The Gipper Says Goodbye

By Hugh Sidey

Ronald Reagan hesitated for a moment in the cool luminance of the Oval Office, his last minutes as President ticking by. Tears welled in the eyes of the few aides who surrounded him, but Reagan was busy reaching into his coat pocket as he fished out a white laminated card.

The President looked up, some of that gentle mirth tugging at his mouth even in this melancholy pause on his way out of power. "Who do I give this to?" he asked quietly. He held up his authentication card for the launching of nuclear missiles, the card that must be inserted into the "football" toted with tender care by an ever present military assistant to certify the command to strike at an enemy. Reagan had dutifully carried the card for eight years. Its unimportance at his parting was perhaps the most powerful statement of this singular leader's legacy. The world moves toward peace, and the paraphernalia of nuclear command, which once held the world in its thrall, is almost an afterthought.

"You can't get rid of it yet," answered his national security assistant, Lieut. General Colin Powell. "After the swearing-in of President Bush, a military aide will take it from you." Almost reluctantly, Reagan tucked the card back in his pocket. He took one more sweeping look around the room where he had exercised the globe's greatest power so long and so exuberantly, slowly squared his shoulders and walked out to the sun-streaked colonnade that links the office with the mansion. White House staff members crowded against the glass doors and windows, some of them openly weeping.

As he had done hundreds of times before, Reagan walked along the Rose Garden, savoring the crisp morning air and glancing at gardener Irvin Williams' meticulous winter designs. But this time Reagan slowed, turned right and left to wave one more time. Halfway down the colonnade, he suddenly faced away, picked up his gait and, never looking back, went to meet the Bushes and take them to the Capitol to yield the presidency to his personally chosen successor.

Rarely if ever in 200 years has there been such an affectionate farewell from the nation and from the White House staff, such a graceful and rancorless transfer of authority and such pageantry unmarred by national turmoil or brutal winter weather. It was a class act from the President and his lady, in its own way one of the hardest things the two old troupers ever had to do.

The last hours of the Reagans were crammed with thunderous tributes and then dozens of tiny, human gestures of thanks. The Notre Dame football team, voted the national champion, came by and left Reagan the blue-and-gold letter sweater of George Gipp. Suddenly make-believe was real; the latter-day Gipper finally had the authentic article, and he clung to it reverently as the team departed. The apt gift touched him almost as much as anything that happened in the parting.

Time and time again, Reagan edged over to the White House windows to look down the South Lawn, over the fountains and past the Washington Monument, on to the Jefferson Memorial, where the bronze figure of the great Virginian stands resolutely. Often when Reagan came to work he would offer his assessment of the weather, determined by how clearly he could see Jefferson in the Potomac River Valley. In the finale, Reagan loitered more than ever in his private study next to the Truman Balcony, often with Nancy beside him and a fire burning in the fireplace. Once, when an aide found him in reverie at the study's window, he asked the President, "What are you thinking about?" Reagan turned around, smiled and replied, "Everything."

On several mornings before he left, Reagan brought his friendly squirrels a double ration of acorns. He spread them out on the veranda beyond his window and watched the scramble. His staff found a squirrel-size sign that read BEWARE OF DOGS and placed it along the squirrel path. When President-elect Bush came around for his final minutes with his old mentor and boss, Reagan pointed out the sign, mindful that the Bushes will move in with a pregnant English springer spaniel named Millie and before long the grounds will swarm with puppies. "I'll keep the sign right there," promised Bush.

In all Reagan's long life, humor has never deserted him. And it did not in his last act. At one of the farewells, his staff gave him a bridle, leather gloves and other equipment for his passion of horseback riding. Reagan quipped that when he reached his ranch, he would get the horse. Not to be outdone, two Reagan aides the next morning burst into the Oval Office dressed in a horse costume, the new gear in place. Reagan took one look, laughed heartily and, without missing a beat, turned to his mischievous chief of staff, Kenneth Duberstein, and hauled out the quintessential Reagan chestnut one more marvelous time.

"Ken," he said, "I always told you there was a pony in there someplace."