It was a masterful entrance. From the hush of the National Cathedral, there rose the regular tapping of the bishop’s staff on the marble floor as Ronald Reagan’s casket was borne in to receive the tributes of the most powerful people in the world.
Friday’s state funeral brought 4 000 invited guests to mark the passing of a former American president — a stellar cast of world leaders, past and present, enemies and friends.
It was the greatest gathering of foreign dignitaries Washington had seen since the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, uniting the icons of the Cold War era with the leaders of a more complicated age.
All came to salute a leader who was remembered by eulogists as much for his sunny disposition as for the determination with which he pursued his deeply conservative ideals.
The grandeur of the occasion, the pomp and ceremony, appeared to rule out overt displays of sorrow. So too perhaps did the knowledge that Reagan (93) had been weakened for more than a decade with Alzheimer’s disease.
Only George Bush Snr, who served as Reagan’s vice-president before occupying the White House in 1988, betrayed a more personal grief, choking slightly as he delivered his tribute.
”As his vice-president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life,” he said. But Bush also provoked laughter from the audience with his more personal vignettes from their White House days.
The restrained solemnities, the high-powered assembly, was exactly as the Reagans had planned it. The Episcopalian service, which also included readings from Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders, unfolded according to instructions drawn up by Reagan and his widow, Nancy, more than 20 years ago.
Soon after Reagan entered the White House, he approached Bush to deliver a eulogy and selected a reading for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who he appointed to the Supreme Court. No Democrats were asked to speak, but accommodation had been made for a serving United States president.
In the end, that role fell to George Bush Jnr, who delivered a lengthy tribute to Reagan’s commitment to freedom — as well as his fondness for riding and the western life.
”Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now, but we preferred it when he belonged to us,” he said.
Friday’s proceedings were like a registry of the powerful, each guest arranged according to their placement in the Reagans’ affections and their status in public life.
Bush Jnr had the first pew near his father and the former presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton.
Pride of place also went to Reagan’s contemporaries, with Margaret Thatcher, his great friend and ally, seated immediately behind the family, flanked by a former foe, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the former Canadian prime minister, Brian Mulroney. Prince Charles was seated in the same row.
For Thatcher, face obscured by a large black hat, this was her first meeting with the Reagans since she learned that he had Alzheimer’s. A decade after Reagan publicly acknowledged the disease, Thatcher’s health was so frail that doctors’ orders obliged her to deliver her eulogy in a pre-recorded video.
In her tribute, she extolled their years at the helm of Britain and the US as ”eight of the most important years of our lives”.
She also recalled the assassination attempt on him and the bullet wounds he suffered soon after he took office.
”Surely it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan’s life was providential, when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed,” she said, crediting him with winning the Cold War.
Also in the Gothic cathedral were Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, Germany’s Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and Ireland’s President, Mary McAleese.
The service marked the end of three days of pomp and ceremony spanning both US coasts to bid farewell to Reagan. In Washington, about 90 000 people had waited in line for hours at the US capitol to pay their respects.
By mid-morning on Friday, all that remained was to bring Reagan’s casket to his final assignation, the private burial in California.
Motorcycle outriders with sirens blaring announced the passage of world leaders through the streets of Washington towards the National Cathedral — with modest two-car assemblies for lesser personnages.
Meanwhile, along the procession route, office workers arrived in small groups for a last glimpse.
The sirens went silent. The slow thrum of motorcyle engines in low gear announced the arrival of a cavalcade of black 4×4 SUVs, limousines and a hearse. And then they were gone. — Guardian Unlimited Â