Reagan's body arrives in Capitol

WASHINGTON -- With the storied riderless horse symbolizing the fallen president, Ronald Reagan's casket rolled on a century-old caisson Wednesday to the Capitol past a crowd of thousands standing quiet witness to the high pageantry of America's first presidential state funeral in three decades.\nDrums sounded, marking the cadence of the marchers, and cheers briefly broke out for Nancy Reagan at the head of the procession taking the body of the 40th president to Capitol Hill along the broad expanse of Constitution Avenue. She waved repeatedly, looking wan.\n"God bless you, Nancy," a man cried out.\nReagan's body arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland from California to close the first chapter in a slowly unfolding week of remembrance. In California, more than 100,000 people had paid respects to Reagan in his presidential hilltop library.\nReagan's funeral procession was formed within view of the South Lawn of the White House in steamy heat, the crowd standing 15 people deep on each side of the avenue. Following a long tradition, rarely seen, the body of the former president, who was an avid horseman, was carried on a black caisson drawn by six horses.\nBehind them trailed Sgt. York, the horse with an empty saddle and boots reversed in the stirrups to symbolize a warrior who will ride no more and looks back a final time on his troops. Sgt. York stepped lively, tossing his head and appearing a bit spooked on occasion.\nOverhead -- only 1,000 feet overhead -- 21 fighter jets screamed by in four formations, a wingman breaking away and rocketing upward to signify the loss of a comrade.\nBy early evening, 100 people on the National Mall had been treated for heat-related illnesses, said Alan Etter, speaking for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. U.S. Capitol Police trucked in about 150,000 of bottles of water and turned on large fans for people waiting in line to view Reagan's casket in the Capital Rotunda.\nAt Andrews, Mrs. Reagan walked slowly down the steps of the Boeing 747 that was sent by President Bush and watched silently as body bearers drawn from all branches of the armed forces carried her husband's casket from the plane. "Hail to the Chief" rang out and cannon fired, followed by "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Flags snapped in the stiff wind.\nTo Carol Williams of Chesterfield, Va., all the fanfare was for a common man.\n"They didn't live in Camelot, they lived in reality with the rest of us," said Williams, a college professor who came before dawn and took first place in line for the night's public viewing.\nDerace Owens of Jacksonville, Texas, flew in a day earlier to pay respects on behalf of his family. "That man represented the best America has to offer," he said. "The least I could do is make a little bitty sacrifice."\nWashington last staged these presidential rites in 1973, for Lyndon Johnson, less than a decade after John Kennedy's assassination produced the state funeral carved most deeply in America's memory.\nReagan's procession sometimes had the feel of a parade, in contrast to the shock and grief that attended every stage of the slain President Kennedy's funeral.\nAs always, every clicking step of shined boots, every sounding of the bugle, every firing of rifle and cannon was tightly scripted. As always, people made their unscripted emotional connections.\nIn California, during a 45-minute motorcade to Point Mugu Naval Air Station, Calif., for the flight east, crowds watched from overpasses, traffic stopped on the other side of the freeway and some drivers got out and stood with hands over hearts.\nFarm workers near the base climbed off tractors, removed hats from their heads and put them over their hearts. A little boy stood at attention and saluted from the tailgate of a pickup truck by an onion field. "Rest Well, President Reagan," said a sign.\nReagan, who died Saturday at 93, will be buried Friday in a sunset ceremony on the Simi Valley library grounds.\nIn Washington, 141 embassies accepted invitations to send representatives to the ceremony at Congress on Wednesday evening that begins Reagan's period of lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda.\nReagan returned in death to a Congress he loved to scold. "That big white dome, bulging with new tax revenues," he would say. "Tax and spend crowd," he called the inhabitants. "I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress."\nSeventeen years ago, he compared Democratic lawmakers to the "screeching" periodic cicadas that then -- and again this spring -- have infested the city.\nThose battles were bygone Wednesday in a tribute drawing together Republicans who idolized Reagan and Democrats who liked him even while abhoring some of his conservative policies.\nThe Senate voted 98-0 to pass a resolution documenting Reagan's achievements from birth through Hollywood and the California governor's office to the White House. A House resolution, passed 375-0, said Reagan "championed freedom and democracy throughout the world."\nFirst elected in 1980, Reagan won re-election in 1984. In 1994, he released a letter to the nation saying he had Alzheimer's disease and was embarking on "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life."\nPresident Bush planned to come back from the Group of Eight meeting in Georgia Thursday and, with his wife Laura, call on Mrs. Reagan at Blair House, the official guest residence across the street from the White House.\nAides said Bush would visit the casket Thursday evening. Bush and his father, who was Reagan's vice president and succeeded him in the White House, will be among the eulogists Friday.