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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Ronald Reagan Remembered

Aired June 06, 2004 - 19:00   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.


ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley California. I'm Anderson Cooper. Tonight, the final journey of a president on this special edition of 360.
ANNOUNCER: The Reagan legacy. Tonight a look at the Cold War crusader with his Former Secretary of State, Alexander Haig. His economic legacy was one of the architects of Reaganomics Jack Kemp. And a look at the half-century love affair with his beloved wife Nancy. And the illness that led him into the sunset of his life.

Tonight, the president, the man, Reagan remembered.

ANNOUNCER: A special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360, live from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

COOPER: Good evening again from Simi Valley California. Tonight, we wait. The body of Ronald Reagan is scheduled to arrive here at his Presidential Library tomorrow morning. And with that arrival will begin a week of official events leading up to his burial. Also here at this library late on Friday. Between now and then, and especially this evening in this next hour, there is time for reflection and recollection. All of which have begun already in many places around the land that Ronald Reagan called "a shining city on a hill."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REV. LYNN BONO, FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH: Again we remember President Ronald Reagan, and his family. Asking you oh God, to comfort his family, his friends, and all those who grieve.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER (voice-over): From a small church in his one-time hometown of Dixon Illinois, to the Normandy coast of France, we pause today to remember Ronald Reagan.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT, (R-IL) HOUSE SPEAKER: When the rest of the world stepped forward and challenged the Soviet Union. And I think because of that, there are people who walk in freedom today.

COOPER: There were flags and flowers and little mementos left here at his Presidential Library. And fond memories, even from political opponents whose downfall Ronald Reagan once engineered. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was because of him that I was involuntarily retired from my last job in November of 1980. But he was able to clarify, and possibly even some very complex issues.

COOPER: And there was this from another Democratic president, who many say was a product of the Reagan Legacy.

BILL CLINTON, FMR PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES: He was not mean spirited. He was always optimistic about our country. And he believed that freedom was a universal value.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: So many remembrances today. On a political family tree, Ronald Reagan would be something like George W. Bush's uncle. After all, the President's father served as Mr. Reagan's vice president, and then went on to become president himself. Largely because of Ronald Reagan's great popularity.

In many ways then the footsteps in which George Bush is following are Ronald Reagan's. This weekend those footsteps the President to France. CNN's Senior White House Correspondent John King is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESSPONDENT (on-camera): In Normandy to salute the heroes who stormed the beaches 60 years ago. And a role model who walked this hallowed ground 20 years before him.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He was a courageous man himself. And a gallant leader in the cause of freedom. And today we honor the memory of Ronald Reagan.

KING (voice-over): Mr. Bush will hear "Taps" again before the week is out. Heading home as arrangements are made for President Reagan's state funeral on Friday. Flags at the White House and all federal buildings are at half-staff for 30 days on Mr. Bush's order. Part of the tribute to a man with whom the current President has built and political affinity.

MICHAEL DEAVER, FMR. REAGAN DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: They are westerners. They are probably both of them would have rather been on the ranch then any place else. They were both governors, western governors. They're both sort of hands-on people. They are both people with strong convictions who stick by them.

KING: This president is the son of a president. But politically, it's much more an heir of Reagan.

BILL MCINTURFF, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: What they share in common is the modern Republican Party that this president Bush inherited from Ronald Reagan. Which is the Republican Party that's united by tax cuts. And that's animated by strong American defense.

KING: Several of the world leaders at the D-day commemoration are joining Mr. Bush for the annual G-8 summit this week at Sea Island Georgia. And many will then head for Washington for Friday's state funeral for Mr. Reagan at the National Cathedral.

KING (on-camera): Among the European leaders planning to attend the funeral are several from nations president Reagan referred to as liberated countries lost in his vintage D-day speech 20 years ago. A reference to Soviet occupation. Now the Soviet Union is no more. Eastern Europe is free and democratic. And history gives Mr. Reagan a good piece of the credit.

John King, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well the Presidential Library here in Simi Valley California where we are broadcasting from tonight is certainly a good place to remember and think about Ronald Reagan. But of course people everywhere are doing that anyway. Memories and thoughts are like that. They are to found wherever we are to be found.

And where Ronald Reagan is concerned, this is a land very full indeed of memories and thoughts. Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): American's across the nation remembered Ronald Wilson Reagan, their 40th president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think everybody, whether they liked him or not, is kind of taken in by this moment.

BUCKLEY: In Dixon Illinois, Reagan's childhood hometown, they remember him as one of their own. And even those who didn't know the President personally, most of us, say they felt as if they did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was kind of everybody's grandfather too. You know, he had a good sense of humor, and was a good president.

BUCKLEY: That sense of humor remembered by many.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some of his one-liners, and some of the things he said. The classic when he was shot in pain in the hospital, and he asks if all the doctors are Republicans. I mean that kind of quick wit, just I loved it. He was terrific.

BUCKLEY: Flowers, and notes, and jellybeans were left in tribute to the former president at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley California, and in his childhood hometown. He was remembered at the airport that bears his name in Washington D.C.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fantastic president. Probably the last president I actually voted for.

BUCKLEY: There were prayers for the former president. And at BELLINI: Air Presbyterian Church, where the Reagan's continued to attend, even after the Alzheimer's diagnosis, affectionate memories.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He sat close to me, and I turned around and looked, and the hymns were going on. And he was singing every word without looking at any books or anything. And he remembered. That was still so deeply embedded.

BUCKLEY: As Americans remembered Ronald Reagan, most set aside political differences they may have had, and remembered a man who insisted that Americans had reason to be proud of America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was probably one of the greatest presidents that we've ever had. And it's very tragic.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BUCKLEY (on-camera): And the largely positive public comments not a great surprise given the incredible approval rating that President Reagan enjoyed as he was leaving office. His approval rating in the last "New York Times" CBS poll, 68 percent. A record for an outgoing president.

Tomorrow the public will have a chance to begin paying their respects in person when the president will be lying in repose here at the Reagan Library starting at noon, local time. Anderson?

COOPER: Frank Buckley, thanks very much for that. And we do expect thousands of people here to come to pay their respects to the President.

A president's schedule even in death, perhaps even especially in death, is carefully managed. Every move, every minute planned and replanned well in advance. For the next six days we will follow the journey of President Reagan. Tomorrow here to his beloved library, Wednesday to Washington, and Friday of course his last journey. When Ronald Reagan comes home. CNN's Chris Lawrence looks ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These flags and flowers will mark the beginning of the Reagan family's last journey with the former president. At 10:00 in the morning Monday, Mrs. Reagan and the family will leave this funeral home in Santa Monica, California. And about an hour later they will arrive at the Reagan Library for a private ceremony.

JOANN DRAKE, REAGAN FAMILY SPOKESWOMAN: At 12:00 noon, the official lying and repose begins in the main lobby of the library.

LAWRENCE: The public is invited to pay their respects through Tuesday night. And then Wednesday morning, the Reagan motorcade travels to the navel base at Point Mcgue (ph), where they'll leave on a flight to Andrews Air Force Base. Arriving Wednesday afternoon, the procession will travel to the U.S. capital, where a state funeral ceremony will be held in the Rotunda.

DRAKE: At approximately 8:30, the President will begin lying in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capital for the public to pay their respects. And this will continue through the night. LAWRENCE: Mr. Reagan's body will remain in the Rotunda Thursday. And then on Friday morning, the family attends a national funeral service at Washington National Cathedral. From there it's back to California in the Reagan Library for a private sunset internment over looking the Pacific Ocean.

DRAKE: There is definitely a sense of relief that he is no longer suffering, and that he has gone to a better place.

LAWRENCE: Ronald Reagan made his name in California. But he left his mark in Washington. Organizers sat ceremonies on both coasts are the only appropriate way to sat good-bye.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: A lot of people here in Santa Monica say they'll make the drive one hour north to the library. And even those who didn't agree with Mr. Reagan's politics, and there are many, say now that they can look back on his presidency, they can appreciate his accomplishments. Anderson?

COOPER: Thanks very much for that Chris. And there are a lot of people who are gathered right now. Several hundred feet from here down at the makeshift memorial. Those makeshift memorials which we have seen crop up at so many national tragedies. So many people to be remembered. Several people are there right now with flowers and balloons and flags. And that crowd is likely to grow tomorrow by a lot.

A quick news note for you to mark the death of Ronald Reagan. The New York Stock Exchange will hold two minutes of silence tomorrow morning at 9:30, delaying the opening bell.

360 next, Nancy and Ronald Reagan, there's was a great love affair. And in these last dark years, a difficult desperate battle against Alzheimer's. The life of the First Lady in focus. Her former press secretary joins us live.

Plus, we'll look at Reaganomics. Iran-Contra, and scaring down the Russians. Ronald Reagan's Cold War legacy. And Former Secretary of State, Alexander Haig is our special guest.

We'll also look at the President's journey into the sunset of his life. His battle with Alzheimer's, and Mrs. Reagan's support of stem cell research. All that ahead. First, we remember Ronald Reagan the man. His first love acting. A classic scene that eventually became his trademark.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: George.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: George, this telegram just arrived from Warner camp (ph). You've been named full back in his All American Team.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Me? You ain't kidding me right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it's on the radio (ph). You're going to be all right kid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I haven't got a complaint in the world (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I'm not afraid. We still have fun with this. Someday when the team's up against it, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the boys, ask then to go in there with all they've got, and win just one for the Gipper.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: We have remembered many of the successes of the Reagan Administration today. But as with any president, scandals and controversies at times threaten to rock the nation and the White House. Ronald Reagan was undoubtedly a great communicator. But as CNN's Candy Crowley reports, some critics had another name for him. The Teflon President.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Inside the shadow of death, eulogies by definition are glowing. History is written from a distance with a cooler eye. It will tell the story of a president of great accomplishments and failure. A president who cut taxes, and nearly doubled the deficit. Which came up a lot when the new tax- cutting president came to town.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE, (D) SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: We are repeating in many cases, the same mistakes made in 1981 and 1982. I fear that we are going to see deficits every bit as large as the ones created in 1982.

CROWLEY: History will say that Reagan was the president who began the end of the Cold War, but stumbled at start of a new kind of war.

RONALD REAGAN: If there is to be blame, it properly rests here in this office, and with this president. And I accept responsibility for the bad as well as the good.

CROWLEY: In October of '83, 241 marines died in a single moment on his watch. Killed by a truck bomb while serving as part of a peacekeeping force Mr. Reagan sent to Beirut. A defense department report said later there was poor security despite warnings of an attack. And that the military was neither equipped, not trained to fight terrorism.

REAGAN: I will to the best of my ability...

CROWLEY: Reelected a year later, Mr. Reagan continued to strengthen the military and promise the U.S. would never negotiate with terrorists. And then as an effort to secure the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon, the U.S. sold arms to Iran. The profits were funneled to anti-government forces in Nicaragua.

REAGAN: As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities.

CROWLEY: Aids say President Reagan never understood why some people did not believe him about Iran-Contra. Critics, who dubbed him the Teflon President, never understood why so many people always believed him. Ronald Reagan left office with the highest popularity of any president of the modern age. Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: There was a plaque in Ronald Reagan's Oval Office that sums up the spirit with which he faced even the darkest of challenges. "It can be done." That's what the plaque said. That's what the president and the man believed.

In Washington tonight, Former Secretary of State Alexander Haigs. Secretary Haigs, thanks for being with us tonight. Your memories of President Ronald Reagan when you both took office. You were his Secretary of State. What were the biggest challenges the two of you faced?

ALEXANDER HAIG, FMR. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, there were many, many challenges, but in the foreign policy area, our greatest challenge was to rebuild American credibility. It had been totally squandered in the preceding years. Especially with the hostage crisis, and the inability of the United States, the helpless giant to do anything to get the release of our prisoners.

That was Ronald Reagan's first and major achievement in my time with him. Was to get that hostage crisis settled right at the moment of his inauguration. And it was his credibility that did so. And he did it by telling the Iranians that if those prisoners were not released, that the moment of his inauguration, it would be a whole new ball game.

And I know the message, because I'm the one that delivered it. And afterwards, President Reagan said to me, Al, you may have been a little to soft. Couldn't you have toughened that up a bit?

COOPER: There were -- some criticized -- especially early on in the administration of being a non-defined president. That he really wasn't -- that he didn't have his hands on the issues. Some even sort of sarcastically said he was reading a script. Sort of playing the role of president. A lot of people changed their minds over time. Was that a fair criticism ever?

HAIG: Well it was totally unfair. As you look back, he probably understood the situation globally better than most people at the time. He knew for example, that the Soviet Union was in an advance state of decay. But he knew it at such times totalitarian regimes are the most dangerous. He knew also that the Soviet Union was beginning to believe that the United States was unwilling to bleed or to die for it's principles or it's values.

He knew there were something worth dying for occasionally. And he managed to end the Cold War without firing a shot. By reestablishing American credibility. By taking action where it was necessary in Granada, and Panama, and elsewhere. And convincing the Soviet Union that it was a question of getting along, or facing conflict if they went on the way they were going.

COOPER: Mr. Haig, you and President Reagan obviously had your differences; you resigned in 1982 under some controversy. You talk about his successes, at which there were many. What was his greatest weakness? What was his failing as a leader from your prospective?

HAIG: Well first, let me say, I didn't have problems with President Reagan, I had problems with his palace guards. You know when you can't talk to a president when we had the Lebanon crisis brewing, then you have a problem. And frankly, one developed. And it had to do with terrorism. The problem we are now confronted with. But it wasn't the President. It was to much isolation by a palace guard that assumed more than it was entitled to assume, in my view.

So I'm not going to criticize the President. And even if I wanted to, I would never do it on an occasion such as this. We should be grateful that the world was a better place because of Ronald Reagan's presidency. And those of us who served him were proud to do so, and I am one of those. So please don't ask me to criticize President Reagan at this time. I wouldn't do it if I had any criticism, and I don't.

COOPER: Well, there you go. I wasn't asking you to criticize him, but I do appreciate your accessing his leadership. Secretary Alexander Haig, thank you very much. We have heard sentiments like that all across the nation today from people who new him, from people who didn't know him but felt like they did.

360 next, the woman behind the man. An incredible love story, and years of struggle with the crippling disease. Nancy Reagan, her formal press secretary joins us live. Also tonight, stem cell research, cutting edge research, and political controversy. We'll take a closer look.

Also a little later tonight, tax cuts, deficits, and Reaganomics. One of the masterminds in Reagan's White House Jack Kemp joins us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAGAN: I think it's all to common in marriages that no matter how much partners love each other, they don't thank each other enough. And I suppose I don't thank Nancy enough for all that she does for me. So Nancy, in front of all your friends here today, let me say thank you for all you do. Thank you for your love. And thank you for just being you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: A wonderful moment. In 1989 Nancy Reagan said this about Ronald Reagan. "He's not an easy man. To everybody he seems very easy. But he's more complex than people think." No one understood him like his beloved Nancy. She called him Ronny. He called her Mommy. It's hard to imagine one without the other. Sheila Tate was Nancy Reagan's press secretary. She joins me tonight from Washington. Miss Tate, thanks for being on the program tonight. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances.

I want to read to you something which is from next week's "Time" magazine that Nancy Reagan wrote. She wrote this about her relationship with Ronald Reagan.

"After being married to him for 52 years, I have so many memories. He was very sentimental, and romantic, and tender. On my birthday, he always sent my mother flowers to thank her for having me. And he wrote me beautiful touching letters when we had to be apart."

You saw their relationship up close. What do you remember?

SHEILA TATE, NANCY REAGAN'S FMR. PRESS SECRETARY: I remember how much it meant to her when he would send her mother those flowers. And I also remember being in card stores with her where she would spend an hour picking out cards for him.

And what she would do on his birthday was hide cards all over the place so that all during the day he would find cards. They took so much delight in each other. It is hard to imagine life for her without him. I know she's surrounded by family and friends. And once all the grief and the sorrow fades, I know she's got just a storehouse of wonderful memories because of the closeness of their relationship.

COOPER: I want to show you something that -- an appearance Mrs. Reagan had in 2001 on LAARY KING LIVE. Let's play that tape, and then talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY REAGAN: I found the letter that was written to me from a girl who was getting married. And she wanted to know the secret of a happy marriage. I said -- and I wrote back and said, something to the effect that I couldn't -- I had no magic formula. I never sat down and thought about it. But everything just fell into place with Ronny and me. We completed each other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: That they completed each other. And you no doubt saw that very up close. Did they ever talk about their early days in their relationship? They met on a film. They had both been actors. What was it that brought them together initially you think?

TATE: I think she thought he was cute. I think that was the beginning. There was a chemistry. I mean she gets -- she gets quite giddy when she talks about their first meeting, and how interesting it was. And how excited she was to meet him. And how they both lied about how they had to be home early because they had early jobs the next day. And then by several hours into their dinner they both confessed that neither had early calls the next morning, and so they stayed out later. And I think it was love at first sight for her.

COOPER: Beyond their personal relationship, was there -- if you can't talk about the impact Nancy politically -- people said that she obviously had a big impact on the president behind the scenes. And that's really where she sort of did her emphasis. Behind the scenes. She really wasn't very public in talking about politics at all was she?

TATE: Well Nancy Reagan recognized that she was not elected to any office. But as the wife of the President, she had significant implied power. And she was very careful to keep her advise private. She had really, really good instincts about people. And if she felt or sensed that someone wasn't serving the President's interest, but perhaps there own, she noticed it. And I think it was in those areas where she gave the President some pretty good advise.

She wasn't as she said, an expert in foreign policy, and she did not venture any pinions about policy, but rather about people.

COOPER: I certainly don't want to invade her privacy at all. If you can just talk generally. How have the last few years -- which really this last year, these last few months been for her?

TATE: Well, I talked to her periodically over the last few years. And what I sensed was she moved from really deep sadness about Alzheimer's to an acceptance of his disease. She never stopped protecting him. And I think -- I mean the finest thing that she did for Ronald Reagan was to preserve and protect his dignity.

You know when you were talking about how she didn't know what the secret was to a good marriage. I remember her saying you know, sometimes it's not 50/50. And you have to learn to give and take in a relationship. She said sometimes it's 90/10. And I think in the last year or so it's been 100/0. And she's been the one to give 100 percent. And I think the nation owes her a big, big debt of gratitude for that.

COOPER: She's also handled things with grace and style, as she always has. And there are so many people who admire her for that. Sheila Tate, it is great to talk you, thank you very much. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances.

TATE: Thank you. Thank you.

COOPER: Tonight, the president, the man, Reagan remembered.

ANNOUNCER: A special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360 continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back to this special edition of 360. We are in Simi Valley, California, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where tomorrow morning, the body of the late president will arrive to begin a week of events, commemorations, ceremonies, tributes and memory.

Before the 40th president is laid to rest, he will be brought back here on Friday, his final resting place. It is here where we have a week to recollect a very major figure of our time.

The oldest man ever to occupy the White House, nonetheless, always seemed boyish. He survived cancer and bullets and political earthquakes, one known as Iran Contra and the Soviet Union, which he called the focus of all the evil in the world.

Survived all those things, and Alzheimer's too for 10 years until he died at the age of 93, not much more than 24 hours ago at his home in Bel Air, California surrounded by his family.

When Ronald Reagan took office, he said the country was in the worst economic mess since the Great Depression. And I quote, "it's time to try something different." That's what he said. That was the beginning of Reaganomics.

He signed into law one of the biggest tax cuts while cutting spending for federal domestic programs. And to this day, the supply side policies embraced by many Republicans, including President Bush. Critics, who at one time including presidential rival George Bush called it voodoo economics, doing more harm to the country than good.

CNN Congressional correspondent Joe Johns looks back.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

R. REAGAN: Our economy is troubled...

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The core of Reaganomics is with us to this day.

NEWT GINGRICH, (R) FRM. HOUSE SPEAKER: He reminded us that America is about economic growth and entrepreneurs and job creation and that means lower taxes and less regulation.

JOHNS: Cutting taxes and government spending was at the heart of Reaganomics. The theory that cutting taxes would stimulate economic growth. And even if tax cuts meant temporary big deficits, higher revenues, produced by growth, would make deficits disappear, an idea that had been around a long time, but Reagan figured out how to sell it.

ED MEESE, FRM. REAGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL: What he did was, he took what had been an intellectual and a political movement and turned it into a governing movement and proved that conservative principles work when they're applied.

JOHNS: And it was controversial to say the least. So called supply side economics was ridiculed, even by Reagan's future running mate who called it voodoo economics and the president's own budget director David Stockman admitted the idea amounted to helping the rich, so any benefits would trickle down to the rest, that the whole thing was premised on faith. DAVID STOCKMAN, FRM. REAGAN BUDGET DIRECTOR: Our economy had grown to a halt, inflation was soaring, pessimism was rampant. The big government policies of several decades had finally reached the point of breakdown.

JOHNS: The stagnant economy eventually recovered, inflation came down, but at the same time Reagan pushed heavy defense spending to overcome the Soviet Union and the deficit more than doubled.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: But the fact is, more than a few Democrats have joined Republicans over the years in reducing taxes and cutting spending. And many of President Bush's ideas on the economy come straight out of the Reagan playbook -- Anderson.

COOPER: Joe Johns, thanks very much for that. In one of President Reagan's first speeches in office, he said this, quote, "feeding more dollars to government is like feeding a stray pup, it just follows you home and sits on your doorstep asking for more." That in a nut shell is how he viewed the federal bureaucracy.

Joining us now from Washington, former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, the man whose tax cut plan became the lynch pin of Reaganomics. Secretary Kemp, thank you very much for being on the program. Sorry, again, it's under these circumstances.

Secretary Kemp, Bill Kristol said of you that you were a Reaganite before Reagan was. At a crucial time, you really encouraged him to make bold fiscal moves, did it work out the way you had anticipated?

JACK KEMP, (R) FRM. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, it really did. I heard the previous speaker say that the economy had high unemployment and high inflation at the same time. And the simultaneity of inflation/unemployment could not be met by conventional methods of Keynesian Economics. So Paul Volcker brought down inflation with a very tight monetary policy. And Ronald Reagan deregulated and cut tax rates, not taxes, tax rates.

And this is what John F. Kennedy did in the early 60's to achieve a balanced budget. Reagan didn't get a balanced budget, but he got the economy growing again, we spent money on defense and I think it's that that defeated the Soviet Union.

COOPER: But there were, of course, many critics of Reaganomics. There were those, even though -- the critics who say, yes it helped the country recover from inflation ravaged years of Jimmy Carter, but at a cost, the national debt balloon, deficit really more than doubled from $79 billion in Reagan's first year to $173 billion in 1986. As you look back, should anything have been done differently?

KEMP: Well, I would have had the tax cut in the first year. Had the rate come down -- remember this, the top tax rate when Ronald Reagan took office was 70 percent at the top and 20 percent at the bottom, capital gain taxes had been pushed up to 50 percent. So we were being taxed into recession on one hand and monetary policy, which had been too loose, was causing inflation.

So we had to crack down on monetary policy and lower the rates. And I think it should have been done immediately.

And by the way, it wasn't done to trickle down to the poor, the rates came down across the board, the economy expanded and the revenues went up 400 percent in 8 years.

COOPER: Did it help the rich disproportionately in your opinion? Because that was the other common critique.

KEMP: The rich ended up paying more taxes. I think 55 percent of all tax revenues to the federal government are paid by that top 2 percent of people in this country. And when get rates too high, people escape taxation by putting them into municipal tax-free bonds, or putting them into shelters, or putting them offshore.

So by bringing down the rates to a level of equilibrium, I think Reagan got the top rate down to 28 by the time he left office in 1989, revenues were going up because people were putting their money into investment, into jobs, into new businesses. And very frankly, did it help the rich? Yes. And it helped the middle class? Yes. And my only complaint was, we should have put in enterprise zones to do something really dramatic in urban areas of poverty. But I think Reagan made a magnificent contribution.

And my postscript to all this is, he got it from John F. Kennedy.

COOPER: Well, he also got it, a little bit, from you. I understand, I read an account of a conversation you had with him, I think it was before Iowa, where you told the story of MacArthur in the Battle Enchon, we only have about 45 seconds left or so, but if you can, recount that conversation.

KEMP: Well, William Manchester tells the story about MacArthur going to Enchon in a surprise landing. And everybody in the country, all the military, no one wanted to go to Enchon, because it hadn't been so done in so long. And I said to Ronald Reagan, do you remember that story? And he said yes. And I said, you remember the conclusion? And he said, I think I do. What was it? I said, well MacArthur said the councils of war breed timidity and defeatism, you Doug, follow your instincts.

I said, Mr. President, just follow your instincts in that debate, your instincts are what got you hear and that's what will win you the presidency in my opinion.

COOPER: And it certainly did that. Let Reagan be Reagan.

Secretary Jack Kemp, thank you very much for being on the program tonight.

KEMP: Thank you.

COOPER: So, where does President Reagan stand among all of America's presidents? Today's "Buzz" question is this: What do you think? Who do you think was the greatest president? Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy or Reagan? Those are the choices. Log on to cnn.com/360. Cast your vote. We'll have results at the end of the show.

To many Americans, of course, Ronald Reagan is the great communicator, the president who spoke of the positive, with words of encouragement. Just ahead, we'll look at the "Raw Politics" of optimism.

Also tonight, fighting Alzheimer's disease -- after death, what Reagan's legacy might be to the medical world? When we return in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: The eternal optimist. That is Nancy Reagan, remembering her husband, Ronald Reagan in "Time" magazine's commemorative issue on the late president, which is going to hit newsstands tomorrow. Even in his high school yearbook, Ronald Reagan wrote the following, quote, "Life is just one grand sweet song, so start the music." His life, his journey, distinctly American, took him from a small apartment above a bank, where his parents lived in Tempico, Illinois, to Hollywood, and to the corridors of power. Until the end, until his long, sad journey into the sunset of his life, Ronald Reagan never stopped believing life was a grand, sweet song.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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

COOPER (voice-over): When Ronald Reagan left the White House, his words of encouragement for the man who would one day succeed him came from a Hollywood movie. He was called the great communicator, but what came across perhaps most clearly was his great optimism.

At a time when the country was reeling from Watergate and the war in Vietnam, he saw America as a shining city on a hill.

REAGAN: In my mind, it was a tall, proud city, built on rocks, stronger than oceans, wind-swept, god-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace. A city with three 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 there.

COOPER: And after his time in office had ended, the oldest man ever elected president still saw his country as forever young, forever full of hope.

REAGAN: Some may try and tell us that this is the end of an era, but what they overlook is that in America, every day is a new beginning, and every sunset is merely the latest milestone for a voyage that never ends. For this is the land that has never become, but is always in the act of becoming. Emerson was right, America is the land of tomorrow. (END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: His words inspired so many. Joining me from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to talk about Reagan's political legacy, CNN analyst Dinesh D'Souza, Reagan biographer who he was also a Reagan adviser. Dinesh, thanks for being on the program tonight.

You were in your early 20s, I believe, when you came to Washington, part of what a lot of people called the Reagan revolution. I suppose that's one of the paradoxes of President Reagan -- he was the oldest president, 69 when he was elected, and yet he gave optimism and hope and attracted so many young people to Washington and to politics, often for the first time. What was it you think that drew young people to him and to his leadership?

DINESH D'SOUZA, REAGAN BIOGRAPHER: I think it was the combination of the boldness of his ideas, combined with the geniality of the way in which he held them. He was saying some pretty radical things. That Soviet Union was not simply wrong, but evil. We should not just contain it, we should roll it back, we should get rid of it. He was saying the government isn't the solution; it's the problem.

Ultimately, what Reagan was doing was challenging an idea that had become popularized by a Kennedy a generation earlier -- if you remember, Kennedy had said if you are young, if you're idealistic, you should do what? You should join the Peace Corps, you should become a public servant. And Reagan challenged that idea. For Reagan, a public servant was a kind of bureaucrat and what bureaucrats did was sit around and do nothing. Reagan celebrated the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is a person who invents things and makes new things. So we're living today, I would say, in the age of the entrepreneur.

So Reaganomics has also produced a cultural shift, away from the age of the bureaucrat and toward the age of the entrepreneur.

COOPER: He also spurred change not just among Democrats and liberals, but even within the conservative movement, within the Republican Party, focusing on the notion of tax cuts, which traditionally is not something conservatives have put the main emphasis upon.

D'SOUZA: Well, the old Republicans in a sense were politically very foolish. They would say, we are the fiscally responsible party. The Democrat want to spend money, and we have to raise the taxes to pay for it. And guess who kept winning elections for half a century? The Democrats. They were the Santa Claus party, and the Republicans were the Scrooge party.

So Reagan stopped that. He said, we're not going to pay for the Democrats' programs. We're going to be the party of growth and tax cuts. It was a very bold experiment, but it produced an incredible economic boom. We forget the Dow Jones Industrial Average, in 1980, when Reagan took office, was around 1,000. It tripled in Reagan's two terms in office, and then tripled again in the 1990s.

COOPER: I remember growing up in New York. My high school was very liberal, and I remember a lot of people sort of making fun of President Reagan, saying he was an actor playing the role of president, that he didn't really have his arms around the issues, he really wasn't involved. They called him a 9 to 5 president.

History doesn't seem to bear that out. That notion seems to, as people are going through his papers here at the library, at the museum, they see handwritten notes, they see a president who was much more actively engaged, both intellectually and physically, in the job.

D'SOUZA: Well, to me the most striking thing was that even though Reagan was accused of being not just an actor but an idiot, a dunce, he made almost no effort to prove the critics wrong. I mean, think of poor Dan Quayle, who tried for so long to prove that he wasn't what the critics said he was. Reagan, by contrast, just ignored. He laughed it off. I remember he went to Eureka College, his alma mater, in the mid-80s, when he was president, and a reporter said to him, the reporter said, "Mr. President, isn't it true that you graduated from Eureka College, not exactly Princeton, with a C average?" And Reagan's response was, he said, "Well, even now, I wonder what I might have accomplished if I had studied harder." And of course, the guy is president of the United States.

So he had this incredible ability to let the criticisms bounce off him harmlessly. Gave him a tremendous freedom to pursue his own course.

COOPER: The ultimate sign of confidence, I suppose, that you can make fun of yourself and not worry about the repercussions. Dinesh D'Souza, thank you very much for being on the program tonight.

Nancy Reagan's crusade to find a cure for the disease that took her husband's life. We'll talk about that, coming up next. The struggle against Alzheimer's, and what a struggle it has been. The political battle over stem cell research, which is still to be waged.

First, a lighter moment from Ronald Reagan in a debate with Walter Mondale during the 1984 election campaign. Who can forget this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAGAN: ... issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

N. REAGAN: No, we're all -- he said, which is in the letter, that he knew it would be hard on me and that he hoped for people's support and faith. I got through it. And he was sorry to put me in this position. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, the sadness she experienced during his 10 year struggle with Alzheimer's disease was led Nancy Reagan on a very public crusade to find a cure. The former first lady has become an activist of sorts, leading the drive to fund stem cell research to fight Alzheimer's, research that is opposed by many Americans who consider Reagan a hero, including the president. CNN medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: She came to the cause late in life.

N. REAGAN: Now science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research which may provide our scientists with many answers they've had for so long been beyond our grasp. I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this.

COHEN: Nancy Reagan watched her husband suffer.

N. REAGAN: Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him.

COHEN: And has become one of the most well known advocates for this controversial research along with Christopher Reeves, who suffered a spinal cord injury which left him paralyzed, and Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease.

MICHAEL J. FOX, ACTOR: Not only have you so wonderfully taken care of the president for all these years, but in no small fashion through your courage and conviction, you've taken care of us all.

COHEN: Mrs. Reagan has faced a hurdle Reeves and Fox didn't, she's had to publicly disagree with many of the leaders of her husband's own party, parting ways with the very constituency that supported him and her. That's because the type of stem cell research she supports requires the destruction of embryos, such as the ones in fertility clinics. And that led President Bush 3 years ago to authorize federal funding, but with extensive limitations.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Embryonic stem cell research offers both great promise and great peril.

COHEN: Researchers hope embryonic stem cells can be turned into neurons and then used to replace the type of neurons that are damaged by Alzheimer's. Or turned into virtually any type of human tissue to help people with a wide variety of diseases.

Mrs. Reagan's inspiration to take this bold stance came from watching her husband toward the end of his life.

N. REAGAN: We can't share the wonderful memories of our 52 years together, and I think that's probably the hardest part. And because of this, I'm determined to do what I can to save other families from this pain.

COHEN: To help ease that pain, she vows to continue the fight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: Mrs. Reagan has received awards from various patients groups. Last month she received the Caregivers Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation -- Anderson.

COOPER: She has been an inspiration to so many Americans. Thank you very much Elizabeth Cohen. We want to know what you think. Today's "Buzz" is this, "who was the greatest president? Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy or Reagan?" Log on to cnn.com/360. Cast your vote. Results on this special edition of 360 when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Time now for the "Buzz" question. Earlier we asked you "Who do you think was the greatest president? Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy or Reagan?" More than 20,000 of you voted. The majority say Abraham Lincoln. He had 34 percent. Not a scientific poll, but it is your "Buzz." Thanks for voting.

Finally tonight, taking coincidence to the "Nth Degree." As it happens, the country this weekend is experiencing the lowest tides it has seen in 19 years. It's a cyclical thing. A number of astronomical factors have come together, the do that once in a blue moon, and that's what's happened this weekend. So here in California and north of here on the Puget Sound and across the country in Maine and down in Florida, in all the places tidal rivers run and the oceans lap at America, the waters are most remarkably low. Odd we think.

Ronald Reagan dies. Ronald Reagan, who's presidency represented what many would say was a kind of high tide of good feeling in this country and the oceans go out with him further than they have in 19 years. As we say, it is just a coincidence to the "Nth Degree."

I'm Anderson Cooper, thanks for watching this special edition of 360. "PAULA ZAHN NOW" is next.

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 6, 2004 - 19:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley California. I'm Anderson Cooper. Tonight, the final journey of a president on this special edition of 360.
ANNOUNCER: The Reagan legacy. Tonight a look at the Cold War crusader with his Former Secretary of State, Alexander Haig. His economic legacy was one of the architects of Reaganomics Jack Kemp. And a look at the half-century love affair with his beloved wife Nancy. And the illness that led him into the sunset of his life.

Tonight, the president, the man, Reagan remembered.

ANNOUNCER: A special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360, live from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

COOPER: Good evening again from Simi Valley California. Tonight, we wait. The body of Ronald Reagan is scheduled to arrive here at his Presidential Library tomorrow morning. And with that arrival will begin a week of official events leading up to his burial. Also here at this library late on Friday. Between now and then, and especially this evening in this next hour, there is time for reflection and recollection. All of which have begun already in many places around the land that Ronald Reagan called "a shining city on a hill."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REV. LYNN BONO, FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH: Again we remember President Ronald Reagan, and his family. Asking you oh God, to comfort his family, his friends, and all those who grieve.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER (voice-over): From a small church in his one-time hometown of Dixon Illinois, to the Normandy coast of France, we pause today to remember Ronald Reagan.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT, (R-IL) HOUSE SPEAKER: When the rest of the world stepped forward and challenged the Soviet Union. And I think because of that, there are people who walk in freedom today.

COOPER: There were flags and flowers and little mementos left here at his Presidential Library. And fond memories, even from political opponents whose downfall Ronald Reagan once engineered. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was because of him that I was involuntarily retired from my last job in November of 1980. But he was able to clarify, and possibly even some very complex issues.

COOPER: And there was this from another Democratic president, who many say was a product of the Reagan Legacy.

BILL CLINTON, FMR PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES: He was not mean spirited. He was always optimistic about our country. And he believed that freedom was a universal value.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: So many remembrances today. On a political family tree, Ronald Reagan would be something like George W. Bush's uncle. After all, the President's father served as Mr. Reagan's vice president, and then went on to become president himself. Largely because of Ronald Reagan's great popularity.

In many ways then the footsteps in which George Bush is following are Ronald Reagan's. This weekend those footsteps the President to France. CNN's Senior White House Correspondent John King is there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESSPONDENT (on-camera): In Normandy to salute the heroes who stormed the beaches 60 years ago. And a role model who walked this hallowed ground 20 years before him.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He was a courageous man himself. And a gallant leader in the cause of freedom. And today we honor the memory of Ronald Reagan.

KING (voice-over): Mr. Bush will hear "Taps" again before the week is out. Heading home as arrangements are made for President Reagan's state funeral on Friday. Flags at the White House and all federal buildings are at half-staff for 30 days on Mr. Bush's order. Part of the tribute to a man with whom the current President has built and political affinity.

MICHAEL DEAVER, FMR. REAGAN DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: They are westerners. They are probably both of them would have rather been on the ranch then any place else. They were both governors, western governors. They're both sort of hands-on people. They are both people with strong convictions who stick by them.

KING: This president is the son of a president. But politically, it's much more an heir of Reagan.

BILL MCINTURFF, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: What they share in common is the modern Republican Party that this president Bush inherited from Ronald Reagan. Which is the Republican Party that's united by tax cuts. And that's animated by strong American defense.

KING: Several of the world leaders at the D-day commemoration are joining Mr. Bush for the annual G-8 summit this week at Sea Island Georgia. And many will then head for Washington for Friday's state funeral for Mr. Reagan at the National Cathedral.

KING (on-camera): Among the European leaders planning to attend the funeral are several from nations president Reagan referred to as liberated countries lost in his vintage D-day speech 20 years ago. A reference to Soviet occupation. Now the Soviet Union is no more. Eastern Europe is free and democratic. And history gives Mr. Reagan a good piece of the credit.

John King, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well the Presidential Library here in Simi Valley California where we are broadcasting from tonight is certainly a good place to remember and think about Ronald Reagan. But of course people everywhere are doing that anyway. Memories and thoughts are like that. They are to found wherever we are to be found.

And where Ronald Reagan is concerned, this is a land very full indeed of memories and thoughts. Here's CNN's Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): American's across the nation remembered Ronald Wilson Reagan, their 40th president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think everybody, whether they liked him or not, is kind of taken in by this moment.

BUCKLEY: In Dixon Illinois, Reagan's childhood hometown, they remember him as one of their own. And even those who didn't know the President personally, most of us, say they felt as if they did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was kind of everybody's grandfather too. You know, he had a good sense of humor, and was a good president.

BUCKLEY: That sense of humor remembered by many.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some of his one-liners, and some of the things he said. The classic when he was shot in pain in the hospital, and he asks if all the doctors are Republicans. I mean that kind of quick wit, just I loved it. He was terrific.

BUCKLEY: Flowers, and notes, and jellybeans were left in tribute to the former president at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley California, and in his childhood hometown. He was remembered at the airport that bears his name in Washington D.C.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fantastic president. Probably the last president I actually voted for.

BUCKLEY: There were prayers for the former president. And at BELLINI: Air Presbyterian Church, where the Reagan's continued to attend, even after the Alzheimer's diagnosis, affectionate memories.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He sat close to me, and I turned around and looked, and the hymns were going on. And he was singing every word without looking at any books or anything. And he remembered. That was still so deeply embedded.

BUCKLEY: As Americans remembered Ronald Reagan, most set aside political differences they may have had, and remembered a man who insisted that Americans had reason to be proud of America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was probably one of the greatest presidents that we've ever had. And it's very tragic.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BUCKLEY (on-camera): And the largely positive public comments not a great surprise given the incredible approval rating that President Reagan enjoyed as he was leaving office. His approval rating in the last "New York Times" CBS poll, 68 percent. A record for an outgoing president.

Tomorrow the public will have a chance to begin paying their respects in person when the president will be lying in repose here at the Reagan Library starting at noon, local time. Anderson?

COOPER: Frank Buckley, thanks very much for that. And we do expect thousands of people here to come to pay their respects to the President.

A president's schedule even in death, perhaps even especially in death, is carefully managed. Every move, every minute planned and replanned well in advance. For the next six days we will follow the journey of President Reagan. Tomorrow here to his beloved library, Wednesday to Washington, and Friday of course his last journey. When Ronald Reagan comes home. CNN's Chris Lawrence looks ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These flags and flowers will mark the beginning of the Reagan family's last journey with the former president. At 10:00 in the morning Monday, Mrs. Reagan and the family will leave this funeral home in Santa Monica, California. And about an hour later they will arrive at the Reagan Library for a private ceremony.

JOANN DRAKE, REAGAN FAMILY SPOKESWOMAN: At 12:00 noon, the official lying and repose begins in the main lobby of the library.

LAWRENCE: The public is invited to pay their respects through Tuesday night. And then Wednesday morning, the Reagan motorcade travels to the navel base at Point Mcgue (ph), where they'll leave on a flight to Andrews Air Force Base. Arriving Wednesday afternoon, the procession will travel to the U.S. capital, where a state funeral ceremony will be held in the Rotunda.

DRAKE: At approximately 8:30, the President will begin lying in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capital for the public to pay their respects. And this will continue through the night. LAWRENCE: Mr. Reagan's body will remain in the Rotunda Thursday. And then on Friday morning, the family attends a national funeral service at Washington National Cathedral. From there it's back to California in the Reagan Library for a private sunset internment over looking the Pacific Ocean.

DRAKE: There is definitely a sense of relief that he is no longer suffering, and that he has gone to a better place.

LAWRENCE: Ronald Reagan made his name in California. But he left his mark in Washington. Organizers sat ceremonies on both coasts are the only appropriate way to sat good-bye.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAWRENCE: A lot of people here in Santa Monica say they'll make the drive one hour north to the library. And even those who didn't agree with Mr. Reagan's politics, and there are many, say now that they can look back on his presidency, they can appreciate his accomplishments. Anderson?

COOPER: Thanks very much for that Chris. And there are a lot of people who are gathered right now. Several hundred feet from here down at the makeshift memorial. Those makeshift memorials which we have seen crop up at so many national tragedies. So many people to be remembered. Several people are there right now with flowers and balloons and flags. And that crowd is likely to grow tomorrow by a lot.

A quick news note for you to mark the death of Ronald Reagan. The New York Stock Exchange will hold two minutes of silence tomorrow morning at 9:30, delaying the opening bell.

360 next, Nancy and Ronald Reagan, there's was a great love affair. And in these last dark years, a difficult desperate battle against Alzheimer's. The life of the First Lady in focus. Her former press secretary joins us live.

Plus, we'll look at Reaganomics. Iran-Contra, and scaring down the Russians. Ronald Reagan's Cold War legacy. And Former Secretary of State, Alexander Haig is our special guest.

We'll also look at the President's journey into the sunset of his life. His battle with Alzheimer's, and Mrs. Reagan's support of stem cell research. All that ahead. First, we remember Ronald Reagan the man. His first love acting. A classic scene that eventually became his trademark.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: George.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: George, this telegram just arrived from Warner camp (ph). You've been named full back in his All American Team.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Me? You ain't kidding me right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it's on the radio (ph). You're going to be all right kid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I haven't got a complaint in the world (UNINTELLIGIBLE). I'm not afraid. We still have fun with this. Someday when the team's up against it, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the boys, ask then to go in there with all they've got, and win just one for the Gipper.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: We have remembered many of the successes of the Reagan Administration today. But as with any president, scandals and controversies at times threaten to rock the nation and the White House. Ronald Reagan was undoubtedly a great communicator. But as CNN's Candy Crowley reports, some critics had another name for him. The Teflon President.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Inside the shadow of death, eulogies by definition are glowing. History is written from a distance with a cooler eye. It will tell the story of a president of great accomplishments and failure. A president who cut taxes, and nearly doubled the deficit. Which came up a lot when the new tax- cutting president came to town.

SEN. TOM DASCHLE, (D) SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: We are repeating in many cases, the same mistakes made in 1981 and 1982. I fear that we are going to see deficits every bit as large as the ones created in 1982.

CROWLEY: History will say that Reagan was the president who began the end of the Cold War, but stumbled at start of a new kind of war.

RONALD REAGAN: If there is to be blame, it properly rests here in this office, and with this president. And I accept responsibility for the bad as well as the good.

CROWLEY: In October of '83, 241 marines died in a single moment on his watch. Killed by a truck bomb while serving as part of a peacekeeping force Mr. Reagan sent to Beirut. A defense department report said later there was poor security despite warnings of an attack. And that the military was neither equipped, not trained to fight terrorism.

REAGAN: I will to the best of my ability...

CROWLEY: Reelected a year later, Mr. Reagan continued to strengthen the military and promise the U.S. would never negotiate with terrorists. And then as an effort to secure the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon, the U.S. sold arms to Iran. The profits were funneled to anti-government forces in Nicaragua.

REAGAN: As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities.

CROWLEY: Aids say President Reagan never understood why some people did not believe him about Iran-Contra. Critics, who dubbed him the Teflon President, never understood why so many people always believed him. Ronald Reagan left office with the highest popularity of any president of the modern age. Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: There was a plaque in Ronald Reagan's Oval Office that sums up the spirit with which he faced even the darkest of challenges. "It can be done." That's what the plaque said. That's what the president and the man believed.

In Washington tonight, Former Secretary of State Alexander Haigs. Secretary Haigs, thanks for being with us tonight. Your memories of President Ronald Reagan when you both took office. You were his Secretary of State. What were the biggest challenges the two of you faced?

ALEXANDER HAIG, FMR. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, there were many, many challenges, but in the foreign policy area, our greatest challenge was to rebuild American credibility. It had been totally squandered in the preceding years. Especially with the hostage crisis, and the inability of the United States, the helpless giant to do anything to get the release of our prisoners.

That was Ronald Reagan's first and major achievement in my time with him. Was to get that hostage crisis settled right at the moment of his inauguration. And it was his credibility that did so. And he did it by telling the Iranians that if those prisoners were not released, that the moment of his inauguration, it would be a whole new ball game.

And I know the message, because I'm the one that delivered it. And afterwards, President Reagan said to me, Al, you may have been a little to soft. Couldn't you have toughened that up a bit?

COOPER: There were -- some criticized -- especially early on in the administration of being a non-defined president. That he really wasn't -- that he didn't have his hands on the issues. Some even sort of sarcastically said he was reading a script. Sort of playing the role of president. A lot of people changed their minds over time. Was that a fair criticism ever?

HAIG: Well it was totally unfair. As you look back, he probably understood the situation globally better than most people at the time. He knew for example, that the Soviet Union was in an advance state of decay. But he knew it at such times totalitarian regimes are the most dangerous. He knew also that the Soviet Union was beginning to believe that the United States was unwilling to bleed or to die for it's principles or it's values.

He knew there were something worth dying for occasionally. And he managed to end the Cold War without firing a shot. By reestablishing American credibility. By taking action where it was necessary in Granada, and Panama, and elsewhere. And convincing the Soviet Union that it was a question of getting along, or facing conflict if they went on the way they were going.

COOPER: Mr. Haig, you and President Reagan obviously had your differences; you resigned in 1982 under some controversy. You talk about his successes, at which there were many. What was his greatest weakness? What was his failing as a leader from your prospective?

HAIG: Well first, let me say, I didn't have problems with President Reagan, I had problems with his palace guards. You know when you can't talk to a president when we had the Lebanon crisis brewing, then you have a problem. And frankly, one developed. And it had to do with terrorism. The problem we are now confronted with. But it wasn't the President. It was to much isolation by a palace guard that assumed more than it was entitled to assume, in my view.

So I'm not going to criticize the President. And even if I wanted to, I would never do it on an occasion such as this. We should be grateful that the world was a better place because of Ronald Reagan's presidency. And those of us who served him were proud to do so, and I am one of those. So please don't ask me to criticize President Reagan at this time. I wouldn't do it if I had any criticism, and I don't.

COOPER: Well, there you go. I wasn't asking you to criticize him, but I do appreciate your accessing his leadership. Secretary Alexander Haig, thank you very much. We have heard sentiments like that all across the nation today from people who new him, from people who didn't know him but felt like they did.

360 next, the woman behind the man. An incredible love story, and years of struggle with the crippling disease. Nancy Reagan, her formal press secretary joins us live. Also tonight, stem cell research, cutting edge research, and political controversy. We'll take a closer look.

Also a little later tonight, tax cuts, deficits, and Reaganomics. One of the masterminds in Reagan's White House Jack Kemp joins us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAGAN: I think it's all to common in marriages that no matter how much partners love each other, they don't thank each other enough. And I suppose I don't thank Nancy enough for all that she does for me. So Nancy, in front of all your friends here today, let me say thank you for all you do. Thank you for your love. And thank you for just being you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: A wonderful moment. In 1989 Nancy Reagan said this about Ronald Reagan. "He's not an easy man. To everybody he seems very easy. But he's more complex than people think." No one understood him like his beloved Nancy. She called him Ronny. He called her Mommy. It's hard to imagine one without the other. Sheila Tate was Nancy Reagan's press secretary. She joins me tonight from Washington. Miss Tate, thanks for being on the program tonight. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances.

I want to read to you something which is from next week's "Time" magazine that Nancy Reagan wrote. She wrote this about her relationship with Ronald Reagan.

"After being married to him for 52 years, I have so many memories. He was very sentimental, and romantic, and tender. On my birthday, he always sent my mother flowers to thank her for having me. And he wrote me beautiful touching letters when we had to be apart."

You saw their relationship up close. What do you remember?

SHEILA TATE, NANCY REAGAN'S FMR. PRESS SECRETARY: I remember how much it meant to her when he would send her mother those flowers. And I also remember being in card stores with her where she would spend an hour picking out cards for him.

And what she would do on his birthday was hide cards all over the place so that all during the day he would find cards. They took so much delight in each other. It is hard to imagine life for her without him. I know she's surrounded by family and friends. And once all the grief and the sorrow fades, I know she's got just a storehouse of wonderful memories because of the closeness of their relationship.

COOPER: I want to show you something that -- an appearance Mrs. Reagan had in 2001 on LAARY KING LIVE. Let's play that tape, and then talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY REAGAN: I found the letter that was written to me from a girl who was getting married. And she wanted to know the secret of a happy marriage. I said -- and I wrote back and said, something to the effect that I couldn't -- I had no magic formula. I never sat down and thought about it. But everything just fell into place with Ronny and me. We completed each other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: That they completed each other. And you no doubt saw that very up close. Did they ever talk about their early days in their relationship? They met on a film. They had both been actors. What was it that brought them together initially you think?

TATE: I think she thought he was cute. I think that was the beginning. There was a chemistry. I mean she gets -- she gets quite giddy when she talks about their first meeting, and how interesting it was. And how excited she was to meet him. And how they both lied about how they had to be home early because they had early jobs the next day. And then by several hours into their dinner they both confessed that neither had early calls the next morning, and so they stayed out later. And I think it was love at first sight for her.

COOPER: Beyond their personal relationship, was there -- if you can't talk about the impact Nancy politically -- people said that she obviously had a big impact on the president behind the scenes. And that's really where she sort of did her emphasis. Behind the scenes. She really wasn't very public in talking about politics at all was she?

TATE: Well Nancy Reagan recognized that she was not elected to any office. But as the wife of the President, she had significant implied power. And she was very careful to keep her advise private. She had really, really good instincts about people. And if she felt or sensed that someone wasn't serving the President's interest, but perhaps there own, she noticed it. And I think it was in those areas where she gave the President some pretty good advise.

She wasn't as she said, an expert in foreign policy, and she did not venture any pinions about policy, but rather about people.

COOPER: I certainly don't want to invade her privacy at all. If you can just talk generally. How have the last few years -- which really this last year, these last few months been for her?

TATE: Well, I talked to her periodically over the last few years. And what I sensed was she moved from really deep sadness about Alzheimer's to an acceptance of his disease. She never stopped protecting him. And I think -- I mean the finest thing that she did for Ronald Reagan was to preserve and protect his dignity.

You know when you were talking about how she didn't know what the secret was to a good marriage. I remember her saying you know, sometimes it's not 50/50. And you have to learn to give and take in a relationship. She said sometimes it's 90/10. And I think in the last year or so it's been 100/0. And she's been the one to give 100 percent. And I think the nation owes her a big, big debt of gratitude for that.

COOPER: She's also handled things with grace and style, as she always has. And there are so many people who admire her for that. Sheila Tate, it is great to talk you, thank you very much. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances.

TATE: Thank you. Thank you.

COOPER: Tonight, the president, the man, Reagan remembered.

ANNOUNCER: A special edition of ANDERSON COOPER 360 continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back to this special edition of 360. We are in Simi Valley, California, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where tomorrow morning, the body of the late president will arrive to begin a week of events, commemorations, ceremonies, tributes and memory.

Before the 40th president is laid to rest, he will be brought back here on Friday, his final resting place. It is here where we have a week to recollect a very major figure of our time.

The oldest man ever to occupy the White House, nonetheless, always seemed boyish. He survived cancer and bullets and political earthquakes, one known as Iran Contra and the Soviet Union, which he called the focus of all the evil in the world.

Survived all those things, and Alzheimer's too for 10 years until he died at the age of 93, not much more than 24 hours ago at his home in Bel Air, California surrounded by his family.

When Ronald Reagan took office, he said the country was in the worst economic mess since the Great Depression. And I quote, "it's time to try something different." That's what he said. That was the beginning of Reaganomics.

He signed into law one of the biggest tax cuts while cutting spending for federal domestic programs. And to this day, the supply side policies embraced by many Republicans, including President Bush. Critics, who at one time including presidential rival George Bush called it voodoo economics, doing more harm to the country than good.

CNN Congressional correspondent Joe Johns looks back.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

R. REAGAN: Our economy is troubled...

JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The core of Reaganomics is with us to this day.

NEWT GINGRICH, (R) FRM. HOUSE SPEAKER: He reminded us that America is about economic growth and entrepreneurs and job creation and that means lower taxes and less regulation.

JOHNS: Cutting taxes and government spending was at the heart of Reaganomics. The theory that cutting taxes would stimulate economic growth. And even if tax cuts meant temporary big deficits, higher revenues, produced by growth, would make deficits disappear, an idea that had been around a long time, but Reagan figured out how to sell it.

ED MEESE, FRM. REAGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL: What he did was, he took what had been an intellectual and a political movement and turned it into a governing movement and proved that conservative principles work when they're applied.

JOHNS: And it was controversial to say the least. So called supply side economics was ridiculed, even by Reagan's future running mate who called it voodoo economics and the president's own budget director David Stockman admitted the idea amounted to helping the rich, so any benefits would trickle down to the rest, that the whole thing was premised on faith. DAVID STOCKMAN, FRM. REAGAN BUDGET DIRECTOR: Our economy had grown to a halt, inflation was soaring, pessimism was rampant. The big government policies of several decades had finally reached the point of breakdown.

JOHNS: The stagnant economy eventually recovered, inflation came down, but at the same time Reagan pushed heavy defense spending to overcome the Soviet Union and the deficit more than doubled.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHNS: But the fact is, more than a few Democrats have joined Republicans over the years in reducing taxes and cutting spending. And many of President Bush's ideas on the economy come straight out of the Reagan playbook -- Anderson.

COOPER: Joe Johns, thanks very much for that. In one of President Reagan's first speeches in office, he said this, quote, "feeding more dollars to government is like feeding a stray pup, it just follows you home and sits on your doorstep asking for more." That in a nut shell is how he viewed the federal bureaucracy.

Joining us now from Washington, former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, the man whose tax cut plan became the lynch pin of Reaganomics. Secretary Kemp, thank you very much for being on the program. Sorry, again, it's under these circumstances.

Secretary Kemp, Bill Kristol said of you that you were a Reaganite before Reagan was. At a crucial time, you really encouraged him to make bold fiscal moves, did it work out the way you had anticipated?

JACK KEMP, (R) FRM. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, it really did. I heard the previous speaker say that the economy had high unemployment and high inflation at the same time. And the simultaneity of inflation/unemployment could not be met by conventional methods of Keynesian Economics. So Paul Volcker brought down inflation with a very tight monetary policy. And Ronald Reagan deregulated and cut tax rates, not taxes, tax rates.

And this is what John F. Kennedy did in the early 60's to achieve a balanced budget. Reagan didn't get a balanced budget, but he got the economy growing again, we spent money on defense and I think it's that that defeated the Soviet Union.

COOPER: But there were, of course, many critics of Reaganomics. There were those, even though -- the critics who say, yes it helped the country recover from inflation ravaged years of Jimmy Carter, but at a cost, the national debt balloon, deficit really more than doubled from $79 billion in Reagan's first year to $173 billion in 1986. As you look back, should anything have been done differently?

KEMP: Well, I would have had the tax cut in the first year. Had the rate come down -- remember this, the top tax rate when Ronald Reagan took office was 70 percent at the top and 20 percent at the bottom, capital gain taxes had been pushed up to 50 percent. So we were being taxed into recession on one hand and monetary policy, which had been too loose, was causing inflation.

So we had to crack down on monetary policy and lower the rates. And I think it should have been done immediately.

And by the way, it wasn't done to trickle down to the poor, the rates came down across the board, the economy expanded and the revenues went up 400 percent in 8 years.

COOPER: Did it help the rich disproportionately in your opinion? Because that was the other common critique.

KEMP: The rich ended up paying more taxes. I think 55 percent of all tax revenues to the federal government are paid by that top 2 percent of people in this country. And when get rates too high, people escape taxation by putting them into municipal tax-free bonds, or putting them into shelters, or putting them offshore.

So by bringing down the rates to a level of equilibrium, I think Reagan got the top rate down to 28 by the time he left office in 1989, revenues were going up because people were putting their money into investment, into jobs, into new businesses. And very frankly, did it help the rich? Yes. And it helped the middle class? Yes. And my only complaint was, we should have put in enterprise zones to do something really dramatic in urban areas of poverty. But I think Reagan made a magnificent contribution.

And my postscript to all this is, he got it from John F. Kennedy.

COOPER: Well, he also got it, a little bit, from you. I understand, I read an account of a conversation you had with him, I think it was before Iowa, where you told the story of MacArthur in the Battle Enchon, we only have about 45 seconds left or so, but if you can, recount that conversation.

KEMP: Well, William Manchester tells the story about MacArthur going to Enchon in a surprise landing. And everybody in the country, all the military, no one wanted to go to Enchon, because it hadn't been so done in so long. And I said to Ronald Reagan, do you remember that story? And he said yes. And I said, you remember the conclusion? And he said, I think I do. What was it? I said, well MacArthur said the councils of war breed timidity and defeatism, you Doug, follow your instincts.

I said, Mr. President, just follow your instincts in that debate, your instincts are what got you hear and that's what will win you the presidency in my opinion.

COOPER: And it certainly did that. Let Reagan be Reagan.

Secretary Jack Kemp, thank you very much for being on the program tonight.

KEMP: Thank you.

COOPER: So, where does President Reagan stand among all of America's presidents? Today's "Buzz" question is this: What do you think? Who do you think was the greatest president? Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy or Reagan? Those are the choices. Log on to cnn.com/360. Cast your vote. We'll have results at the end of the show.

To many Americans, of course, Ronald Reagan is the great communicator, the president who spoke of the positive, with words of encouragement. Just ahead, we'll look at the "Raw Politics" of optimism.

Also tonight, fighting Alzheimer's disease -- after death, what Reagan's legacy might be to the medical world? When we return in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: The eternal optimist. That is Nancy Reagan, remembering her husband, Ronald Reagan in "Time" magazine's commemorative issue on the late president, which is going to hit newsstands tomorrow. Even in his high school yearbook, Ronald Reagan wrote the following, quote, "Life is just one grand sweet song, so start the music." His life, his journey, distinctly American, took him from a small apartment above a bank, where his parents lived in Tempico, Illinois, to Hollywood, and to the corridors of power. Until the end, until his long, sad journey into the sunset of his life, Ronald Reagan never stopped believing life was a grand, sweet song.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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

COOPER (voice-over): When Ronald Reagan left the White House, his words of encouragement for the man who would one day succeed him came from a Hollywood movie. He was called the great communicator, but what came across perhaps most clearly was his great optimism.

At a time when the country was reeling from Watergate and the war in Vietnam, he saw America as a shining city on a hill.

REAGAN: In my mind, it was a tall, proud city, built on rocks, stronger than oceans, wind-swept, god-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace. A city with three 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 there.

COOPER: And after his time in office had ended, the oldest man ever elected president still saw his country as forever young, forever full of hope.

REAGAN: Some may try and tell us that this is the end of an era, but what they overlook is that in America, every day is a new beginning, and every sunset is merely the latest milestone for a voyage that never ends. For this is the land that has never become, but is always in the act of becoming. Emerson was right, America is the land of tomorrow. (END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: His words inspired so many. Joining me from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to talk about Reagan's political legacy, CNN analyst Dinesh D'Souza, Reagan biographer who he was also a Reagan adviser. Dinesh, thanks for being on the program tonight.

You were in your early 20s, I believe, when you came to Washington, part of what a lot of people called the Reagan revolution. I suppose that's one of the paradoxes of President Reagan -- he was the oldest president, 69 when he was elected, and yet he gave optimism and hope and attracted so many young people to Washington and to politics, often for the first time. What was it you think that drew young people to him and to his leadership?

DINESH D'SOUZA, REAGAN BIOGRAPHER: I think it was the combination of the boldness of his ideas, combined with the geniality of the way in which he held them. He was saying some pretty radical things. That Soviet Union was not simply wrong, but evil. We should not just contain it, we should roll it back, we should get rid of it. He was saying the government isn't the solution; it's the problem.

Ultimately, what Reagan was doing was challenging an idea that had become popularized by a Kennedy a generation earlier -- if you remember, Kennedy had said if you are young, if you're idealistic, you should do what? You should join the Peace Corps, you should become a public servant. And Reagan challenged that idea. For Reagan, a public servant was a kind of bureaucrat and what bureaucrats did was sit around and do nothing. Reagan celebrated the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is a person who invents things and makes new things. So we're living today, I would say, in the age of the entrepreneur.

So Reaganomics has also produced a cultural shift, away from the age of the bureaucrat and toward the age of the entrepreneur.

COOPER: He also spurred change not just among Democrats and liberals, but even within the conservative movement, within the Republican Party, focusing on the notion of tax cuts, which traditionally is not something conservatives have put the main emphasis upon.

D'SOUZA: Well, the old Republicans in a sense were politically very foolish. They would say, we are the fiscally responsible party. The Democrat want to spend money, and we have to raise the taxes to pay for it. And guess who kept winning elections for half a century? The Democrats. They were the Santa Claus party, and the Republicans were the Scrooge party.

So Reagan stopped that. He said, we're not going to pay for the Democrats' programs. We're going to be the party of growth and tax cuts. It was a very bold experiment, but it produced an incredible economic boom. We forget the Dow Jones Industrial Average, in 1980, when Reagan took office, was around 1,000. It tripled in Reagan's two terms in office, and then tripled again in the 1990s.

COOPER: I remember growing up in New York. My high school was very liberal, and I remember a lot of people sort of making fun of President Reagan, saying he was an actor playing the role of president, that he didn't really have his arms around the issues, he really wasn't involved. They called him a 9 to 5 president.

History doesn't seem to bear that out. That notion seems to, as people are going through his papers here at the library, at the museum, they see handwritten notes, they see a president who was much more actively engaged, both intellectually and physically, in the job.

D'SOUZA: Well, to me the most striking thing was that even though Reagan was accused of being not just an actor but an idiot, a dunce, he made almost no effort to prove the critics wrong. I mean, think of poor Dan Quayle, who tried for so long to prove that he wasn't what the critics said he was. Reagan, by contrast, just ignored. He laughed it off. I remember he went to Eureka College, his alma mater, in the mid-80s, when he was president, and a reporter said to him, the reporter said, "Mr. President, isn't it true that you graduated from Eureka College, not exactly Princeton, with a C average?" And Reagan's response was, he said, "Well, even now, I wonder what I might have accomplished if I had studied harder." And of course, the guy is president of the United States.

So he had this incredible ability to let the criticisms bounce off him harmlessly. Gave him a tremendous freedom to pursue his own course.

COOPER: The ultimate sign of confidence, I suppose, that you can make fun of yourself and not worry about the repercussions. Dinesh D'Souza, thank you very much for being on the program tonight.

Nancy Reagan's crusade to find a cure for the disease that took her husband's life. We'll talk about that, coming up next. The struggle against Alzheimer's, and what a struggle it has been. The political battle over stem cell research, which is still to be waged.

First, a lighter moment from Ronald Reagan in a debate with Walter Mondale during the 1984 election campaign. Who can forget this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAGAN: ... issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

N. REAGAN: No, we're all -- he said, which is in the letter, that he knew it would be hard on me and that he hoped for people's support and faith. I got through it. And he was sorry to put me in this position. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, the sadness she experienced during his 10 year struggle with Alzheimer's disease was led Nancy Reagan on a very public crusade to find a cure. The former first lady has become an activist of sorts, leading the drive to fund stem cell research to fight Alzheimer's, research that is opposed by many Americans who consider Reagan a hero, including the president. CNN medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: She came to the cause late in life.

N. REAGAN: Now science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research which may provide our scientists with many answers they've had for so long been beyond our grasp. I just don't see how we can turn our backs on this.

COHEN: Nancy Reagan watched her husband suffer.

N. REAGAN: Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him.

COHEN: And has become one of the most well known advocates for this controversial research along with Christopher Reeves, who suffered a spinal cord injury which left him paralyzed, and Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease.

MICHAEL J. FOX, ACTOR: Not only have you so wonderfully taken care of the president for all these years, but in no small fashion through your courage and conviction, you've taken care of us all.

COHEN: Mrs. Reagan has faced a hurdle Reeves and Fox didn't, she's had to publicly disagree with many of the leaders of her husband's own party, parting ways with the very constituency that supported him and her. That's because the type of stem cell research she supports requires the destruction of embryos, such as the ones in fertility clinics. And that led President Bush 3 years ago to authorize federal funding, but with extensive limitations.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Embryonic stem cell research offers both great promise and great peril.

COHEN: Researchers hope embryonic stem cells can be turned into neurons and then used to replace the type of neurons that are damaged by Alzheimer's. Or turned into virtually any type of human tissue to help people with a wide variety of diseases.

Mrs. Reagan's inspiration to take this bold stance came from watching her husband toward the end of his life.

N. REAGAN: We can't share the wonderful memories of our 52 years together, and I think that's probably the hardest part. And because of this, I'm determined to do what I can to save other families from this pain.

COHEN: To help ease that pain, she vows to continue the fight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: Mrs. Reagan has received awards from various patients groups. Last month she received the Caregivers Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation -- Anderson.

COOPER: She has been an inspiration to so many Americans. Thank you very much Elizabeth Cohen. We want to know what you think. Today's "Buzz" is this, "who was the greatest president? Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy or Reagan?" Log on to cnn.com/360. Cast your vote. Results on this special edition of 360 when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Time now for the "Buzz" question. Earlier we asked you "Who do you think was the greatest president? Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy or Reagan?" More than 20,000 of you voted. The majority say Abraham Lincoln. He had 34 percent. Not a scientific poll, but it is your "Buzz." Thanks for voting.

Finally tonight, taking coincidence to the "Nth Degree." As it happens, the country this weekend is experiencing the lowest tides it has seen in 19 years. It's a cyclical thing. A number of astronomical factors have come together, the do that once in a blue moon, and that's what's happened this weekend. So here in California and north of here on the Puget Sound and across the country in Maine and down in Florida, in all the places tidal rivers run and the oceans lap at America, the waters are most remarkably low. Odd we think.

Ronald Reagan dies. Ronald Reagan, who's presidency represented what many would say was a kind of high tide of good feeling in this country and the oceans go out with him further than they have in 19 years. As we say, it is just a coincidence to the "Nth Degree."

I'm Anderson Cooper, thanks for watching this special edition of 360. "PAULA ZAHN NOW" is next.

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