INTIMATE LOOKS AT THE MEN WHO RAN AMERICA

INTIMATE LOOKS AT THE MEN WHO RAN AMERICA Story and photography by Margaret & Eric Anderson
His desk in the library seems uncomplicated too. It's tidier than most of ours but the books lying around could be from anywhere. We forget how much he was loved by the plain folk of countries in Central Europe who saw him as a savior and whose artists painted him that way. The most impressive room in the library is the gallery with bronze statues of world leaders and, in truth, it seems as if Nixon was the last U.S. president with a coherent foreign policy. That alone would justify the number of times he appeared on the cover of Time magazine. His grave beside his wife's is unadorned but poignant; there is sadness there even though the president recovered his dignity in death.

In contrast, the ebullient personality of Ronald Reagan beams down on visitors to his library in Simi Valley, north of Los Angeles. In so many photographs he's grinning as if he knew he was going to have a life like a Hollywood movie. Visitors get a real feel for this little guy grinning (again) in a photograph with his older brother, and smiling as he restseasy to him. Amongst the displays from earlier times is the microphone that "Dutch" Reagan used as a sportscaster.

Windows of presidential campaign buttons compete with material from his life before the presidency but nothing has the impact of the photographs taken just before he was shot, the one of his X-Ray showing the bullet so very close to his heart, and the one of the president appearing in his dressing gown, smiling again at America. And as he flew back to work and saluted his country the intrinsic courage of the man surely shines through. He too was a religious man .Reagan's Bible was as well thumbed as Truman's and is on display open to a page that reads: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land," he has hand-written, "A most wonderful verse, for the healing of the nations."