Ronald Reagan

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• Born: 6 February 1911
• Birthplace: Tampico, Illinois
• Died: 5 June 2004 (natural causes)
• Best Known As: 40th President of the United States, 1981-89

President of the United States from 1981-1989, Ronald Reagan was known as a staunch conservative, a cheery optimist, and an implacable foe of Soviet communism. Reagan began his career as a sports announcer on radio, then moved to Hollywood and became a movie star. Reagan made over fifty movies as a reliable supporting actor or benign leading man, but his real calling seemed to be in politics. He served as the governor of California (1967-75) and then in 1980 defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter to become the 40th U.S. president. He advocated lower taxes and higher defense spending, and aggressively challenged the Soviet Union. The final years of his administration were clouded by a back-door scheme to fund anti-communist forces in Central America -- the so-called Iran Contra affair -- but the popular president emerged from the scandal unscathed. He stepped down after two full terms and was succeeded by his vice-president, George Bush the elder. In 1994 Reagan announced that he suffered from Alzheimer's Disease. He spent the next ten years in seclusion and increasingly poor health until his death in 2004.

Reagan married the actress Nancy Davis on 4 March 1952; he previously had been married to actress Jane Wyman from 1941-48... He had four children, Maureen and Michael (with Wyman) and Patricia and Ron Jr. (with Nancy Reagan)... In March of 1981, Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr., an unbalanced fan of actress Jodie Foster... For Reagan's 1994 letter to Americans about his Alzheimer's disease, see this page from the Reagan Library... Reagan wrote two autobiographies: Where's the Rest of Me? (1965, updated in 1981) and An American Life (1990)... In 2003 another actor became governor of California: Arnold Schwarzenegger... Reagan often spent time at Rancho del Cielo, his ranch north of Santa Barbara; the ranch was about 18 miles from the Neverland Ranch of pop star Michael Jackson.

For more information on Ronald Wilson Reagan, visit Britannica.com.

(b. Tampico, Illinois, 6 February 1911; d. 5 June 2004) US; President 1980 – 8 The son of a bankrupt store manager, Reagan was educated at Eureka College, Illinois, and became first a radio sportscaster in Davenport, Iowa, and then a film actor in Los Angeles after 1934. His role in the film King's Row gave him, finally, star status. Through the later 1930s he was an official of the Screen Actor's Guild. A liberal Democrat, he was a member of both Americans for Democratic Action and United World Federalists. Clashing with "communists" in the Guild he became an active anti-Communist and appeared as a "friendly witness" in the 1949 hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee. With his film career declining after 1952 he became a paid speaker for the Gerneral Electric Corporation. He first appearance before the national public came in 1964 when he made a televised speech supporting Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate for President.

In 1966 Reagan defeated Pat Brown to become the Republican Governor of California seeking to impose tax cuts of 10 per cent across the board. He found that budgets could be cut only slowly and went on to preside over the largest budgets and some of California's largest ever tax increases. Personally opposed to abortions, he had to accept an extension of abortion rights and, though enraged by student lifestyles and anti-Vietnam activities, he increased spending on higher education. He presided over a return to the use of the death penalty and sacked homosexuals on his staff, always denying that he did so. Re-elected in 1969, his second term was marked by a greater willingness to compromise with Democrats and, generally, to present the "soft face" of conservatism. In part he did so in order to position himself to challenge President Ford for the Republican nomination for President in 1976. He failed, but during a tough campaign he articulated growing official and public fears that the Russians were rearming during the period of détente while the USA was facing economic obsolescence because of business taxes and regulation and social dissolution because of welfare dependence. Three years later President Carter's volte-face on defence and welfare gave these concerns legitimacy. Reagan campaigned on a platform of less government, lower taxes and balanced budgets, family values, and peace through military strength. He was able to ride to the White House on a tide of widespread, if shallow, "conservative" sentiment, but his margin in the popular vote presaged difficulty in legislating his programme.

Reagan's accession ushered in a short-lived period of popular acceptance of supply-side economics at home and bellicosity abroad. The normal political "honeymoon" given to a new President was lengthened by a failed assassination attempt in March of 1981. In domestic policy, with the support of conservative southern and western Democrats, a programme of large, phased tax cuts and increased defence expenditure was instituted. Cuts in welfare and education budgets were partially accepted by Congress as was a programme of business deregulation and tightened control over the supply of government information. Admirers of the British Official Secrets Acts, Reagan's staff contemplated similar legislation until they realized that they themselves would have to take loyalty oaths and lie detector tests.

In foreign policy allies and enemies alike were alarmed by the frank triumphalism of American rhetoric and the seeming determination of the administration to impose American leadership and priorities everywhere. NATO partners were pushed into increased defence expenditure and military readiness. Even Margaret Thatcher, a staunch supporter, was affronted by Reagan's willingness to sell grain to Russia — pleasing his agribusiness sector — while trying to use subsidiaries of US companies in Europe and technology licences to prevent Western Europe importing much needed Russian natural gas. When such policies were accompanied by a potential invasion of Nicaragua and an actual invasion of Grenada — a British Commonwealth state — without informing London, North Atlantic relationships were in real disarray. Only when Reagan agreed to resume serious arms limitation talks with the Russians, and toned down bellicose rhetoric, did fears of nuclear was recede and matters improve. The summits with Gorbachev at Geneva and Reykjavik marked this progress.

Reagan's domestic policies recessed the US economy and re-election seemed uncertain. By November 1984, however, a pre-election recovery gave him victory by bigger margins than in 1980 and began the longest peacetime economic boom in the twentieth century. With "peace abroad and prosperity at home" Reagan seemed set to enjoy the most successful two-term presidency since Roosevelt. He presided over the 1986 refurbishing of the Statue of Liberty, a very symbolic moment for him. Almost immediately the arms for Iran affair — later called Irangate — began to leak out. The Senate's Tower Report of March 1987 heavily criticized his involvement in the Iran affair and his general competence. It is possible that only his personal popularity and willingness "to reign and not rule" kept him from further congressional action. His last months in office were clouded by this knowledge.

Reagan presided over the break-up of the USSR and claimed that he "won the Cold War". More a rhetorical and symbolic conservative than a systemic thinker his legacy was a long economic boom, a recapturing of national self-confidence, but a decay of community spirit as inequalities increased. History may remember him mostly for being the man who tripled the US national debt.

(1911–2004), actor, governor, U.S. president

Reagan grew up in Dixon, Illinois, in an impoverished family, and worked his way through Eureka (Ill.) College. From a radio station in Des Moines, Iowa, he left for Hollywood, where he worked as a film and TV actor, 1937–66. A captain during World War II, he made training films for the Army Air Forces. Later, as a TV spokesman for General Electric Company, he became an active Republican. Urged by conservative Southern California businesspeople, Reagan entered politics and was elected governor of California, serving from January 1967 to January 1975. A champion of the GOP's conservative wing, Reagan defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter to become president in 1980. He was reelected in 1984.

As president (1981–89), Reagan sought to reduce the federal government's domestic programs. Initially, his administration adopted the “supply side” theory to stimulate production and control high inflation through tax cuts and sharp reductions in federal spending. Following a major recession in 1982, economic growth resumed, fueled in part by massive defense spending and a dramatic increase in the national debt.

Reagan's foreign policy was defined by his antipathy toward the Soviet Union, which he called the “evil empire.” He and his security advisers, especially Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, called for preparedness for war with the Soviet Union and its allies on a global scale. Exhorting patriotism, Reagan presided over the largest military buildup in peacetime U.S. history: probably around $2.4 trillion on the armed forces, of which an estimated $536 billion represented increases over previous projected trends for the decade. The largest (in inflation‐adjusted dollars) single‐year defense budget was $296 billion in fiscal year 1985.

The massive investment in new weapons systems—from missiles, ships, planes, and tanks to the speculative Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars”—was designed not simply to build American strength but also to push the Soviet Union toward economic bankruptcy. In addition, the Reagan Doctrine offered support to anti‐Soviet guerrillas anywhere. CIA director William Casey provided covert aid in Central America, Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. Reagan sent Marines to Beirut, Lebanon, to aid Christian militias, but he withdrew them after a truck‐bomb killed 241 persons on 23 October 1983. On 25 October, he ordered the U.S. invasion of Grenada in the Caribbean, where pro‐Castro military officers had seized power and were thought to endanger American students. In Central America, Reagan was determined to support the government of El Salvador in its battle with leftist guerrillas and to overthrow the Soviet‐leaning Sandinista regime in Nicaragua by providing direct (or, when Congress prohibited this, covert) aid to anti‐Communist Contra guerrillas. Congressional hearings in 1987 revealed the illegal Iran‐Contra Affair, in which a group in the National Security Council covertly sold weapons to Iranians to help finance the Contra operation. Reagan's popularity plummeted.

When he and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to reduce short‐ and intermediate‐range missiles, much of his popularity was restored. The INF Treaty (1988) was the first time the two countries had agreed to destroy an entire category of strategic weapons.

As the Cold War ended, Reagan and his supporters insisted that the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of U.S. military spending and covert operations, an assertion contested by those who credit, instead, long‐term structural problems of the Soviet economy and the reformism of Gorbachev.

[See also Cold War: Changing Interpretations; Grenada, U.S. Intervention in; Lebanon, U.S. Military Involvement in; Nicaragua, U.S. Military Involvement in.]

Bibliography

• John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the End of the Cold War, 1992.
• Michael Schaller, Reckoning with Reagan: America and Its President in the 1980s, 1992.
• Daniel Wirls, Buildup: The Politics of Defense in the Reagan Era, 1992

(b. Tampico, Ill., 6 Feb. 1911; d. Los Angeles, 5 June 2004; interred Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, Calif.), governor of California, 1967–1974, and president of the United States, 1981–1989. Ronald Reagan was inaugurated fortieth president of the United States in January 1981 and was reelected in November 1984. He was the first president to serve two complete terms since Dwight Eisenhower. During his tenure, Reagan pulled together a coalition of conservatives and libertarians who were dedicated to promoting what they dubbed the Reagan Revolution, an attempt to restructure American politics, law, and economics. The core of this effort was Reagan's of‐trepeated desire to reduce the role of government in American life.

When Reagan won the presidency, he promised to effect great change in many areas. One of the most important was that of changing the direction of the federal courts generally and the Supreme Court in particular. To Reagan's way of thinking, the judiciary, inspired by the liberalism of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, had moved beyond merely exercising judgment and had begun to make policy. Part of Reagan's pledge to get the government off the backs of the people included returning the courts to what he deemed their proper and limited constitutional roles.

The means to this end lay in the power of the president to nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint the federal judges. Reagan took this power seriously and set about to appoint to the federal courts only those who shared his philosophy of judicial restraint (see Selection of Justices). By the time he finished his second term Reagan had, to a great extent, delivered on his campaign promise to redirect the courts.

During his two terms President Reagan appointed 372 of the 736 Article III judges on the federal courts. This included 290 judges on the district courts; 78 on the courts of appeal; and four justices to the Supreme Court. At the end of his tenure 346—some 47 percent of the federal judiciary—were still in active service.

Reagan's effort to transform the federal judiciary through his appointments began to draw heavy political fire. The Department of Justice became the focus of attention for Reagan's critics on the issue of the courts. Under his first attorney general, William French Smith, and especially later during the second term under Smith's replacement, Edwin Meese III, the Department of Justice went about the business of picking judges with a precision never before seen. The newly created Office of Legal Policy screened potential nominees with great care in an effort to fulfill the president's wish to have on the bench those who shared his views on the nature and extent of judicial power.

As Reagan's tenure wore on, the politics of judicial selection became more heated. While there were controversies over particular nominees at all levels, the primary concern was over the Supreme Court. When Justice Potter Stewart retired in 1982, the politically shrewd Reagan sidestepped any real controversy by nominating a largely unknown state judge from Arizona, Sandra Day O'Connor, making her the first woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court.

In 1985, when Chief Justice Warren Burger announced his retirement, the political path to the Court had become tougher to traverse. Reagan's nomination of Justice William Rehnquist, the most outspoken judicial conservative then on the Court, had drawn a great deal of political opposition. Ironically, the more conservative Antonin Scalia, then a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who was named to replace Rehnquist as associate justice, was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate. Much was made of the fact that he was the first Italian‐American ever to sit on the high court.

With three nominees in place it was inevitable that any other vacancies would generate ever more heated opposition. This was made clear when the centrist Justice Lewis Powell resigned in 1987 and Reagan nominated Judge Robert H. Bork to take his seat. Bork was the best‐known conservative judge then sitting on the federal courts. Despite his public service as both a federal judge and solicitor general of the United States, his distinguished career as a professor at Yale Law School, and his experience in private practice, he was decisively denied confirmation after a bruising confirmation hearing.

After Reagan's next nominee, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, withdrew following disclosures that as a Harvard law professor he had smoked marijuana, Reagan finally replaced Powell with Judge Anthony Kennedy, then sitting on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. By the end of Justice Kennedy's second term on the Court, it seemed clear that Reagan had indeed succeeded in shifting the direction of the Supreme Court. Although the shift was not as pronounced as the President might have wished, there was a difference with the Reagan justices in place.

Reagan had the greatest influence on the Supreme Court—both as to the actions of the Court and its place in the broader political context—of any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Not only because of his appointments to the Supreme Court but also because of his lower court appointments, the contours of American law have been changed. The kinds of cases and their attendant opinions that now go before the Supreme Court on appeal also bear the mark of judges who share Reagan's vision of judicial power under the Constitution. As had President Roosevelt a half‐century earlier, President Reagan dramatically demonstrated that a president's most powerful legacy can be the judges he appoints to the federal courts.

; Judicial Self‐Restraint; Nominations, Controversial.

See also Judicial Activism

Bibliography

• Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America; The Political Seduction of the Law (1989).
• Terry Eastland, Taking the Presidency Seriously (1991)

— Gary L. McDowell

Reagan, Ronald Wilson (1911-2004) 40th president of the United States. Reagan was born in and spent his childhood in Illinois. After graduating from college, he entered radio broadcasting. He moved to California with the goal of becoming an actor and secured a contract at Warner Brothers. Commissioned a cavalry officer, Reagan, a supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, spent World War II in Los Angeles making training films for the U.S. Army Air Force. From 1947 to 1951, and again in 1959, he served as president of the Screen Actors Guild; he cooperated with the House Committee on Un-American Activities and with the blacklist. Becoming more conservative politically, he supported Dwight D. Eisenhower for president in 1952 and 1956 and Richard Nixon in 1960. During the 1950s he was a spokesman for the General Electric Company, in which capacity he toured the country giving speeches with conservative and pro-business themes, until the company, concerned about the controversial nature of his lectures, fired him. Reagan won national attention in 1964 with his nominating speech for U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater, and in 1967 he ran successfully for governor of California; during his term he began welfare reforms and eliminated the state budget deficit; he was re-elected in 1971. In 1980 he won the Republican nomination for president and went on to defeat the incumbent, Jimmy Carter, by a landslide 483 electoral votes to Carter's 43, promising tax cuts, increased defense spending, and a balanced budget. His campaign was aided by Carter's inability to free the staff of the U.S. embassy in Teheran held as hostages by the Iranian government and by Reagan's own affable, ingratiating personality. In his two terms as president, Reagan passed massive tax cuts, pared federal spending for environmental and safety regulations and for social programs, and approved huge increases in defense spending, including beginning the development of a Strategic Defense Initiative intended to block incoming missiles. Reagan suffered a major foreign policy blow when 241 marine peacekeepers died in a terrorist attack on army barracks in Lebanon (1983). More successful was his policy toward the Soviet Union. Reagan negotiated a major intermediate-range nuclear arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union, and his staunch anti-Communism and his defense buildup are credited with helping to bring down the Soviet government in 1991. A major issue during his second term was U.S. funding of partisans of the ousted Somoza government (called Contras) in Nicaragua in their fight to overthrow that country's leftist Sandinista government (1986-87); Reagan denied knowing the United States was selling arms to Iran despite his stated policy of refusing to deal with terrorist governments and using the proceeds to fund the Contras' fight against the country's legitimate government in direct violation of a congressional ban on such aid. Despite the foreign policy problems of his second term, Reagan left office in 1989 still tremendously popular.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Beginning as a radio sports announcer, Ronald W. Reagan (born 1911) enjoyed success as a motion picture actor and television personality before embarking on a political career. After two terms as governor of California (1967-1975), he defeated incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter for the presidency in 1980 and was easily re-elected over Walter Mondale in 1984.

Born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, Ronald Wilson Reagan was the second son of John Edward ("Jack") and Nelle Wilson Reagan. His parents were relatively poor, as Jack Reagan moved the family to a succession of small Illinois towns trying to establish himself in business. After living briefly in Chicago, the Reagans moved to Galesburg, Monmouth, and then - when Ronald was nine - to Dixon, where he grew to adulthood.

Nicknamed "Dutch," young Reagan liked solitude, but was popular; he enjoyed nature, reading, and especially sports. The elder Reagan's heavy drinking caused problems at home, but Nelle, a staunch member of the Disciples of Christ, exerted a powerful stabilizing influence. Ronald was raised a member of his mother's church. He graduated from Dixon High School in 1928 as a star athlete and student body president and enrolled the following fall at Eureka College, a small (250-student) Illinois school related to his church.

At Eureka Reagan held a partial athletic scholarship, earning additional income by washing dishes in his fraternity house, Tau Kappa Epsilon. He first demonstrated his skills in persuasive oratory as freshman representative in a successful student strike. Never a highly motivated student, he made an undistinguished record as an economics and sociology major but was well known on campus as a football player and swimmer. He also turned to theater - with such success that at least one faculty member urged him to turn professional. Reagan graduated from Eureka in 1932, later serving two terms on the school's board of trustees and receiving from it an honorary doctorate of humane letters.

On the Air and Screen

Graduating in the middle of the Great Depression, Reagan was unsuccessful in his job hunt in Chicago, but was finally hired by Davenport, Iowa, radio station WOC as a freelance sports announcer. His skill earned him a regular staff position at WOC in January 1933, and shortly afterward he moved to WHO in Des Moines, where one of his chief duties was to reconstruct Chicago Cubs baseball game broadcasts from telegraphic reports. In this role "Dutch" Reagan perfected a spontaneous speaking style and won at least a degree of fame throughout the Midwest. He sent a significant portion of his income home to his family, his father having suffered a series of heart attacks; he also helped pay his brother Neil's college expenses.

In 1937 Reagan persuaded the radio station to send him to cover the Cubs' spring training games in California. His real motive was to try to launch an acting career in Hollywood. A screen test with Warner Brothers netted him an initial seven-year contract. Unlike many performers, he chose to retain his own name.

As an actor Reagan received decent reviews, but not especially good roles. After a series of unmemorable films in which he typically played the innocent "good guy," in 1940 he landed a role which made him famous: that of Notre Dame football star George Gipp ("the Gipper") in Knute Rockne - All American. In January 1940 Reagan married starlet Jane Wyman. With her he had a daughter, Maureen, in 1941, and adopted a son, Michael, in 1945; another infant born to them died in June 1947.

The finest role of Reagan's movie career came in King's Row (1941), in which the character he played woke up to a double amputation crying out, "Where's the rest of me?" Reagan later used this line as the title for his autobiography, published in 1965; the role won him a new seven-year, million-dollar contract.

Reagan's film career was interrupted by World War II, which he spent as a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps making training films (including one preparing pilots for the important bombing raids on Tokyo). Discharged in December 1945 as a captain, he resumed his film career, but with less artistic success. His income sufficient to sustain a playboy's life-style, Reagan encountered bad luck: in 1947 he contracted a nearly fatal viral pneumonia and, following his wife's miscarriage, his marriage failed. In June 1948 Jane Wyman divorced him on grounds of "extreme mental cruelty," winning custody of both children.

Actor-Politician

Part of the cause for the divorce was apparently Reagan's near-obsession in the late 1940s with the business of the Screen Actors Guild (he served as president from 1947 to 1952 and again in 1959), and particularly with its anti-communist activities. Reagan emerged from the ballyhooed hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that produced contempt citations for (and "blacklisted") ten Hollywood figures in 1947 as a champion of civil liberties with strong anti-Communist views. He skirted the "blacklist" issue by denying that such a list existed.

In his acting career, Reagan found himself limited mainly to uninspired, unsuccessful comedies (including, in 1951, the unfortunately titled Bedtime for Bonzo, for which he was ridiculed in his later political career). Personally, however, Reagan achieved happiness with his marriage in March 1952 to actress Nancy Davis, who shelved her own career ambitions to be his full-time wife. They had two children, Patricia Ann (1952) and Ronald Prescott (1958).

Disillusioned by his diminishing movie opportunities and financially pressed, Reagan tried a stint as a Las Vegas nightclub entertainer, but soon found his preferred medium in television. (He continued to make occasional films, the last in 1957.) Signed by General Electric in 1954 as host and sometime star for the company's weekly half-hour dramatic series, General Electric Theater, Reagan was a success. Capitalizing on their television host's polish, popularity, and personableness, G.E. insisted that he go on personal appearance tours; during the shows' eight-year run, he spoke to about 250,000 workers at 135 G.E. plants.

Within a few years, he perfected "the speech": a paean to private enterprise and condemnation of the "rising tide of collectivism," combined with a salespitch for G.E. products. Though some critics later contended that his rightward political drift was due to the influence of Nancy (daughter of a strongly conservative Chicago physician), Reagan travelled the political path of many successful Americans in the post-World War II years: having voted Democratic through 1950, he backed Republicans Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 and Richard Nixon in 1960. Then, in 1962, he formally registered as a Republican.

Avidly sought as a speaker by business and civic groups, Reagan became too controversial for G.E., and the show was cancelled in 1962. He continued as a television host on another series for a time, but gradually became a full-time political activist, narrating anti-Communist films, speaking at rallies, and becoming a member of the advisory board for Young Americans for Freedom. Reagan captured national attention and temporarily boosted Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign with an impressive televised speech in October of 1964.

By early 1965 a group of prominent California conservatives decided Reagan should run for governor of their state. Benefitting from massive financial support, shrewd campaigning, and a strong conservative trend in the California electorate, Reagan easily won the Republican primary. Then, pressing the "law and order" issue by linking Democratic Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown with unrest in the cities and on California's campuses, he bested Brown in the 1966 gubernatorial election, receiving nearly 58 percent of the vote.

Governor and Presidential Candidate

Facing a state cash-flow shortage and large deficit, Reagan took immediate and dramatic action as governor, approving across-the-board budget reductions and a hiring freeze for state agencies. From the outset, the new governor jousted with higher education in the state, as he successfully sought increases in student fees and on several occasions detailed state troopers to quell campus antiwar protests. Combining the image of an ideological conservative with pragmatism in action, Reagan agreed to an increase in state income tax rates in 1967.

Re-elected with nearly 53 percent of the vote in 1970, Governor Reagan pressed for a major welfare reform act the next year. That law, the centerpiece of his second term, tightened eligibility requirements for welfare aid, strengthened family planning, and required the able to seek work, while increasing aid to the "truly needy." State spending increased more than inflation over the course of his eight years as governor, but Reagan firmly established a reputation for sound fiscal management as the state became solvent once again.

During his first term Reagan made a last-moment but energetic run for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination, and nearly managed to block Richard Nixon's victory by winning support in southern delegations. Though he did not contest Nixon's renomination four years later, Reagan's brief campaign of 1968 established him as a future presidential possibility, and in 1975 - after rejecting at least two offers of cabinet posts from Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford - he once again declared his availability.

After a poor beginning in the 1976 primaries, Reagan gave President Ford a hard race for the nomination, campaigning as a strong conservative. He could not recover politically from his earlier ill-advised proposal for the massive transfer of federal programs to the states, however. Having been graceful in defeat at the GOP convention, Reagan became his party's frontrunner for the 1980 nomination after Ford was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election. By means of his own syndicated newspaper column Reagan maintained high visibility during Carter's term, strongly attacking the Democrat on a wide range of issues.

Early White House Years

After announcing his candidacy once again in late 1979, Reagan defused the issue of his age (68) and campaigned aggressively and successfully in the primaries. Nominated easily, he selected his chief rival for the nomination, George Bush, as his running mate. Reagan's campaign against the incumbent Carter went well, despite some early gaffes, and his masterful performance in a televised debate with the president in late October sealed his victory. Taking 51 percent of the popular vote against Carter and Independent candidate John B. Anderson, Ronald Reagan became the nation's 40th president by an electoral vote of 489 to 49 for Carter. His election was viewed by many as a "new beginning," as the Republicans also won control of the Senate for the first time in 26 years.

As chief executive Reagan established an effective image of strong-mindedness tempered by occasional self-deprecation. Despite jibes by political opponents that he was lazy and lacked knowledge on many issues, he maintained generally high ratings in the public opinion polls. An assassination attempt by John Hinckley in March 1981 wounded him slightly, but served also to boost further his popular support.

Reagan appointed the first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, in July 1981. This particular move irritated his most conservative supporters, but he retained most of his following on the right through dogged adherence to the goals of reduced taxes and increased defense spending coupled with domestic program cuts ("Reaganomics"). Holding true to the precepts of the "supply-side economics" he had embraced since 1978, Reagan persuaded Congress to pass in 1981 a large, three-year reduction in income tax rates, even though federal deficits were well over $100 billion per year.

The skill displayed by Reagan with the media (which won him the nickname "the Great Communicator") enabled him to deflect most criticisms, including those aimed at his role in perpetuating huge federal deficits, his opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and to abortion, and his seeming indifference to the issue of minority civil rights. His media talents also allowed him to become, more than any of his recent predecessors, the spokesman and symbol of the political movement that elected him.

Reagan's actions as president were not always as aggressive as his rhetoric. He did not launch an all-out assault on federal programs, for example, despite threats to do so. And - though he darkly characterized the Soviet Union as "evil" - he ended the Carter-imposed embargo on grain shipments to that country. He committed a large contingent of U.S. Marines to help police the civil war in Lebanon, but removed them, rather than escalating the effort, after a commando attack resulted in 240 American deaths. He launched a successful paratroop strike against Communist insurgents on the island of Grenada in late 1983 - a feat generally applauded by the American public.

Despite suffering numerous setbacks in Congress (notably on his "social agenda" issues such as banning abortion and permitting school prayer), Reagan appeared difficult to beat for reelection in 1984. And so it proved, as Democratic challenger Walter Mondale was unable to capitalize on the ever-increasing deficit or criticisms of Reagan's policies in Central America and South Africa (where he refused to apply sanctions to oppose apartheid). In the 1984 election, Reagan defeated Mondale easily, with 58 percent of the popular vote and 525 of the 538 electoral votes.

Holding On - The Second Term

After his reelection, Reagan continued to talk a hard line against the Soviet Union, while simultaneously pursuing a new arms limitation agreement with that nation. Two summit meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev - in Geneva (1985) and Reykjavik, Iceland (1986) - accomplished little and Reagan pressed ahead with an aggressive (and costly) program of national defense, including the MX missile and the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars").

Economic problems proved intractable during Reagan's second term, as the deficit continued at record-high levels and the nation's negative trade balance grew steadily worse. Hoping to bring the deficit under control, Reagan endorsed a 1985 congressional measure mandating a series of large annual budget cuts (the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act), but the law had little real impact before its enforcement mechanism was voided by the Supreme Court the following year.

In late 1986, following substantial Democratic gains in the off-year elections, Reagan ran into serious problems due to the "Iran-contra" deal. At issue were the administration's secret sale of arms to Iran, apparently to gain the release of American hostages (and in contravention of Reagan's announced policy never to "yield to terrorist blackmail"), and subsequent diversion of the proceeds to the Nicaraguan "contras" (in seeming violation of a congressional ban on such aid). Joint congressional hearings on the Iran-contra episode captured headlines through the spring and summer of 1987, revealing significant misstatements by Reagan and, more damagingly, excessive arrogation of power by the president's national security adviser and others. Though the resulting decline in Reagan's public support was relatively slight, revelations from the hearings severely damaged his image, calling into question the degree to which he was in control of policy.

Despite these problems, in mid-1987 the resilient president seized the initiative from his detractors by means of three bold actions. The most controversial was his dispatch of American forces to the Persian Gulf in order to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers from attacks by the warring Iraqis and Iranians. Political opponents charged that the action called for invoking the 1973 War Powers Resolution, but neither Reagan nor Congress acted to do so. The president also kept his domestic critics busy by nominating a strongly conservative federal judge, Robert Bork, for a seat on the Supreme Court, and then - just as the divisive hearings on his confirmation were beginning - announcing a tentative agreement with the Soviets on limitation of intermediate range missiles. The Bork nomination backfired - the Senate rejecting the nomination by a vote of 58 to 42. But success in both of his other ventures held the potential of neutralizing any harm to Reagan's reputation produced by the hearings held earlier in the year.

As Reagan's second term drew to a close, with the Democrats once again in control of the Senate and looking optimistically to the 1988 presidential election, it was clear that he had not effected the "revolution" predicted in 1980. A number of domestic programs had been cut back, but aside from the 1981 tax cuts (and perhaps the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act), no truly significant legislation had been produced. The president even found himself in the ironic position of appearing to oppose reduction of the deficit, as he tried to fend off efforts by Congress either to cut defense spending or increase taxes. But an important part of Reagan's political legacy was the increased conservatism of the Supreme Court; although the Bork nomination failed, his "replacement" (actually the opening provided by the resignation of Justice Lewis Powell), Anthony Kennedy, represented Reagan's fourth conservative appointment to that body, following the appointments of Justices O'Connor and Antonin Scalia, and the elevation of William Rehnquist to be Chief Justice.

After his return to private citizenship in 1989, Reagan continued to be a popular and active public figure. Shortly after his retirement, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was opened in Simi Valley, California. By the mid-1990s Reagan had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, an ultimately fatal degeneration of the central nervous system. He and Nancy publicized his condition in an attempt to create greater public awareness and to gain support for research into treatment. As his condition deteriorated, Reagan gradually withdrew from public appearances.

Through a mix of conservative dogma, pragmatic action, and mastery of the media, Ronald Reagan retained throughout his presidency a hold on public affection unequalled since Dwight Eisenhower's years in the White House. Paradoxically, he accomplished this feat even though polls showed that a majority of the voters consistently disagreed with his policies. Many people would agree that Ronald Reagan, whatever the verdict of history on his presidency, truly possessed that hard-to-define quality, political charisma.

Further Reading

Reagan's early life and film career are well covered in Anne Edwards, Early Reagan: The Rise to Power (1987), and in two comprehensive biographies: Lou Cannon, Reagan (1982) and Frank Van der Linden, The Real Reagan: What He Believes, What He Has Accomplished, What We Can Expect From Him (1981). Reagan's 1965 autobiography, Where's the Rest of Me?, written with Richard G. Hubler, does not deal with his political career but illuminates the character of the man. His 1990 autobiography, covers his personal and political life through the end of his second term in office. A second personal perspective is offered by Nancy Reagan's (1989). Solid treatments of the 1980 election include Elizabeth Drew, Portrait of an Election: The 1980 Presidential Campaign (1981), and John F. Stacks, Watershed: The Campaign for the Presidency, 1980 (1981). Rowland Evans, Jr., and Robert D. Novak, The Reagan Revolution (1981), treats Reagan's political rise through his election to the presidency.

Strong assessments of Reagan's presidency may be found in John Palmer, editor, Perspectives on the Reagan Years (1986), and - though it covers only the first two years - Laurence I. Barrett, Gambling With History: Ronald Reagan in the White House (1983). Two critical appraisals, written from very different perspectives, are Garry Wills, Reagan's America: Innocents Abroad (1986) and Michael P. Rogin, "Ronald Reagan," the Movie, and Other Episodes in Political Demonology (1987).

• Born: Feb. 6, 1911, Tampico, III.
• Political party: Republican
• Education: Eureka College, B.A., 1932
• Military service: U.S. Army Air Force, 1942–45
• Previous government service: governor of California, 1967–74
• Elected President, 1980; served, 1981–89
• Died June 5, 2004, California

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the first actor to be elected President. He was also the oldest man ever elected and the first to have been divorced. Reagan brought conservatives to power in the Republican party and in the nation. His economic program of tax and spending cuts led to a boom between 1982 and 1987 that stimulated economic growth, but it also led to high federal budget deficits and the conversion of the United States from the largest creditor to the largest debtor in the world. His popularity declined during the Iran-Contra crisis but returned to high levels as he left office. The most popular President since Dwight Eisenhower, he was the first since Franklin Roosevelt to serve two or more full terms and hand over the office to a member of his own party.

Reagan's father worked in a shoe store and for the Works Progress Administration during the New Deal, and his mother was a store clerk. Reagan was a popular football player in high school and won election as student government president. At Eureka College he also played football, participated in student government, and joined the drama society.

After graduating from college in 1932 with a major in economics, he began his career as a radio sports announcer in Iowa. In 1937 he became a contract motion picture actor for Warner Brothers, starring in such movies as Knute Rockne—All American, King's Row, and Bedtime for Bonzo. He married actress Jane Wyman in 1940; they had two children (one adopted), then divorced in 1948.

During World War II, Reagan served as a captain in the army, making films for the military. He was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947 and served through 1952, devoting much of his time to combating the influence of communists in the union. He was active in Democratic politics, supporting Harry Truman for President in 1948 and Helen Gahagan Douglas against Richard Nixon in the California senatorial contest of 1950. In 1952 he married Nancy Davis, a contract actress at MGM, and they had two children. Between 1954 and 1962 he was the host of the television show General Electric Theater. In 1959 Reagan again led the Screen Actors Guild, this time in a strike that gave actors a share in television profits from their movies.

Reagan became more conservative in the 1950s and supported the Presidential candidacies of Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 and Nixon in 1960. He switched his voter registration to the Republican party in 1962. In October 1964 Reagan gave a televised speech for Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate for President. After Goldwater's defeat, Reagan became one of the leading conservative spokesmen.

Reagan was twice elected governor of California, in 1966 and 1970, but for six of his eight years in office he had to work with a Democratic legislature. He cut the welfare rolls, instituted the Medi-Cal program to pay medical bills for the poor, increased income taxes in order to eliminate a projected budget deficit (but later gave rebates when the government ran a surplus), and managed to lower property taxes. He took a strong stance against student demonstrators against the Vietnam War who closed down many campuses of the state university system, and he more than doubled funding for California's public colleges and universities.

Reagan was a dark-horse candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1968, but Nixon won the nomination on the first ballot. Reagan declined to run for a third gubernatorial term and challenged President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976. Reagan lost the nomination by a slim margin. His followers did influence the Republican party platform, which repudiated much of Ford's foreign policy of détente, or accommodation, with the Soviet Union.

In 1980 Reagan ran again for the Republican nomination, defeating George Bush handily. Reagan attempted to get ex-President Ford to join the ticket, but Ford insisted on a “co-Presidency” arrangement in which he would share responsibility for policy-making. Reagan then chose Bush to complete the ticket.

With interest rates close to 20 percent, inflation around 12 percent, and unemployment near 10 percent, the voters responded by giving Reagan a landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter and independent candidate John Anderson. Reagan's coattails brought in a Republican-controlled Senate, though the House remained strongly Democratic.

Reagan's inaugural address emphasized economic recovery and putting all Americans back to work. He called for fewer government regulations and lower taxes. Reagan's first State of the Union address offered a four-point program of reduced expenditures, tax cuts, lessened government regulation, and policies to reduce inflation.

Reagan had a “hands off” management style that involved setting overall priorities but then delegating to others the work of translating these into specific policies. He often seemed lackadaisical in his duties: “It's true that hard work never killed anybody, but why take the chance?” he would joke.

Reagan was known as the Great Communicator. No President in the 20th century, with the possible exception of Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, could match his ability as a speech maker. He presented his arguments to the American people in the form of stories. He used concrete examples involving real people rather than abstract principles to make his points. And often the public responded to his down-to-earth analogies. The Democrats had no one who could match him, and often the President would bypass Congress and appeal directly to the people to support his conservative policies.

Eventually, Reagan's inattention to details and disinterest in economic theory would catch up with him. His budget and tax numbers never did add up. A few of his subordinates were involved in conflicts of interest that led to embarrassing investigations. In his second term, his national security advisers took advantage of his management style to launch illegal operations, then covered up their involvement by lying to Congress.

On March 30, 1981, Reagan was shot outside a hotel in Washington, D.C., by John W. Hinckley, Jr., in an attempted assassination. The President lost a great deal of blood and at one point was near death, but the bullet had not hit any vital organs and he soon recovered. His popularity soared, which helped him deal with Congress in promoting his plan, popularly known as Reaganomics. Much of what Reagan asked for was passed by Congress in June. But instead of promoting prosperity, Reaganomics took the nation into a steep recession, a time of decline in the gross national product and an increase in unemployment. As joblessness increased, Reagan's popularity plummeted, down to the levels of Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

In foreign affairs Reagan took a confrontational line with the Soviets, referring to the U.S.S.R. as the “evil empire.” He announced plans to equip NATO forces in Europe with new medium-range Pershing nuclear-tipped missiles. He asked for funds to deploy a new generation of intercontinental MX missiles. He reversed President Jimmy Carter's decision to cancel the B-1 bomber and ordered development of the radar-evading Stealth bombers and fighters. He increased the size of the navy to 600 surface ships and ordered new submarines and aircraft carriers. He announced a Strategic Defense Initiative program of antimissile weapons to defend against Soviet attack, which his critics promptly dubbed Star Wars. Over five years he increased the annual level of defense spending from $200 billion to $300 billion.

Reagan equipped the government of El Salvador in its fight against leftist guerrillas and also supported the Contra rebels in their struggle against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. He provided covert funding for anticommunist rebels in Afghanistan. He ordered the invasion of Grenada in October 1983, ostensibly to protect American medical students during disorders between two factions of the Marxist government; this action led to the replacement of the leftist government with leaders backed by the United States. Reagan also used U.S. Marines as part of an international peacekeeping force in Lebanon but withdrew the forces several months after guerrillas blew up the marine barracks, killing 241 marines in October 1983.

The economy started to revive in 1983 and with it Reagan's standing in the polls. Reagan was almost unanimously renominated in 1984 for the Presidency. He handily defeated the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Walter Mondale.

In Reagan's second term the economy continued to expand, resulting in millions of new jobs, record corporate profits, and lower inflation. Reagan adhered to the supply-side theory of economics, concentrating on stimulating the supply of goods and services. He felt that lower tax rates on producers would stimulate the economy and producer greater tax revenues, which could shrink the deficit. But the result of tax cuts turned out to be massive budget deficits: in the Reagan years the total national debt rose from $1 trillion (accumulated through 190 years of U.S. history) to $3 trillion. Moreover, the nation had entered the Reagan years with a surplus in its accounts with foreign nations but began to run large trade deficits and became a debtor nation for the first time since before World War 1. The stock market rose dramatically, then dropped sharply on October 19, 1987; the DowJones average (of stock prices) lost a third of its value in a few days. Deregulation of financial institutions led to a savings and loan scandal, in which bank officials used poor judgment in making loans and some then engaged in criminal behavior to cover up their losses. The eventual bailout by the national government to keep the financial system stable would cost taxpayers at least $150 billion. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced personal income tax rates, contributing to a great accumulation of wealth for those in the top 10 percent of the population. But the bottom fifth of the population was paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes at the end of the decade than at the beginning because of increases in Social Security taxes.

The Reagan years were marked by an increase in economic inequality, as the rich got richer much faster than others benefited. Young adults with children actually found their incomes decreasing through the decade. The percentage of Americans in poverty increased during the decade from 12 to 15 percent. Meanwhile, Reagan had won cuts in various social welfare programs for the poor: job training, Medicaid, food stamps, and welfare. Although the total amount spent on these programs increased, individuals often found their allotments cut.

During the Reagan years Republican appointments to the Supreme Court and lower federal courts gave conservatives much more influence than they had enjoyed before. Reagan appointed Supreme Court justices Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the high court, and conservative law professor Antonin Scalia. The Senate rejected two of Reagan's other Supreme Court nominees, Court of Appeals judges Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg, but Reagan managed to gain confirmation of another federal judge, Anthony Kennedy. Reagan also promoted Associate Justice William Rehnquist to chief justice upon the retirement of Warren Burger.

In foreign affairs the defense buildup brought the Soviets to the negotiating table in a position of weakness. In 1987 the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which provided for gradual dismantling of all Soviet and U.S. medium- and short-range missiles in Europe. Another Reagan success occurred in the Middle East: the President deterred Libya from organizing international terrorist forces when he ordered a bombing raid on Libya in 1986 in retaliation for a bombing on a disco in West Germany frequented by U.S. troops. That bombing killed 37 people, including the daughter of Libyan leader Mu'ammar Qaddafi. In 1987 Reagan used the navy to convoy Kuwaiti ships in the Persian Gulf and prevent the Iranian navy from imposing a blockade on oil tankers.

Reagan committed a major foreign policy blunder, however, that nearly destroyed his Presidency. He agreed to sell arms to Iran in a secret attempt to bolster moderates in that nation's government who were willing to free Western hostages. Some of the profits from the sales were then transferred to the Contra rebels to help fund their battle against the Nicaraguan government. The funding violated the Boland Amendment, a law passed by Congress that had cut off U.S. government funds to the Contras.

The arms sales and fund transfers were disclosed in the fall of 1986, just after the Democrats regained control of the Senate in the congressional elections. The Democrats then organized a full-scale investigation of the Iran-Contra affair. For months Reagan seemed preoccupied with the crisis and his government was paralyzed. His national security adviser, members of the NSC staff, several top White House aides, and his chief of staff resigned. There was no evidence linking Reagan directly to the transfer of funds to the Contras, but the Tower Commission, appointed by the President to study the incident, determined that national security affairs in the White House had been mismanaged. The President implemented most of the reforms in procedures suggested by the commission.

In retirement Reagan worked at his ranch near Santa Barbara, California, gave occasional speeches, and wrote his memoirs until he was incapable of doing so because of Alzheimer's disease. , Presidential; Bush, George; Carter, Jimmy; Ford, Gerald R.; War Powers Resolution (1973)

See also Budget

Sources

• Paul Boyer, ed., Reagan As President: Contemporary Views of the Man, His Politics, and His Policies (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1990).
• Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991).
• Dinesh D'Souza, Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader (New York: Free Press, 1997).
• Haynes Johnson, Sleepwalking through History: America in the Reagan Years (New York: Norton, 1991).
• William Ker Muir, Jr., and Robert B. Hawkins, The Bully Pulpit: The Presidential Leadership of Ronald Reagan (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies Press, 1992).
• Kenneth W. Thompson, ed., Leadership in the Reagan Presidency: Seven Intimate Perspectives. (Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1992)

(1911- ), fortieth president of the United States. Reagan, an ex-liberal, built what was probably the most successful conservative coalition of the twentieth century. Born in Tampico, Illinois, he cultivated an optimistic personality despite--or because of--his father's intermittent unemployment and heavy drinking. After graduating from Eureka College in 1932 and briefly working as a radio broadcaster, he went to California and quickly established himself in the movies. Little affected by Hollywood glamour, Reagan aptly described himself as "Mr. Norm." He was during these years a staunch Democrat who voted four times for Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Following World War II (during which he acted in government films), a near-fatal bout with pneumonia, a painful divorce from actress Jane Wyman, and a declining film career, Reagan turned to a new career as spokesman for General Electric. He soon changed his political views, leaving the Democratic party and becoming a conservative Republican. In 1966, he was elected governor of California and in office verbally assailed big government but enlarged the state budget and often compromised with Democratic legislators. Reagan won the presidential nomination in 1980 and defeated President Jimmy Carter in the election.

Intelligent but intellectually lazy, Reagan was prone to making groundless assertions that he often rendered as quips. More than any other modern president, he enunciated broad themes and then left day-to-day governance to subordinates. Personally he exuded friendliness and optimism, and, after an attempted assassination in 1981, grace and bravery. These qualities deflected criticism and facilitated negotiations with Congress, enabling him to hold together a coalition of Republican regulars, recently politicized evangelical Protestants, and disenchanted Democrats. Though affable to everyone, Reagan felt close only to a few old friends and his wife, Nancy Reagan. Indeed, she was said by White House watchers to have exerted greater influence on government operations than any previous First Lady.

Reagan reshaped American politics. While leaving intact such popular New Deal programs as Social Security, his administration gutted Great Society antipoverty programs, accepted a deep recession in order to curb inflation, and sharply reduced income taxes in the higher brackets. Initially Reagan supported the largest military buildup in American history and denounced the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," but in his second term he reached a détente with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

His administration intervened briefly yet disastrously in the multisided Lebanese civil war, invaded Grenada, bombed Libya, and sponsored the Nicaraguan Contras, who were trying to overthrow the leftist government in that country. In 1985, Reagan authorized the sale of arms to Iran in an unsuccessful effort to free Americans held hostage in Lebanon, but he claimed not to know that subordinates were illegally diverting the proceeds to the Contras.

Reagan left office as the most popular president since Dwight D. Eisenhower. But the future of his coalition, the long-term impact of his economic policies, and thus his place in history remained uncertain.

Bibliography:

Laurence I. Barrett, Gambling with History: Ronald Reagan in the White House (1984); Lou Cannon, Reagan (1982); Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus, Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988 (1988).

Author:

Leo P. Ribuffo

See also Anticommunism; Conservatism; Elections: 1980 , 1984; Republican Party. For events during Reagan's administration, see Cold War; Gramm-Rudman Act; Iran-Contra Affair; Middle East-U.S. Relations; National Debt.

1911 -

President of the United States, 1981 - 1989.

Born in Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College. Beginning in 1937, he was a film and television actor in Hollywood. Reagan entered politics in 1966 when he was elected governor of California; he was reelected in 1970. He later served two terms as president of the United States, surviving a gunshot wound he received during an assassination attempt in March 1981.

Reagan's two terms in office saw him grappling with some important issues in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and engaging in policies that would affect future American involvement in the region tremendously. The most openly pro-Israeli U.S. president to that time, he announced a plan for Arab-Israeli peace on 1 September 1982, following Israel's invasion of Lebanon and the evacuation of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) forces from Beirut. The Reagan Plan called for establishment of Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in association with Jordan, on the basis of the Camp David Accords of 1978. Israel rejected the Reagan Plan, and the Arab states announced their own proposal, the Fez Plan, several days later. Reagan also ordered U.S. forces to Lebanon from 1982 to 1983, both to supervise the PLO withdrawal and to bolster the Lebanese government. In 1983, bombings destroyed both the U.S. embassy and the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut, leading to the ignominious withdrawal of American forces. Reagan was also plagued by the long captivity of several American hostages in Lebanon. As with the bombings, Hizbullah is generally considered to have been behind the kidnappings. The circuitous exchange of arms to Iran, via Israel, in return for the release of the hostages, led Reagan into the worst scandal of his presidency.

Reagan was also president during the bulk of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979 - 1988). His administration provided massive support to Islamic guerrillas fighting the Soviets, laying the basis for the country to become a haven for Islamic militants worldwide. Finally, his government's support for Iraq and Saddam Hussein during the long Iran - Iraq war (1980 - 1988) helped stem a possible Iranian victory and bolster Saddam to face the U.S. in later years.

Bibliography

Jentleson, Bruce W. With Friends Like These: Reagan, Bush, andSaddam, 1982 - 1990. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.

Lesch, David W. The Middle East and the United States: A Historical and Political Reassessment. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003.

— MICHAEL R. FISCHBACH

(ray-guhn)

A political leader of the twentieth century, elected president in 1980 and 1984. Reagan went into politics after a career as a film actor. He served as governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and became a leading spokesman for conservatism in the United States. As the nominee of the Republican party, promising to work toward a balanced federal budget, he won a large victory over President James Earl Carter in 1980 and an even larger one over Walter Mondale in 1984. Early in his presidency, Reagan persuaded a Congress controlled by Democrats to increase spending on defense and to reduce taxes. The federal budget was to be balanced by reductions in spending outside of defense, but Reagan and the Congress were never able to agree on these. Accordingly, the federal government went deeper into debt throughout Reagan's presidency. Reagan nevertheless was able to reduce the size and activities of the federal government outside of defense.

His foreign policy was heavily affected by his opposition to communism; for example, he sent troops to the Caribbean island of Grenada to help put down a revolution in 1983 and aided the opponents of the Marxist government of Nicaragua. The Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” was his favored approach to the problem of nuclear weapons. A scandal arose in his administration in the late 1980s, when it was learned that Reagan's subordinates had arranged a secret sale of weapons to Iran and an illegal transfer of the profits to rebels in Nicaragua, but investigators did not charge that Reagan himself was part of the arrangement (see Iran-Contra Affair). He met with the premier of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, in 1985, 1986, and 1987, and reached agreements on reduction of nuclear weapons. Reagan survived an attempted assassination in 1981.

In 1984, at age seventy-three, Reagan became the oldest person ever to be elected president.

Reagan, a highly popular president, was called the “Great Communicator” for his efforts to explain government problems and projects on a level that could be widely understood.

Ronald Wilson Reagan served as president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. A former radio announcer, screen actor, and governor of California, Reagan's conservative political philosophy challenged the role the federal government played in U.S. society. An avowed opponent of big government, he proposed to return power to the states and to strip the federal government of many of its regulatory functions. Although he was not successful on all fronts, Reagan changed the political landscape that had remained virtually untouched since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois. When he was nine, his family moved to Dixon, Illinois. He attended nearby Eureka College and graduated in 1932. He worked as a radio and sports announcer at several stations in Iowa before being discovered by a Hollywood talent scout and signed to an acting contract by Warner Brothers motion picture studio in 1937.

Reagan appeared in more than fifty movies between 1937 and the early 1950s. His most famous role was that of Notre Dame University football player George Gipp in Knute Rockne— All American. From 1942 to 1945 he served in the U.S. Army, making training films for World War II soldiers. It was after the war that Reagan became interested in politics, initially from his work with the Screen Actors Guild, a union representing Hollywood film actors. Elected president of the union in 1947, Reagan was a vigorous supporter of the labor movement as well as an able negotiator with the major movie studios.

Originally a Democrat and an admirer of President Roosevelt, he became concerned about Communist influence in the Hollywood labor unions. During the late 1940s and early 1950s Hollywood was caught up in a Red scare. The House Un-American Activities Committee held highly publicized hearings where screen actors, screenwriters, producers, and directors were interrogated about their participation in Communist organizations. Reagan initially defended his Hollywood brethren but soon backed away.

His divorce from actress Jane Wyman in 1949 and his remarriage to actress Nancy Davis also had an effect on Reagan's politics. His new wife's father was a political conservative who helped steer him toward the Republican party. As his movie career declined, his interest in politics increased. He was hired by the General Electric Company to be its traveling spokesperson and host of the General Electric Theater on television. From 1954 to 1962, Reagan maintained this relationship with General Electric. His conservative ideology deepened as he gave speeches around the country supporting U.S. business, criticizing government regulation, and attacking Communism.

Reagan became a national political figure during the 1964 presidential campaign. An ardent supporter of Arizona Senator Barry M. Goldwater, who espoused the same conservative philosophy, Reagan gave a televised speech that tried to revitalize Goldwater's sagging campaign against President Lyndon B. Johnson. Goldwater lost the election, but Reagan gained the attention of Republican political leaders.

At the urging of a group of prominent California businessmen, Reagan ran as the Republican candidate for governor of California in 1966. Democratic Governor Edmund ("Pat") Brown, who had defeated Richard M. Nixon in 1962, dismissed Reagan as a television actor and took him lightly. Reagan proved, however, to be a formidable opponent. A polished and effective public speaker, he spoke out against welfare cheaters and antiwar radicals on college campuses. He won the election by nearly one million votes, the most convincing victory ever achieved against an incumbent governor in U.S. history.

Reagan's two terms as governor (he was reelected in 1970) were marked by conflict with a Democratic-controlled legislature. He raised state income taxes, contrary to his political platform, but justified the increase as the means of paying for a reduction in local property taxes. He implemented some reforms in welfare programs and improved the state's higher education system.

In 1974 he decided not to run for a third term as governor, setting his sights instead on the White House. In 1976 he challenged President Gerald R. Ford for the Republican party nomination. Ford, who became president in 1974 when Richard M. Nixon resigned, was a moderate Republican who had been severely damaged by his pardon of Nixon. Reagan fell only sixty votes short of defeating Ford for the nomination.

From 1976 to 1980, Reagan prepared himself for another presidential race. He kept in public view through a newspaper column and a radio show where he commented on public affairs. In 1980 he defeated his Republican rivals and was nominated for president, with George Bush as his vice-presidential running mate.

Reagan easily defeated President Jimmy Carter, whose popularity plummeted when the national economy suffered from high inflation and unemployment. Carter also was damaged by the Iranian hostage crisis, in which fifty-two Americans were held hostage by Iran. His inability to resolve the hostage crisis, which included a failed military rescue mission, contributed to his overwhelming defeat in November 1980. In 1984 Reagan won the largest victory in U.S. presidential history, when he defeated former Vice President Walter F. Mondale.

On January 21, 1981, as Reagan was being inaugurated president, Iran released the fifty-two hostages. With that crisis resolved, Reagan set out to cut income taxes, reduce the federal budget, increase defense spending, and deregulate U.S. business. On March 31, 1981, his efforts were temporarily sidetracked when John W. Hinckley, Jr., shot and wounded Reagan and his press secretary, James S. Brady. Reagan made a quick and complete recovery. In the aftermath his popularity rose even higher.

Reagan's economic plans were built on a theory called supply-side economics. This theory asserts that when taxes are cut, the money put back into the economy stimulates the production of more goods and services, thereby increasing jobs, with the result that more taxes are generated than were cut at the beginning of the process. Reagan persuaded Congress in 1981 to reduce taxes over a three-year period and to impose severe budget cuts on nondefense spending.

The results of "Reaganomics" proved mixed. The economy entered a recession in 1982 before rebounding in 1983. Inflation dropped, but government spending was not reduced sufficiently to make up for the revenue lost through tax cuts. The problem was exacerbated when Congress passed Reagan's tax reform package in 1986. Tax rates were reduced, and millions of low-income persons were removed from the tax rolls. Consequently, the federal government borrowed money to pay for the tax cuts. The national debt doubled in size between 1981 and 1986. By the time Reagan left office, the United States had gone from a creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation, owing half a trillion dollars to foreign investors.

Pressure on the federal budget also came from Reagan's determination to begin the largest peacetime military buildup in U.S. history. Many new weapons systems were proposed, but the cornerstone of his defense system proposal was the Strategic Defense Initiative. Dubbed "Star Wars" by the media and his critics, Reagan proposed to build an antiballistic missile defense system that would shoot down Soviet missiles from space. Billions of dollars were committed to research, but actual systems proved hard to devise.

In foreign affairs, Reagan came into office maintaining his strong anti-Communist position, calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Reagan sought to negotiate arms control with the Soviet Union. In 1987 he negotiated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty). The INF Treaty was the first agreement where both sides destroyed existing weapons. Relations between the superpowers improved during Reagan's second term, mainly because the new Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to change the Cold War climate.

Reagan made a dramatic change in the federal courts through his appointment power. During his two terms he filled 372 of the 736 judgeships in the federal courts. Attorneys General William French Smith and Edwin Meese III set up a screening process that assured Reagan that he would be appointing judges who were in agreement with his conservative philosophy. In 1982 he appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, the first woman to sit on the Court. He elevated Justice William H. Rehnquist to chief justice of the Court in 1986 and appointed Judge Antonin Scalia to the seat vacated by Rehnquist.

Reagan ran into problems with two of his other nominees. When he nominated Judge Robert H. Bork in 1987 to succeed Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., the nomination met a firestorm of criticism. Bork was an outspoken jurist, the best-known conservative judge in the country. When the Senate defeated his nomination, Reagan appointed Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg. Ginsburg withdrew his nomination after he disclosed that he had smoked marijuana. On his third attempt, Reagan successfully appointed Judge Anthony M. Kennedy to the Court.

The last two years of the Reagan administration were consumed with the political damage caused by the Iran-Contra Affair. Members of the National Security Council staff secretly sold weapons to Iran, a terrorist state that was forbidden to purchase armaments under U.S. law. One goal of the weapons sales was to facilitate the release of U.S. hostages held in Lebanon, but another goal was to use some of the proceeds to support the Nicaraguan anti-Communist Contra rebels against the Marxist Sandinista government. Because Congress had forbidden U.S. support of the rebels, the actions of Reagan's staff were illegal.

In late 1986 the details of these actions began to emerge. Reagan denied any knowledge of the actions taken by his advisers, but Senate hearings on the matter in 1987 cast doubt on the president's statements. The hearings damaged Reagan's administration because they revealed that the president apparently was out of touch with the conduct of national affairs.

Despite Iran-Contra, Reagan left office a popular president. After leaving office in 1989, he retired to California.

Quotes:

"We're in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country."

"Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is."

"We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule."

"The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

"If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn't be here. It'd still be waiting for an environmental impact statement."

"If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all."

See more famous quotes by Ronald Reagan

• Born: Feb 06, 1911 in Tampico, Illinois
• Died: Jun 05, 2004 in Bel Air, California
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: '30s-'60s, '80s-2000s
• Major Genres: Drama, History
• Career Highlights: Kings Row, Knute Rockne, All American, Dark Victory
• First Major Screen Credit: Love Is on the Air (1937)

Biography

It is a fairly safe assumption that if not for a career change which, ironically enough, took him out of the motion picture industry, Ronald Reagan would not rank among Hollywood's best-known stars; a genial if not highly skilled actor, he made few memorable films, and even then he rarely left much of a lasting impression. Of course, in 1980 Reagan became the President of the United States, and with his political ascendancy came a flurry of new interest in his film career. His acting work -- especially the infamous Bedtime for Bonzo -- became the subject of much discussion, the majority of it highly satirical. Still, there is no denying that he enjoyed a long and prolific movie career. Moreover, he remains among the first and most famous actors to make the move into politics, a trend which grew more and more prevalent in the wake of his rise to power.

Born February 6, 1911, in Tampico, IL, Ronald Wilson Reagan began his acting career while studying economics at Eureka College. He broke into show business as a sportscaster at a Des Moines, IA, radio station, and from there assumed the position of play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Cubs. By the mid-'30s, he relocated to Hollywood, signing with Warner Bros. in 1937 and making his screen debut later that year in Love Is on the Air. Reagan made over a dozen more films over the course of the next two years, almost all of them B-movies. In 1939, however, he won a prominent role in the Bette Davis tearjerker Dark Victory, a performance which greatly increased his visibility throughout the Hollywood community. It helped him win his most famous role, as the ill-fated Notre Dame football hero George Gipp in the 1940 film biography Knute Rockne: All American. At the film's climax he delivered the immortal line "Win one for the Gipper!," an oft-quoted catchphrase throughout his White House tenure.

In 1940, Reagan married actress Jane Wyman, with whom he had two children. The following year, he co-starred in Sam Wood's acclaimed Kings Row, arguably his most accomplished picture. During World War II, he served as a non-combative captain in the Army Air Corps, producing a number of training films. Upon returning to Hollywood in 1947, he began a five-year term as president of the Screen Actors Guild, a position he again assumed in 1959. It was during this period that Reagan, long a prominent liberal voice in Hollywood politics, became embroiled in McCarthy-era battles over communism in the film industry, and gradually his views shifted from the left to the right. He also continued appearing in films and in 1950 co-starred in the well-received melodrama The Hasty Heart. A year later, Reagan accepted perhaps his most notorious role, in Bedtime for Bonzo, in which he portrayed a college professor who befriends his test subject, a chimpanzee; throughout his political career, the picture was the butt of a never-ending series of jokes.

During the 1950s, Reagan freelanced among a variety of studios. Still, his film career began to wane, and in 1954 he began an eight-year stint as the host of the television series General Electric Theater. Among Reagan's final film appearances was 1957's Hellcats of the Navy, where he appeared with actress Nancy Davis, his second wife. He did not make another film prior to narrating 1961's The Young Doctors, and with 1964's remake of The Killers, he effectively ended his performing career. That same year he entered politics, actively campaigning for Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. In 1966, Reagan was elected Governor of California, and over the course of his eight-year gubernatorial stint emerged as one of the Republican party's most powerful and well-recognized voices. In 1976, Reagan ran against Gerald Ford in the Republican Presidential primary, but was unsuccessful; four years later, however, he defeated Jimmy Carter to become the nation's 40th President. The rest, as they say, is history. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

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