America mourns 'Great Communicator' Ronald Reagan

America mourned former President Ronald Reagan yesterday as preparations began in Washington for the first presidential state funeral in 30 years for the man who won the Cold War and the hearts of countless Americans with his skills as the "Great Communicator."

Mr Reagan died with his family by his bedside at his Los Angeles residence on Saturday at the age of 93 after a decade-long battle with Alzheimer's disease.

The 40th president's body lay overnight at a mortuary near his Bel Air home. It is expected to be taken to his presidential library in the Simi Valley today before being flown to Washington on Wednesday.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Mr Reagan will lie in state in the US Capitol before a funeral at the National Cathedral on Friday followed by a private sunset burial at the presidential library in California, House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert said on CNN.

Leaders of the G8 group of the world's major industrialized nations are meeting in the US state of Georgia this week, which would allow them to travel to Washington for the funeral. It will pose a major security challenge for a city already on high alert against terror threats following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

President George W. Bush, visiting France to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, hailed Mr Reagan as a "courageous man" and a "gallant leader in the cause of freedom."

Mr Reagan became the first right-wing US president in 50 years; the first in 30 years to serve two terms; and the first to spend a trillion dollars on peacetime defense and witness a doubling of the national debt.

He called the Soviet Union an evil empire and helped defeat it in the Cold War by presiding over a massive US defense build-up that the Russians could not afford to keep up with.

In a flood of tributes from America and abroad, Mr Reagan was hailed as the man who changed the course of world history by hastening the end of Soviet Communism.

More personally, the former president's death ended a long, painful last chapter in a close, 52-year marriage. Just last month, Nancy Reagan made a rare speech in which she described her husband's last days suffering from Alzheimer's.

"Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place, where I can no longer reach him," she said, urging support for stem cell research to help cure Alzheimer's.

His death more than 15 years after leaving the White House and after a 10-year struggle with Alzheimer's that had kept him out of the public eye, prompted warm tributes from world leaders.

Pope John Paul yesterday mourned Mr Reagan's death, the fellow communist-buster with whom he shared an affinity for moral conservativism and a vision of a world free of totalitarianism.

Both men were instrumental in events that led up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and also shared an unflagging stand against abortion.

Historians believe the convergence on the world scene of the first pope from a communist country, Mr Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was the perfect political cocktail for the times.

The father of Soviet Perestroika reform Mikhail Gorbachev praised Mr Reagan, his partner on the world stage, as a great leader who dared to change the tide in relations between the Cold War superpowers. Mr Gorbachev said his dialogue with Reagan "kick-started the process, which ultimately put an end to the Cold War."

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - the "Iron Lady" to Mr Reagan's warm "Great Communicator" - called him a "truly great American hero."

"Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty. To have achieved so much, against such odds, and with such humour and humanity, made Ronald Reagan a truly great American hero," Ms Thatcher said.

French president Jacques Chirac called him "a great statesman who through the strength of his convictions and his commitment to democracy will leave a deep mark in history."

A dissenting note came from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who said he regretted that Mr Reagan died without being tried for the 1986 air strikes that killed dozens of people including Mr Gaddafi's daughter.

At home, hundreds of people carrying US flags and flowers made a makeshift memorial outside the Los Angeles-area funeral home where his body was being embalmed before taken to lie in state at the Reagan library.

The library sits on a California hillside not far from implanted pieces of the Berlin Wall - which he implored Mikhail Gorbachev in a famous speech to "tear down this wall."

Mr Reagan's presidential state funeral will be the first since Lyndon Johnson's in 1973.

"He made you feel safe and secure regardless of whether you voted for him or not," said John Circenif, who was among the crowd outside the funeral home.

Republican political activist Heather Peters said: "It would be my dream to be able to walk in that man's shoes. I personally don't want to let him go."

Flags across the country were lowered to half staff in a sign of respect for the man who effected a late 20th Century revolution in American politics, helping make Republicans the ruling party and conservatism a mainstream political philosophy.

John Kerry, who is challenging Mr Bush for the White House in November elections, said he was suspending "overtly political" campaigning for the next few days as a tribute to Mr Reagan.

While Mr Reagan ushered in a conservative revolution that reshaped America's political landscape, critics said his tax cuts and military spending policies tripled the nation's debt.

But his supporters say Mr Reagan helped snap the economy out of a lethargy that had reigned for much of the 1970s.