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CNN NEWSROOM

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan Laid to Rest. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired March 11, 2016 - 14:30   ET

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


[14:30:00] (SINGING)

JIM BAKER, CHIEF OF STAFF FOR PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: We gather here today to say good-bye to Nancy Davis Reagan, a beautiful smart and gracious woman, a woman who captured the heart of a man, who loved his craft, his country, and his countrymen, and most especially loved this remarkable woman. A woman without whom Ronald Wilson Reagan would never have become the 40th president of the United States or succeeded as well as he did.

The Cold War that President Reagan did so much to end brought them together. In 1950, the name Nancy Davis appeared on a list of Communist sympathizers. Would the Hollywood black-listers know that this was a different person and not the young actress? She took her problem to her union boss, the president of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan. They met at a Hollywood restaurant. The dinner would be brief, they agreed, because each had an early casting call. In fact, neither had an early casting call.

(LAUGHTER)

An early casting call was the standard Hollywood excuse to put a quick end to unpleasant dinners.

(LAUGHTER)

"But when I opened the door," she wrote later, "I knew he was the man I wanted to marry."

Their meeting lasted through dinner and then into the wee hours at a nearby club.

The third age in Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" is the lover, sighing like a furnace with a woeful ballad. Shakespeare, of course, is gently mocking young lovers. "Their passion always burns hot," he said, "and then it fades." Well, the bard never met Nancy or her Ronnie.

As Prime Minister Mulroney pointed out, they could hardly bear to be apart. When he was on a movie set or on the road for general election or as candidate or as governor or as president, he wrote her every single night. When they were together, he hid love notes around the House for her to find.

One Christmas at Pacific Palisades, he wrote, "Whatever I treasure and enjoy, all would be without meaning if I didn't have you. I live in a permanent Christmas because God gave me you."

Nancy saved his love letters in a shopping bag in her closet. She reciprocated by slipping little notes and Jelly Beans in with the clothes in his suitcase. "And while he was away," she said, "I'd drive home feeling very lonely and very sad and I would knit him socks."

She also reciprocated by dedicating her life to him. "I was, I suppose, a woman of the old school," she wrote. "If you wanted to make your life with a man, you took on whatever his interests were and they became your interests too."

"If Ronald Reagan had owned a shoe store," Mike Beaver wrote, "Nancy would have been very happy pushing shoes and working the register."

Ronald Reagan's interest turned into a different direction, of course, to politics and public service. Nancy, who might have preferred a more private life, became the consummate political wife and first lady. He owed much of the success of his presidency to her. She had an instinct for reading people that the president knew he lacked. "Nancy," he wrote, "sees the goodness in people. But she also had an extra instinct that allowed her to see flaws."

[14:35:25] Nancy was the president's eyes and ears when it came to personnel. She knew who was paddling their own canoe and who was loyal to the president. And she was as tough as a Marine drill sergeant, as many of us found out when things didn't go well.

(LAUGHTER)

The president's advisers learned to keep her informed and to seek her support. If she trusted them and agreed, she would add her voice to theirs. But she was, without a doubt, absolutely without a doubt, his closest adviser. She's the one who said you need to do this, Ronnie, you need to find a way to negotiate with Gorbachev.

The only time I saw her lose her composure was the day the president was shot. She was devastated and, in fact, she fell apart. Even in his condition, he did his best to give her strength. "Honey, I forgot to duck," he said. That was his way of comforting her.

President Reagan left the hospital convinced that God had spared him for a special purpose. And the first lady left with a fierce determination to protect him in every way that she possibly could.

Ronald and Nancy Reagan were defined by their love for each other. They were as close to being one person as it is possible for any two people to be.

When the president made his slow exit from the stage, she dedicated herself to his memory and to his place in history. Now she, too, has exited the stage to join her beloved Ronnie in eternity. I can just imagine how St. Peter might let the president know that she had arrived. "A beautiful lady is at the gate asking for you," he said, "with a jar of Jelly Beans" --

(LAUGHTER)

-- a shopping bag full of letters and a suitcase filled with hand- knitted socks."

We love you, Nancy, we miss you, but we will see you on the other side.

TOM BROKAW, FORMER NBC NIGHTLY NEWS ANCHOR: This is a very emotional and evocative time for me. I arrived in Los Angeles in 1966 to join "NBC News," just three and a half years out of South Dakota. I was 26 years old. And the geniuses on the NBC News desk said to me there's this actor for governor of California, we don't think he's going anywhere, you're the junior guy so you get on the bus with him.

(LAUGHTER)

It's also worth pointing out, with the current governor, that was before the Brown family put a semi permanent lease on the governor's office in California.

(LAUGHTER)

And so I did. It was such an instructive beginning for me as a political correspondent because I saw the best-run campaign I had ever seen up to that point and maybe since.

By the time the governor got ready to run for a second term, I knew my way around a little bit so I went to the Los Angeles Press Club where he was going to make his announcement, and walked into the holding room early and took a seat in the far corner, but then I realized it was kind of reserved for the Reagan supporters and family friends, because they'd begun to line the walls, including Jimmy and Gloria Stewart. Nancy came in and she was kind of on autopilot as she made her way around that wall of friends and supporters, giving each a kiss, a little squeeze of the hand and a word or two. It dawned on me she was going to get to me.

(LAUGHTER)

[14:40:48] Now, I am the outlier at that point. I'm a reporter from the press. She got to me and she leaned back in mock horror and, I quickly said, oh, Mrs. Reagan, whatever it is that I have, it's not catching, I can promise you that.

(LAUGHTER)

She laughed heartily, leaned over and gave me a kiss, and that was the beginning of a remarkable friendship between a first lady and a reporter.

It was also a time when I began to appreciate just how much she meant to the man who became the president of the United States, not just as his wife, but as his best political adviser, as Jim Baker and so many others have pointed out. She could be, as we all saw in those photographs and video, of the adoring wife in public, but behind the scenes she was an astute analyst and the keeper of the flames. We stayed in close touch. It wasn't always easy. Shortly after his

inauguration as president, I made some public comments about his early years in which I said I thought the poor boy narrative was somewhat overblown, after all, he'd been a successful broadcaster in his 20s and then a movie star under contract before he was 30. Nancy was furious and word came from Jim Baker and Stu Spencer and others, stay clear of the White House for a while, Brokaw, we'll let you know when it's safe to go back.

(LAUGHTER)

About two months later, Meredith and I were invited to a state dinner and I was told I would have to think what I would say to her when I arrived before her in the receiving line. "Don't say anything to the president, he doesn't care about this, but Nancy is still steaming."

(LAUGHTER)

Well, Meredith was very nervous as we continued to make our way toward her in the receiving line because I had not yet come up with anything to say to her.

(LAUGHTER)

Finally, I stood before her. And I saw in her eyes that steely glaze that she could have for people who didn't please her. And I spontaneously said, "Nancy, back to square one." She looked at me for a moment, broke up laughing and said, "Tom, back to square one." The next day, a White House photograph of that very moment arrived with the inscription, "Tom, back to square one, love, Nancy." That was such a telling moment about how astute she was as a political wife, as someone who knew about personal relationships, how to get her message across and then quickly move on.

We all saw those other moments when she was utterly in command. Jim has referred to that awful day when the president was shot. They didn't know what his condition was. When the Secret Service told her in the White House there's been a shooting, the president has been rushed to the hospital, she said, "I must go." They said, "Well, we don't think that's a good idea, Mrs. Reagan." She said quickly to them, "You get me a car right now or I'll walk to the hospital."

The president and I shared a birthday, February 6th, and over the years, in the White House and out, it became an occasion to share a phone call and note, especially between Mrs. Reagan and me. When the president was going through his ordeal after leaving the White House, our calls became more regular. And I could hear her loneliness. So on one of the calls I suggested that the next time I'm in California we should have lunch, and maybe we should invite our mutual friend, Warren Beatty. "Oh, no, Tom," she said, "It's enough to have lunch with you." Until the next day when the phone call arrived and it was Nancy saying, "Oh, Tom, do you think Warren might like to have lunch with us?"

(LAUGHTER) Of course. And the luncheon companion star power went up many multiples. I'm here to tell you, there's nothing like walking into a Los Angeles dining room with Mrs. Reagan on your arm. Brokaw and Beatty were quickly also-rans on that occasion.

Warren and I treasured those occasions because she always arrived with astute political observations and the best gossip from both coasts. But metaphorically, there was no lunch for me.

As a eulogist at President Ford's funeral, I looked down at the first pew at all the luminaries and decided it was my duty to name them: President and Mrs. Bush, President and Mrs. Bush, President Carter and Vice President Dick Cheney, President and Mrs. Clinton. I finished my remarks, walked back to sit beside Meredith and, she looked at me in a disbelieving way, she said, "You did not mention Nancy." I said, "She's not here." She said, "Yes, she is. She's hidden behind that column over there."

(LAUGHTER)

I had not seen her. So I immediately called our mutual friend, Stu Spencer, who answered simply by saying, "What were you thinking, Brokaw?"

(LAUGHTER)

"Stu, do you think she noticed?"

(LAUGHTER)

"Are you kidding? Here's her mobile number, call her right now." Which I did. And I took my medicine from an aggrieved friend for the next, oh, 15 minutes, until she accepted my explanation, and then it was back to square one again. And the way I got out of it is that I agreed with her, she had been given a terrible seat for that funeral.

(LAUGHTER)

[14:45:13] What I was so -- what I so admired about Nancy, that ability to do just that. She knew how to protect her husband and her president but also her own place, to stand her ground. And once it had been resolved, to move on.

That was never more evident on the many occasions when I spoke here at the library. We meet in a holding room downstairs to catch up on the latest gossip, what was going on in our personal lives. After everyone was seated, especially after she was confined to a wheelchair, I helped get her to her feet, and with one of her aides, we'd take her to an entryway that had been curtained off. And beyond the entryway, we could hear the music begin to swell. An off-stage announcer entering, ladies and gentlemen, the former first lady of the United States, Nancy Reagan, and her guest, Tom Brokaw. I'd escort her into the auditorium, into the front row, and seat her beside Tom Selleck, her friend, and then give my lecture. The last time we were there together, I received a modest and enthusiastic response from the audience but I wanted to be sure that Nancy approved. So I leaned over her seat as the applause continued, and I said, "I hope that was OK." She whispered back to me, "Tom, give me a little kiss, they're going to love that."

(LAUGHTER)

And so I did. And so they did.

(LAUGHTER)

Our shared editor at Random House reminded me that when we lost Nancy last weekend, it would have been the 68th anniversary of their marriage, Ronnie and Nancy. So God bless, Nancy, Mrs. Ronald Reagan, first lady, and the unlikely friend of a reporter. Thank you, Nancy.

PATTI DAVID, DAUGHTER OF NANCY AND RONALD REAGAN: In the months before my mother died, she repeated she had to be there until the last moment. Her determination was ferocious. She simply had to be at his side when he left this world. I said the only thing I could think of and what I thought my father would say that it was in God's hands. She was there. Occasionally, I thought that even God might not have the guts to argue with Nancy Reagan.

(LAUGHTER)

As her own health declined, she was quite adamant about reuniting with my father on the other side after her passing. I am hoping for God's peace of mind that she got her wish.

My parents were two halves of a circle, closed tight around a world in which their love for each other was the only sustenance they needed. While they might venture out and include others in their orbit, no one truly crossed the boundary into the space they held as theirs.

I saw this exquisitely portrayed in front of me one summer evening when I was a teenager. We used to rent a beach house for a few weeks in the summer. And on this evening, with the vivid sunset streaked across the sky, I looked out and saw my parents sitting on the sand close together heads tilted in conversation. There was so much vastness around them, the blue Pacific, the orange and pink sky, miles of white sand. And then there was the circle of their own private world, as clear as if it had been traced around them, indestructible, impenetrable, an island for two. I knew I would carry that image with me for the rest of my life.

When my father was shot and my mother rushed to the hospital, they at first wouldn't let her see him. "I have to," she said, "You don't understand how it is with us."

The moment before my father died, he opened his eyes, which had been closed for days, and he looked straight at my mother. The circle was drawn again as he left this world.

In the weeks after he died, my mother thought she heard his footsteps coming down the hall late at night. She said he would appear to her long after midnight sitting on the edge of the bed. I don't know anything about the possible passages between this world and the next, but I do know her faith in these visits eased some of her loneliness. They made her feel that he was close by.

[14:50:28] On one occasion, I am quite certain that she was channeling my father. I'd gone up to her house and found her very busy making phone calls to elected officials, trying to gain their support for stem cell legislation, something she was quite passionate about. She ended one phone call and gave me a somber look. "Well," she said, in calm tone, sounding much more like my father than herself, "Karl Rove is dogging my phone calls, everyone I call, he calls right after and tries to get them to oppose stem cell legislation." "Right after," I asked, "are you sure your phone isn't bugged?" "No, I had the Secret Service check on that."

(LAUGHTER)

"You must be furious," I told her, puzzled by the fact that she didn't seem furious at all. She shook her head no and her entire demeanor was not only calm, it was practically Zen. Even people who never met my mother will know that the word Zen has never before been applied to Nancy Reagan.

(LAUGHTER)

But that was what I saw. "There's no time to get upset," she said, "There's work to be done. I can't get distracted. I have to keep moving forward." I admit, I did say, "Who are you and what have you done with my mother?"

(LAUGHTER)

Over time, what she referred to as late-night visits from my father ceased. She no longer heard his foot steps in the hall. But she never stopped missing him. She told me once that the reason she had the television on all the time was because it filled the house with sound and made her feel less lonely.

Another remedy for her loneliness was to fill the empty spaces with stories and memories. A few days before she died, I reminded her of something that happened many decades ago when we lived in Pacific Palisades. My father used to get massages from a large eastern European man who would come to the house and set up his massage table in my parent's dressing room. On one of these days, as my father lay face down on the table, my mother tiptoed in, kissed him lightly on the back of his neck and tiptoed out.

(LAUGHTER)

He didn't know it was her.

(LAUGHTER)

But he went through the rest of the massage --

(LAUGHTER)

-- never said a word. And after the masseur left, he said to my mother, "I don't think we can have him back anymore." (LAUGHTER)

"Why," she asked him, "What happened. "Well, he kissed me."

(LAUGHTER)

When she told him it was her, he was flooded with relief. And said, "Thank God, I didn't know what to do."

(LAUGHTER)

My mother's laughter in remembering that day would, unbeknownst to me, turn out to be the last time I would hear her laugh.

It's no secret that my mother and I had a challenging and often contentious relationship. When I was a child, I imagined comfortable conversations with her, the kind of conversations that feel like lamp light. The reality was far different. I tried her patience and she intimidated me. We were never mild with one another. Whether we were distant and angry or bonded and close, our emotions burned up the color chart. Nothing was ever gray.

But there were moments in our history when all that was going on between us was love. I choose to remember those moments. I choose to remember the mother whose gaping wound on the back of her young daughter's head after she fell at a friend's house and cracked her skull open on the fireplace hearth. She drove with one hand and held my head with the other, talking soothingly to me and trying to conceal the fear in her eyes. Watching her was hypnotic. It made my head hurt less.

[14:55:08] I choose to remember my mother framed by the window of a New York hotel room as I told her that I'd been involved in a complicated relationship for two years and had now been cruelly tossed aside. I was 19. I felt older and more wounded than any 19-year old should feel. I needed a mother. And I came to mine, holding out a fragile hope that she would keep me from crumbling beyond recognition. She did. She didn't judge me. She wasn't punishing or accusatory. She was tender and understanding and loving.

I choose to remember walking with her along the beach. Somehow the ocean always calmed the air between us and allowed us to be easy with each other.

Most of all, I will remember looking out the window to the sweep of sunset and seeing my parents sitting together on the sand. Maybe on the other side there are endless shores and eternally brilliant sunsets. Maybe it's possible to sit there forever, undisturbed, two souls only needing each other.

Robert Sexton wrote, "Across the years, I will walk with you in deep green forests, on shores of sand. And when our time on earth is through, in heaven, too, you will have my hand." I hope for my parents that those words don't live only in the poet's imagination but are a map to what they both longed for and believed in, in the world beyond this one. RON REAGAN, SON OF NANCY AND RONALD REAGAN: I love that story about

the masseur.

(LAUGHTER)

I imagine my father laying there naked on a table just waiting for this big man to do something else.

(LAUGHTER)

What must have been going through his mind?

(LAUGHTER)

Well, I guess I'm batting clean up here, so let me on behalf of my family thank you all for coming here. We really appreciate it. My sister, Patti, and I, who suddenly find ourselves orphaned, really appreciate being surrounded by so much love and kindness.

And to Jim and to Tom and everybody else who spoke and your kind words, appreciate that very much, too.

And to the folks at the library here who put this whole thing on, what a terrific job they've done. And we so much appreciate that, too.

She did love a party. And she would want this to be a party. This is not a tragedy. This is a celebration.

I hope you had a chance to have a look around here. Some of you, of course, have been here many times before. But I hope you realize that none of this, none of this would have been possible without Nancy Reagan. I don't mean that she was active in fundraising and building a library. Of course, she was. What I really mean to say is there would be no Ronald Reagan Presidential Library without a President Ronald Reagan. And there likely wouldn't have been a President Ronald Reagan without a Nancy Reagan.

Of course, it may not have happened that way. If she was not made of such stern stuff, she may not have made it all the way to being Mrs. Ronald Reagan. See, my dad would play hard to get a little bit when they were dating way back when. He had already purchased a ranch not too far from here in Malibu, and he loved to go there and ride his horses and buck hay and generally get dirty and sweaty outdoors and that sort of thing, not the kind of thing she's really crazy about, my mother. But she was a good sport, and she wanted to participate in this. If he loved his ranch, well, she was going to love the ranch, too.

So she would go out there and he would do his thing and she would sort of wonder about how she could help. Now, this ranch was out in Malibu, about 700 acres or so, had a long driveway that led to the house, about a half a mile, fences on both sides. So they would go out there and they would hang out and be ranchers. But she wanted to help. So she asked him, what can I do to help? Did I mention that the fences lining that half mile driveway were unpainted?

(LAUGHTER)

So he handed her a bucket of paint and a brush. And my mother painted a mile's worth of fence, every post, every plank, both sides.