Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 27, 1993 TAG: 9306270041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: YORBA LINDA, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
"Few women in public life have suffered as she has suffered and done it with such grace," said the Rev. Billy Graham.
At the morning service, an ashen Nixon walked into the garden with Graham. The former president was stricken with emotion as he saw the mourners, putting his hand over his mouth and crying.
Marines carried the casket to the flower-bedecked bier. Graham stood at the podium and began to speak as the sun poked through overcast skies for the first time.
About 250 mourners gathered at the Nixon presidential library for the service, which was attended by two other former presidents - Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan - and several members of Congress, including Sens. Bob Dole, John Chafee, Orrin Hatch and Mark Hatfield.
Many mourners were synonymous with the tumultuous years of the Nixon White House - Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, C.G. "Bebe" Rebozo, H.R. Haldeman, Charles Colson and former ambassador Walter Annenberg. Nixon resigned Aug. 9, 1974, amid the Watergate scandal.
Graham and other speakers remembered Pat Nixon for her inspiration.
"To know Pat Nixon is to know a woman of compassion, courage and character," said Cynthia Hardin Milligan, a member of the library board and a family friend.
Milligan noted the Secret Service code name for Pat Nixon was "Starlight."
"It was especially appropriate," she said. "She was fun to be with. She had a great sense of adventure."
Former Sen. George McGovern, who was defeated by Nixon in a bitter 1972 presidential campaign, said he admired Pat Nixon.
"I wanted to be here," said McGovern. "I've always admired Mrs. Nixon. She is one of the least pretentious public figures I've ever known. She had a lot of courage."
California Gov. Pete Wilson and Senate Minority Leader Dole of Kansas also delivered eulogies.
"As first lady, Pat Nixon was a patron of American culture who never patronized her countrymen," said Dole. "She loved the White House, not for its power but for its beauty and its history."
Pat Nixon, 81, who died Tuesday of lung cancer at her New Jersey home, was interred in the garden of the library, 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles. The former president escorted his wife's body back to California Friday.
by CNB