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Ronald Reagan

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: USA Presidents

   Ronald Wilson Reagan
   Ronald Reagan
     __________________________________________________________________

   40th President of the United States
   In office
   January 20, 1981 –  January 20, 1989
   Vice President(s)   George H. W. Bush
   Preceded by Jimmy Carter
   Succeeded by George H. W. Bush
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born February 6, 1911
   United States Tampico, Illinois, USA
   Died June 5, 2004
   Bel-Air, California, USA
   Political party Republican
   Spouse (1) Jane Wyman (married 1940, divorced 1948)
   (2) Nancy Davis Reagan (married 1952)
   Religion Presbyterian
   Signature

   Ronald Wilson Reagan ( February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th
   President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of
   California (1967–1975). He is considered an icon of American
   conservatism. At age 69, he was the oldest person ever elected
   President. Before entering politics, Reagan was a popular motion
   picture actor, head of the Screen Actors Guild, and a motivational
   speaker. He was an "FDR Democrat" in the 1930s and 1940s but became a
   Republican in the 1960s. His persuasive speaking style earned Reagan
   the title "The Great Communicator." He gained national attention
   campaigning for Barry Goldwater in 1964, and after Goldwater's defeat
   his supporters and conservatives generally across the country
   gravitated to Reagan, who was elected governor of the largest state,
   California, in 1966 and reelected in 1970. In 1976, Reagan made an
   unsuccessful bid for the Republican Presidential nomination against
   incumbent Gerald Ford. By 1980, Reagan dominated the GOP and faced a
   much weakened President Jimmy Carter, whose performance in domestic and
   foreign policies Reagan denounced. Winning in a landslide and bringing
   in the Senate on his coattails, President Reagan had a momentous first
   term. He escalated the Cold War with the Soviet Union, then negotiated
   massive arms reductions with the Soviets in the late 1980s. Rejecting
   both containment and détente, Reagan called for roll-back and the
   destruction of communism. His economic and foreign policies have formed
   the base of American conservatism since 1980.

   In domestic affairs Reagan's economic policy of supply-side economics,
   or " Reaganomics," is noted for its implementation of a 25% cut in the
   federal personal income tax, a reduction in interest rates, a reduction
   in inflation, increased military spending, and a dramatic rise in
   deficits and the national debt. After two years, a recession set in,
   but the economy recovered robustly in 1983 and he was reelected in a
   49-state landslide in 1984. He did not succeed in significantly
   changing social policies, such as welfare spending and abortion rights,
   but he did create a more conservative federal judiciary through
   appointments to the United States Supreme Court and other federal
   courts.

   He was toughly skeptical of the ability of the federal government to
   remedy socioeconomic problems. Broadly speaking, his solution was to
   lower taxes and limit government regulation in order to allow the
   self-correcting "invisible hand" of the free market to assert itself.
   On inauguration day 1981, he said "Government is not the solution to
   our problem; government is the problem."

   Many political and social commentators have credited him with restoring
   a brisk new optimism to the American psyche that had remained awash in
   sullen negativity following the scars of the Watergate Scandal, the
   American withdrawal from Vietnam, and a late 1970s economy racked by
   spiraling inflation and interest rates. His ability to survive and even
   escape blame for economic troubles, reverses in Congress, foreign
   crises, and his own administration's scandals earned him the nickname,
   "The Teflon President." In foreign policy, his administration was noted
   for its boldness. Reagan called out the Soviet Union as an "evil
   empire" and authorized a vast buildup of military might, mandating that
   the Soviets commit funds and other resources they barely retained.

   The Berlin Wall, and with it ultimately the Soviet Bloc, collapsed in
   November of 1989, shortly after he left office. Historians have not yet
   formed a consensus; some consider Reagan the leading architect of the
   Soviet demise in 1991, while others believe the distinegration was
   inevitable; Reagan simply hastened the day.

   He was the only U.S. President to be shot by an assassin (on March 30,
   1981) while in office and survive. After suffering from Alzheimer's
   disease for at least a decade, he died in 2004 at age 93 in Bel-Air,
   California.

Early life

   Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in an apartment above a bank in
   Tampico, Illinois. He was the second of two sons born to John Edward
   Reagan ( 1883– 1941), an Irish American Catholic, and Nelle Clyde
   Wilson ( 1883– 1962), who was of Scottish, Canadian and English descent
   and his older brother was Neil Reagan ( 1908– 1996). His paternal
   great-grandfather, Michael Reagan, came to the United States from
   Ballyporeen, County Tipperary, Ireland, in the 1860s, and the rest of
   his paternal family immigrated from Ireland in the 1800s as well. Prior
   to his immigration, the family name was spelled Regan. His maternal
   great-grandfather, John Wilson, immigrated to the United States from
   Paisley, Scotland, in the 1840s and married Jane Blue, a Canadian from
   Queens, New Brunswick. Reagan's maternal grandmother, Mary Anne Elsey,
   was born in Epsom, Surrey, England.

   During his childhood, Reagan attended Mount Lebanon school district.
   There, he developed a gift for storytelling and acting. These abilities
   led to his selection as one of the freshman speakers during the
   late-night meeting prior to the student strike at Eureka College. In
   1926 Reagan began work as a lifeguard at Lowell Park, near Dixon. He
   was credited with saving 77 lives during the seven summers he worked
   there. In 1932, after graduating from Eureka ( B.A. in economics and
   sociology), Reagan worked at radio stations WOC in Davenport, Iowa, and
   then WHO in Des Moines as an announcer for Chicago Cubs baseball games,
   getting only the bare outlines of the game from a ticker and relying on
   his imagination to flesh out the game. Once, during the ninth inning of
   a game, the wire went dead but Reagan smoothly improvised a fictional
   play-by-play (in which hitters on both teams fouled off numerous
   pitches) until the wire was restored.

Hollywood

   In 1937, when in California to cover spring training for the Chicago
   Cubs as a Headline radio announcer, Reagan took a screen test that led
   to a seven-year contract with the Warner Brothers studio. Reagan's
   clear voice, easy-going manner, and athletic physique made him popular
   with audiences; the majority of his screen roles were as the leading
   man in B movies. His first screen credit was the starring role in the
   1937 movie Love Is On the Air. By the end of 1939, he had appeared in
   19 films. Before Santa Fe Trail in 1940, he played the role of George
   "The Gipper" Gipp in the film Knute Rockne, All American. From this
   role he acquired the nickname the Gipper, which he retained the rest of
   his life. Reagan considered his best acting work to have been in Kings
   Row (1942). He played the part of a young man whose legs were
   amputated. He used a line he spoke in this film, "Where's the rest of
   me?", as the title for his autobiography. Other notable Reagan films
   include International Squadron, ' Tennessee's Partner, Hellcats of the
   Navy, This Is the Army, and Bedtime for Bonzo. He has a star on the
   Hollywood Walk of Fame.

   Reagan was commissioned as a reserve officer in the Army in 1935. In
   November 1941, Reagan was called up but disqualified for combat duty
   because of his astigmatism. After the attack on Pearl Harbour,
   Lieutenant Reagan was activated and assigned to the First Motion
   Picture Unit in the United States Army Air Forces, which made training
   and education films, where his acting experience could be put to work.
   He remained in Hollywood for the duration of the war.
   Ronald Reagan visiting Nancy Reagan on the set of her movie Donovan's
   Brain, 1953.
   Enlarge
   Ronald Reagan visiting Nancy Reagan on the set of her movie Donovan's
   Brain, 1953.

   Reagan's film roles became fewer in the late 1950s; he moved to
   television as a host and frequent performer for General Electric
   Theatre. Reagan appeared in over 50 television dramas. Reagan served as
   the president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) from 1947 until 1952,
   and again from 1959 to 1960. In 1952, a Hollywood dispute raged over
   his granting of a SAG blanket waiver to MCA, which allowed it to both
   represent and employ talent for its burgeoning TV franchises. He went
   from host and program supervisor of General Electric Theatre to
   producing and claiming an equity stake in the TV show itself. At one
   point in the late 1950s, Reagan was earning approximately $125,000 per
   year ($800,000 in 2006 dollars). His final regular acting job was as
   host and performer on Death Valley Days. Reagan's final big-screen
   appearance came in the 1964 film The Killers, a remake of an earlier
   version, based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway. Reagan portrayed a
   mob chieftain. This film, the first made-for-TV movie, was originally
   produced for NBC, but the network's censor found it too violent.
   Reagan's co-stars were John Cassavetes, Lee Marvin, and Angie
   Dickinson.

   In total Reagan boasts a fairly prodigious credit history of 102
   activities ranging from Cowpoke to a cameo appearance in Spies Like Us.

Marriages

   Reagan married actress Jane Wyman on January 24, 1940; they had a
   daughter, Maureen in 1941; an adopted son, Michael in 1945, and a
   second daughter, Christine, born and died June 26, 1947. They divorced
   on June 28, 1948. Reagan is the only United States President to date to
   have been divorced. Reagan remarried on March 4, 1952, to actress Nancy
   Davis. Their daughter Patti was born on October 21 of the same year. In
   1958, they had a second child, Ron.

Early political career

   TV star Ronald Reagan advertising borax
   Enlarge
   TV star Ronald Reagan advertising borax

   Reagan was originally a Democrat, supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt and
   his New Deal throughout the economically ravaged and war-torn 1930s and
   early 1940s. In the late 1940s, he was still a Democrat of firm
   convictions, one of the most visible speakers in the country defending
   President Harry S. Truman. But his political loyalties would soon
   change.

   His first major political role was as president of the Screen Actors
   Guild (SAG), the labor union that represented most Hollywood actors,
   but which, he claimed, was being infiltrated by communists. In this
   position, he testified before the House Un-American Activities
   Committee (HUAC) on suspected communist influence in the motion picture
   industry. He also kept tabs on actors he considered disloyal and
   reported them to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under the
   code name "Agent T-10," but he would not denounce them publicly. In
   public, he opposed the practice of blacklisting, while in private he
   and his first wife, Jane Wyman, met with FBI agents in 1947 to name
   "suspected subversives." Among those he allegedly fingered were actors
   Larry Parks, Howard Da Silva and Alexander Knox, each of whom was later
   called before HUAC and subsequently blacklisted in Hollywood. (This
   information was not revealed until a 2002 Freedom of Information Act
   request.) FBI files allegedly show that he continually gave the FBI
   names of people he suspected of communist ties.

   The ever-looming threat of Communism soon persuaded Reagan that, of the
   major American political parties, the Republican was its more capable
   adversary. He supported the presidential candidacies of Dwight D.
   Eisenhower (1952;1956) and Richard Nixon (1960), while remaining a
   registered Democrat. Through these years, Reagan had been educating
   himself in the laissez-faire economics of classical liberalism;
   following the election of John F. Kennedy and the near catastrophe of
   the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, he was ready to change his party
   affiliation. He joined the Republican party in time to mount the 1964
   bandwagon of conservative Presidential contender Barry Goldwater. "I
   didn't leave the Democratic Party," he claimed. "The party left me."
   Speaking on the candidate's behalf, Reagan revealed his ideological
   motivation: "The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the
   economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government set
   out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.
   So we have come to a time for choosing."

Governor of California

   Order:               33rd Governor of California
   Term of office:      1967–1975
   Predecessor:         Pat Brown
   Successor:           Jerry Brown
   Political Party:     Republican
   Lieutenant Governor: Robert Finch, Ed Reinecke, John L. Harmer

   In 1966, he was elected the 33rd Governor of California, defeating
   two-term Pat Brown; he was re-elected in 1970, defeating Jesse Unruh,
   but chose not to seek a third term. Ronald Reagan was sworn in as
   governor of California on January 3, 1967. In his first term, he froze
   government hiring but also approved tax hikes to balance the budget.
   Reagan quickly controlled protest movements of the era. During the
   People's Park protests in 1969, he sent 2,200 state National Guard
   troops onto the Berkeley campus of the University of California. In a
   speech in April 1970, he stated, "If it's to be a bloodbath, let it be
   now. Appeasement is not the answer."

   He worked with Democratic Assembly Speaker Bob Moretti to reform
   welfare in 1971. Reagan also opposed the construction of a large
   federal dam, the Dos Rios, which would have flooded a valley of
   American Indian ranches. Later, Reagan and his family took a summer
   backpack trip into the high Sierra to a place where a proposed
   trans-Sierra highway would be built. Once there, he declared it would
   not be built. One of Reagan's greatest frustrations in office concerned
   capital punishment. He had campaigned as a strong supporter; however,
   his efforts to enforce the state's laws in this area were thwarted when
   the Supreme Court of California issued its People v. Anderson decision,
   which invalidated all death sentences issued in California prior to
   1972, although the decision was quickly overturned by a constitutional
   amendment. Despite his support for the death penalty, Reagan granted
   two clemencies and a temporary reprieve during his governorship. As of
   2006, no other clemency has been granted to a condemned person in
   California. The only execution during Reagan's governorship was on
   April 12, 1967, when Aaron Mitchell was executed by the state in San
   Quentin's gas chamber. There was not another execution in California
   until 1992. When the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patty Hearst
   in Berkeley and demanded the distribution of food to the poor, Reagan
   suggested that it would be a good time for an outbreak of botulism.
   After the media reported on the comment, he apologized.

   Reagan promoted the dismantling of the public psychiatric hospital
   system, proposing that community-based housing and treatment replace
   involuntary hospitalization, which he saw as a violation of civil
   liberties issue. The community replacement facilities have never been
   adequately funded, either by Reagan or his successors. Reagan was
   strongly influenced by the classical liberals. When asked in an
   interview in 1975 which economists were influential on him, he replied:
   " Bastiat and von Mises, and Hayek and Hazlitt–I’m one for the
   classical economists."

   Reagan was the first governor to use a corporate business jet for
   official travel. California received one of the first Cessna Citation
   jets manufactured. His pilot, Bill Paynter, changed his Democratic
   voting registration to Republican within six months of meeting Reagan.
   Paynter often told listeners the Reagan on TV was the same Reagan in
   person, a man who walked his talk. Reagan would often ask his flight
   crew if it would be any inconvenience to change the published flight
   schedule because he did not want to keep his support staff from being
   with their families and any family planned events.

Presidential campaigns

1976 Presidential Campaign

   Reagan first tested the Presidential waters in 1968 as part of a "Stop
   Nixon" movement which included those from the party's left led by then-
   New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Reagan managed to win the pledges
   of some 600 delegates, but Nixon quickly steamrolled to the nomination;
   Reagan urged the convention to nominate Nixon unanimously.

   In 1976, Reagan challenged incumbent President Gerald Ford, a moderate.
   Reagan soon established himself as the conservative candidate;
   like-minded organizations such as the American Conservative Union
   became the key components of his political base. He relied on a
   strategy crafted by campaign manager John Sears of winning a few
   primaries early to seriously damage the liftoff of Ford's campaign, but
   the strategy quickly disintegrated. Poor management of expectations and
   an ill-timed speech promising to shift responsibilty for federal
   services to the states without identifying any clear funding mechanism
   caused Reagan to lose New Hampshire and later Florida. Reagan found
   himself cornered, desperately needing a win to stay in the race.

   Reagan's stand in the North Carolina primary was a do-or-die
   proposition. Hammering Ford on the Panama Canal, detente with the
   Soviet Union, busing of school children, and Henry Kissinger's
   performance as Secretary of State, Reagan won 53% to 47%. He used that
   bit of momentum to add the major states of Texas and California, but
   then fell back from losing efforts in Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and
   Michigan. As the party's convention in Kansas City neared, Ford
   appeared close to victory, thanks to New York, New Jersey and
   Pennsylvania delegates ostensibly under the control of Ford's liberal
   Vice President Rockefeller. Acknowledging the strength of his party's
   moderate and liberal wing, Reagan balanced his ticket by chosing as his
   running mate moderate Republican Senator Richard Schweiker of
   Pennsylvania. Nonetheless, Ford squeaked by with 1,187 delegates to
   Reagan's 1,070. Reagan's concession speech was a stirring exhortation,
   emphasizing the dangers of nuclear war and the moral threat posed by
   the Soviet Union.

1978 Opposition to California's Briggs Initiative

   The Briggs Initiative, which for a time was winning in polls conducted
   prior to the election with about 61% of voters supporting it while 31%
   opposed. The extreme right state legislator John Briggs was pushing
   Prop 6, the ballot initiative describing it as an initiative that would
   "would defend your children from homosexual teachers." Meanwhile, in
   San Francisco, Supervisor Dan White, was leading the campaign for the
   passage of the Briggs Initiative.

   It was the first attempt to restrict gay and lesbian rights through a
   ballot measure. However, it is historically significant that the polls
   changed in the opponents favour when former Governor Ronald Reagan,
   later President opposed the measure. Reagan opposed the ballot
   initiative sponsored by religious conservatives that would have barred
   homosexuals from teaching in the public schools. As legend has it,
   Reagan penned an editorial for a major California newspaper in which he
   opposed the initiative. The timing is significant because he was then
   preparing to run for president, a race in which he would need the
   support of conservatives and moderates who felt very uncomfortable with
   homosexual teachers, nevertheless Reagan chose to state his
   convictions.

   However, in the fall of 2006, a committee of Log Cabin Republicans
   spearheaded by Trustee Kevin Norte began researching the legend of the
   Reagan editorial and the Briggs Initiative and utilized the services of
   a student worker, Grant Grays, at the Tretter Collection in GLBT
   Studies at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Grays discovered that
   there was no editorial penned by Reagan but rather he sent a letter to
   a pro-Briggs Initiative group in which he opposed the initiative. The
   entire text of Reagan's letter of opposition was never printed in the
   public media. The most extensive excerpts from his statement were
   reprinted in the San Francisco Chronicle of September 24, 1978 where it
   was revealed that the future President opposed the Briggs Initiative.
   Reagan's letter also allegedly stated, “Whatever else it is,
   homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing
   scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a
   very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence
   this.”

   In the end the Briggs Initiative was defeated by over one million votes
   and would have prevented gay men and lesbians from being public school
   teachers in California. Even John Briggs' home territory, the
   conservative Orange County, rejected the measure. Without Reagan's
   personal, forceful opposition to Briggs it's likely the measure would
   have passed. There is, however, no public acknowledgement of Reagan's
   historic stance on the Briggs Initiative at the Ronald Reagan
   Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

1980 presidential campaign

   In 1980, Reagan won the Republican nomination for President, handily
   winning most of the primaries after an early defeat in the Iowa
   caucuses. During the convention, Reagan proposed a complex
   power-sharing arrangement with Gerald Ford as Vice President, but
   nothing came of it. Instead, Reagan selected his opponent in the
   primaries, George H. W. Bush, who had extensive international
   experience.

   On August 4, 1980, Ronald Reagan, as a candidate, delivered a speech
   near Philadelphia, Mississippi at the annual Neshoba County Fair.
   Reagan excited the crowd when he announced, "I believe in states'
   rights. I believe we have distorted the balance of our government today
   by giving powers that were never intended to be given in the
   Constitution to that federal establishment." He went on to promise to
   "restore to states and local governments the power that properly
   belongs to them." Philadelphia was the scene of the June 21, 1964
   murder of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and
   Michael Schwerner, and Reagan's critics alleged that the presidential
   candidate was signalling a racist message to his audience.The speech
   was in keeping with his philosophy of a limited federal government, but
   critics alleged that Reagan had chosen the site for the speech and had
   made his states' rights declaration implicitly to appeal to southern
   white voters. In his biography of Reagan, Edmund Morris states that
   Reagan was still a firm believer in the supremacy of the federal
   government. Reagan, who felt many of the major civil rights bills of
   the 1960s were unnecessary considering the already extensive civil
   rights protection already in the U.S. Constitution. However, Reagan was
   vulnerable to charges of at least insensitivity to the cause of black
   civil rights. Still, according to the book Running on Race: Racial
   Politics in Presidential Campaigns, when Carter tried to accuse Reagan
   of racism, because of his record, it largely backfired against Carter.
   When one of Carter's main black supporters, former U.N. Ambassador
   Andrew Young tried to whip up black opposition to Reagan by stating
   that if he were elected, it would be "okay to kill " the strident
   language probably alienated more whites than it attracted blacks.

   The presidential campaign, led by William J. Casey, was conducted in
   the shadow of the Iran hostage crisis; every day during the campaign
   the networks reported on Carter's unavailing efforts to free the
   hostages. Most analysts argue this weakened Carter's political base and
   gave Reagan the opportunity to attack Carter's ineffectiveness. On the
   other hand, Carter's inability to deal with double-digit inflation and
   unemployment, lackluster economic growth, instability in the petroleum
   market leading to long gas lines, and the perceived weakness of the
   U.S. national defense may have had a greater impact on the electorate.
   Adding to Carter's woes was his use of the term "misery index" during
   the 1976 election, which he defined as the sum of the inflation and
   unemployment rates. This so-called "misery index" had considerably
   worsened during his term, which Reagan used to his advantage during the
   campaign. With respect to the economy, Reagan said, "I'm told I can't
   use the word depression. Well, I'll tell you the definition. A
   recession is when your neighbour loses his job; depression is when you
   lose your job. Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."

   Reagan's showing in the televised debates boosted his campaign. He
   seemed more at ease, deflecting President Carter's criticisms with
   remarks like "There you go again." His most influential remark was a
   closing question to the audience, during a time of skyrocketing prices
   and high interest rates, "Are you better off now than you were four
   years ago?"
   1984 Presidential electoral votes by state.
   Enlarge
   1984 Presidential electoral votes by state.

1984 presidential campaign

   In the 1984 presidential election, Reagan was re-elected over former
   Vice President Walter Mondale, winning 49 of 50 states (Mondale carried
   only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia). Reagan
   received nearly 60% of the popular vote. His chances of winning were
   not harmed when, at the Democratic National Convention, Mondale
   accepted the party nomination with a speech that was regarded as a
   self-inflicted mortal wound to his presidential aspirations. In it,
   Mondale remarked "Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't
   tell you. I just did."

   The campaign of 1984 also featured one of Reagan's most famous gaffes
   -- The infamous quotation "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you
   today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We
   begin bombing in five minutes", spoken as a sound check prior to a
   radio address. Spoken during a time of great tension between the United
   States and the Soviet Union, it left many (particularly outside the
   United States) questioning Reagan's understanding of some of the
   realities of his foreign policy and of international affairs in
   general. Samples of the recording of the quotation were later turned
   into the dance record "Five Minutes" by Jerry Harrison and Bootsy
   Collins.

   Reagan accepted the Republican nomination in Dallas, Texas, on a wave
   of good feeling bolstered by the recovering economy and the dominating
   performance by the U.S. athletes at the Los Angeles Olympics that
   summer. He became the first American President to open a summer Olympic
   Games held in the U.S.

   Despite a weak performance in the first debate, Reagan recovered in the
   second and was considerably ahead of Mondale in polls taken throughout
   much of the race. Reagan's landslide win in the 1984 presidential
   election is often attributed by political commentators to be a result
   of his conversion of the " Reagan Democrats," the traditionally
   Democratic voters who voted for Reagan in that election.

Presidency

Domestic policies

Economy

   As Reagan entered office the American economy faced the highest rate of
   inflation since 1947, and this was considered the nation's principal
   economic problem. Reagan was considered a small-government conservative
   and supported income tax cuts, cuts domestic government programs, and
   deregulation, but no one knew what concrete steps he meant to take, or
   whether the House, controlled by Democrats, would support him.

   Reagan's first official act was to terminate oil price controls, a
   policy designed to boost America's domestic production and exploration
   of oil.
   Vice President George H.W. Bush, right, meets with President Reagan,
   left, in Oval Office, 1984.
   Enlarge
   Vice President George H.W. Bush, right, meets with President Reagan,
   left, in Oval Office, 1984.

   In the summer of 1981 Reagan, backing up a pledge he made when the
   union threatened to strike, fired a majority of federal air traffic
   controllers (members of the PATCO union) when they went on an illegal
   strike. Since this union was one of only two unions to support Reagan
   in the prior election, this action proved to be a political coup.

   A major focus of Reagan's first term was reviving the economy, which
   was plagued by a new phenomenon known as stagflation (a stagnant
   economy combined with high inflation). He fought double-digit inflation
   by supporting Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker's decision to
   tighten the money supply by dramatically hiking interest rates. While
   successful at reducing inflation, this plunged the economy into its
   most severe recession since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate
   increased from 7.5% when Reagan took office to a peak of 10.8% in late
   1982. By mid-1984, however, unemployment was back down to its
   early-1981 level, and continued to drift downward for the next five
   years, a period of strong economic growth. During the Reagan
   presidency, the inflation rate dropped from 13.6% in 1980 (President
   Carter's final year in office) to 4.1% by 1988, the economy added
   16,753,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell from 7.5% to 5.3%. In
   addition, the poverty rate fell from 14% to 12.8.

   Reagan pursued a strategy of combining this tight-money policy with
   broad tax cuts designed to boost business investment (in Reagan's
   words: " Chicago school economics, supply-side economics, call it what
   you will — I noticed that it was even known as Reaganomics at one point
   until it started working..."). Ridiculed by George H.W. Bush as "
   voodoo," and others as "trickle-down," and " Reaganomics," he managed
   to push across-the-board tax cuts in 1981, although in 1982 and 1983 he
   signed tax increases.

   Reagan's 1981 income tax cuts, the largest in American history, were
   passed with bipartisan support by the Democratic-controlled House and
   the Republican-controlled Senate. Reagan's support for an increased
   defense budget also was supported by Congressional Democrats. These
   Democrats, however, were not so willing to go along with Reagan's
   proposed cuts in domestic programs. The resulting increase of the
   national budget deficit led Reagan and Congress to approve tax
   increases in 1982 and 1983.

   The Tax Reform Act of 1986 both lowered tax rates and eliminated tax
   shelters and deductions. For some this caused taxes to go up, for
   others to go down, but the act was intentionally designed so that it
   would neither increase nor decrease tax federal revenue compared to
   previous baselines.

   One of the Reagan Administration's cost-cutting moves was abolition of
   the U.S. Metric Board, established by President Gerald R. Ford, thereby
   ending the attempt to harmonize U.S. measurements with the majority of
   first world nations.

   Alarmed by the growth in Social Security outlays, Reagan appointed a
   Social Security reform commission, headed by Alan Greenspan. This
   commission reached a bipartisan consensus on a two-part plan to slow
   the growth: raising the Social Security tax base by staged increases in
   the age required to begin receiving benefits (reflecting rising life
   expectancy); and increasing government revenues by accelerating a
   previously enacted (by Ronald Reagan) increase in the rates of social
   security payroll taxes.

   In order to cover the federal budget deficit, the United States
   borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, and by the end of
   Reagan's second term the national debt held by the public rose from 26%
   of Gross Domestic Product in 1980 to 41% in 1989, the highest level
   since 1963. By 1988, the debt totaled $2.6 trillion. The country owed
   more to foreigners than it was owed, and the United States moved from
   being the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest
   debtor nation.

   During Reagan's presidency, all economic groups saw their income rise
   in real terms, including the bottom quintile, whose income rose 6
   percent (Bureau of the Census, 1996.) The increases were stronger for
   the middle class and wealthier Americans, as they benefitted from the
   growth of the stock market the increasingly high returns of college and
   post-graduate education. See also: Economic inequality.

The AIDS epidemic

   President Reagan was criticized for the slow response of his
   Administration and other authorities to the HIV-AIDS epidemic. Reagan
   was silent on the issue until after the illness of movie star and
   national icon Rock Hudson became public news in late July 1985, by
   which time 12,067 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS, and 6,079 had
   died.
   Reagan stands during the recommissioning ceremony for the battleship
   USS New Jersey.
   Enlarge
   Reagan stands during the recommissioning ceremony for the battleship
   USS New Jersey.

   Under Reagan $5.7 billion was spent on AIDS and HIV, with large amounts
   going to the National Institutes of Health. This was significantly more
   than the federal government spends on cancer research, which kills far
   more people than AIDS and HIV, though some argued that it was still not
   enough. In September 1985, Reagan said: "Including what we have in the
   budget for 1986, it will amount to over a half a billion dollars that
   we have provided for research on AIDS, in addition to what I'm sure
   other medical groups are doing. And we have $100 million in the budget
   this year; it'll be $126 million next year. So this is a top priority
   with us. Yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the
   need to find an answer." By 1986, Reagan had endorsed a large
   prevention and research effort and declared in his budget message that
   AIDS "remains the highest public health priority of the Department of
   Health and Human Services."

   In 1984, he was the first President to invite an openly homosexual
   couple, Ted Graber and Archie Case, to spend the night in the White
   House. However, in a rare public pronouncement on the topic of AIDS,
   Reagan stated his belief that morality and science conflate to make
   abstinence the best method to prevent the disease. Reagan opposed civil
   rights legislation that included sexual orientation and efforts to
   repeal sodomy laws.

   Controversy surrounding the discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency
   Virus (HIV) was intense after American researcher Robert Gallo and
   French scientist Luc Montagnier both claimed to have discovered it. The
   controversy was settled by an agreement between Reagan and French
   President François Mitterrand, which gave equal credit to both men and
   their teams.

Abortion

   As governor in 1970, Reagan signed into law California's liberal
   abortion rights legislation, before Roe v Wade was decided. However, he
   later took a strong stand against abortion. He published the book
   Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation, which decried what Reagan saw
   as disrespect for life, promoted by the practice of abortion. However,
   two of the three Supreme Court justices he selected, Sandra Day
   O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, voted to uphold Roe v. Wade.

Other matters

   Although Reagan's second term was mostly noteworthy for matters related
   to foreign affairs, he supported significant pieces of legislation on
   domestic matters. In 1982, Reagan signed legislation reauthorizing the
   Voting Rights Act of 1965 for another 25 years, even though he had
   opposed such an extension during the 1980 campaign. This extension
   added protections for blind, disabled, and illiterate voters.

   Other significant legislation included the overhaul of the Internal
   Revenue Code in 1986, as well as the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which
   compensated victims of the Japanese-American internment during World
   War II. Reagan also signed legislation authorizing the death penalty
   for offenses involving murder in the context of large-scale drug
   trafficking; wholesale reinstatement of the federal death penalty did
   not occur until the presidency of Bill Clinton.

   In 1987 Reagan signed the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement
   with Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

   Milton Friedman has pointed to the number of pages added to the Federal
   Register each year as evidence of the anti-regulatory nature of
   Reagan's presidency. The number of pages added to the Register each
   year declined sharply at the start of the Ronald Reagan presidency,
   breaking a steady and sharp increase since 1960. The increase in the
   number of pages added per year resumed an upward, though less steep,
   trend after Reagan left office.

   The " war on drugs" during his presidency involved Nancy Reagan's
   high-profile " Just Say No" series of messages.

   In 1983 and again in 1984, Reagan was heard to say -- by Prime Minister
   Yitzhak Shamir of Israel and by Simon Wiesenthal and Rabbi Martin Hier
   of Los Angeles -- that he personally filmed the Auschwitz death camps;
   he was in a film unit in Hollywood that processed raw footage for
   newsreels, but he was not in Europe during the war.

Foreign policies

Cold War

   Reagan, left, in one-on-one discussions with Mikhail Gorbachev, the
   General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR from 1985 to 1991.
   Enlarge
   Reagan, left, in one-on-one discussions with Mikhail Gorbachev, the
   General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR from 1985 to 1991.

   Reagan was the first major world leader to declare that Communism would
   soon collapse. On March 3, 1983, he was blunt: "I believe that
   communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose — last
   pages even now are being written." His most detailed analysis came on
   June 8, 1982, to the British Parliament, stunning the Soviets and
   allies alike. The prevailing doctrine in the West was that the Soviet
   Union would be around for generations to come, and it was essential to
   recognize that and cooperate with Moscow. But Reagan argued that the
   Soviet Union was in deep economic crisis, which he intended to make
   worse by cutting off western technology. He stated the Soviet Union
   "runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human
   dignity to its citizens."

Confrontation

   Reagan forcefully confronted the Soviet Union, marking a sharp
   departure from the détente observed by his predecessors Kennedy,
   Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Under the assumption that the Soviet
   Union could not then outspend the US government in a renewed arms race,
   he accelerated increases in defense spending begun during the Carter
   Administration and strove to make the Cold War economically and
   rhetorically hot.

   The Administration oversaw a military build-up that represented a
   policy named "peace through strength". The U.S. set a new policy toward
   the Soviet Union with the goal of winning the Cold War by using a
   strategy outlined in NSDD-32 ( National Security Decisions Directive).
   The directive outlined Reagan's plan to confront the USSR on three
   fronts: decrease Soviet access to high technology and diminish their
   resources, including depressing the value of Soviet commodities on the
   world market; increase American defense expenditures to strengthen the
   U.S. negotiating position; and force the Soviets to devote more of
   their economic resources to defense.

   Around the world the U.S. used the Vietnam War example, by financially
   and diplomatically supporting anticommunist movements trying to
   overthrow Communist regimes. This included support for the Afghani
   insurgents and Poland's Solidarity movement.

Economic Front

   Reagan argued that the American economy was on the move again; with the
   rapid computerization of the economy, high technology was the driving
   force. But the Soviets lagged far behind even South Korea when it came
   to high technology, and slipped further every year. Reagan made the
   Soviet predicament far worse by forbidding high tech exports to the
   Soviets from the U.S. or its allies. For a while the decline was masked
   by high prices for Soviet oil exports, but that advantage collapsed in
   the early 1980s. In November 1985, the oil price was $30/barrel for
   crude, in March 1986 it had fallen to $12, as the Soviet economy lost
   billions in revenues.

   The economic race with the West required radical reforms, which
   Gorbachev imposed. He hoped his new policies of glasnost and
   perestroika would revitalize the Soviet economy, but instead of new
   solutions he heard new complaints.
   President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher at Camp David.
   Enlarge
   President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher at Camp David.

   Among European leaders, his main ally and undoubtedly his closest
   friend was Margaret Thatcher, who as Prime Minister of the United
   Kingdom supported Reagan's policies of deterrence against the Soviets.

Military Buildup and Treaties/Negotiations

   Reagan's military build-up, coupled with his fierce anti-Soviet
   rhetoric, contributed to Soviet near-panic reaction to a routine NATO
   exercise in November 1983, ABLE ARCHER 83. Though the threat of nuclear
   war ended abruptly with the end of the exercise, this historically
   obscure incident illustrates the possible negative repercussions of
   Reagan's "standing tall" to a nuclear power. Some historians, among
   them Beth B. Fischer in her book The Reagan Reversal, argue that the
   ABLE ARCHER 83 near-crisis had a profound effect on President Reagan,
   and it forced him from a policy of confrontation towards the Soviet
   Union to a policy of rapprochement.

   Although the U.S. negotiated arms-reduction treaties such as the INF
   Treaty and START Treaty with the U.S.S.R., it also aimed to increase
   strategic defense. A controversial plan, named the Strategic Defense
   Initiative (SDI), was proposed to deploy a space-based defense system
   to make the U.S. invulnerable to nuclear weapon missile attack, by
   means of a network of armed satellites orbiting the Earth. Critics
   dubbed the proposal "Star Wars" and argued that SDI was unrealistic, a
   violation of ABM treaties, and as a weapon that defends the U.S. if it
   strikes first, would inflame the arms race. Supporters responded that
   even the threat of SDI would force the Soviets into unsustainable
   spending to maintain parity. In fact, the Soviets both attempted to
   follow suit with their own program and attempted to reign in, or at
   least slow down the growing U.S. military advantage with a program of
   arms reduction treaties. Ultimately they proved more successful with
   the latter approach, since trying to keep up with the U.S. in military
   spending and research and development severely damaged an already shaky
   Soviet economy of the mid to late 80's. This is considered, by some, to
   be one of the major contributing factors to the fall of the Soviet
   Union.

End of the Cold War

   What some US scholars call the "orthodox view" of the end of the Cold
   War is that "the Soviet Union's capitulation and the Cold War victory
   for the forces of freedom and democracy were ultimately due to the
   relentless application of the West's military superiority and the
   dynamism of its ideas and economic system. These factors revealed
   communism's moral illegitimacy and highlighted its economic
   stagnation." [Salla and Summy, p 3] It is broadly endorsed by both
   Republicans (who emphasize Reagan's role), and by Democrats (who
   emphasize the containment policies of Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and
   Carter).

   Some of European leaders of the time give credit to Reagan for the
   application of these ideals. For example Lech Wałęsa, leader of the
   Solidarity movement in Poland, said in 2004, "When talking about Ronald
   Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally.
   Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can't be said often enough by
   people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism
   fell in 1989." Helmut Kohl, chancellor of West Germany, said, "He was a
   stroke of luck for the world. Two years after Reagan called on Mikhail
   Gorbachev to tear down the wall, he noted, it fell and 11 months later
   Germany was reunified. We Germans have much to thank Ronald Reagan
   for." Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said, "President Reagan was a
   determined opponent of Communism and he played an important role in
   bringing an end to Communism and to the artificial division of Europe
   imposed after the Second World War." Václav Havel, who became
   Czechoslovakian president in 1989 after the Velvet Revolution, said,
   "He was a man of firm principles who was indisputably instrumental in
   the fall of Communism."

   Despite their initial mutual antagonism, Reagan and Gorbachev were able
   to forge an unlikely working relationship which played a crucial role
   in improving relations between East and West, especially in the late
   1980s as conditions in the Eastern bloc became increasingly unstable.
   Towards the end of his presidency, Reagan visited Moscow in order to
   sign a major arms-control agreement between the superpowers. A
   journalist asked the president if he still considered the Soviet Union
   was the evil empire. "No," he replied, "I was talking about another
   time, another era."

   On March 11, 1990 Lithuania, led by newly elected Vytautas Landsbergis,
   declared independence from the Soviet Union and was followed by other
   Soviet Republics and by 1991, the Soviet Union was officially
   dissolved. In her videotaped eulogy for his funeral, Margaret Thatcher
   said, "Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot."

Other U.S. involvement

   Support for anti-communist groups including armed insurgencies against
   communist governments was referred to by his supporters as the Reagan
   Doctrine. Following this policy, the U.S. funded groups the
   administration called " freedom fighters", such as the mujahideen in
   Afghanistan, the Contras in Nicaragua, and, with the white government
   of South Africa, Jonas Savimbi's rebel forces in Angola —all of which
   were fighting Soviet or Cuban backed Marxist governments. The U.S.
   increased military funding for anti-communist action in Central America
   The U.S. also helped fund central European anti-communist groups such
   as the Polish Solidarity movement. Reagan took a hard line against the
   pro-Vietnamese communist regime in Cambodia by paradoxically working
   with communist-run China which was providing support to Khmer Rouge
   communist guerillas who were fighting the Vietnamese.

   Illegal funding of the Contras in Nicaragua led to the Iran-Contra
   Affair, while overt support led to a World Court ruling against the
   United States in Nicaragua v. United States. The United States refused
   to obey the ruling of the International Court of Justice and refused to
   pay the fine. President Reagan denied any knowledge of his
   Administation's illegal arming and funding of the Contras. Funding for
   the Contras was also obtained through the sale of weaponry to Iran.
   When this latter practice was discovered, it was referred to as the
   Iran-Contra affair.

   The U.S. took a strong stance against the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist
   organization, which was taking American citizens hostage and attacking
   civilian targets after Israel entered Lebanon in the 1982 Lebanon War.
   It similarly took a strong stance against Palestinian terrorists in the
   West Bank and Gaza Strip. More disputed was Reagan's consideration of
   the Salvadoran FMLN and Honduran guerrilla fighters as terrorists.
   Reagan also considered the anti- apartheid ANC armed wing known as
   Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) as a terrorist organization.

   Reagan offered controversial support to the rightist El Salvador
   government throughout his term; he feared a takeover by the FMLN during
   the El Salvador Civil War which had begun in the late 1970s. The war
   left 75,000 people dead, 8,000 missing and one million homeless; some
   one million El Salvadoreans, fleeing the war and government backed
   right-wing death squads, immigrated to the United States. He backed
   attempts at introducing democratic elections with mixed success.

   U.S. involvement in Lebanon followed a limited-term United Nations
   mandate for a multinational force. A force of 800 Marines was sent to
   Beirut to evacuate PLO forces. The September 16, 1982 massacre of
   hundreds of Palestinian civilians in Beirut prompted Reagan to form a
   new multinational force. Intense diplomatic efforts resulted in a peace
   agreement between Lebanon and Israel. U.S. forces were withdrawn
   shortly after the October 23, 1983 bombing of a barracks in which 241
   Marines were killed. Reagan called this day the saddest day of his
   presidency and of his life.

   In 1983, a communist coup occurred on the small island nation of
   Grenada. On October 25, 1983, two days after the Beirut bombing, the
   United States invaded Grenada.

Iran-Iraq War

   Initially neutral in the Iran-Iraq War, the U.S. became increasingly
   involved. The U.S. supported both nations at various times — "Too bad
   they both can't lose," Henry Kissinger said — but mainly sided with
   Iraq, believing that Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini threatened
   regional stability more than Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. U.S.
   officials feared that an Iranian victory would embolden Islamic
   fundamentalists in the Arab states, perhaps leading to the overthrow of
   secular governments—and damage to Western corporate interests—in Saudi
   Arabia, Jordan, and Kuwait. After initial Iraqi military victories were
   reversed and an Iranian victory appeared possible in 1982, the American
   government initiated Operation Staunch to attempt to cut off the
   Iranian regime's access to weapons (notwithstanding their later
   shipment of weapons to Iran in the Iran-Contra Affair). The U.S.
   provided intelligence information and financial assistance to the Iraqi
   military regime. The U.S. also allowed the shipment of "dual use"
   materials, that could be used for chemical and biological weapons,
   ostensibly for agriculture, medical research, and other civilian
   purposes, but they were diverted for use in Saddam's weapons of mass
   destruction programs.

   On April 18, 1988 Reagan authorized Operation Praying Mantis, a one-day
   naval strike against Iranian naval ships, boats, and command posts in
   retaliation for the mining of a U.S. guided missile frigate. One day
   later, Reagan sent a letter to the Speaker of the House of
   Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. USS
   Simpson (FFG-56) is mentioned in firing on Iranian F-4 Phantom II
   Fighters built by the United States.

   In 1986, the U.S. also sold arms to Iran to fund Contra rebels in
   Nicaragua, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal. Reagan professed
   ignorance of the plot's existence and quickly called for an Independent
   Counsel to investigate. Ten officials in the Reagan Administration were
   convicted, and others were forced to resign. Secretary of Defense
   Casper Weinberger was indicted for perjury and later received a
   presidential pardon from George H.W. Bush, days before the trial was to
   begin. In 2006, historians ranked the Iran-Contra affair as the
   ninth-worst mistake by a U.S. president.

State visits

   In 1985 Reagan visited the Kolmeshohe Cemetery near Bitburg at the
   urgent request of Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany, to pay
   respects to the soldiers interred there. Controversy arose because 49
   of the graves contained the remains of men who had served in the
   Waffen-SS. The cemetery also contained remains of about 2,000 other
   German soldiers who had died in both World Wars, but no Americans. Some
   Jewish and veterans' groups opposed this visit. Reagan went because of
   his need to support Kohl and ratify the Convention on the Prevention
   and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Reagan also visited the
   Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he cited Anne Frank and ended
   his speech with the words, "Never again."

"The Great Communicator"

   Speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987 Ronald
   Reagan challenged reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev,
   exclaiming: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
   Enlarge
   Speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987 Ronald
   Reagan challenged reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev,
   exclaiming: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

   Dubbed "The Great Communicator," Reagan was known for his ability to
   express ideas and emotions in an almost personal manner, even when
   making a formal address. He honed these skills as an actor, live
   television and radio host, and politician. As President, he hired
   skilled speechwriters who could capture his folksy charm. In 1985,
   Professor Max Atkinson who was to advise the British politician Paddy
   Ashdown on his speeches ran a seminar on speech writing in the White
   House.

   Reagan's rhetorical style varied. He used strong, even ideological
   language to condemn the Soviet Union and communism, particularly during
   his first term. But he could also evoke lofty ideals and a vision of
   the United States as a defender of liberty. His October 27, 1964,
   speech entitled "A Time for Choosing" reintroduced a phrase,
   "rendezvous with destiny," first made famous by Franklin D. Roosevelt,
   to popular culture. Other speeches recalled America as the "shining
   city on a hill", "big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair,"
   whose citizens had the "right to dream heroic dreams."

   On January 28, 1986, after the Challenger accident, he postponed his
   State of the Union address and addressed the nation on the disaster. In
   a speech written by Peggy Noonan, he said, "We will never forget them,
   nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their
   journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to
   'touch the face of God.'" (quotations in this speech are from the
   famous poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr..)

   It was perhaps Reagan's humor, especially his one-liners, that disarmed
   his opponents and endeared him to audiences the most. Discussion of his
   advanced age led him to quip in his second debate against Walter
   Mondale during the 1984 campaign, "I will not make age an issue of this
   campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my
   opponent's youth and inexperience." On his career he joked, "Politics
   is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you
   disgrace yourself you can always write a book."
   Vice President Bush, and President Ronald Reagan and Soviet premier
   Mikhail Gorbachev in New York City in 1988
   Enlarge
   Vice President Bush, and President Ronald Reagan and Soviet premier
   Mikhail Gorbachev in New York City in 1988

   Both opponents and supporters noted his "sunny optimism", which was
   welcomed by many in comparison to his presidential predecessor, the
   often smiling, but serious, Carter. Reagan once said "The lessons of
   leadership were the same: hard work, a knowledge of the facts, a
   willingness to listen and be understanding, a strong sense of duty and
   direction, and a determination to do your best on behalf of the people
   you serve."

   In response to being dubbed the Great Communicator, he said in his
   Farewell Address: "I never thought it was my style or the words I used
   that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn't a great
   communicator, but I communicated great things..."

Assassination attempt

   On March 30, 1981, Reagan, his press secretary James Brady, and two
   others were struck by gunfire from a deranged would-be assassin, John
   Hinckley, Jr.. Missing Reagan’s heart by less than one inch, the bullet
   instead pierced his left lung, which likely spared his life. Reagan
   joked to the surgeons, "I hope you're all Republicans" (though they
   were not, Dr. Joseph Giordano replied, "We're all Republicans today").
   Reagan later famously told his wife, "Honey, I forgot to duck"
   (borrowing Jack Dempsey's line to his wife the night he was beaten by
   Gene Tunney for the heavyweight championship). Reagan had been
   scheduled to visit the City of Brotherly Love on the day of the
   shooting. He quipped to a nurse, "All in all, I'd rather be in
   Philadelphia," referring to the W.C. Fields' tagline (which was itself
   a reference to an old vaudeville joke among comedians: "I'd rather be
   dead than play Philadelphia") .

Major legislation approved

     * Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981
     * Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982
     * Social Security Amendments of 1983
     * Tax Reform Act of 1986
     * Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986

Administration and Cabinet

   President Reagan, with his Cabinet and staff, in the Oval Office
   (February 4, 1981)
   Enlarge
   President Reagan, with his Cabinet and staff, in the Oval Office (
   February 4, 1981)
   OFFICE         NAME                   TERM
   President      Ronald Reagan          1981–1989
   Vice President George H. W. Bush      1981–1989
   State          Alexander M. Haig      1981–1982
                  George P. Shultz       1982–1989
   Treasury       Donald Regan           1981–1985
                  James A. Baker III     1985–1988
                  Nicholas F. Brady      1988–1989
   Defense        Caspar Weinberger      1981–1987
                  Frank C. Carlucci      1987–1989
   Justice        William F. Smith       1981–1985
                  Edwin A. Meese III     1985–1988
                  Richard L. Thornburgh  1988–1989
   Interior       James G. Watt          1981–1983
                  William P. Clark, Jr.  1983–1985
                  Donald P. Hodel        1985–1989
   Commerce       Malcolm Baldrige       1981–1987
                  C. William Verity, Jr. 1987–1989
   Labor          Raymond J. Donovan     1981–1985
                  William E. Brock       1985–1987
                  Ann Dore McLaughlin    1987–1989
   Agriculture    John Rusling Block     1981–1986
                  Richard E. Lyng        1986–1989
   HHS            Richard S. Schweiker   1981–1983
                  Margaret Heckler       1983–1985
                  Otis R. Bowen          1985–1989
   Education      Terrell H. Bell        1981–1984
                  William J. Bennett     1985–1988
                  Lauro Cavazos          1988–1989
   HUD            Samuel R. Pierce, Jr.  1981–1989
   Transportation Drew Lewis             1981–1982
                  Elizabeth Hanford Dole 1983–1987
                  James H. Burnley IV    1987–1989
   Energy         James B. Edwards       1981–1982
                  John S. Herrington     1985–1989

Supreme Court appointments

   Reagan nominated the following jurists to the Supreme Court of the
   United States:
     * Sandra Day O'Connor – 1981, making Reagan the first President to
       appoint a woman to the Supreme Court
     * William Rehnquist – Chief Justice, 1986 (an associate justice since
       1972)
     * Antonin Scalia – 1986
     * Robert Bork – 1987 (rejected by Senate)
     * Douglas Ginsburg – 1987 (withdrawn)
     * Anthony M. Kennedy – 1988

Criticism

   A frequent objection by his critics was that his personal charm also
   permitted him to say nearly anything and yet prevail, a quality that
   earned him the nickname " The Teflon President" (nothing sticks to
   him). His denial of awareness of the Iran-Contra scandal was belied his
   signing a secret presidential "finding" describing the deal as
   "arms-for-hostages." Critics objected to his comparison of the contras
   to the Founding Fathers and to the French Resistance, which suggests
   that he viewed the Sandinistas as Communists who were akin to an
   occupying power. The United States was found guilty of having supported
   terrorism in Nicaragua by the International Court of Justice (
   Nicaragua v. United States) during Reagan's presidency. Despite a
   United Nations General Assembly resolution demanding compliance, the
   U.S. never paid the required fine and since 1991 relations with
   Nicaragua were friendly.

   Economic inequality was increasing steadily after 1973 as the New Deal
   goal egalitarianism faded from the political agenda. Reagan's efforts
   to cut welfare and income taxes became common flashpoints between
   critics who charged that this primarily benefited the wealthy in
   America, branding these policies as " Trickle-down economics", and the
   business community that said penalizing it penalized all American job
   seekers.

   The deregulation of the banking industry before Reagan took office,
   meant savings and loan associations were given the flexibility to
   invest their depositors' funds in commercial real estate. Many savings
   and loan associations began making risky investments. As a result, the
   Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the federal agency that regulates the
   industry, tried to clamp down on the trend. In so doing, however, the
   Board clashed with the policy of permitting the deregulation of many
   industries, including the thrift industry. The resulting savings and
   loan scandal bailout ultimately cost the government $150 billion.

   Some Jewish leaders criticized Reagan for deciding to visit a cemetery
   in Bitburg, Germany, after they discovered that 49 Waffen SS men are
   buried, and for stating that young Waffen SS men, who were drafted into
   services in the later years of the war, were victims, just as were the
   Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps

   Reagan's foreign policy drew intense criticism from liberals who
   predicted nuclear war was imminent. Socialists in Europe often
   disparaged Reagan as a war-monger. In Britain, though Reagan had the
   strong support of Margaret Thatcher, he was routinely attacked for his
   foreign policies. Left-wing critics denounced his opposition to
   Castro's dictatorship in Cuba and complained that he was ignoring human
   rights in Central and South America, and South Africa. Reagan's support
   of apartheid South Africa was sharply attacked by African American
   leaders. Although Reagan sought an end to apartheid and liberalization
   of South Africa, he opposed economic sanctions "on grounds that it
   would diminish influence on the South African government and create
   economic hardship for the very people in South Africa that the
   sanctions were ostensibly designed to help"

Scandals and controversies

   The Reagan Administration saw several controversies unfold in their
   ranks which resulted in several staff convictions. The most well known,
   the Iran-Contra Affair. Ten members of the Administration were
   convicted of charges ranging from lying to Congress to lying about
   income to the IRS. However, Reagan survived the scandal after
   expressing regret for the incident.

   Several other controversies also occurred during Reagan's presidency;
   one involved staff members of the Department of Housing. Contributors
   to the Administration's campaign were rewarded with funding for low
   income housing development without the customary background checks, and
   lobbyists, such as former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head
   James G. Watt, were rewarded with lobbying fees for assisting campaign
   contributors with receiving government loans and guarantees. Six staff
   members were convicted. Also involving the (EPA), grants from the
   Superfund to clean up toxic waste sites were being released to enhance
   the election prospects of local politicians aligned with the
   Administration. Assistant Administrator Rita Lavelle was convicted of
   various charges.

   Scandals impacted the Administration throughout the entire eight years.
   Reagan aides Michael Deaver and Lyn Nofziger were convicted of lobbying
   offenses though Nofziger's conviction was later overturned. Controversy
   arose prior to and during Reagan's visit to Bitburg.

Religious beliefs

   Reagan was a Christian from his childhood and frequently addressed
   Christian groups. As an adult, he attended services at Bel Air
   Presbyterian Church. In a March 1978 letter to a Methodist minister who
   was skeptical about Christ's divinity—and accused Reagan of a "limited
   Sunday school level theology"—Reagan argued strongly for Christ's
   divinity, using C.S. Lewis's Trilemma.

Post presidential years

   (Left to right:) Presidents Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, George H. W.
   Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter at the dedication of the Reagan
   Presidential Library.
   Enlarge
   (Left to right:) Presidents Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, George H. W.
   Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter at the dedication of the Reagan
   Presidential Library.

   On January 11, 1989, Reagan addressed the nation for the last time on
   television from the Oval Office of the White House, nine days before
   handing over the presidency to George H. W. Bush. After Bush's
   inauguration, Reagan returned to his estate, Rancho del Cielo, near
   Santa Barbara, California, to write his autobiography, ride his horses,
   and chop wood. He eventually moved to a new home in Bel-Air, Los
   Angeles. In the fall of 1989, Fujisankei Communications Group of Japan
   hired him to make two speeches and attend a few corporate functions.
   Reagan's fee during his nine-day visit was about $2 million, more than
   he had earned during eight years as President. Reagan made occasional
   appearances on behalf of the Republican Party, including a
   well-received speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention. He
   publicly spoke in favour of a line-item veto, a constitutional
   amendment requiring a balanced budget, and repealing the 22nd
   Amendment, which prohibits a President from serving more than two
   terms. Reagan's final public speech was on February 3, 1994, during a
   tribute in Washington, D.C.. His last public appearance was at the
   funeral of fellow Republican President Richard Nixon on April 27, 1994.

Alzheimer's Disease

   On November 5, 1994, Reagan announced that he had been diagnosed with
   Alzheimer's disease. He informed the nation of his condition via a
   hand-written letter. With his trademark optimism, he stated in
   conclusion: "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset
   of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn
   ahead. Thank you, my friends. May God always bless you."

   As the years went on, the disease slowly destroyed his mental capacity,
   forcing him to live in quiet isolation. On February 6, 2001, Reagan
   reached the age of 90 and was only the third former US president to
   reach that age - the other two being John Adams and Herbert Hoover.
   Since the former president had a hip operation three weeks prior to his
   90th birthday and had was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease for the
   past seven years, his 90th birthday was to be a low-key celebration
   with his family at his home in Bel-Air. Nancy Reagan, the wife of the
   former US president, told CNN's Larry King that very few visitors were
   allowed access to her husband because she felt that "Ronnie would want
   people to remember him as he was." Nancy Reagan went on to say that as
   the only ailament he had was the Alzheimer's disease he could live to
   be 100. People who had visited the former US president in his home said
   the disease was so well advanced that he was unable to recognise any of
   them and he could not remember anything about his days as US president.

   As of December 5, 2003, Reagan had begun to enter the final, fatal
   stage of Alzheimer's disease.

Death

   Reagan died of pneumonia on June 5, 2004 at 1:09 PM PDT at his home in
   Bel-Air, California. After a major state funeral in Washington that
   drew leaders from around the world, he was buried at the Ronald Reagan
   Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Interestingly, the
   state funeral was presided over by President George W. Bush, whose
   father was vice-president under Reagan and followed Reagan to the White
   House.

Legacy

   The Gallup Organization recently took asking respondents to name the
   greatest president in U.S. history. Ronald Reagan was chosen by 18% of
   Americans polled, followed by John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower and
   Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ronald Reagan continues to be named year after
   year by Gallup and other polling organizations as one of the United
   States' most popular Presidents.

Job approval rating

   According to ABC News, by date:
         Date              Event        Approval (%) Disapproval (%)
   April 22, 1981    Shot by Hinckley   73           19
   January 22, 1983  High unemployment  42           54
   April 26, 1986    Libya bombing      70           26
   February 26, 1987 Iran-Contra affair 44           51
   January 20, 1989  End of presidency  –
          n/a          Career Average        57            39
   July 30, 2001     (Retrospective)    64           27

Nicknames

   Reagan is often referred to as the Gipper, referring to his performance
   as George Gipp in the film Knute Rockne, All American, often along with
   his popular line "Win one for the Gipper." As a youth he was called
   "Dutch," a nickname given him by his father. As President, supporters
   dubbed him "The Great Communicator," and more recently "The Great
   Liberator," referring to policies which they contend led to the defeat
   of communism in the Cold War. His Secret Service codename was
   "Rawhide." Detractors sometimes referred to Reagan as "Ronald Ray-Gun,"
   a term coined in the introduction to the song Drug Store Truck Drivin'
   Man sung by Joan Baez and Jeffrey Shurtleff at the 1969 Woodstock
   Festival. He was also "the Teflon President" because criticisms
   supposedly never stuck to him or lessened his popularity.

Honours

   In a 1995 poll of 2,307 coin collectors by the Littleton Coin Company,
   Reagan was ranked as the figure most likely to appear on a future U.S.
   coin.

   On February 6, 1998, Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald
   Reagan Washington National Airport by a bill signed into law by
   President Clinton. Three years later, the USS Ronald Reagan was
   christened by the United States Navy. It is one of few ships christened
   in honor of a living person and the first to be named in honor of a
   living former President. Many other highways, schools and institutions
   were also named after Reagan during his post-presidential years. In
   2005, Reagan was given two posthumous honours:
     * On May 14, CNN, along with the editors of TIME, named him the "most
       fascinating person" of the network's first 25 years.
     * On June 26, participating voters selected Reagan as the " Greatest
       American" during a live television special sponsored by AOL and
       broadcast live on the Discovery Channel.

   These and other honours were, as one reporter noted, "a final win for
   the Gipper."

   In 2002, Congress authorized the creation of Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home
   National Historic Site in Dixon, Illinois, pending federal purchase of
   the property.

   In 2004, the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority voted to rename
   Interstate 88, which was formerly called the East-West Tollway, in his
   memory.

Awards and Achievements

   Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Ronald and Nancy Reagan
   Enlarge
   Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Ronald and Nancy Reagan
     * Lifetime "Gold" membership in the Screen Actors Guild
     * In 1989, Reagan received an honorary British knighthood, Knight
       Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. This entitled him to the use
       of the post-nominal letters GCB but did not entitle him to be known
       as "Sir Ronald Reagan." He, Dwight D. Eisenhower and George H.W.
       Bush are the only American Presidents to have received the honour.
     * Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, Japan 1989
     * Honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford England
     * Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1993
     * On May 16, 2002 Nancy Reagan accepted the Congressional Gold Medal,
       the highest civilian honour bestowed by Congress, on behalf of the
       President and herself.

Coinage

   Many coin redesign advocates have called for Reagan to be placed on the
   dime, in lieu of Franklin D. Roosevelt (whose profile was chosen for
   the dime in honour of his founding of the March of Dimes charity). In
   2003, Congressional Republicans proposed this, but it was abandoned
   after Nancy Reagan rejected the idea. For a short period of time, they
   called for him to be placed on the penny. The penny is no longer
   possible because a permanent redesign is planned for 2010, and Abraham
   Lincoln will remain on the coin. The dime has not been redesigned, and
   there are no plans to redesign it; however, it has not been ruled out.
   There have also been calls for Reagan to be placed in addition to/in
   lieu of the dime, on the ten dollar bill or twenty dollar bill. The
   twenty was redesigned, and there are no plans to change the former
   President on it. The new ten was released on March 2, 2006, and
   Alexander Hamilton is still prominently featured on the bill. Reagan is
   scheduled to be featured on the $1 coin in 2016 during the Presidential
   Dollar Coin Program.

Reagan documentaries

     * "True Grit", Ronald Reagan (CMT), 2005.
     * Ronald Reagan - An American President (The Official Reagan Library
       Tribute), January 25, 2005.
     * Great Speeches, October 19, 2004.
     * Stand Up Reagan, September 7, 2004.
     * NBC News Presents - Ronald Reagan, August 10, 2004.
     * ABC News Presents Ronald Reagan - An American Legend, July 13,
       2004.
     * Ronald Reagan - His Life and Legacy, June 22, 2004.
     * Ronald Reagan - His Life and Times, May 11, 2004.
     * Ronald Reagan - A Legacy Remembered (History Channel), 2002.
     * Ronald Reagan - The Great Communicator, 2002.
     * Salute to Reagan - A President's Greatest Moments, 2001.
     * American Experience - Reagan, 1998.
     * Tribute to Ronald Reagan, 1996.
     * The Reagan Legacy, (Discovery Channel) 1996.
     * In the Face of Evil: Reagan’s War in Word and Deed, 2004.

Ronald Reagan as played by other actors

   Among the actors who have portrayed him are:
     * James Brolin in the miniseries The Reagans (2003) with Judy Davis
       as Nancy
     * Richard Crenna in The Day Reagan Was Shot (2001) with Holland
       Taylor as Nancy
     * Bryan Clark has appeared several times as Reagan including HBO's
       Without Warning: The James Brady Story with Beau Bridges as James
       Brady; and also in Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver
       North.
     * Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show
     * Both Phil Hartman and Randy Quaid on Saturday Night Live
     * Rich Little on numerous television appearances
     * John Roarke on the sketch comedy series Fridays
     * Griff Rhys Jones on Not The Nine O'Clock News

Trivia

     * Reagan was the oldest man ever elected president to date at 69
       years of age. He broke the record set in 1840 when William Henry
       Harrison was elected at 67 years of age and inaugurated at 68 years
       of age.
     * Reagan also was the oldest president to serve at 77, surpassing
       Dwight Eisenhower, who was 70 when he left office in 1961.
     * Reagan also had lived the longest of any former president until
       November 11, 2006, when he was surpassed by Gerald Ford. In 2001,
       Reagan had broken the previous record held by John Adams the second
       president who died on July 4, 1826.
     * Reagan was the first film and television actor to become president.
     * Reagan was the first president to be divorced.
     * Reagan switched parties from the Democratic to the Republican party
       in 1962.
     * Reagan was the 40th president to serve, but in birth order was the
       36th, born in 1911. Lyndon B Johnson, born in 1908, was the 35th in
       birth order. Richard Nixon, born in 1913, was the 37th president in
       birth order as well as the 37th to serve and the 37th to die.
     * Reagan was also older than the previous 3 former presidents (Nixon,
       Ford, and Carter) and one additional late president, John F
       Kennedy.
     * Reagan accepted a baby elephant named Gertie (bought from Harrods)
       from King Leka Zog I of Albania, who was a close friend. The
       elephant was later donated to the Sacramento Zoo.
     * Reagan was left-handed, although he was usually shown writing with
       his right hand. When throwing out the ceremonial first ball before
       baseball games, he threw with his right arm, like he did in the
       baseball film The Winning Team.
     * Reagan has been portayed on the cartoon comedy Family Guy during
       the fourth season.
     * For a 1964 president related film by Gore Vidal, "The Best Man",
       Reagan was rejected for a part due to "not having the presidential
       look".
     * Reagan was 6 feet 1 inch (185 cm) tall.
     * In Gallup's List of Widely Admired People, Reagan was ranked the
       15th most admired person in the 20th century.
     * Comic book depictions of Ronald Reagan have met heroes such as
       Batman, Optimus Prime, Captain America, Superman, and Buck Danny.
     * Reagan appeared on an episode of the Boondocks as the keeper of the
       gates of "White Heaven".
     * He had a well-known love of jelly beans; the Jelly Belly blueberry
       flavor was launched in his honour, and a mosaic portrait made of
       the candies hangs in the Reagan Presidential library
     * A caricaturing puppet of Reagan is featured on Genesis's Land of
       Confusion music video. He poses as Superman and confusedly launches
       a nuke at the end of the clip.
     * In the Def Leppard epic Gods of War, clips of Reagan were used
       along with Margaret Thatcher.
     * Ronald Reagan frequently featured in the cartoon series If...,
       shown in The Guardian. Margaret Thatcher was often portrayed as his
       girlfriend.
     * In the arcade game Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja, the goal is to
       rescue "President Ronnie" (clearly based on Ronald Reagan), who was
       kidnapped by ninjas; in the NES port, references to Reagan were
       removed.
     * John Fogerty said his song "The Old Man Down the Road" (from the
       1985 album Centerfield) is about Ronald Reagan.
     * lookalikes of Ronald Reagan and Konstantin Chernenko are shown
       wrestling in the Frankie Goes to Hollywood music video " Two
       Tribes"
     * Reagan was frequently shown in the British comedy series " Spitting
       Image", where he was shown to be slight senile, forgetful and
       always rubbing brown paint into his hair. Also in one case he said
       he needed a shave, after thinking a painting of Lincon was a
       mirror.

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