Reagan home on the ranch

Press, 19 August 1981, Page 23

Reagan home on the ranch

By

WILLIAM SCOBIE,

“Observer, - ’ London

For what remains of this summer, the Government of the United States will be directed from a two-bedroom log chalet on a remote Californian mountaintop. A homesick Ronald Reagan is back at his beloved Rancho del Cielo (ranch of the skies), above the wealthy enclave of Santa Barbara.

It will be the longest presidential absence from Washington since the Eisenhower era.

His triumphant $35 billion assault on the Federal Budget behind him, the 70-year-old President, accompanied on Air Force One by Nancy Reagan, and followed by some 20 White House aides, has returned to home ground for a month-long vacation to “renew his energies at the fount,” as one adviser put it. However, home on the range — his $1.6 million spread overlooking the blue, oil-rigged Pacific — is not what it used to be. Last February, when the secret service began planning elaborate security systems at the 688-acre ranch, Reagan threatened to “stand there with a shotgun and say, ’No Changes’.” ..

The. March 30 assassina-

tion attempt changed his mind. More than a million

dollars has been spent on the latest security gear and sophisticated equipment for the new White House West.

Meanwhile, the natives are restless. Reagan is the first Los Angeles resident to occupy the Oval Office, but far from benefiting his home town, that has caused the demise of several desperately needed transport and public programmes. Subway, freeway, and new national park plans have been scrapped at the behest of the Budget Director, David Stockman, and the Interior Secretary, James Watt. Now, Governor Jerry Brown is leading a fierce legal fight■ to block the Administration’s scheme .to

open up 80 million offshore acres of the Pacific to yet more'oil drilling.

Many Californians are thus demanding . that Reagan, a multi-millionaire, practises the austerity he preaches; let him stay in Washington, or pay his own way. Each round trip on Air Force One costs

around $50,000. This is the

Reagans’s fourth since his election eight months ago.

For this vacation, scheduled to end “sometime in September,” six new buildings have gone up on the

ranch to accommodate White House aides, Pentagon brass, and the President’s personal physician. People and papers will be shuttled daily from the new helicopter pad to nearby Point Mugu naval air base, where a second Government jet waits for regular trips to the capital. “For the taxpayers’ sake, let him use Camp David when he feels the urge to chop wood,” says a Reagan neighbour in the golden Santa Ynez mountains, where millionaire landowners include Jane Fonda and John Travolta.

“People are angry,” says Mr Lu Hass of Pacific Palisades, where the Reagans’s

former home is offered for sale at $1.9 million. “The guy's calling for _sacrifices from the poor, slashing public programmes and cutting his own~ team’s Federal travel budget.

“But he flies here on a

$5OOO-an-hour plane to ride horses on his tax-haven ranch.” ' (Mr Reagan paid $907 in property taxes on ‘his ranch in 1980; had he not used tax loopholes, State appraisers say, his bill would have been $42,000.) The final bill for security work at Rancho del Cielo is not yet in. While it will not approach the $l7 million Nixon spent on his San Clemente and Key Biscayne retreats, it will be considerable.

At the ranch, bought in 1974 for $526,000 and now worth three times that sum, Reagan will indulge his passion for clearing brush and digging post holes. In the five-room . main house, crammed with Western and movie memorabilia, Mrs Reagan passes the time chatting on the telephone with friends.

On this official “working holiday,” the White House Chief of Staff, Ed Meese, America’s “deputy president,” will be flying in and out with security reports. Reagan will meditate the the pros and cons of his next big military decision —- whether to go ahead with the Bl bomber, the MX missile, or

both. He plans at least one trip to Los Angeles for meetings with the Cabinet and the National .Security Council members, who will be flown in from Washington. The Reagan's immediate neighbours appear resigned to the influx of men and machines guarding the President, but some are edgy as the annual fire season approaches; “The whole area is a tinderbox of dry bush,” says one rancher. “We’re afraid some nut wanting to get at Reagan might start a blaze.” . White House aides are defensive about the President’s frequent home-comings. “Camp David is not his kind of place,” says the Direetor of Congressional Relations, Max Friedersdorf. “There’s nothing but woods to hike in. The President needs air, broad vistas, horses running around. The ranch restores his vitality. The American people don’t begrudge that.” Reagan himself clearly has no plans to cut down on his . ranch time. “We’ll be seeing you again on a regular basis," he told wellwishers on Ips last visit. “Nancy and I have been very homesick.”