TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/062689/06268900.048

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 4KB | 66 lines

NATION, Page 23

The Presidency

The Warm Reverie of Reagan's Retirement

By Hugh Sidey


    Ronald Reagan, retired President, drifted through Europe last
week on a cloud of warm reverie and adoration. He collected a
knighthood from the British (only the 58th American to do so), and
was inducted into the French Institute's Academy of Moral and
Political Sciences (only the sixth U.S. President to make the cut).

    He was, he told TIME before he journeyed abroad, going back on
the "mashed-potato circuit," admittedly upgraded to include palaces
and potentates. But his message will be the same: the triumph of
freedom. He delivered it eloquently in London's Gothic Guildhall
and in Paris, where fireworks heralded the 100th birthday of a
great lady, the Eiffel Tower.

    Of the four living ex-Presidents -- Reagan, Carter, Ford and
Nixon -- Reagan alone can boast of an exit from power in good
health, both political and physical, and after two full terms of
general peace and prosperity. What's more, he even liked the job
at the end.

    Without the constitutional prohibition against a third term,
might he have run again? Reagan, in his first full interview since
leaving the White House, gave that slow, easy smile, ducked his
head in a kind of protest against such audacity. "I cannot answer
that, really," he said. "With (the 22nd Amendment) in place, you
did not even think of it. You knew that it was all over at the end
of two terms." Hunch: he sure would have.

    Reagan's presence promises to be unique, a kind of
grandfatherly seminar on a range of issues that have touched his
long life, from Communism to kissing. His respect for the Soviet
Union's Mikhail Gorbachev has grown stronger. "I have met a number
of leaders, and he is different," insists Reagan. "He is trying to
straighten things out." For his part, the old actor would like to
straighten out Hollywood. "(In) a movie kiss in the old days, the
two of you were barely touching lips. You did not want any face
being pushed out of shape. It is awful." Maybe he should get back
in the movies to show them how? "I think that would look like
trying to cash in on the presidency," he says. "Besides, if they
did a remake of a Knute Rockne picture, this time I would have to
play Rockne instead of the Gipper."

    Speaking of cashing in on the presidency, what about his
reported $2 million deal to appear in Japan in October and his
supposed lecture fee of $40,000 to $50,000? "I do not have a
price," Reagan declares. "I am at ease with myself. I was invited,
first by the government of Japan, and then this private
organization entered in. That corporation has pledged a very
sizable gift to my library. And I think there is a possibility that
there will be other such things from that. My friend William
Buckley asked me to be on the board of the National Review. I
thought I could do that."

    For all his continuing engagement in the world, there is a
melancholy note in Reagan's small office high atop a sterile pile
of glass and stone in Los Angeles' Century City. The old intensity
is gone; the view is of sprawl and smog, not Thomas Jefferson's
gentle green mounds on the White House lawn. When Nancy goes off
on her own he gets lonesome, he admits. But he does have an
antidote. "I decided if I had to be lonesome, I would be lonesome
at the ranch. We are doing a lot of tree pruning. I ride in the
morning. In the afternoon I get out the chain saws and go to work."
Therein lies his secret: happiness lurks in a pile of firewood just
as surely as in Buckingham Palace.