GOP Farewell to Nancy Ends 8-Year ‘Run’

NEW ORLEANS — In a carefully orchestrated “surprise” appearance, President Reagan paid a visit to a giant Republican Party salute to his wife here Monday that was nothing short of a love-in to Nancy Reagan.

The event was an often-emotional official farewell from the Republican Party to the First Lady who is widely considered the President’s best friend and closest personal adviser.

Normally cool and ultra-composed, Nancy Reagan’s voice broke as she recalled “so many memories.

“The Republican Party has given Ronnie and me eight of the most wonderful years we have ever had,” she said. “Of course, sometimes they were a little bit frustrating and a little bit frightening, but they were wonderful.

‘Cycles and Rhythms’

“But you know, there are cycles and rhythms to life. There are times to enter, times to stay and times to leave. And today the time has come for the curtain to come down on the Reagan era.

“We’ve had a wonderful run,” said the First Lady, like the President a former actor. “But it’s time for the Bushes to step in.”

Billed as a surprise guest (who later confessed he had been contemplating what he would say for at least two days), the President was greeted by thunderous applause as he entered the banquet hall at the New Orleans Convention Center. “I came over here on such short notice that I haven’t had a chance to read my remarks yet,” he said after the cheers had died down. “But the speech writers usually do a pretty good job, so I’ll start.”

He soon abandoned the mock encomium to “a guest of honor I have known for many years,” and his voice grew soft as he offered his own adoring tribute to his wife of 36 years.

“What do you say about someone who gives your life meaning, someone who is always there with support and understanding?” the President asked. “Well, you say that you love that person and treasure her.”

On a platform flanked by huge video screens that allowed all 3,000 guests to share every moment, Reagan and his wife exchanged affectionate glances, and Mrs. Reagan grew teary-eyed.

“I can’t imagine the last eight years without Nancy,” he said.

The President’s remarks capped a mid-day program that spanned more than three hours. The 102,000-square-foot banquet hall was decorated with 6,643 square yards of deep blue carpet and 50 three-foot-by-five-foot color pictures of the First Lady with characters ranging from the Easter Bunny to European heads of state. Guests sat at tables headed by 300 Republican VIPS who included members of Congress, the Cabinet and the Reagan family.

Family rifts appeared to have been set aside for the occasion as Michael Reagan, the President’s son, who earned ire from the First Family with his tell-all autobiography this year, headed one table, and his wife Colleen was the featured celebrity at another.

But as guests were herded into the banquet area, even the Reagan family was momentarily overshadowed by potential vice presidential candidates cruising the room with eager smiles and handshakes.

Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), asked whether he or his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole, was the real vice presidential contender, said: “I keep kidding her all the time that I’m really just fronting for her, just spreading the name.”

Asked if she did the same for him, Dole laughed and gestured in the direction where Mrs. Dole was hosting a table.

“Oh no, she’s over there somewhere, probably campaigning right now,” he said.

Another much-discussed possible candidate for vice president, New Mexico Sen. Pete V. Domenici, decried rumors that he had been asked by Vice President George Bush to bring his family to New Orleans, presumably to be present for his selection as the candidate for vice president.

“That’s absolutely not true,” Domenici said. “First of all, I have eight children, and they are scattered from New York to New Mexico.”

Calling himself “a long shot, and why not leave it at that,” Domenici said he considered himself an unlikely choice because “I’m from a little state, I have very few electoral votes and very few people know me.”

Introduced by Republican National Committee co-chairman Maureen Reagan, the President’s daughter and the afternoon’s mistress of ceremonies, entertainer Rich Little quipped that he and the First Lady were so fond of one another that “in Las Vegas a few years ago, I did such a devastating imitation of her husband, she almost went home with me.” He described Mrs. Reagan as “a nice lady, but a no-nonsense lady. She comes right to the point and says what her husband thinks.”

There was music from cabaret songstress Barbara Cook, and speeches lauding the First Lady from a number of prominent Republicans. In one such paean, Rep. Guy Vander Jagt (R-Mich.) reflected that “as Lyn Nofziger once said, without a Nancy Reagan, there would never have been a President Reagan, or even a Gov. Reagan.”

The solemnity was lifted near the program’s conclusion as hundreds of New Orleans-area schoolchildren in red, white and blue “Just Say No” T-shirts marched in to the theme from “The Bridge On the River Kwai.” The song they sang, “Just Say No,” was composed in honor of the anti-drug crusade that has been Mrs. Reagan’s primary cause.

“I can’t tell you how important it is to have friends,” Mrs. Reagan told the crowd. “To my friends, I say a very heartfelt thank you.”