by H. W. Brands, The San Francisco Chronicle, May 20, 2015
At a black-tie dinner party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in February 1991, nearly 1,000 guests celebrated the 80th birthday of Ronald Reagan. Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister of England, proclaimed that like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Reagan had had "a rendezvous with destiny. Thank God you were on time." President George H.W. Bush, who was then conducting the war in the Persian Gulf, sent a congratulatory videotape. "They’ll get you on Mount Rushmore yet," he predicted.
