Washington prepares for final Reagan goodbye
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The nation's capital prepared to say its final goodbye to former President Ronald Reagan, who will be honored with a national funeral service Friday.
The funeral, in Washington's soaring National Cathedral, is expected to draw about two dozen world leaders past and present, the U.S. political establishment, key figures in the Reagan administration, family and friends. It will unfold under extraordinary security.
After the funeral, Reagan, who died Saturday at the age of 93 after a decade-long battle with Alzheimer's disease, will be returned to California for a sunset burial at his presidential library in Simi Valley.(Special Report: Ronald Reagan)
The state funeral -- the first in more than three decades -- will begin with a formal military procession from the Capitol, where the body of the nation's 40th president has lain in state in the Rotunda since Wednesday night.
During that time thousands of admirers -- the well-known and the unknown, young and old -- passed in front of the bier.
"He changed my life," Joyce Okine, an immigrant from Ghana, said Thursday. "I'm an American citizen today because of Ronald Reagan, and I'm a proud American."
President Bush and first lady Laura Bush came in the early evening on Thursday, following the close of the G-8 summit in Georgia.
The couple paused briefly in front of the casket, resting on a catafalque built in 1865 for Abraham Lincoln's coffin.
Police plan to cut off the line for the Rotunda at 7 a.m. Friday to begin preparations for the funeral service, which is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. (Funeral ceremonies)
Eulogies will be given by Bush and his father, the former president, as well as former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Read the rest here:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ral/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The nation's capital prepared to say its final goodbye to former President Ronald Reagan, who will be honored with a national funeral service Friday.
The funeral, in Washington's soaring National Cathedral, is expected to draw about two dozen world leaders past and present, the U.S. political establishment, key figures in the Reagan administration, family and friends. It will unfold under extraordinary security.
After the funeral, Reagan, who died Saturday at the age of 93 after a decade-long battle with Alzheimer's disease, will be returned to California for a sunset burial at his presidential library in Simi Valley.(Special Report: Ronald Reagan)
The state funeral -- the first in more than three decades -- will begin with a formal military procession from the Capitol, where the body of the nation's 40th president has lain in state in the Rotunda since Wednesday night.
During that time thousands of admirers -- the well-known and the unknown, young and old -- passed in front of the bier.
"He changed my life," Joyce Okine, an immigrant from Ghana, said Thursday. "I'm an American citizen today because of Ronald Reagan, and I'm a proud American."
President Bush and first lady Laura Bush came in the early evening on Thursday, following the close of the G-8 summit in Georgia.
The couple paused briefly in front of the casket, resting on a catafalque built in 1865 for Abraham Lincoln's coffin.
Police plan to cut off the line for the Rotunda at 7 a.m. Friday to begin preparations for the funeral service, which is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. (Funeral ceremonies)
Eulogies will be given by Bush and his father, the former president, as well as former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Read the rest here:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ral/index.html
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