Irish tenor Ronan Tynan was flawless as he presented the Ave Maria and Amazing Grace hymns to open and close the services in Washington DC as the body of Ronald Wilson Reagan, former movie actor, governor of California and 40th president of the United States, lay in repose in the capital rotunda over the catafalque that was quickly fabricated 139 years ago for the funeral of Abraham Lincoln.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, attending the service in person, but too frail to deliver her eulogy in person, sat stoically as her touching video, prepared several months ago, was broadcast to the dignitaries and family in attendance, and to the millions watching the service on television.

Mrs. Thatcher recalled that Reagan deserved much of the credit for "winning the Cold War without firing a shot."

Former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Reagan's Cold War adversary and friend in the search for peace, attended the funeral services and told the media Reagan was a "great president and a leader in the search for peace."

"He transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity. He mended America's wounded spirit in the great cause of cheering us all up," said Mrs. Thatcher, who regarded Reagan as a dear friend.

Solemn and dignified, the Reagan state funeral, unlike some previous services, was a celebration of Reagan's long life as well as an occasion for grieving his departure.

The funeral of President Franklin Roosevelt, whose sudden death in Warm Springs Georgia in 1945 a few months before the end of World War II, left the nation without the only leader it had known for thirteen years.

The services for John F. Kennedy were planned quickly, following his  assassination in 1963 in Dallas which left the nation in a state of stunned and traumatic disbelief.

Reagan died Saturday after a ten year battle with Alzheimer's Disease had robbed him of his vitality and left him "in a far place where I can't reach him anymore," said his wife Nancy, the former First Lady.

His friend, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulrooney, said Reagan was "in perfect sympathy with the American people."

"He was the leader we respected, the neighbor we admired, the friend we loved," Mulrooney said.

Former President George H. W. Bush recalled Reagan's great sense of humor by relating a story about a reporters question after a visit from a delegation from South Africa in his first term:

"How did your visit go with Bishop Tu Tu," the reporter asked Reagan?

"So So," answered Reagan, Bush said.

The current President Bush recalled a quote from William F. Buckley, the conservative writer and commentator, who predicted in 1966 as the former actor prepared to run for Governor of California, that "Reagan is indisputably a part of America - and he may become part of history."

Bush said Reagan was optimistic about the great promise of economic reform and said of the former president, "he acted to defend liberty wherever it was threatened."

Conservative columnist George Will echoed the sentiments of many when he recalled that because of Reagan, "the Iron Curtain that scarred a continent is gone, as is the Evil Empire responsible for it."

"The feeling of foreboding - the sense of shrunken possibilities - that afflicted Americans 20 years ago has been banished by a new birth of the American belief in perpetually expanding horizons," Will said in a column published Thursday.

After the services in the capital, the Reagan family flew with the president's flag-draped coffin to Suni Valley in California.

Services there are followed, at sunset, with interment on the grounds of the Reagan Library overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

This article is prepared for the evening of Friday, June 11, 2004.

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