Ex-President's widow hails 'wonderful man'

Nancy Reagan offered a touching tribute to her late husband today, writing: “I think they broke the mould when they made Ronnie.”

Two days after the former US President succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease, aged 93, Mrs Reagan remembered his humour, his optimism and his love for her.

She also told how he felt that his greatest achievement was ending the Cold War.

Mrs Reagan, 82, wrote in Time magazine: “He was a man of strong principles and integrity. He had absolutely no ego, and he was very comfortable in his own skin; therefore, he didn’t feel he ever had to prove anything to anyone.

“He said what he thought and believed. He could move from being a sportscaster to moving pictures and TV, to being Governor of the largest state in the country for eight years and then to being President for eight years, and somehow remain the same wonderful man.”

She believes that his religious beliefs brought him strength.

“He was the eternal optimist – the glass was always half full, not half empty,” she wrote.

Mrs Reagan told how, shortly after the assassination attempt on her husband, he prayed not only for himself but also for his would-be killer, John Hinckley.

“Hinckley’s parents sent him a note and he wrote a nice one back to them,” she explained.

Mrs Reagan said on her birthdays her husband always sent her mother flowers “to thank her for having me”.

“...and he wrote me beautiful, touching letters when we had to be apart”, she wrote.

“After being married to him for 52 years, I have so many memories. He was very sentimental and romantic and tender.”

Reagan had a wealth of stories to tell, and would use them to break moments of tension at home or at work.

And he had words of advice for his children when they were growing up.

“Ronnie always told his children: ‘If you go into a store and feel that the clerk is being rude, stop and think that she may have had a tough day, and put yourself in her shoes’,” Mrs Reagan went on.

On his political beliefs, Mrs Reagan said her husband was “deeply guided by the principle that the Soviet system was wrong”.

She said it made a “tremendous impression” on him when he looked east across the Berlin Wall to see “not a soul on the street”.

It was on that trip that he stood in front of the Berlin Wall and said: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Mrs Reagan wrote: “Ronnie felt this was his greatest accomplishment – finding a safe ending to the Cold War.

“And his other great legacy, he felt, was giving our country back its optimism.”

She added: “When we were leaving the White House for the last time and walking toward the helicopter, he turned to me with his heart-warming grin.

“’Well, it’s been a wonderful eight years,’ he said. ‘All in all, not bad. Not bad at all.”’