Leaders remember the ‘Great Liberator’

they tend to do when one of theirs has fallen, world leaders converged from near and far for the state funeral of Ronald Reagan who gently steered the Cold War towards a peaceful end.

Those who sat with Reagan among the world's elite 20 years ago perched somberly on pews in the Washington National Cathedral. Their sad eyes were cast on the flag-draped coffin of the former President.

"With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world," former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said. "And so today the world in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev and in Moscow itself the world mourns the passing of the Great Liberator and echoes his prayer: God Bless America."