Reagan dies with family by his side

unclehobart

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MSNBC News Services
LOS ANGELES - Ronald Reagan, the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was “morning again in America,” died Saturday after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 93.

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His wife, Nancy, and family members had gathered at his bedside at his house in the Bel Air district of Los Angeles.

In Paris, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said President Bush was notified of Reagan’s death in Paris at about 4:10 p.m., EDT, by White House chief of staff Andy Card, who learned of the death from Fred Ryan, Reagan’s former California chief of staff.

The United States flag over the White House was lowered to half staff within an hour.

Reagan’s body was expected to be taken to his presidential library and museum in Simi Valley, Calif., and then flown to Washington to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. His funeral was expected to be at the National Cathedral, an event likely to draw world leaders. The body was to be returned to California for a sunset burial at his library.

The White House was told his health had taken a turn for the worse in the last several days.

The president planned to participate in D-Day ceremonies in Normandy on Sunday and then fly back to the United States for an international economic summit in Georgia.

She said it was not known at this point whether Bush would change his travel plans because of Reagan’s death.

Alzheimer's Disease
Five years after leaving office, the nation’s 40th president told the world in November 1994 that he had been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s, an incurable illness that destroys brain cells. He said he had begun “the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life.”

Reagan lived longer than any U.S. president, spending his last decade in the shrouded seclusion wrought by his disease, tended by his wife, Nancy, whom he called Mommy, and the select few closest to him. Now, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton are the surviving ex-presidents.

Although fiercely protective of Reagan’s privacy, the former first lady let people know his mental condition had deteriorated terribly. Last month, she said: “Ronnie’s long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him.”

Reagan’s oldest daughter, Maureen, from his first marriage, died in August 2001 at age 60 from cancer. Three other children survive: Michael, from his first marriage, and Patti Davis and Ron from his second.

Over two terms, from 1981 to 1989, Reagan reshaped the Republican Party in his conservative image, fixed his eye on the demise of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism and, with a Congress that was largely controlled by Democrats through much of his two terms, helped triple the national debt to $3 trillion in his competition with the other superpower.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5144264/

Its been quite a long time since weve had a ex president die. Love him or hate him, I still have to respect him.
 
Quips and quotes

  • "It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?"
  • "A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist."
  • To wife Nancy after John Hinckley, Jr.'s 1981 assassination attempt: "Honey, I forgot to duck."
  • During a 1984 debate with Walter Mondale: "I'm not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."
  • "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
  • In testing the microphone for his weekly radio address, Reagan declared, ''My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today I've just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.''
  • "Mr. President," TV reporter Sam Donaldson yelled out at Reagan after a 1982 press conference, "In talking about the continuing recession tonight, you have blamed the mistakes of the past and you've blamed Congress. Does any of the blame belong to you?" Reagan responded, "Yes, because for many years I was a Democrat."
  • "Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it."
  • "Well, this administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal opportunity for all Americans, with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination."
  • Above all we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."
  • "I hope you're all Republicans," he told doctors who were about to operate on his bullet wounds.
  • "Did we forget that government is the people's business, and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of taxes paid?"
  • "We do not have a trillion dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough. We have a trillion dollar debt because we spend too much."
  • "But with these considerations firmly in mind, I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete."
  • "Politics is a very rewarding profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."
  • America is too great for small dreams."
  • "We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we can always be free."
  • "Abortion is advocated only by persons who themselves have been born."

from FoxNews
 
--"We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind, and if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening."

--"They counted on America to be Passive. They counted Wrong."

--"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."

--"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

--"The Democrats say that the United States has had its days in the sun, that our nation has passed its zenith. They expect you to tell your children that the American people no longer have the will to cope with their problems, that the future will be one of sacrifice and few opportunities. My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view."

--"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

--“Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.”

--"Mr. Gorbachev, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL"
 
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