body being here. Once the body is sent to Washington, the military district of Washington, the MDW take over the planning of it. But even all along, the family can make changes, can decide the order of things, how everything will play out over the next five days or so, beginning, again, what the minister called this journey of remembrance for this man who changed America.

WOODRUFF: We've talked about it a good deal today, but the history books are no doubt going to remember Ronald Reagan for those famous one-liners. And, in fact, the late president was known as the great communicator, among other nicknames. Here now, CNN's Bruce Morton.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUCE MORTON, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They called him the great communicator because he was. He said it and people paid attention.

RONALD WILSON REAGAN, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

MORTON: OK. The deficit went up and the problem got bigger, but you remembered what he said. He settled an argument over who should speak in a 1980 New Hampshire debate with one line.

REAGAN: I am paying for this microphone...

MORTON: It's originally from an old Spencer Tracy movie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't you shut me off. I'm paying for this broadcast.

MORTON: But if an actor can't borrow a line, who can? And sometimes the one-liners really mattered. Presidents of both parties had worked to contain the Soviet Union. But Ronald Reagan made more progress than most. Arms reduction and a challenge.

REAGAN: Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.

(APPLAUSE)

REAGAN: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

MORTON: The man who wrote the speech said the State Department fought that line for three weeks, but Reagan used it and the wall came down during his successor's presidency. A successor he wished well with a line from one of his old movies about a Notre Dame football player named George Gipp.

REAGAN: But George, just one personal request. Go out there and win one for the Gipper.

(APPLAUSE)

MORTON: But what Ronald Reagan communicated best was optimism. He came to office in a country shaken, made cynical by Watergate and the war in Vietnam. He saw instead a shining city on a hill. He used the phrase often and talked about it in his farewell address in 1989.

REAGAN: In my mind, it was a tall, proud city, built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, god-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.

MORTON: Ronald Reagan on the shining city he dreamed of and worked to build.

Bruce Morton, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: In Ronald Reagan's final speech, televised speech, which you just saw, he talked about America as being a great city on a hill, about it being a windswept, god-blessed, teeming with people of all kinds. Ronald Reagan will be buried on a hill here at the library, and today it is windswept, god-blessed and teeming with people of all kinds.

Ronald Reagan's brand of economics was controversial and personal. It still bears his name: Reaganomics. Did it work? We'll take a look at that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back to our continuing coverage, remembering the life of Ronald Reagan. As President Reagan helped renew American optimism partly by defeating inflation and reviving the economy, Peter Viles recalls Reaganomics.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REAGAN: Ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago? Economists.

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Most Americans were not. The prime rate then was 15 percent. The Misery Index, inflation, plus unemployment was above 20 percent. The stock market had gone nowhere except down for 15 years.

BRUCE BARTLETT, NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS: The magnitude of the problem was so great that there were a great many responsible economists who though we'd have to go through something like the equivalent of another great depression.

VILES: Reagan's plan was optimistic, bold and widely ridiculed. George Bush called it voodoo economics. It was to cut taxes, increase defense spending, starve the rest of the government, and somehow balance the budget.

REAGAN: In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

VILES: He convinced Congress to cut taxes and to stay the course during the recession of 1982, and ultimately did what presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter could not. He beat inflation.

On his watch, it fell from 12.5 percent to 4.6. The jobless rate fell to 5.4 percent. The economy added 16 million new jobs. The stock market rallied. Even after that 1987 crash, it gained 147 percent in the Reagan era.

STEVE MOORE, CLUB FOR GROWTH: The tragedy really is that Ronald Reagan, arguably the most important economist of the 20th century, never one the Nobel Prize in economics. But when you think about it, this is a man who really had as profound an impact on economics as any of the economists, whether you're talking about Milton Friedman or John Maynard Keynes.

VILES: His economic success was not total. He never did balance the budget. The deficit widened.

WALTER MONDALE, FMR. VICE PRESIDENT: Some of the strategies that were used during his administration lead to enormous deficits, lead to some of the things we are seeing again today, which can lead to higher interest rates, distorted value of the dollar that hurts us in trade.

VILES: His influence lives on. It was Reagan who made Alan Greenspan Fed chairman, who dealt labor unions a lasting defeat by firing striking air traffic controllers, whose free market policies still alive in Washington had their roots in a Jeffersonian ideals: the government is best which governs least.

Peter Viles, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: And in many ways, that is what Ronald Reagan is so remembered for, Anderson, that economic philosophy, distinct. It was shrink the government, get spending down on domestic programs, but spend more on defense programs, as this country was fighting communism back then.

COOPER: He also I think -- just several weeks since the administration said that he characterized the economic state of the country as the worst since the great depression. And he said we need to try something different, and that's what we're going to do. And he certainly did that.

WOODRUFF: Well, we're going to hear more from the people who are gathering to pay their final respects to Ronald Reagan in just a moment.

COOPER: We'll also talk with longtime Reagan confidante and former U.S. attorney general, Ed Meese. CNN's special coverage continues in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WOODRUFF: Welcome back to this CNN special report, "Remembering Ronald Reagan." I'm Judy Woodruff, reporting from the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, along with Anderson Cooper.

COOPER: Judy, public viewing is now under way here at the Reagan Library. It has been now for about 45 minutes or so. A short funeral service for Ronald Reagan wrapped up here last hour. Not so much a funeral service, more a remembrance. The family standing, sitting in front of the coffin of Ronald Reagan, as an honor guard stood around the flag-draped coffin.

Later, Mrs. Reagan approached the coffin, stroking the flag. At one point, laying her head down for a moment on the flag.

WOODRUFF: And now we are seeing hundreds of Californians, what we are told will be eventually tens of thousands of Californians who will make their way to the Reagan Library to have their private thoughts, to talk with their children, with their family members, with friends about what Ronald Reagan meant to them and meant to this country. And Anderson and I were just commenting on how some people come dressed very formally, others causally. They feel, you know, for them, this is a comfortable thing for them to do.

COOPER: And we have seen this all morning, all long all along the route that Ronald Reagan's body took to get here from the funeral home in Santa Monica. People came, some just on the side of the road. Some people just waving small American flags.

Some people even gathered down because early on you could not gain access to this library. You still can't walk around here. But there were people gathered at the entrance to the library, sitting there in chairs, and just sort of wanting to be part of it, wanting to see and silently, in some cases, pay their respects, as they have for the last 48 hours or so.

WOODRUFF: It is so interesting to think about what's going through their minds. And we're going to be talking to some of them as the day goes on.

When he was elected in 1980, Ronald Reagan chose as the chief policy adviser a veteran from his staff as governor in California. And I want to apologize, because there are a lot of vehicles around where Anderson and I are, and that noise keeps popping up in it the background.

COOPER: And the vehicles you are hearing are buses, which are just coming one after the other. Some 45,000 to 60,000 people expected here over the next 48 hours.

Ed Meese, of course, was later named attorney general. He joins us now from Washington.

Attorney General Meese, thanks very much for being on the program with us today. I want to ask you, 1966, you joined Ronald Reagan's staff. I think you were the district attorney in a county in California. What was it that first drew you to Ronald Reagan back in 1966 when you first met him? What did you see in him?

EDWIN MEESE, FMR. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I was a deputy district attorney in Alameda County. What I saw in Ronald Reagan was a very intelligent man. I was impressed. I had never met him before.

He asked me to -- or his staff asked me to meet with him in December. He had been elected governor, but he hadn't taken office yet, and he was assembling his office. And so I spent a half-hour with him.

I was impressed by his knowledge of a lot of things that I knew quite a bit about in law enforcement and criminal justice, and was amazed at how quickly he assimilated information as we discussed some of those issues. And in that half-hour, we actually kind of put together some ideas for a strategy to deal with things like capital punishment and the unrest on the campuses, things such as that. And then at the end of the half-hour, he offered me the job as his legal affairs secretary, which I accepted on the spot, and then drove home trying to figure out how to explain to my wife we were moving to Sacramento.

COOPER: I'm sure that conversation must have been very interesting. 1966, this was just two years after Ronald Reagan made that famous televised speech for Barry Goldwater, which many sort of credit as his entree into politics, the first time many people nationally met Ronald Reagan. The man you met in 1966, how different was he from the president you served under some 20s years later?

MEESE: Well, I would say he was remarkably the same. Obviously, as president, he had a good deal more experience in dealing with political matters. But in terms of his ability to communicate, his clarity in vision, and particularly his leadership skills, I would say he was basically the same man with 20 years of experience. But he was still the same optimistic and friendly person, cheerful person that I grew to enjoy working for back in the 1960s.

WOODRUFF: Ed Meese, one of the things I think -- and I want to say hello, because I haven't seen you in a number of years.

MEESE: Right. I loved you.

WOODRUFF: I covered you when you were, of course, in the White House. One of the things I think we are still trying to understand about Ronald Reagan is here was a man who clearly had very deeply-held conservative views, and yet he was able to reach out to those who were pragmatists. When he got to the White House, he reached into the campaign of his opponent, George H. W. Bush, to Jim Baker to be his chief of staff, and then he went on to have both what were called the pragmatic group and then the more true believers, if you will, of which I think I count you in that second group.

How do you explain this about Ronald Reagan?

MEESE: Well, I think he was a person that realized that you needed a lot of skills. He wanted to have some people in the White House who understood Washington, who could deal with matters pertaining to Congress and the news media, both of which were quite different than the California legislature or the news media in a state.

And so he appreciated the need for experience. And what he did was he combined that with people who knew him well and knew his policies, and his philosophy, and it worked. And I think one of the reasons why he was able to reach over and attract -- and persuade people, say Democrats, people who were more liberal, was he had a way of taking complex subjects and explaining them in simple terms.

And he ultimately had the last refuge. If he couldn't persuade Congress, he was willing to go over their heads and persuade the people. And I think that was one of the keys to his success.

So after a while, he didn't have to use the nuclear weapon of going to the people. Congress respected that they had to deal with this person.

WOODRUFF: So as people wrestle with the Ronald Reagan -- you know, how much of Ronald Reagan was conservative, how much was pragmatic, you are saying he was a conservative, but he was pragmatic at the same time?

MEESE: Well, that's right. He was pragmatic. He would always say it's better to take half a loaf today if you can get it than to get nothing. And then he would come back around and try to get the rest of the loaf later on.

WOODRUFF: What -- and Ed Meese, when there was disagreement on the staff, how did he resolve it?

MEESE: Well, he liked to hear all the various sides to an issue. One thing he was very good at was listening. And he didn't like to have lengthy memos. He felt that those were pretty sterile in expressing views.

He liked to have people argue things out in front of him in the cabinet meetings. He set up the cabinet as the primary focal point for decision-making. And he met with the cabinet frequently, probably more frequently than almost any recent president, either as a cabinet as a whole or as a cabinet council, including the National Security Council. And after he heard all the views then he would make his decision. And he felt that as long as he got all the information, or as much as was readily available, he would make good decisions. And, indeed, that's what he did.

WOODRUFF: Former Attorney General Ed Meese, thank you very much for being with us on this day, sharing your remembrances of the former president. Thank you.

Before his career in politics, Ronald Reagan, of course, made a name for himself in Hollywood. Still to come, we'll look at Reagan's acting career.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) COOPER: Welcome back to our continuing coverage, "Remembering Ronald Reagan." "LARRY KING LIVE," of course, will have President Ford and former President Bush on later on this week.

You are looking at a live pictures, as mourners continuing to pay their respects to the late president. This is going to be happening for the next 48 hours or so, as Californians, young and old, people who knew Reagan personally, people who remembered him as president, and people who have grown up since he left office but have followed him these last difficult 10 years or so come to pay their final respects.

WOODRUFF: My guess is, Anderson, it's a cross-section of Americans, Californians primarily, paying their respects. Although clearly people coming from nearby states, from other states, will be coming to the Reagan Library at Simi Valley to pay their respects as well. This is a remarkable day.

We have not seen the likes of this in many, many years. We remember Richard Nixon was buried in California. There was a funeral service for him 10 years ago this year. But we didn't have any of the lying in state that we are going to have for Ronald Reagan. It was 20 years before that we had the services in Washington marking the death of Lyndon Johnson, and 10 years before that, of course, the tragic death and the assassination of John Kennedy.

We don't see these times, times like this very often in American life. And that is why we stop and we take note and we take a deep breath, and we think about what the life of this man meant to this country and to its people.

COOPER: And though we have not seen a day, an event like this for quite some time, as you said, since Lyndon Johnson laid in state many years ago, this is something which was planned for really from the time Ronald Reagan left office. The library has refined these plans, has gone over it, has really adjusted these plans, of course, over the years, as the situation has changed. But it is something which is a very private moment yet also very public, and something which has to be planned for very carefully.

WOODRUFF: It will be a measure of the affection with which the American people hold Ronald Reagan as we watch for the next five days, today through Friday, as Americans pay their respects.

Among the Americans stopping to remember Ronald Reagan and his legacy, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry. The senator has announced he is not continuing his public campaigning this week as the country mourns Ronald Reagan's death. More on all that now from CNN's senior political correspondent, Candy Crowley, in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Flying into Reagan National Airport Sunday night, John Kerry began a week operating below the radar.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I have a lot to do, don't worry.

CROWLEY: The death of Ronald Reagan has silenced the '04 campaign trail. Camp Kerry canceled what he called over-political activities, which means tonight's glitzy Hollywood fundraiser with Streisand and company is out, pushed off until at least the end of the month. Likewise, Thursday's equally star-studded New York fundraiser and several routine events in between.

This morning, Kerry arrived at campaign headquarters, getting some policy briefings that were made. There are as well convention plans to make and the vice president to pick.

KERRY: Work, a lot of work. A lot of plans. No loss of anything to do.

CROWLEY: Fulfilling a promise to address a high school graduation in Ohio Sunday, Kerry's, whose first major work in Congress was investigating Iran Contra, paid tribute to the man he said lead with great race.

KERRY: President Reagan's belief in America was infectious. And because of the way he lead, he taught us that there was a difference between strong beliefs and bitter partisanship.

CROWLEY: Kerry plans to attend Friday's funeral in Washington. The campaign says it will not air any ads that day.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CROWLEY: In the end, the decision to suspend campaign activities for a week was a matter of both common sense and common courtesy by the Kerry campaign. But it also may turn out to be pretty good politics. We are now at a time where Kerry is trying to reach out to swing voters and to Republicans. Stopping to pause and remember Ronald Reagan is a pretty good place to start -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Candy, I guess the fact is that no matter what happens in a presidential campaign season, even the death of a beloved former president, it is going to become part of the fabric of this campaign. And it is clear that strategists on both sides, for George Bush and for John Kerry, are trying to figure out what this is going to mean for them.

CROWLEY: Well, sure. And I think as you heard in John Kerry's remarks, and his written statement yesterday, he has made much of this was a man who was optimistic about America, and this was a man who could disagree without being disagreeable. And that has been now a major part of what John Kerry has been saying as he reaches out into the middle, and that is, hey, this man, George Bush, came to Washington to kind of heighten the tone, and he hasn't. It's a bitter time.

So interesting that of the things that John Kerry hailed about Ronald Reagan was that. As for the Bush campaign, obviously this is a man who has been compared to Ronald Reagan. We've always said that George Bush, the son, is more Reagan than Bush. And they obviously have to be looking at that.

It's hard to tell, though, four or five months out. There are so many other things happening in the world, I think that the consensus I hear now as people sort of begin to talk about this is, by the time November rolls around, this will be less about Ronald Reagan and more about George Bush.

WOODRUFF: That's probably fair to say. Here we are in early June. We still have almost five months to go until this election. So both campaigns standing down, for the most part, and yet we will see George Bush certainly speaking at the funeral on Friday. And both campaigns continuing advertising this week, except on the day of the funeral, on Friday.

Candy Crowley, thank you very much.

And our live coverage here at the Reagan Presidential Library at Simi Valley, California, where the remains of President Reagan lie in repose for the American people to come and pay their respects. Our live coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Someone who covered Ronald Reagan and the White House years, former CNN Washington bureau chief, Frank Sesno, joins us now from New York.

Frank, good to see you today. Thanks for being with us.

Let's talk a little about this library, the Reagan Presidential Library. How important was it to President Reagan? And let's talk a little bit about how it came into being in 1991.

FRANK SESNO, FMR. CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was very important to the president and very important to the first lady because they wanted to have a place that would not -- and it's called not only the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, but also the Center for Public Affairs. We've seen it on the sign there.

They wanted very much to enshrine not just what he did in the papers, but what he stood for. And so with the generous help of a number of friends and a lot of active fundraising, they got this thing launched. And you have been out there. I'm sure you've had a chance to walk through it. But it's a very impressive place, and it chronicles -- you literally walk through the man's life, from his boyhood in Dickson, Illinois, through his radio and acting days.

And around one corner, in one of the most interesting and emblematic symbols in there is a gasoline pump. And that gasoline pump symbolizes so much of what America was all about when Ronald Reagan was running for -- successfully -- for the presidency in the 1980s. Gas lines, a sense of helplessness, a sense of the country, along with its hostages was actually being held hostage. And his campaign was very much focused on that degree of optimism and we don't have to accept the age of limits and malaise and all that kind of business. And that is much of what the library represents and captures, along with I think it's close to 1,300 book titles that have been written about Ronald Reagan, and a whole wall of magazine covers that he made from US News to The Economist to TIME and Newsweek. It's a remarkable place.

WOODRUFF: Frank, Ronald Reagan really adopted California as a home state. We know he was from the middle of America, Illinois. He came out here and fell in love with this state. How important is California in shaping who he was?

SESNO: Tremendously important. There are two things, Judy, I think that if you really want to understand Ronald Reagan you need to understand.

And the first one is the ranch. And he had more than one ranch, but the ranch we knew during his presidential days was his sanctuary. But more than his sanctuary, it was his expression of himself, open spaces, a place where he engaged in serious physical labor.

You know, they used to tell us when we were in the press pool or whatever down in Santa Barbara when the president was up at that ranch that he was chopping wood and clearing brush. And you heard it every day, and after a while we thought he had defoliated the place.

But the fact is, I spent time up at that ranch and walked around it, and there's an enormous amount of work. And you see his handiwork. There's this very large snaking fence around the place which he helped to cut, dig the holes for, and plant.

Mrs. Reagan would talk about him going out at the beginning of the day and coming back at the end of the day, hot and sweaty and all grimy. And he really did that.

Secondly, horses. Horses were very important in his life. And let me tell you one very moving story about horses.

He road them there with Mrs. Reagan, of course, and with his children. He also road the last time at the ranch. And one of his Secret Service agents, a man by the name of John Bartlett (ph), made that last ride with him.

And he tells the story of coming back after the last ride. It was after the Alzheimer's had been announced. And he said that he went to Mrs. Reagan and he said, "Mrs. Reagan, I don't think the president should ride anymore. I think it's dangerous." And Bartlett (ph) says Mrs. Reagan looked at him and said, "I can't tell him that, John. You do it."

So John Bartlett (ph) went over to the president, who was sitting on the patio, and he said, "Mr. President, I think it's too dangerous for you out there. I don't think you should do that." And he said the president stood up, put both hands on his shoulders, looked him in the eye and said, "I know." And that was it.

WOODRUFF: That's a very powerful remembrance. Frank Sesno, who has done an enormous amount of research into the life of Ronald Reagan, covered the Reagan White House. I think all of us who covered him, Anderson, know how much just that ranch meant everything to him.

COOPER: The ranch is now in private hands. A conservative group has it.

WOODRUFF: That's right.

COOPER: It was put on the market several years ago. It languished on the market for about a year or so, then it was bought. And they are trying to develop it really as a center for young conservatives.

WOODRUFF: CNN's coverage of the nation's good-bye to former President Ronald Reagan continues in just a moment.

COOPER: We're going to go back to Thelma Gutierrez, who is with the mourners going up to the Reagan Library. And our own Bill Schneider looks at how Ronald Reagan changed U.S. politics. And that he certainly did.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: This afternoon, the people of the United States and the world are saying farewell to Ronald Wilson Reagan. Members of the public have started filing past the former president's flag-draped coffin here at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Before the public viewing began, there was a short private service for the Reagan family. At its conclusion, Nancy Reagan bent over and placed her head briefly on the casket. The former first lady, who is 82 years old, has been a pillar of strength over the past ten years of her husband's illness, battle with Alzheimer's.

COOPER: And quite a battle it was. They, of course, have been together 52 years. And it is hard to imagine one without the other.

We witnessed a number of remarkable scenes today. As the hearse and its motorcade made its way alone the highway, it passed under a huge American suspended by two fire truck ladders as traffic in oncoming lanes paused.

This day's journey began, of course, at Santa Monica at a funeral home. Before going inside, former first lady Nancy Reagan and the couple's two children, Patti Davis and Ron Reagan, stopped outside to look over the makeshift memorial of flowers and flags and acknowledge the many who had come out to say good bye.

WOODRUFF: Anderson, today and for the rest of this day and again tomorrow, members of the public are going to be able to view President Reagan's casket here at his presidential library in Simi Valley.

Thelma Gutierrez is not far away from where we are. She's at Moorpark Community College where the mourners are coming. They're parking their cars and they are boarding shuttle buses which will take them here to the Reagan Library -- Thelma.

GUTIERREZ: Judy, you're right. We're about five miles away from you right now. The crowd numbers into the house to sands. In fact, the parking lot here is completely full. The city college actually had to close down to be able accommodate these crowds.

And it really is quite amazing. People started gathered out here about midnight and just to be able to have a chance to get on a shuttle to go up to the library. You have to jump through quite a few hoops.

First you have to get to the college which is about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. Then you have to find parking out here, you stand in long lines to get through security. There are five metal detectors here, you have to go through Secret Service which is checking every bag, jacket, wheelchair and stroller before they're even allowed to board the shuttle.

The line formed at midnight. It started with a few families. But by daybreak, hundreds were in line. And two hours after the shuttle started running, thousands were here.

They from are as far away from New York to the East and Arizona to the West.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ronald Reagan was the first president I voted for. I had a lot of respect for. I think he did lot of good things for our country and the world. And I wanted my kids to know who he was.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a New York Democrat. And I came because I'm patriotic.

GUTIERREZ: Did you know who president Reagan was?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well I wasn't alive that long because I'm not that old. But, so, not really. I didn't really know who he was. But I knew he loved and respected God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTIERREZ: You can see quite a large crowd gathered right in front of that bus there waiting to board and them make that five-mile journey up to the library.

You heard what some of the people had to say who were in line. A woman out here told me, Judy, that she also felt a connection to the president not just because she admired him as a leader, but because he, too, suffered from Alzheimer's, just as her mother did.

And she said that she felt such a connection to the Reagans and to the president because of all the things they had to deal with, with the disease -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: Thelma, thanks very much.

I think it's interesting how many people are now beginning to understand or saying they do feel that connection because of Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's, a disease touching so many American families.

And what Nancy Reagan has done and what Ronald Reagan has suffered through, I think, for many people, became emblematic of the courage that is needed in all these families to get them through this long and difficult years of the disease, which, of course, takes its course in so many different ways.

Thelma, thank you very much.

COOPER: And their decision really to go public with it, Ronald Reagan wrote that just incredibly poignant, handwritten letter in 1994, basically announcing that he had been informed he had Alzheimer's. Such a moving letter. And their decision to go public.

WOODRUFF: And they didn't have to do that.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And they said in the letter very plainly that they wanted to because it might help other people.

WOODRUFF: You know, today, we feel much more comfortable talking about Alzheimer's openly because it is a debilitating disease. It's the kind of thing where in the final years the person doesn't recognize anyone around.

And knowing that the Reagans were able to go public with it, I think, has given many other people the strength to fight.

COOPER: All of us followed, of course that fight over the last ten years or so of Ronald Reagan's life. Ronald Reagan's body will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol in Washington beginning Wednesday night.

CNN congressional correspondent Ed Henry -- or Joe Johns is standing by with more on the preparations from Washington -- Joe. Oh, I'm sorry, Ed Henry is standing by -- Ed.

(CROSSTALK)

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're expecting about 100,000 people to file past the flag-draped coffin of Ronald Reagan. Beginning on Wednesday night, the Capitol will be open all night Wednesday leading to Thursday and then for another 24 hours leading overnight Thursday into Friday morning.

There was a memo distributed today by congressional officials to all senators. A private memo that revealed that this state funeral is now going to be referred to as a national security special event. That's an important destination. That gives the Capitol Police and federal law enforcement officials, puts them on a higher state of alert.

There's obviously going to be metal detectors. There also will be searches as you were talking about that are going on in California. They will be occurring here in the Capitol as well. You can also expect that visitors who pass the coffin will not allowed to be taking photographs. Also, as I mentioned, there will be searches.

And in about 30 minutes from now, all tours of the Capitol are going to shut down for the rest of the week. This way the Capitol itself can be secured.

While all that planning is going on behind closed doors by officials, senators are coming back into town and giving speeches on the Senate floor. A very emotional tribute started today. We expect them all week. Here's what Senator Elizabeth Dole had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH DOLE (R), NORTH CAROLINA: There is no doubt in my mind that President Reagan was welcomed into the gates of heaven with open arms. With the words, well done, good and faithful servant. Well done indeed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Anderson, the House was supposed to deal with an energy bill this week. The Senate was supposed to deal with a defense bill. Obviously two pressing matters. But most law makers are saying they're expecting most if not all of this legislative business to be scrapped this week so all that all of the attention could be on this historic state funeral -- Anderson.

COOPER: Ed Henry, thanks very much for that. And of course all eyes will be turning to Washington when President Reagan's body is flown there early Wednesday morning.

WOODRUFF: Anderson, I think just about everybody agreed that Ronald Reagan gets so much of the credit for helping to end the Cold War and thereby changing geopolitics of this world. His effect on the political arena was clearly significant.

He not only reshaped the Republican Party, but he helped to reshape politics itself. We get a little more on that part of story from CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Here's one of Ronald Reagan's achievements he never talked about. Reagan created the gender gap. It's still there.

Before 1980, men and women voted pretty much alike. Then when Reagan became the Republican standard barer, men rushed to his support. Women were reluctant. Why? R. REAGAN: Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

SCHNEIDER: Reagan believed in risk taking, huge tax cuts, and competition, deregulation and bold new ventures. "Star Wars."

Men go for risk taking and competition. Women tend to be more risk adverse. Despite his assurances, women feared Reagan would shred the safety net. They were also put off by his sometimes aggressive posture in world affairs.

The gender gap has become a permanent feature of American politics. The 2000 election was really two competing landslides, a landslide for George W. Bush among men, a landslide for Al Gore among women. Why? Same reasons, the Democrat promised to protect the safety net.

AL GORE, FRM. VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's just wrong for seniors to have to choose between food and medicine while the big drug companies run up record profits.

SCHNEIDER: While the Republican mocked the Democrat for being timid and risk averse.

GEORGE W. BUSH (R), 2000 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If my opponent had been at the moon launch, it would have been a risky rocket scheme.

SCHNEIDER: Here's another gap Reagan created. These days one of the biggest difference in American politics is between church going and non-church going Americans. The religious gap. In 2000, regular church goers went strongly for Bush. Less religious voters were for Gore.

That, too, started with Reagan. He was the first candidate to make a political appeal to religious voters. They felt threatened by activist federal judges and their rulings on abortion, school prayer, gay rights, evolution and pornography.

R. REAGAN: Those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom and open mindedness. Question: isn't the real truth, that they are intolerant of religion?

SCHNEIDER: Religion has become a major part of Republican ideology.

BOB WOODWARD, "WASHINGTON POST": Clearly religion plays a big role in Bush's life. He did say, when I asked about his father, he said, in terms of finding strength, "I appeal to a higher father," meaning God. And when he ordered war, he prayed, and he prayed that he be a good messenger of God's will.

SCHNEIDER: And since Reagan, a major source of division in American politics.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SCHNEIDER: There's one gap Reagan cannot claim responsibility for. The racial gap. Lyndon Johnson brought African-Americans into the Democratic party and it was Richard Nixon who used his southern strategy to give the GOP its southern white base -- Judy.

WOODRUFF: But for sure, we know that gender gap is still with us. The current polls show George W. Bush doing better among men and John Kerry doing better among women. One, just one of a number of Ronald Reagan's lasting legacies.

COOPER: Well, the nation's final farewell to Ronald Reagan will last all week. The former president's body lies in repose in California for the rest of today and all day tomorrow. Up to 60,000 people are expected to file past the casket. On Wednesday, it's going to be flown to Washington, arriving in the late afternoon. A funeral procession will bring it to the U.S. Capitol. At 7:00 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, there will be a ceremony at the Capitol then all night Wednesday as well as all day Thursday, the former president will lie in state in the Capitol rotunda. On Friday, the casket will be taken from the Capitol to the National Cathedral for a funeral service.

Ronald Reagan will then come back home. He will be flown back to California, arriving in time for a private burial service at sunset at the Reagan Library he and Nancy Reagan loved so much. Our coverage continues.

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WOODRUFF: We're here, live coverage of the ceremony and now the public viewing of the casket of Ronald Reagan, that flag-draped casket. We'll be seeing that casket through this entire week, two days here in California, followed by 2 1/2 days in Washington and then back here to California. Our next guest -- I'm Judy Woodruff here with Anderson Cooper -- our next guest was the chairman of the powerful House ways and means committee when newly elected President Ronald Reagan presented his first tax package. Former Illinois Congressman Don is in Chicago to do a little reminiscing. Daniel Rostenkowski, your political philosophies couldn't have been more different. What was it like dealing with this man who had such strong views about taxes so different from yours?

DANIEL ROSTENKOWSKI, FMR. U.S. REP.: Judy, I don't think our philosophy was different. I think Reagan, after having graduated with a two-term service in California realized that in order to govern, you have to show some progress. Reagan came to Washington and brought certainly new ideas, but had tunnel vision about taxes, he thought that we were being taxed too high and the one thing he was going to do was lower the marginal rates and clean it up and clean up the code.

I felt the same way. And a remarkable meeting that I had with him, when we started to work on the '86 tax bill, probably in '85, I said to him, I said, "Mr. President, how serious are you about this tax bill?" I mean, because, you know, at the time, if you'll remember correctly, the Republicans weren't too enthusiastic about changing the code. He says, "I'm -- Dan, I'm darn serious about this." I said, "well, if you're serious and I can do something in the House, I want at least an understanding with you, that you will not criticize the bill until it's completed." He looked at me, said, "what do you mean by that?"

I said, "Well, Mr. President, if you start to analyze the bill and criticize it by paragraph, members of Congress will find excuses not to support it, and the support that you want for it will dwindle." I said, "I'd like to get a commitment from you that you won't say a thing about this tax bill until it's completed." He called Don Regan in. Don Regan was then his executive officer, and he said, "I just made a deal with Dan Rostenkowski here and I think he's got a good idea. Maybe I shouldn't say anything about the tax bill until it's completed." Judy, that was clever of Ronald Reagan, because Ronald Reagan wasn't a detail man. He looked at the big picture and he looked at the overpicture. So, on several occasions, when the press were analyzing the bill, he would say, "no, I made a commitment to the chairman I wasn't going to say anything about the bill."

The nice thing about that, is when I shook his hand, I knew I shook hands with an honorable man who, when giving his word, would stand by it. If there is anything that I admired about Ronald Reagan, and I say this respectfully, if he understood what you wanted to do and he agreed with you, you didn't have a better friend.

COOPER: Congressman, we have heard today from so many people who have said even though they might have disagreed with President Reagan, they found it almost impossible not to like the man. I'm sensing from what you said, the same feeling. Did it make it more difficult in some ways to disagree with him, when personally, you liked him?

ROSTENKOWSKI: Well, I think that the disagreements would come only when the media would start analyzing and saying things about the legislation that, in my opinion, weren't accurate. But Reagan never attacked me, at least, through the media. He would call and ask a question and then I would have to go to the White House and I would explain it to him. Reagan wanted to pass the tax bill. He wanted to write legislation. As a matter of fact, Anderson, I said to the president, because we're both from Illinois, I said, "Mr. President, do you want to make some history? We can write some pretty good tax law if we work together." And he says, "oh, absolutely, Dan, I'm very serious about this."

It was from that point on that I found that I had a friend. You know, Ronald Reagan, when Mrs. Reagan, when Nancy Reagan would go to California, he'd have about seven or eight of us over to the White House. And the ticket to the dinner party was bring a joke. I want to tell you something, Judy, Ronald Reagan is the best storyteller I've ever heard. He can tell a joke. These were -- it was kind of a bachelor dinner, too, so you can imagine some of the jokes weren't truly -- were truly colored.

COOPER: Well, we don't want to get in trouble with the FCC or anything. Congressman Rostenkowski, thank you so much for being with us today.

WOODRUFF: Hard to believe this man talking about Ronald Reagan and telling jokes is the same man who had, you know, liberal Democrat, they came at it from very different perspectives, coming together in the humanity.

COOPER: And that sense of humor is something we've heard so many people talk about Ronald Reagan, over and over again, his ability to poke fun at things but also himself as well.

WOODRUFF: No question. Our coverage continues. We'll be right back.

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COOPER: The mourners are paying their respects to the late president in public viewings here in California and, of course, in Washington all this week. In the Midwest, mourners are paying a special visit to the Ronald Reagan Museum at the President's alma mater, Eureka College. CNN's Jonathan Fried is in Eureka, Illinois -- Jonathan.

JONATHAN FRIED, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Anderson.

COOPER: We're clearly having some audio problems with Jonathan. We'll try to go back to him.

WOODRUFF: You've got to tell that story you just told me about why Reagan went to Eureka College.

COOPER: Well, he went to Eureka College because he was in love with a young woman named Margaret and she was going there...

WOODRUFF: A minister's daughter.

COOPER: A minister's daughter and he went to Eureka College because she was going there and when he drove her there, he went straight to the admissions office and basically pleaded for a scholarship which he got. They took a gamble on him. He was known as "Dutch" (ph) on campus. But then Margaret went off for a year overseas, fell in love with a French guy and wrote a letter back that broke Ronald Reagan's heart.

WOODRUFF: These are the stories that you find when you look into this...

COOPER: He also said a quote I love he said about Eureka. He said, "as far as I'm concerned everything good that has happened to me, everything started here on this campus." He said that in 1980.

WOODRUFF: He is still held with enormous fondness in Eureka. There was a church service there yesterday and you could tell this is someone beloved in that community. Well, different angle here, Wall Street has its own tribute for President Reagan throughout the week. We're going to go there live next.

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WOODRUFF: Thank you for joining us for this special look back at the life and the career of the 40th president of the United States. His remains lying in repose just behind us at the Reagan Library in California. I'm Judy Woodruff.

COOPER: And I'm Anderson Cooper. Thanks very much for joining us. "CROSSFIRE" starts right now.

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