Elder Bush recalls Reagan fondly Onetime foes became friends

KENNEBUNKPORT – Former President George Bush remembered his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, as a principled leader with a knack for maintaining friendships with political opponents.

Bush started out battling Reagan for the Republican presidential nomination. After he lost, he ended up as Reagan’s vice president for eight years.

Speaking hours after Reagan’s death, Bush said Saturday evening it was hard not to become a friend of Reagan, whom he remembered as a politician who could disagree without being disagreeable.

“We had been political opponents and became close friends,” said Bush, who was joined by his wife outside his seaside home. “Barbara and I mourn the loss of a great president and for us a great friend.”

The former president had spoken with former first lady Nancy Reagan earlier Saturday before Reagan died. “She made clear to us that his death was imminent,” said Bush, who had just returned from a trip to England.

Bush was everything that Reagan wasn’t, but that didn’t prevent them from working well together.

Bush served in World War II as a naval aviator and survived being shot down, served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and director of the CIA, and was a lifelong Republican.

Reagan, by contrast, was a former Democrat who led the actor’s guild and never served in the military.

Bush ultimately lost his party’s nomination to the former governor from California and ended up becoming Reagan’s running mate, staying by his side as Reagan took a firm stance with the Soviet Union. In the end, frosty relations thawed and Reagan got credit for winning the Cold War.

“History will give him great credit for standing for a few principles and standing firmly for them,” Bush said.

Bush remembered Reagan for his kindness and his sense of humor and his ability to fight battles without creating enemies. Although Reagan and former Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill were far apart on many issues, they remained good friends, Bush said.

“He could take a stand … and do it without creating bitterness or creating enmity on the part of other people,” he added.

Added Barbara Bush: “I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who was so innately polite. Ronald Reagan was a gentleman.”

In response to a question about whether Reagan may have been affected during his presidency by Alzheimer’s disease that was later diagnosed, Bush rejected such speculation out of hand.

Bush said he never detected any signs of Reagan’s mental deterioration during his tenure in the White House.

Reagan is vividly remembered as the force that precipitated the Soviet collapse, both in Russia and among political thinkers in the United States. He also turned around the economy with policy critics derided as “Reaganomics.”

“He’s one of the most underrated presidents of the 20th century and I think history will eventually record it that way,” said Christian Potholm, a professor of government at Bowdoin College. “He gave Americans the hope and pride and the wherewithal to stand tall.”

Nancy Reagan, along with children Ron and Patti Davis, were at the couple’s Los Angeles home when Reagan died at 1 p.m. PDT of pneumonia complicated by Alzheimer’s disease. Son Michael arrived a short time later, she said.

Reagan carried Maine during both of his runs for president. He got 46 percent of the vote in 1980 to Jimmy Carter’s 42 percent; four years later he outpolled Walter Mondale, 61 percent to 39 percent.