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Infobox President | name=Ronald W. Reagan
| nationality=american
| image name=Reagan.jpg
| order=40th President
| Vice President= George H.W. Bush
| date1=20 January  1981
| date2=20 January  1989
| preceded=Jimmy Carter
| succeeded=George H.W. Bush
| date of birth=6 February  1911
| place of birth=Tampico, Illinois
| dead= dead
| date of death=5 June  2004
| place of death=Bel-Air, Los Angeles, California
| Bel-Air, California
| wife=Nancy Reagan
| party=United States Republican Party|Republican
| vicepresident=George H.W. Bush


Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 –
June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United
States|President of the United States
(1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of
California|Governor of California
(1967–1975). Reagan was also a broadcaster,
actor, and head of the Screen Actor's Guild before
entering politics.

==Early life and career==
Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois|Tampico,
Illinois, the second of two sons to John "Jack"
Reagan and Nelle Wilson. One of his four
great-grandfathers had immigrated to the United
States from Ballyporeen, County Tipperary, Ireland
in the 1860s. Prior to his grandfather's
emigration, the family name had been spelled
Regan.

In 1920, after years of moving from town to town,
the family settled in Dixon, Illinois. In 1921, at
the age of 10, Reagan was baptism|baptized in his
mother's Disciples of Christ church in Dixon
(although his brother, Neil, became a Roman
Catholic, like their father, Jack), and in 1924
Ronald Reagan began attending Dixon's Northside
High School. Reagan always considered Dixon to be
his hometown. 

In 1927, at age 16, Reagan took a summer job as a
lifeguard in Lowell Park, two miles away from
Dixon on the nearby Rock River (Illinois)|Rock
River. He continued to work as a lifeguard for the
next seven years, reportedly saving 77 people from
drowning. Reagan would later joke that none of
them ever thanked him.

In 1928, Reagan entered Eureka College in Eureka,
Illinois, majoring in economics and sociology and
graduating in 1932. In 1929 Reagan joined the Tau
Kappa Epsilon fraternities and
sororities|fraternity which he later recalled
during numerous interviews and conversations as
one of the greatest experiences he had during his
college years. Though earning mediocre grades, he
made many lasting friendships. Reagan developed an
early gift for storytelling and acting. He was a
radio announcer as an affiliate of the Chicago
Cubs baseball games, getting only the bare
outlines of the game from a ticker and relying on
his imagination and storytelling gifts to flesh
out the game. Once in 1934, during the ninth
inning of a Cubs-St. Louis Cardinals game, the
wire went dead. Reagan smoothly improvised a
fictional play-by-play (in which hitters on both
teams fouled off pitches) until the wire was
restored.

===Hollywood===
In 1937, while in California to cover the spring
training session of the Chicago Cubs as a radio
announcer, Reagan took a screen test that led to a
seven-year contract with the Warner Brothers
studio. Reagan's clear voice and athletic physique
made him popular with some 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 in film|1937 movie Love Is On the
Air. By the end of 1939, he had appeared in 19
films. In 1940 he played the role of George
Gipp|George "The Gipper" Gipp in the film Knute
Rockne, All American, from which he acquired the
nickname the Gipper, which he retained the rest of
his life. Reagan himself 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
Hellcats of the Navy, This Is the Army, and
Bedtime for Bonzo. Reagan was kidded widely about
the last named film because his co-star was a
chimpanzee. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame at 6374 Hollywood Blvd.


Reagan was commissioned as a reserve cavalry
officer in the United States Army|U.S. Army in
1935. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he was
activated and assigned, partially due to his poor
eyesight, to the First Motion Picture Unit in the
United States Army Air Force, which made training
and education films. He remained in Hollywood for
the duration of the war, and he attained the rank
of captain. Reagan tried repeatedly to go overseas
for combat duty, but was turned down because of
his astigmatism.

Reagan married actress Jane Wyman in 1940. They
had a daughter, Maureen Reagan|Maureen in 1941 and
adopted a son, Michael Reagan|Michael in 1945.
Their second daughter, Christine, was born four
months prematurely in 1947 and lived only one day.
They divorced in 1948. Reagan remarried in 1952 to
actress Nancy Reagan|Nancy Davis. Their daughter
Patti Davis|Patti was born on October 21 of the
same year. In 1958 they had a second child, Ron
Reagan|Ron. In his second marriage, Reagan was
known as a loving and devoted husband. 

As Reagan's film roles became fewer in the late
1950s, he moved into television as a host and
frequent performer for General Electric Theater.
In the GE effort, for the first time, he
encountered the working class and labor union
population that he had previously not understood. 
Reagan now identified with them, which may be the
original nexus between the conservative movement,
and the understanding of the labor unions, which
resulted in the "Reagan-Democrat" 1984, movement.
Reagan appeared in many live television plays and
often co-starred with Nancy. Reagan became head of
the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and served in this
position from 1947 until 1952, and then again from
1959 to 1960. In 1952, a Hollywood scandal raged
over his granting of a SAG blanket waiver to Music
Corporation of America|MCA, which allowed it to
both represent and employ talent for its
burgeoning TV syndication|TV franchises. He went
from host and program supervisor of General
Electric Theater to actually 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. 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 (1964 film)|The
Killers, in which, uncharacteristically, he played
a mob chieftain. This film was a remake of an
earlier version, based on a short story by Ernest
Hemingway. Reagan's co-stars were John Cassavetes
and Lee Marvin.

==Early political career==
Reagan began his political life as a United States
Democratic Party|Democrat, supporting Franklin D.
Roosevelt and his New Deal. He gradually became a
staunch social and fiscal conservative. He
embarked upon the path that led him to a career in
politics during his tenure as president of the
Screen Actors Guild. In this position, he
testified before the House Un-American Activities
Committee on alleged Communism|Communist influence
in Cinema of the United States|Hollywood. He also
kept tabs on actors he considered disloyal and
informed on them to the FBI under the code name
"Agent T-10," but he would not denounce them
publicly. He supported the practice of
Blacklist|blacklisting in Hollywood. Concluding
that the Republican Party was better able to
combat communism, Reagan gradually abandoned his
left-of-center political views, supporting the
presidential candidacies of Dwight D. Eisenhower
in 1952 and 1956 and Richard Nixon in
1960—all while Reagan was still a Democrat.

His employment by the General Electric company
further enhanced his political image; he travelled
widely as a GE spokesman, and was noted for his
anti-Communist propaganda|speeches. By the U.S.
presidential election, 1964|1964 election, Reagan
was an outspoken supporter of conservative
Republican Barry Goldwater. His nationally
televised speech "A Time for Choosing" electrified
conservatives; soon after, several top Republican
contributors visited Reagan at his home in Pacific
Palisades, California, urging him to seek the
governorship in 1966. Though these requests were
initially "laughed off" by Reagan, he says in his
autobiography, he eventually gave in, after
countless sleepless nights.

==Governorship==
In 1966, he was elected the 33rd Governor of
California|Governor of California, defeating
two-term incumbent Pat Brown; he was re-elected in
1970, defeating Jesse Unruh, but chose not to seek
a third term. During the People's Park protests,
he sent 2,200 National Guard troops onto the
Berkeley, California|Berkeley campus of the
University of California. Reagan made it clear
that the policies of his administration would not
be influenced by student agitation, saying "if it
takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with, no more
appeasement." When left-wing politics|left-wing
SLA terrorists kidnapped Patty Hearst in Berkeley
and gave a list of demands that included free
distribution of food to the poor, Reagan
facetiously suggested that it would be a good time
for an outbreak of botulism. After the media
caught wind of the comment, he apologized. 

In his first term, he froze government hiring, but
also approved tax hikes to balance the budget. He
worked with Democrat Assembly Speaker, Bob
Moretti, to create welfare reform in 1971. Reagan
also opposed the construction of a large federal
dam, the Dos Rios, which would have flooded a
valley of Native Americans|Indian ranches. Later,
Reagan and his family took a summer pack 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 passed in California prior to 1972.
Although the decision was quickly overturned by a
constitutional amendment, there would not be
another execution in California until 1992.  

During his governorship, Reagan promoted the
dismantling of the public psychiatric hospital
system, opposing involuntary hospitalization as a
civil liberties issue, and instead proposing that
community-based housing and treatment system
replace it. According to some Reagan critics, the
first objective was effectively accomplished, but
the community replacement facilities were never
adequately funded, either by Reagan or by his
successors.

==Presidential campaigns==
Reagan's first attempt to gain the Republican
presidential nomination in 1968 was unsuccessful.
He tried again in 1976 against the incumbent
Gerald Ford, but was narrowly defeated at the
Republican Convention.  He finally succeeded in
gaining the Republican nomination in 1980. The
campaign, led by William J. Casey, was conducted
in the shadow of the Iran hostage crisis; some
analysts believe President Jimmy Carter's
inability to solve the hostage crisis played a
large role in Reagan's victory against him in the
U.S. presidential election, 1980|1980 election.
Other issues in the campaign included inflation,
lackluster economic growth, instability in the
petroleum market leading to a return of gas lines,
and the perceived weakness of the U.S. national
defense. 

Reagan's showing in the U.S. presidential
debate|televised debates boosted his campaign. He
seemed more at ease, mocking President Carter's
criticisms with remarks like "There you go again."
Perhaps his most influential remark was a closing
question to the audience, during a time of
skyrocketing global oil prices and highly
unpopular Federal Reserve interest rate hikes,
"Are you better off today than you were four years
ago?"  

Carter's eventual ouster was accompanied by a
Reagan's coattails|12-seat change in the Senate
from Democratic to Republican hands, giving the
Republicans a majority in the Senate for the first
time in 28 years. Upon his election, Reagan became
the oldest president to enter office, at the age
of 69.

In the U.S. presidential election, 1984|1984
presidential election, he was re-elected in a
landslide over Carter's Vice President Walter
Mondale, winning 49 of 50 states and receiving
nearly 60 percent of the popular vote. At the
Democratic National Convention, Mondale accepted
the party nomination with a speech that is
believed to have constituted a self-inflicted
mortal wound. In it he remarked "Reagan will raise
taxes, I will raise taxes. Reagan won't tell you
this, I just
did."http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventio
ns/chicago/facts/famous.speeches/mondale.84.shtml
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 1984
Summer Olympics|Los Angeles Olympics that summer.
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==
main|Reagan Administration
===Domestic record===


Ronald Reagan portrayed himself as being
economically conservative in favor of tax cuts,
smaller government, and deregulation. He also took
a strong "tough-on-crime" stance.

Reagan's first official act upon taking the
presidency was to terminate oil price controls, a
policy designed to boost America's domestic
production and exploration of oil.
http://cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-261.html The high
point of the Reagan presidency's first 100 days
was the end of the Iran hostage crisis after the
American hostages were freed within minutes of his
inauguration.

While leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC
on March 30, 1981, Reagan, his Press Secretary
James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy,
and MPDC officer Thomas Delanty were shot by John
Hinckley, Jr.. Reagan turned what could have been
a low point in his first 100 days into another
high point by joking, "I hope you're all
Republicans," to his surgeons (While they were
not, he received the reply, "We're all 
Republicans today" from Dr. Joseph Giordano) and
"Honey, I forgot to duck" to his wife.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/05/reag
an.obit/  Reagan also said that he forgave
Hinckley and hoped he would ask for God's
forgiveness as well. 



In the summer of 1981 Reagan fired a majority of
federal air traffic controllers when they went on
an illegal strike action|strike. Since this union
was one of the only two unions to support Reagan
in the prior election, this action proved to be a
political coup; the public viewed the strikers as
greedy and self-serving, and saw Reagan as willing
to stand on principle. Not only did this set
limits for public employee unions, but also
signaled that it was acceptable for businesses to
play hardball with unions. 

A large focus of Reagan's first term was reviving
the economy his administration inherited, which
was plagued by a new phenomenon known as
stagflation (high inflation combined with a
stagnant economy.) His administration sought to
fight double-digit inflation by supporting Federal
Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker's decision to
tighten the money supply by dramatically hiking
interest rates. While successfully lowering
inflation, this policy caused a short term
recession from 1981-1982, which temporarily
lowered Reagan's public support.

Reagan combined this tight-money policy with
across-the-board tax cuts designed to boost
business investment (see supply-side economics).
While ridiculed by opponents as "voodoo,"
"trickle-down," and "Reaganomics," he managed to
push his proposed tax cuts through in 1981 with
the approval of Congress. At the same time, the
administration successfully cut welfare and social
spending, eliciting protests from liberal
Democrats.

Despite the recession of 1981-82, the economy
staged a dramatic recovery beginning in 1983, and
the Reagan administration claimed success. Due to
the revived economy, federal revenues rose despite
the tax cuts. But due to both the tax cuts
(further cuts were approved with Reagan's Tax
Reform Act of 1986) and dramatic increases in the
military budget that grew out of the
administration's staunch anti-Communist stance,
the federal deficit reached record highs. At that
time, Congress had a Democratic Party majority,
who opposed lowering public spending with Reagan's
initiative to lower taxes. Instead, to cover the
deficit, the administration borrowed heavily both
domestically and abroad, and by the end of
Reagan's second term the national debt had
tripled. Despite this heavy debt, both the
inflation and unemployment problems had been
solved, with the latter at only 5.2% when Reagan
left office. Opponents charged that while the
economy had recovered, Reagan's policies had
created an increase in the gap between the rich
and the poor.

A renewal of the "war on drugs" was also declared
during his presidency, spearheaded by Nancy
Reagan's high-profile "Just Say No" series of
messages.

President Reagan was criticized by the gay rights
movement and others for not responding quickly
enough to the HIV-AIDS epidemic. The first
official mention of the disease in the White House
was on October 15, 1982 when Reagan's press
secretary Larry Speakes, in response to a
reporter's inquiry about "the gay plague," said "I
don't have it, do you?" to general laughter. (It
should be noted that AIDS was just beginning to be
understood at this time. The term AIDS had been
coined that year and was not yet widely
used--hence the reporter calling it "the gay
plague" instead. HIV, the virus which causes AIDS,
would not be identified until 1983.) Reagan
himself first publicly discussed the federal
government's role in fighting the disease at a
press conference in 1985. Reagan's policies in
regards to AIDS and gay rights became a subject of
controversy after his death. Liberals and
libertarians pointed out that he had gone on
record as supporting sodomy laws, opposing
anti-discrimination laws including sexual
orientation, and the conservative United States
Supreme Court Justices that he appointed would
help produce the majority opinion in the 1986 case
of Bowers v. Hardwick.  Yet, after his death,
family members and gay conservatives pointed out
that he opposed the 1978 California anti-gay
Briggs Initiative. In 1984 he had the first openly
gay couple spend the night in the White House. He
is said to have taught his children that
homosexuality was a normal state of being for some
people and considered actor Rock Hudson to be a
longtime friend.

Reagan made the abolition of communism and the
implementation of supply-side economics the
primary focuses of his presidency, but he also
took a strong stand against abortion. He published
the book Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation,
which decried what Reagan saw as a disrespect for
life, promoted by the practice of abortion. Many
conservative activists refer to Reagan as the most
pro-life president in history. (However, two of
the three Supreme Court of the United
States|Supreme Court justices he selected, Sandra
Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, voted to uphold
Roe v. Wade, to Reagan's disappointment).

Although Reagan's second term was mostly
noteworthy for matters related to foreign affairs,
his administration supported significant pieces of
legislation on domestic matters, including an Tax
Reform Act of 1986|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 would
not occur until the presidency of Bill Clinton.

===Foreign policy and interventions===
Reagan forcefully confronted the Soviet Union,
marking a sharp departure from the détente
observed by his predecessors Richard Nixon, Gerald
Ford, and Jimmy Carter. Sensing that planned
economies could not compete against market
economies in a renewed arms race, he strived  to
make the Cold War economically and rhetorically
hot. The administration oversaw a massive military
build-up that represented a policy of "Peace
through strength." The Reagan administration set a
new policy toward the Soviet Union with the goal
to win the Cold War through a three-pronged
strategy outlined in NSDD-32 (National Security
Decisions Directive).  The directive outlined
Reagan's plan to confront the Soviet Union on
three fronts: economic - decrease Soviet access to
high technology and diminish their resources,
including depressing the value of Soviet
commodities on the world market; military -
increase American defense expenditures to
strengthen the U.S. negotiating position and force
the Soviets to devote more of their economic
resources to defense; and clandestine - support
anti-Soviet factions around the world from
Mujahideen|Afghanistan resistance fighters to
Solidarity during in his presidency. He proposed
the Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star
Wars", which was a space-based missile shield. In
October 1986, Reagan met with Gorbachev in Iceland
where, Gorbachev ardently opposed this defensive
shield. By 1990, the Soviet Union was officially
dissolved.  Former Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom Margaret Thatcher said, "Ronald Reagan won
the Cold War without firing a shot." 

Others argued, however, that the eventual collapse
of the Soviet Union was due more to the
reawakening of internal separatist problems under
glasnost, an inherent weakness in communist
economic theory, and the depressed global price of
crude oil, on which the Soviet economy during
those years depended heavily. Furthermore,
Reagan's much heralded military buildup that
increased American military spending by 8% per
annum in fact did not appear to have the planned
effect of forcing the Soviets to mirror American
growth: according to CIA estimates, Soviet
military spending levelled off at a growth rate of
1.3% per annum in 1975 and remained at that level
for a decade, rising slightly to approximately
4.3% in 1985 through 1987 (though spending on
offensive strategic weapons continued to grow at
1.3% during that period), before returning to 1.3%
in 1988.  It is also often pointed out that many
actions popularly attributed to Reagan were
actually initiated by his predecessor Jimmy
Carter, such as the increase in military spending
and the decisions to fund anti-communist militant
groups in Nicaragua and Afghanistan.  


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


Although the administration negotiated
arms-reduction treaties such as the
Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_Forces_Treaty|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 outer
space|space-based defense system that was supposed
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 and would likely inflame the Arms
Race. Supporters responded that even the threat of
SDI forced the Soviets into unsustainable spending
to keep up. In fact, the Soviets did not attempt
to follow suit with their own program, but instead
followed a program of arms reduction treaties. The
technology required to implement SDI is still
being researched in the U.S., and it is currently
in a test phase with stations in Alaska and
islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Support for anti-communist groups including armed
insurgencies against communism|communist
governments was also a part of administration
policy, referred to by his supporters as the
Reagan Doctrine. Following this policy, the
administration funded "freedom
fighters"—described as terrorists by their
detractors—such as the mujahideen in
Afghanistan, the Contras in Nicaragua, and Jonas
Savimbi's rebel forces in Angola. The
administration also helped fund central European
anti-communist groups such as the Poland|Polish
Solidarity movement and took a hard line against
the Communist regime in Cambodia. Covert funding
of the Contras in Nicaragua would lead to the Iran
Contra Affair, while overt support led to a
International Court of Justice|World Court ruling
against the United States in Nicaragua v. United
States.

The administration took a strong stance against
the Lebanon|Lebanese Hezbollah terrorism|terrorist
organization, which was taking American citizens
hostage and attacking civilian targets after
Israel entered 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 El
Salvador|Salvadoran Farabundo Martí Liberation
Front|FMLN and Honduras|Honduran guerrilla
fighters as terrorists, as the two countries'
respective militaries were known to have used
torture and indiscriminate tactics against those
suspected of collaboration or sympathy with the
guerrillas. Reagan also considered the
anti-apartheid African National Congress|ANC armed
wing known as Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the
Nation) as a terrorist organization.

U.S. involvement in Lebanon followed a limited
term United Nations mandate for a multinational
force. A force of 800 U.S. Marines was sent to
Beirut to evacuate PLO forces. The September 16,
1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civilians
in Beirut (see Sabra and Shatila Massacre)
prompted Reagan to form a new multinational force.
Intense administration 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 life and of his presidency.

A communist coup on the small island nation of
Grenada in 1983 led the administration to develop
an invasion plan to restore the former government.
The resulting Operation Urgent Fury was
successful.

Initially neutral, the administration increasingly
became involved in the Iran-Iraq War. At various
times, the administration supported both nations,
but mainly sided with Iraq, believing that Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein was less dangerous than
Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Henry Kissinger
articulated the administration's policy when he
stated "Too bad they both can't lose." The
American fear was that an Iranian victory would
embolden Islamic fundamentalists in other Arab
states, perhaps leading to the overthrow of
secular governments 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 United
States also provided intelligence information and
financial assistance to the Iraqi military regime.
The administration also allowed the shipment of
some chemical, biological and "dual use"
materials, which Iraq claimed were required for
agriculture, medical research, and other civilian
purposes, but which were diverted to use in
Saddam's weapons of mass destruction
programshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?p
agename=article&node=&contentId=A52241-2002Dec29&n
otFound=true, although most Iraqi weaponry was
supplied by Germany, Britain, France and the USSR.


Concurrent with the support of Iraq, the
administration also engaged in covert arms sales
to Iran in order to fund Contra rebels in
Nicaragua. The resulting Iran-Contra Affair became
a scandal. Reagan professed ignorance of the
plot's existence and quickly called for an Office
of the Independent Counsel|Independent Counsel to
investigate the scandal. A significant number of
officials in the Reagan administration were either
convicted or forced to resign as a result of the
scandal.

In 1985, on April 11, it was announced that
then-U.S. President Reagan would visit the
Kolmeshohe Cemetery near Bitburg, at the
suggestion of Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West
Germany, to pay respects to the soldiers interred
there. The White House staff was under the
impression that those interred included both
American and German soldiers. The visit was
intended to be symbolic of the goodwill between
the two countries, but unbeknownst to Reagan and
deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver, 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. On
top of this, Reagan had no plans to visit a
concentration camp during his tour of Western
Europe in connection with the commemoration of the
40th anniversary of the end of war. (See Bitburg)

==="The Great Communicator"===

Reagan challenged reformist Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev, exclaiming: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down
this wall!"

Reagan was dubbed "The Great Communicator" 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, and as
president hired skilled speechwriters who could
capture his folksy charm.

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" re-introduced a phrase, "rendezvous with
destiny," first made famous by Franklin D.
Roosevelt, to popular
culture.http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/spee
ches/1983/32183e.htm 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."
http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/se
cond.asphttp://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/spe
eches/first.asp

On January 28, 1986, after the STS-51L|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.'"
http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/ch
allenger.asp (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-liner joke|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."

Both opponents and supporters noted his "sunny
optimism", which was welcomed by many in
comparison to his Presidential predecessor, the
often smiling, but somewhat dour and serious,
Carter.

===Criticisms===
A frequent objection by his critics, however, 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"
(i.e., to whom nothing sticks). His denial of
awareness of the Iran-Contra illegalities was
belied by quotations in now-archived notes by his
defense secretary, Casper Weinberger, that he
(Reagan) could survive violating the law or
Constitution, but not the negative public image
that "big, strong Ronald Reagan passed up a chance
to get the hostages free." However, in the almost
twenty years since the Iran-Contra affair, no
"smoking gun" has yet been revealed to show that
he in fact did know about trading arms for
hostages. Reagan-era papers were originally
scheduled to be released starting in 2001, but
President George W. Bush enacted a rule change to
allow these to be withheld indefinitely. 

Reagan's fiscal and tax policies were said by some
to have increased social inequality and economic
instability, his efforts to cut welfare and income
taxes becoming common flashpoints between critics
who charged that this primarily benefited the well
off in America. The unprecedented growth of the
national debt during his presidency also sparked
charges of endangering the economic health of the
nation.

Reagan's foreign policy also drew criticisms, many
opponents making the charge that rather than
genuinely upholding the cause of human rights
throughout the globe, Reagan used it merely as a
ideological tool against socialist and communist
countries. Often cited are the administration's
support of many widely condemned and bloody
regimes, including apartheid-era South Africa, the
Pinochet military junta in Chile, the Suharto
regime in Indonesia, and the Contras in Nicaragua.
 One opponent was Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jose
Ramos-Horta:

:"Reagan, like Carter, ignored the rights of black
South Africans who languished under a system of
institutionalized terrorism and racism; the
widespread and systematic use of torture in Chile
and Guatemala. They not only ignored, but actively
supported the mass murder of Timorese women, men,
and children, orchestrated by their friend and
ally, General Suharto of Indonesia. Under Carter,
there were crocodile tears for the oppressed;
under Reagan, there hasn't even been a pretence of
concern for those in Timor, Chile, Paraguay, South
Africa." (Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor,
87)

Reagan's support of apartheid South Africa, which
involved the condemnation of Nelson Mandela as a
communist terrorist, has been among the most
heavily criticized aspects of his foreign policy,
though it was considerably lessened during his
second term. Among the most vocal critics is Nobel
Peace Prize recipient Bishop Desmond Tutu who
commented in 1984 that Reagan was "immoral, evil,
and totally un-Christian...you are either for or
against apartheid and not by rhetoric." He was
unconvinced by the later reformist "constructive
engagement" posture of Reagan. Following a 1986
speech in which Reagan called proposed sanctions
against South Africa "a historic act of folly,"
Tutu's response was "nauseating...your president
is the pits as far as blacks are concerned."  
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0609-03.htm

Residents of Western European countries often saw
Reagan very differently from many Americans. In
the United Kingdom, Reagan – though he had
the strong support of Margaret Thatcher –
was routinely lampooned by much of the media as
being dim-witted, if not senile. This was fueled
by certain real-life incidents, including a London
speaking engagement in which he forgot the name of
Diana, Princess of Wales and after some hesitation
referred to her as 'Princess David', to widespread
embarrassment. In the nations of Eastern Europe,
however, Reagan enjoyed a good deal of popularity
among residents (though not their governments) for
his harsh criticism of communism, and has been
praised extensively for his role in ending the
Cold War.

===Appointments===
==== Cabinet ====


{| cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4"
style="margin:3px; border:3px solid #000000;"
align="left"
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|OFFICE||align="left"|NAME||align="le
ft"|TERM
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|President of the United
States|President||align="left" |Ronald
Reagan||align="left"|1981–1989
|-
|align="left"|Vice President of the United
States|Vice President||align="left"|George H. W.
Bush||align="left"|1981–1989
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
State|State||align="left"|Alexander M.
Haig||align="left"|1981–1982
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|George P.
Shultz||align="left"|1982–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of the
Treasury|Treasury||align="left"|Donald
Regan||align="left"|1981–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|James A. Baker
III||align="left"|1985–1988
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Nicholas F.
Brady||align="left"|1988–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Defense|Defense||align="left"|Casper
Weinberger||align="left"|1981–1987
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Frank C.
Carlucci||align="left"|1987–1989
|-
|align="left"|Attorney General of the United
States|Justice||align="left"|William F.
Smith||align="left"|1981–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Edwin A. Meese
III||align="left"|1985–1988
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Richard L.
Thornburgh||align="left"|1988–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of the
Interior|Interior||align="left"|James G.
Watt||align="left"|1981–1983
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William P.
Clark, Jr.||align="left"|1983–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Donald P.
Hodel||align="left"|1985–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Commerce|Commerce||align="left"|Malcolm
Baldrige||align="left"|1981–1987
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|C. William
Verity, Jr.||align="left"|1987–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Labor|Labor||align="left"|Raymond J.
Donovan||align="left"|1981–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William E.
Brock||align="left"|1985–1987
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Ann Dore
McLaughlin||align="left"|1987–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Agriculture|Agriculture||align="left"|John
Block||align="left"|1981–1986
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Richard E.
Lyng||align="left"|1986–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of Health
and Human Services|HHS||align="left"|Richard S.
Schweiker||align="left"|1981–1983
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Margaret
Heckler||align="left"|1983–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Otis R.
Bowen||align="left"|1985–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Education|Education||align="left"|Terrell
Bell|Terrell H. Bell||align="left"|1981–1984
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William J.
Bennett||align="left"|1985–1988
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Lauro F.
Cavazos||align="left"|1988–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of Housing
and Urban Development|HUD||align="left"|Samuel
Pierce|Samuel R. Pierce,
Jr.||align="left"|1981–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Transportation|Transportation||align="left"|Drew
Lewis||align="left"|1981–1982
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Elizabeth
Hanford Dole||align="left"|1983–1987
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|James H.
Burnley IV||align="left"|1987–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Energy|Energy||align="left"|James B.
Edwards||align="left"|1981–1982
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Donald P.
Hodel||align="left"|1982–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|John S.
Herrington||align="left"|1985–1989
|}



==== Supreme Court appointments ====
Reagan appointed the following Justices to the
Supreme Court of the United States:

*Sandra Day O'Connor – 1981
*William Rehnquist –  Chief Justice, 1986
(an associate justice since 1972)
*Antonin Scalia – 1986
*Anthony M. Kennedy – 1988

===Major legislation approved===
* Kemp-Roth Tax Cut|Economic Recovery Tax Act of
1981
* Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982
* Social Security
(United_States)#Changes_made_in_1983|Social
Security Amendments of 1983
* Tax Reform Act of 1986
* Goldwater-Nichols Act|Goldwater-Nichols Act of
1986

==Religious beliefs==
Reagan was a committed Christian from his
childhood, and frequently addressed Christian
groups. He argued that communism's
atheism|atheistic worldview was one of its worst
features.

In a March 1978 letter to a Liberal
Christian|liberal Methodist minister who was
skeptical about Nicene Creed|Christ's
divinity—and accused Reagan of a "limited
Sunday school level theology"—Reagan argued
strongly for Christ's divinity:

:Perhaps it is true that Jesus never used the word
"Messiah" with regard to himself (although I'm not
sure that he didn't) but in Gospel of John|John 1,
10 and 14 he identifies himself pretty definitely
and more than once. Is there really any ambiguity
in his words: "I am the way, the truth and the
life: no man cometh unto the Father but by
me?"… In John 10 he says, "I am in the
Father and the Father in me." And he makes
reference to being with God, "before the world
was," and sitting on the "right hand of
God."…

:These and other statements he made about himself,
foreclose in my opinion, any question as to his
divinity. It doesn't seem to me that he gave us
any choice; either he was what he said he was or
he was the world's greatest liar."

:It is impossible for me to believe a liar or
charlatan could have had the effect on mankind
that he has had for 2000 years. We could ask,
would even the greatest of liars carry his lie
through the crucifixion, when a simple confession
would have saved him? … Did he allow us the
choice you say that you and others have made, to
believe in his teachings but reject his statements
about his own identity?"

This was similar to the C. S.
Lewis#Trilemma|"Trilemma" argument of C.S. Lewis.

Even though Reagan was firmly Christian, State
funeral of Ronald Reagan|his funeral was an
interfaith service.

==Legacy and retirement from public life==
On January 11, 1989, Reagan addressed the nation
one 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, California|Bel-Air, Los
Angeles . As of 2005, Reagan is one of only three
presidents to serve two full terms since the
adoption of the Twenty-second Amendment to the
United States Constitution|22nd Amendment in 1951
(The others are Dwight D. Eisenhower and Bill
Clinton).

Reagan received an honorary knighthood, as a
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and
thus was entitled to use the postnominal GCB, but
he is almost never styled this way. Reagan and
George H. W. Bush are the only two American
presidents to receive honorary knighthood.

In the autumn of 1989, Fujisankei Communications
Group of Japan hired him to make two speeches and
attend a small number of corporate functions.
Reagan's weekly fee was about two million dollars,
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 out in
favor 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.



In 1994, Reagan was officially diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease. He informed the nation of his
condition on November 5, 1994 with a hand-written
letter, which displayed his trademark optimism,
stating 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.

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

On February 6, 1998, Washington National Airport
was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport by a
bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Three years later, on March 4, 2001, the USS
Ronald Reagan|USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) was
christened by the 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 in the
years after his retirement and death. (See List of
things named after Ronald Reagan).

Reagan's health was further destabilized by a fall
in 2001, which shattered part of his hip and
rendered him virtually immobile. By 2004, Reagan
had begun to enter the final stage of Alzheimer's.
It is frequently reported that United States
Secret Service|Secret Service agents had to inform
Reagan every morning that he was once the
president.

===Job approval rating===
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/
poll_reagan010806.html According to ABC News by
date:
{|  border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"
width="500"
|- bgcolor=lightgrey
! | Time
! | Approval
! | Disapproval
! | Event
|-
| April 22, 1981
| align="center" | 73%
| align="center" | 19
| align="right" | Shot by Hinckley
|-
| January 22, 1983
| align="center" | 42
| align="center" | 54
| align="right" | High unemployment
|-
| April 26, 1986
| align="center" | 70
| align="center" | 26
| align="right" | Libya bombing
|-
| February 26, 1987
| align="center" | 44
| align="center" | 51
| align="right" | Iran-Contra
|-
| Career average
| align="center" | 57
| align="center" | 39
| align="right" | Presidency of Ronald Reagan
|-
| July 30, 2001
| align="center" | 66
| align="center" | 27
| align="right" | (retrospective)
|}

Upon leaving office in 1989, Reagan had an
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/
poll%5Fclintonlegacy010117.html end-of-presidency
job approval rating of 64 percent. This would not
be matched until 2001, when Clinton left office
with 65 percent job approval.

===Death===
main|Death and state funeral of Ronald Reagan
In 2003, Reagan's death was List of premature
obituaries|incorrectly announced by CNN when his
pre-written obituary (along with those of several
other famous figures) was inadvertently published
on CNN's website due to a lapse in password
protection.

Reagan died on June 5, 2004 at his home in
Bel-Air, Los Angeles, California|Bel-Air and is
buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Reagan holds the record as the longest lived U.S.
president, at 93 years and 120 days. Since
Reagan's death, Gerald Ford is now the oldest
surviving president at 92, and if he lives until
November 11, 2006, he will hold the new record.
Reagan also holds the record as the oldest-elected
president at 69 and oldest president to serve at
77.

===Posthumous honors===
In 2005, Reagan was given two posthumous honors:
*On May 14, CNN, along with the editors of Time
magazine|TIME, named him the "most fascinating
person" of the network's first 25 years.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/02/cnn25.top.fascina
ting/index.html
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0505/14/se.
02.html
*On June 26, participating voters selected Reagan
as the "The Greatest American|Greatest American"
during a live television special sponsored by AOL
and broadcast live on the Discovery Channel.

==Further reading==
*Reed Brody. Contra Terror in Nicaragua. South End
Press. 1985. ISBN 0896083136.
*Dinesh D'Souza. Ronald Reagan: How An Ordinary
Man Became An Extraordinary Leader. Free Press.
1999. ISBN 0684848236 
*Curt Gentry. Last Days of the Late Great State of
California, (political history of the
gubernatorial period).
*Edmund Morris. Dutch, the "authorized" biography
which became controversial over a number of
acknowledged fictitious interpolations by the
author
*Frances Fitzgerald. Way Out There in the Blue:
Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War.
Touchstone. (political history of Reagan's S.D.I.)
2000. ISBN 0684844168.
*Lou Cannon. President Reagan: The Role of a
Lifetime  Public Affairs. ISBN 1891620916
*Lou Cannon. Governor Reagan: His Rise To Power
Public Affairs. ISBN 1586480308
*Lou Cannon. Ronald Reagan: The Presidential
Portfolio. Public Affairs. ISBN 1891620843
*Michael Deaver and Mickey Herskowitz. Behind the
Scenes. William Morrow. 1987.
*Elizabeth Drew. Campaign Journal: The Political
Events of 1981-1984. Macmillan. 1985.
*Marlin FitzWater. Call the Briefing! Bush and
Reagan, Sam and Helen, a Decade with Presidents
and the Press. Times Books 1995.
*Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover. Blue Smoke &
Mirrors: How Reagan Won & Why Carter Lost the
Election of 1980.  Viking Press. 1981.
*Peter Schweizer. Victory: The Reagan
Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the
Collapse of the Soviet Union. Atlantic Monthly
Press. 1996. ISBN 0871136333 
*Gary Sick. October Surprise: America's Hostages
in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan. New
York: Random House. 1992.
*Alan Moore Bill Sienkiewicz, Martha Honey, Tony
Avirgan. Brought to Light: Shadowplay : The Secret
Team/Flashpoint: The LA Penca Bombing (Two Books
in One) ISBN 091303567X
*Peter Robinson (speechwriter)|Peter Robinson. How
Ronald Reagan Changed My Life. Regan Books. 2003.
ISBN 0060523999 
* Marc Green and Gail MacColl.  Reagan's Reign of
Error ISBN 0-394-75644-4 (a compendium of
reversals and inaccuracies).  1983, 1987.
*Paul Kengor. God and Ronald Reagan : A Spiritual
Life Regan Books, 2004. ISBN 0060571411.

== Reagan documentaries ==
* 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.

==See also==
* Death and state funeral of Ronald Reagan
* October Surprise
* Reagan Administration
* Republican Senatorial Medal of Freedom
* USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76)|USS Ronald Reagan
(CVN-76)
* Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

== External links ==
commons|Ronald Reagan
wikisourcecat


===Biographical information===
* http://www.ronaldreagan.com/ RonaldReagan.com -
The Official Site
*imdb name|id=0001654|name=Ronald Reagan
* http://www.reaganlibrary.com/ Ronald Reagan
Presidential Library and Foundation
* http://www.reaganlegacy.org/ Ronald Reagan
Legacy Project
* http://www.ronaldreaganmemorial.com Ronald
Reagan Memorial Foundation
*
http://marriage.about.com/od/celebritymarriages/p/
reaganronald.htm Ronald and Nancy Reagan Marriage
Profile
*
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rr40.
html White House biography

===Videos===
* http://www.ronaldreagan.tk/ RonaldReagan.tk - A
Large Video Archive
*http://online.wsj.com/public/page/0,,8_0000-OdcmT
o|OCo7sfgXasBkHwZz1i7e5eeS8-HoZ|7u2DwDb7an4fzRzQy5
EoTD|wa2KV,00.html?mod=video_center  Kudlow &
Company - Short clip with Ronald Reagan on
government spending
*http://www.ge.com/stories/en/20208.html?category=
Customer A GE Tribute to Ronald Reagan

===News items===
*
http://edition.cnn.com/resources/video.almanac/198
1/reagan.shot/reagan.lg.mov Public Domain video in
Quicktime of CNN reporting attempted assassination
of President Reagan (Courtesy of CNN.com)

===Speeches===
* http://www.reagan2020.com/speeches Reagan 2020 -
numerous speeches collected
*
http://vvl.lib.msu.edu/showfindingaid.cfm?findaidi
d=ReaganR Audio recordings of Reagan's speeches
*
http://www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/govsgallery/h/b
iography/governor_33.html Profile, Portrait and
Inaugural Addresses as California Governor	 

start box
succession box|title=Screen Actors Guild|President
of Screen Actors Guild|before=Robert
Montgomery|after=Walter
Pidgeon|years=1947–1952
succession box|title=Screen Actors Guild|President
of Screen Actors Guild|before=Howard
Keel|after=George Chandler|years=1959–1960
succession box|title=Governor of
California|Governor of California|before=Pat
Brown|after=Jerry Brown|years=1967–1975
succession box|title=United States Republican
Party|Republican Party President of the United
States|Presidential :

	Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 –
June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United
States|President of the United States
(1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of
California|Governor of California
(1967–1975). Reagan was also a
broadcasting|broadcaster, film actor, and head of
the Screen Actors Guild before entering politics.

==Early life and career==
Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois|Tampico,
Illinois, the second of two sons to John "Jack"
Reagan and Nelle Wilson. One of his four
great-grandfathers had immigrated to the United
States from Ballyporeen, County Tipperary, Ireland
in the 1860s. Prior to his grandfather's
emigration, the family name had been spelled
Regan.

In 1920, after years of moving from town to town,
the family settled in Dixon, Illinois. In 1921, at
the age of 10, Reagan was baptism|baptized in his
mother's Disciples of Christ church in Dixon
(although his brother, Neil, became a Roman
Catholic, like their father, Jack), and in 1924
Ronald Reagan began attending Dixon's Northside
High School. Reagan always considered Dixon to be
his hometown. 



In 1927, at age 16, Reagan took a summer job as a
lifeguard in Lowell Park, two miles away from
Dixon on the nearby Rock River (Illinois)|Rock
River. He continued to work as a lifeguard for the
next seven years, reportedly saving 77 people from
drowning. Reagan would later joke that none of
them ever thanked him.

In 1928, Reagan entered Eureka College in Eureka,
Illinois, majoring in economics and sociology and
graduating in 1932. In 1929 Reagan joined the Tau
Kappa Epsilon fraternities and
sororities|fraternity which he later recalled
during numerous interviews and conversations as
one of the greatest experiences he had during his
college years. Though earning mediocre grades, he
made many lasting friendships. Reagan developed an
early gift for storytelling and acting. He was a
radio announcer as an affiliate of the Chicago
Cubs baseball games, getting only the bare
outlines of the game from a ticker and relying on
his imagination and storytelling gifts to flesh
out the game. Once in 1934, during the ninth
inning of a Cubs-St. Louis Cardinals game, the
wire went dead. Reagan smoothly improvised a
fictional play-by-play (in which hitters on both
teams fouled off pitches) until the wire was
restored.

===Hollywood===
In 1937, while in California to cover the spring
training session of the Chicago Cubs as a radio
announcer, Reagan took a screen test that led to a
seven-year contract with the Warner Brothers
studio. Reagan's clear voice and athletic physique
made him popular with some 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 in film|1937 movie Love Is On the
Air. By the end of 1939, he had appeared in 19
films. In 1940 he played the role of George
Gipp|George "The Gipper" Gipp in the film Knute
Rockne, All American, from which he acquired the
nickname the Gipper, which he retained the rest of
his life. Reagan himself 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
Hellcats of the Navy, This Is the Army, and
Bedtime for Bonzo. Reagan was kidded widely about
the last named film because his co-star was a
chimpanzee. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame at 6374 Hollywood Blvd.



Reagan was commissioned as a reserve cavalry
officer in the United States Army|U.S. Army in
1935. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he was
activated and assigned, partially due to his poor
eyesight, to the First Motion Picture Unit in the
United States Army Air Force, which made training
and education films. He remained in Hollywood for
the duration of the war, and he attained the rank
of captain. Reagan tried repeatedly to go overseas
for combat duty, but was turned down because of
his astigmatism.

Reagan married actress Jane Wyman in 1940. They
had a daughter, Maureen Reagan|Maureen in 1941 and
adopted a son, Michael Reagan|Michael in 1945.
Their second daughter, Christine, was born four
months prematurely in 1947 and lived only one day.
They divorced in 1948. Reagan remarried in 1952 to
actress Nancy Reagan|Nancy Davis. Their daughter
Patti Davis|Patti was born on October 21 of the
same year. In 1958 they had a second child, Ron
Reagan|Ron. In his second marriage, Reagan was
known as a loving and devoted husband. 

As Reagan's film roles became fewer in the late
1950s, he moved into television as a host and
frequent performer for General Electric Theater.
In the GE effort, for the first time, he
encountered the working class and labor union
population that he had previously not understood. 
Reagan now identified with them, which may be the
original nexus between the conservative movement,
and the understanding of the labor unions, which
resulted in the "Reagan-Democrat" 1984, movement.
Reagan appeared in many live television plays and
often co-starred with Nancy. Reagan became head of
the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and served in this
position from 1947 until 1952, and then again from
1959 to 1960. In 1952, a Hollywood scandal raged
over his granting of a SAG blanket waiver to Music
Corporation of America|MCA, which allowed it to
both represent and employ talent for its
burgeoning TV syndication|TV franchises. He went
from host and program supervisor of General
Electric Theater to actually 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. 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 (1964 film)|The
Killers, in which, uncharacteristically, he played
a mob chieftain. This film was a remake of an
earlier version, based on a short story by Ernest
Hemingway. Reagan's co-stars were John Cassavetes
and Lee Marvin.

==Early political career==
Reagan began his political life as a United States
Democratic Party|Democrat, supporting Franklin D.
Roosevelt and his New Deal. He gradually became a
staunch social and fiscal conservative. He
embarked upon the path that led him to a career in
politics during his tenure as president of the
Screen Actors Guild. In this position, he
testified before the House Un-American Activities
Committee on alleged Communism|Communist influence
in Cinema of the United States|Hollywood. He also
kept tabs on actors he considered disloyal and
informed on them to the FBI under the code name
"Agent T-10," but he would not denounce them
publicly. He supported the practice of
Blacklist|blacklisting in Hollywood. Concluding
that the Republican Party was better able to
combat communism, Reagan gradually abandoned his
left-of-center political views, supporting the
presidential candidacies of Dwight D. Eisenhower
in 1952 and 1956 and Richard Nixon in
1960—all while Reagan was still a Democrat.

His employment by the General Electric company
further enhanced his political image; he travelled
widely as a GE spokesman, and was noted for his
anti-Communist propaganda|speeches. By the U.S.
presidential election, 1964|1964 election, Reagan
was an outspoken supporter of conservative
Republican Barry Goldwater. His nationally
televised speech "A Time for Choosing" electrified
conservatives; soon after, several top Republican
contributors visited Reagan at his home in Pacific
Palisades, California, urging him to seek the
governorship in 1966. Though these requests were
initially "laughed off" by Reagan, he says in his
autobiography, he eventually gave in, after
countless sleepless nights.

==Governorship==
In 1966, he was elected the 33rd Governor of
California|Governor of California, defeating
two-term incumbent Pat Brown; he was re-elected in
1970, defeating Jesse Unruh, but chose not to seek
a third term. During the People's Park protests,
he sent 2,200 National Guard troops onto the
Berkeley, California|Berkeley campus of the
University of California. Reagan made it clear
that the policies of his administration would not
be influenced by student agitation, saying "if it
takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with, no more
appeasement." When left-wing politics|left-wing
SLA terrorists kidnapped Patty Hearst in Berkeley
and gave a list of demands that included free
distribution of food to the poor, Reagan suggested
that it would be a good time for an outbreak of
botulism. After the media caught wind of the
comment, he apologized. 

In his first term, he froze government hiring, but
also approved tax hikes to balance the budget. He
worked with Democrat Assembly Speaker, Bob
Moretti, to create welfare reform in 1971. Reagan
also opposed the construction of a large federal
dam, the Dos Rios, which would have flooded a
valley of Native Americans|Indian ranches. Later,
Reagan and his family took a summer pack 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 passed in California prior to 1972.
Although the decision was quickly overturned by a
constitutional amendment, there would not be
another execution in California until 1992.  

During his governorship, Reagan promoted the
dismantling of the public psychiatric hospital
system, opposing involuntary hospitalization as a
civil liberties issue, and instead proposing that
community-based housing and treatment system
replace it. According to some Reagan critics, the
first objective was effectively accomplished, but
the community replacement facilities were never
adequately funded, either by Reagan or by his
successors.

==Presidential campaigns==
Reagan's first attempt to gain the Republican
presidential nomination in 1968 was unsuccessful.
He tried again in 1976 against the incumbent
Gerald Ford, but was narrowly defeated at the
Republican Convention.  He finally succeeded in
gaining the Republican nomination in 1980. The
campaign, led by William J. Casey, was conducted
in the shadow of the Iran hostage crisis; some
analysts believe President Jimmy Carter's
inability to solve the hostage crisis played a
large role in Reagan's victory against him in the
U.S. presidential election, 1980|1980 election.
Other issues in the campaign included inflation,
lackluster economic growth, instability in the
petroleum market leading to a return of gas lines,
and the perceived weakness of the U.S. national
defense. 

Reagan's showing in the U.S. presidential
debate|televised debates boosted his campaign. He
seemed more at ease, mocking President Carter's
criticisms with remarks like "There you go again."
Perhaps his most influential remark was a closing
question to the audience, during a time of
skyrocketing global oil prices and highly
unpopular Federal Reserve interest rate hikes,
"Are you better off today than you were four years
ago?"  

Carter's eventual ouster was accompanied by a
Reagan's coattails|12-seat change in the Senate
from Democratic to Republican hands, giving the
Republicans a majority in the Senate for the first
time in 28 years. Upon his election, Reagan became
the oldest president to enter office, at the age
of 69.

In the U.S. presidential election, 1984|1984
presidential election, he was re-elected in a
landslide over Carter's Vice President Walter
Mondale, winning 49 of 50 states and receiving
nearly 60 percent of the popular vote. At the
Democratic National Convention, Mondale accepted
the party nomination with a speech that is
believed to have constituted a self-inflicted
mortal wound. In it he remarked "Reagan will raise
taxes, I will raise taxes. Reagan won't tell you
this, I just
did."http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventio
ns/chicago/facts/famous.speeches/mondale.84.shtml
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 1984
Summer Olympics|Los Angeles Olympics that summer.
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==
see details|Reagan Administration
===Domestic record===


Ronald Reagan portrayed himself as being
economically conservative in favor of tax cuts,
smaller government, and deregulation. He also took
a strong "tough-on-crime" stance.

Reagan's first official act upon taking the
presidency was to terminate oil price controls, a
policy designed to boost America's domestic
production and exploration of oil.
http://cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-261.html The high
point of the Reagan presidency's first 100 days
was the end of the Iran hostage crisis after the
American hostages were freed within minutes of his
inauguration.

While leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC
on March 30, 1981, Reagan, his Press Secretary
James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy,
and MPDC officer Thomas Delanty were shot by John
Hinckley, Jr.. Reagan turned what could have been
a low point in his first 100 days into another
high point by joking, "I hope you're all
Republicans," to his surgeons (While they were
not, he received the reply, "We're all 
Republicans today" from Dr. Joseph Giordano) and
"Honey, I forgot to duck" to his wife.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/05/reag
an.obit/  Reagan also said that he forgave
Hinckley and hoped he would ask for God's
forgiveness as well. 



In the summer of 1981 Reagan fired a majority of
federal air traffic controllers when they went on
an illegal strike action|strike. Since this union
was one of the only two unions to support Reagan
in the prior election, this action proved to be a
political coup; the public viewed the strikers as
greedy and self-serving, and saw Reagan as willing
to stand on principle. Not only did this set
limits for public employee unions, but also
signaled that it was acceptable for businesses to
play hardball with unions. 

A large focus of Reagan's first term was reviving
the economy his administration inherited, which
was plagued by a new phenomenon known as
stagflation (high inflation combined with a
stagnant economy.) His administration sought to
fight double-digit inflation by supporting Federal
Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker's decision to
tighten the money supply by dramatically hiking
interest rates. While successfully lowering
inflation, this policy caused a short term
recession from 1981-1982, which temporarily
lowered Reagan's public support.

Reagan combined this tight-money policy with
across-the-board tax cuts designed to boost
business investment (see supply-side economics).
While ridiculed by opponents as "voodoo,"
"trickle-down," and "Reaganomics," he managed to
push his proposed tax cuts through in 1981 with
the approval of Congress. At the same time, the
administration successfully cut welfare and social
spending, eliciting protests from liberal
Democrats.

Despite the recession of 1981-82, the economy
staged a dramatic recovery beginning in 1983, and
the Reagan administration claimed success. Due to
the revived economy, federal revenues rose despite
the tax cuts. But due to both the tax cuts
(further cuts were approved with Reagan's Tax
Reform Act of 1986) and dramatic increases in the
military budget that grew out of the
administration's staunch anti-Communist stance,
the federal deficit reached record highs. At that
time, Congress had a Democratic Party majority,
who opposed lowering public spending with Reagan's
initiative to lower taxes. Instead, to cover the
deficit, the administration borrowed heavily both
domestically and abroad, and by the end of
Reagan's second term the national debt had
tripled. Despite this heavy debt, both the
inflation and unemployment problems had been
solved, with the latter at only 5.2% when Reagan
left office. Opponents charged that while the
economy had recovered, Reagan's policies had
created an increase in the gap between the rich
and the poor.

A renewal of the "war on drugs" was also declared
during his presidency, spearheaded by Nancy
Reagan's high-profile "Just Say No" series of
messages.

President Reagan was criticized by the gay rights
movement and others for not responding quickly
enough to the HIV-AIDS epidemic. The first
official mention of the disease in the White House
was on October 15, 1982 when Reagan's press
secretary Larry Speakes, in response to a
reporter's inquiry about "the gay plague," said "I
don't have it, do you?" to general laughter. (It
should be noted that AIDS was just beginning to be
understood at this time. The term AIDS had been
coined that year and was not yet widely
used--hence the reporter calling it "the gay
plague" instead. HIV, the virus which causes AIDS,
would not be identified until 1983.) Reagan
himself first publicly discussed the federal
government's role in fighting the disease at a
press conference in 1985. Reagan's policies in
regards to AIDS and gay rights became a subject of
controversy after his death. Liberals and
libertarians pointed out that he had gone on
record as supporting sodomy laws, opposing
anti-discrimination laws including sexual
orientation, and the conservative United States
Supreme Court Justices that he appointed would
help produce the majority opinion in the 1986 case
of Bowers v. Hardwick.  Yet, after his death,
family members and gay conservatives pointed out
that he opposed the 1978 California anti-gay
Briggs Initiative. In 1984 he had the first openly
gay couple spend the night in the White House. He
is said to have taught his children that
homosexuality was a normal state of being for some
people and considered actor Rock Hudson to be a
longtime friend.

Reagan made the abolition of communism and the
implementation of supply-side economics the
primary focuses of his presidency, but he also
took a strong stand against abortion. He published
the book Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation,
which decried what Reagan saw as a disrespect for
life, promoted by the practice of abortion. Many
conservative activists refer to Reagan as the most
pro-life president in history. (However, two of
the three Supreme Court of the United
States|Supreme Court justices he selected, Sandra
Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, voted to uphold
Roe v. Wade, to Reagan's disappointment).

Although Reagan's second term was mostly
noteworthy for matters related to foreign affairs,
his administration supported significant pieces of
legislation on domestic matters, including an Tax
Reform Act of 1986|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 would
not occur until the presidency of Bill Clinton.

===Foreign policy and interventions===
Reagan forcefully confronted the Soviet Union,
marking a sharp departure from the détente
observed by his predecessors Richard Nixon, Gerald
Ford, and Jimmy Carter. Under the assumption that
the Soviet Union could not then outspend the US
government in a renewed arms race, he strived  to
make the Cold War economically and rhetorically
hot. The administration oversaw a massive military
build-up that represented a policy called "Peace
through strength." The Reagan administration set a
new policy toward the Soviet Union with the goal
to win the Cold War through a three-pronged
strategy outlined in NSDD-32 (National Security
Decisions Directive).  The directive outlined
Reagan's plan to confront the Soviet Union on
three fronts: economic - decrease Soviet access to
high technology and diminish their resources,
including depressing the value of Soviet
commodities on the world market; military -
increase American defense expenditures to
strengthen the U.S. negotiating position and force
the Soviets to devote more of their economic
resources to defense; and clandestine - support
anti-Soviet factions around the world from
Mujahideen|Afghanistan resistance fighters to
Poland's Solidarity movement. He proposed the
Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars",
a space-based missile shield, widely viewed
outside the US as an offensive weapon. In October
1986, Reagan met with Gorbachev in Iceland where,
Gorbachev ardently opposed this
defensive/offensive shield. By 1990, the Soviet
Union was officially dissolved.  Former Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher
said, "Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without
firing a shot." However, many thousands of
civilian deaths, from this period, were the result
of his anti-communist policies. 

Some analysts argue that the eventual collapse of
the Soviet Union was due more to the reawakening
of internal separatist problems under glasnost, an
inherent weakness in communist economic theory,
and the depressed global price of crude oil, on
which the Soviet economy during those years
depended heavily. Furthermore, Reagan's much
heralded military buildup that increased American
military spending by 8% per annum in fact did not
appear to have the planned effect of forcing the
Soviets to mirror American growth: according to
CIA estimates, Soviet military spending levelled
off at a growth rate of 1.3% per annum in 1975 and
remained at that level for a decade, rising
slightly to approximately 4.3% in 1985 through
1987 (though spending on offensive strategic
weapons continued to grow at 1.3% during that
period), before returning to 1.3% in 1988.  It is
also often pointed out that many actions popularly
attributed to Reagan were actually initiated by
his predecessor Jimmy Carter, such as the increase
in military spending and the decisions to fund
anti-communist militant groups in Nicaragua and
Afghanistan.  


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


Although the administration negotiated
arms-reduction treaties such as the
Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_Forces_Treaty|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 outer
space|space-based defense system that was supposed
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 US if it strikes first,
would inflame the Arms Race. Supporters responded
that even the threat of SDI forced the Soviets
into unsustainable spending to keep up. In fact,
the Soviets did not attempt to follow suit with
their own program, but instead followed a program
of arms reduction treaties. The technology
required to implement SDI is still being
researched in the U.S., and it is currently in
testing with stations in Alaska and islands in the
Pacific Ocean.

Support for anti-communist groups including armed
insurgencies against communism|communist
governments was also a part of administration
policy, referred to by his supporters as the
Reagan Doctrine. Following this policy, the
administration funded groups they called "freedom
fighters"—described as terrorists by their
detractors—such as the mujahideen in
Afghanistan, the Contras in Nicaragua, and Jonas
Savimbi's rebel forces in Angola. The Reagan
administration increased military funding for
anti-communist dictatorships throughout Latin
America, and has been widely accused of ordering
the assassination of several Latin American
presidents & prime ministers. The administration
also helped fund central European anti-communist
groups such as the Poland|Polish Solidarity
movement and took a hard line against the
Communist regime in Cambodia. Covert funding of
the Contras in Nicaragua would lead to the Iran
Contra Affair, while overt support led to a
International Court of Justice|World Court ruling
against the United States in Nicaragua v. United
States.

The administration took a strong stance against
the Lebanon|Lebanese Hezbollah terrorism|terrorist
organization, which was taking American citizens
hostage and attacking civilian targets after
Israel invaded 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 El
Salvador|Salvadoran Farabundo Martí Liberation
Front|FMLN and Honduras|Honduran guerrilla
fighters as terrorists, as the two countries'
respective militaries were known to have used
torture and indiscriminate tactics against those
suspected of collaboration or sympathy with the
guerrillas. Reagan also considered the
anti-apartheid African National Congress|ANC armed
wing known as Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the
Nation) as a terrorist organization.

U.S. involvement in Lebanon followed a limited
term United Nations mandate for a multinational
force. A force of 800 U.S. Marines was sent to
Beirut to evacuate PLO forces. The September 16,
1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civilians
in Beirut (see Sabra and Shatila Massacre)
prompted Reagan to form a new multinational force.
Intense administration 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 life and of his presidency.

A communist coup on the small island nation of
Grenada in 1983 led the administration to develop
an invasion plan to restore the former government.
The resulting Operation Urgent Fury achieved this
goal.

Initially neutral, the administration increasingly
became involved in the Iran-Iraq War. At various
times, the administration supported both nations,
but mainly sided with Iraq, believing that Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein was a better geopolitical
ally than Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Henry
Kissinger articulated the administration's policy
when he stated "Too bad they both can't lose." The
American fear was that an Iranian victory would
embolden Islamic fundamentalists in other Arab
states, perhaps leading to the overthrow of
secular governments, and Western corporate
holdings, 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 United
States also provided intelligence information and
financial assistance to the Iraqi military regime.
The administration also allowed the shipment of
some chemical, biological and "dual use"
materials, which Iraq claimed were required for
agriculture, medical research, and other civilian
purposes, but which were diverted to use in
Saddam's weapons of mass destruction
programshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?p
agename=article&node=&contentId=A52241-2002Dec29&n
otFound=true, although most Iraqi weaponry was
supplied by Germany, Britain, France and the USSR.


Concurrent with the support of Iraq, the
administration also engaged in covert arms sales
to Iran in order to fund Contra rebels in
Nicaragua. The resulting Iran-Contra Affair became
a scandal. Reagan professed ignorance of the
plot's existence and quickly called for an Office
of the Independent Counsel|Independent Counsel to
investigate the scandal. A significant number of
officials in the Reagan administration were either
convicted or forced to resign as a result of the
scandal.

In 1985, on April 11, it was announced that
then-U.S. President Reagan would visit the
Kolmeshohe Cemetery near Bitburg, at the
suggestion of Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West
Germany, to pay respects to the soldiers interred
there. The White House staff was under the
impression that those interred included both
American and German soldiers. The visit was
intended to be symbolic of the goodwill between
the two countries, but unbeknownst to Reagan and
deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver, 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. On
top of this, Reagan had no plans to visit a
concentration camp during his tour of Western
Europe in connection with the commemoration of the
40th anniversary of the end of war. (See Bitburg)

==="The Great Communicator"===

Reagan challenged reformist Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev, exclaiming: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down
this wall!"

Reagan was dubbed "The Great Communicator" 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, and as
president hired skilled speechwriters who could
capture his folksy charm.

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" re-introduced a phrase, "rendezvous with
destiny," first made famous by Franklin D.
Roosevelt, to popular
culture.http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/spee
ches/1983/32183e.htm 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."
http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/se
cond.asphttp://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/spe
eches/first.asp

On January 28, 1986, after the STS-51L|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.'"
http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/ch
allenger.asp (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-liner joke|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."

Both opponents and supporters noted his "sunny
optimism", which was welcomed by many in
comparison to his Presidential predecessor, the
often smiling, but somewhat dour and serious,
Carter.

===Criticisms===
A frequent objection by his critics, however, 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"
(i.e., to whom nothing sticks). His denial of
awareness of the Iran-Contra illegalities was
belied by quotations in now-archived notes by his
defense secretary, Casper Weinberger, that he
(Reagan) could survive violating the law or
Constitution, but not the negative public image
that "big, strong Ronald Reagan passed up a chance
to get the hostages free." In December 1985,
Reagan signed a secret presidential "finding"
describing the deal as "arms-for-hostages." 
Reagan-era papers which might provide further
details were originally scheduled to be released
starting in 2001, but President George W. Bush
enacted a rule change to allow many of these to be
withheld indefinitely. 

Reagan's fiscal and tax policies were said by some
to have increased social inequality and economic
instability, his efforts to cut welfare and income
taxes becoming common flashpoints between critics
who charged that this primarily benefited the well
off in America. The unprecedented growth of the
national debt during his presidency also sparked
charges of endangering the economic health of the
nation.

Reagan's foreign policy also drew criticisms, many
opponents making the charge that rather than
genuinely upholding the cause of human rights
throughout the globe, Reagan used it merely as a
ideological tool against socialist and communist
countries. Often cited are the administration's
support of many widely condemned and bloody
regimes, including apartheid-era South Africa, the
Pinochet military junta in Chile, the Suharto
regime in Indonesia, and the Contras in Nicaragua.
 One opponent was Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jose
Ramos-Horta:

:"Reagan, like Carter, ignored the rights of black
South Africans who languished under a system of
institutionalized terrorism and racism; the
widespread and systematic use of torture in Chile
and Guatemala. They not only ignored, but actively
supported the mass murder of Timorese women, men,
and children, orchestrated by their friend and
ally, General Suharto of Indonesia. Under Carter,
there were crocodile tears for the oppressed;
under Reagan, there hasn't even been a pretence of
concern for those in Timor, Chile, Paraguay, South
Africa." (Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor,
87)

Reagan's support of apartheid South Africa, which
involved the condemnation of Nelson Mandela as a
communist terrorist, has been among the most
heavily criticized aspects of his foreign policy,
though it was considerably lessened during his
second term. Among the most vocal critics is Nobel
Peace Prize recipient Bishop Desmond Tutu who
commented in 1984 that Reagan was "immoral, evil,
and totally un-Christian...you are either for or
against apartheid and not by rhetoric." He was
unconvinced by the later reformist "constructive
engagement" posture of Reagan. Following a 1986
speech in which Reagan called proposed sanctions
against South Africa "a historic act of folly,"
Tutu's response was "nauseating...your president
is the pits as far as blacks are concerned."  
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0609-03.htm

Residents of Western European countries often saw
Reagan very differently from many Americans. In
the United Kingdom, Reagan – though he had
the strong support of Margaret Thatcher –
was routinely lampooned by much of the media as
being dim-witted, if not senile. This was fueled
by certain real-life incidents, including a
November 9, 1985, speaking engagement in which he
forgot the name of Diana, Princess of Wales and
after some hesitation referred to her as 'Princess
David', to widespread embarrassment. In the
nations of Eastern Europe, however, Reagan enjoyed
a good deal of popularity among residents (though
not their governments) for his harsh criticism of
communism, and has been praised extensively for
his role in ending the Cold War.

===Appointments===
==== Cabinet ====


{| cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4"
style="margin:3px; border:3px solid #000000;"
align="left"
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|OFFICE||align="left"|NAME||align="le
ft"|TERM
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|President of the United
States|President||align="left" |Ronald
Reagan||align="left"|1981–1989
|-
|align="left"|Vice President of the United
States|Vice President||align="left"|George H. W.
Bush||align="left"|1981–1989
|-
!bgcolor="#000000" colspan="3"|
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
State|State||align="left"|Alexander M.
Haig||align="left"|1981–1982
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|George P.
Shultz||align="left"|1982–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of the
Treasury|Treasury||align="left"|Donald
Regan||align="left"|1981–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|James A. Baker
III||align="left"|1985–1988
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Nicholas F.
Brady||align="left"|1988–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Defense|Defense||align="left"|Casper
Weinberger||align="left"|1981–1987
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Frank C.
Carlucci||align="left"|1987–1989
|-
|align="left"|Attorney General of the United
States|Justice||align="left"|William F.
Smith||align="left"|1981–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Edwin A. Meese
III||align="left"|1985–1988
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Richard L.
Thornburgh||align="left"|1988–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of the
Interior|Interior||align="left"|James G.
Watt||align="left"|1981–1983
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William P.
Clark, Jr.||align="left"|1983–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Donald P.
Hodel||align="left"|1985–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Commerce|Commerce||align="left"|Malcolm
Baldrige||align="left"|1981–1987
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|C. William
Verity, Jr.||align="left"|1987–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Labor|Labor||align="left"|Raymond J.
Donovan||align="left"|1981–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William E.
Brock||align="left"|1985–1987
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Ann Dore
McLaughlin||align="left"|1987–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Agriculture|Agriculture||align="left"|John
Block||align="left"|1981–1986
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Richard E.
Lyng||align="left"|1986–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of Health
and Human Services|HHS||align="left"|Richard S.
Schweiker||align="left"|1981–1983
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Margaret
Heckler||align="left"|1983–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Otis R.
Bowen||align="left"|1985–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Education|Education||align="left"|Terrell
Bell|Terrell H. Bell||align="left"|1981–1984
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|William J.
Bennett||align="left"|1985–1988
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Lauro F.
Cavazos||align="left"|1988–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of Housing
and Urban Development|HUD||align="left"|Samuel
Pierce|Samuel R. Pierce,
Jr.||align="left"|1981–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Transportation|Transportation||align="left"|Drew
Lewis||align="left"|1981–1982
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Elizabeth
Hanford Dole||align="left"|1983–1987
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|James H.
Burnley IV||align="left"|1987–1989
|-
|align="left"|United States Secretary of
Energy|Energy||align="left"|James B.
Edwards||align="left"|1981–1982
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|Donald P.
Hodel||align="left"|1982–1985
|-
|align="left"| ||align="left"|John S.
Herrington||align="left"|1985–1989
|}



==== Supreme Court appointments ====
Reagan appointed the following Justices to the
Supreme Court of the United States:

*Sandra Day O'Connor – 1981
*William Rehnquist –  Chief Justice, 1986
(an associate justice since 1972)
*Antonin Scalia – 1986
*Anthony M. Kennedy – 1988

===Major legislation approved===
* Kemp-Roth Tax Cut|Economic Recovery Tax Act of
1981
* Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982
* Social Security
(United_States)#Changes_made_in_1983|Social
Security Amendments of 1983
* Tax Reform Act of 1986
* Goldwater-Nichols Act|Goldwater-Nichols Act of
1986

==Religious beliefs==
Reagan was a committed Christian from his
childhood, and frequently addressed Christian
groups. (However, he rarely attended church.) He
argued that communism's atheism|atheistic
worldview was one of its worst features.

In a March 1978 letter to a Liberal
Christian|liberal Methodist minister who was
skeptical about Nicene Creed|Christ's
divinity—and accused Reagan of a "limited
Sunday school level theology"—Reagan argued
strongly for Christ's divinity:

:Perhaps it is true that Jesus never used the word
"Messiah" with regard to himself (although I'm not
sure that he didn't) but in Gospel of John|John 1,
10 and 14 he identifies himself pretty definitely
and more than once. Is there really any ambiguity
in his words: "I am the way, the truth and the
life: no man cometh unto the Father but by
me?"… In John 10 he says, "I am in the
Father and the Father in me." And he makes
reference to being with God, "before the world
was," and sitting on the "right hand of
God."…

:These and other statements he made about himself,
foreclose in my opinion, any question as to his
divinity. It doesn't seem to me that he gave us
any choice; either he was what he said he was or
he was the world's greatest liar."

:It is impossible for me to believe a liar or
charlatan could have had the effect on mankind
that he has had for 2000 years. We could ask,
would even the greatest of liars carry his lie
through the crucifixion, when a simple confession
would have saved him? … Did he allow us the
choice you say that you and others have made, to
believe in his teachings but reject his statements
about his own identity?"

This was similar to the C. S.
Lewis#Trilemma|"Trilemma" argument of C.S. Lewis.

Even though Reagan was firmly Christian, State
funeral of Ronald Reagan|his funeral was an
interfaith service.

==Legacy and retirement from public life==
On January 11, 1989, Reagan addressed the nation
one 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, California|Bel-Air, Los
Angeles . As of 2005, Reagan is one of only three
presidents to serve two full terms since the
adoption of the Twenty-second Amendment to the
United States Constitution|22nd Amendment in 1951
(The others are Dwight D. Eisenhower and Bill
Clinton).

Reagan received an honorary knighthood, as a
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and
thus was entitled to use the postnominal GCB, but
he is almost never styled this way. Reagan and
George H. W. Bush are the only two American
presidents to receive honorary knighthood.

In the autumn of 1989, Fujisankei Communications
Group of Japan hired him to make two speeches and
attend a small number of corporate functions.
Reagan's weekly fee was about two million dollars,
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 out in
favor 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.


In 1994, Reagan was officially diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease. He informed the nation of his
condition on November 5, 1994 with a hand-written
letter, which displayed his trademark optimism,
stating 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.

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

On February 6, 1998, Washington National Airport
was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport by a
bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Three years later, on March 4, 2001, the USS
Ronald Reagan|USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) was
christened by the 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 in the
years after his retirement and death. (See List of
things named after Ronald Reagan).

Reagan's health was further destabilized by a fall
in 2001, which shattered part of his hip and
rendered him virtually immobile. By 2004, Reagan
had begun to enter the final stage of Alzheimer's.
It is frequently reported that United States
Secret Service|Secret Service agents had to inform
Reagan every morning that he was once the
president.

===Job approval rating===
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/
poll_reagan010806.html According to ABC News by
date:
{|  border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"
width="500"
|- bgcolor=lightgrey
! | Time
! | Approval
! | Disapproval
! | Event
|-
| April 22, 1981
| align="center" | 73%
| align="center" | 19
| align="right" | Shot by Hinckley
|-
| January 22, 1983
| align="center" | 42
| align="center" | 54
| align="right" | High unemployment
|-
| April 26, 1986
| align="center" | 70
| align="center" | 26
| align="right" | Libya bombing
|-
| February 26, 1987
| align="center" | 44
| align="center" | 51
| align="right" | Iran-Contra
|-
| Career average
| align="center" | 57
| align="center" | 39
| align="right" | Presidency of Ronald Reagan
|-
| July 30, 2001
| align="center" | 66
| align="center" | 27
| align="right" | (retrospective)
|}

Upon leaving office in 1989, Reagan had an
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/
poll%5Fclintonlegacy010117.html end-of-presidency
job approval rating of 64 percent. This would not
be matched until 2001, when Clinton left office
with 65 percent job approval.

===Death===
see details|Death and state funeral of Ronald
Reagan
In 2003, Reagan's death was List of premature
obituaries|incorrectly announced by CNN when his
pre-written obituary (along with those of several
other famous figures) was inadvertently published
on CNN's website due to a lapse in password
protection.

Reagan died on June 5, 2004 at his home in
Bel-Air, Los Angeles, California|Bel-Air and is
buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Reagan holds the record as the longest lived U.S.
president, at 93 years and 120 days. Since
Reagan's death, Gerald Ford is now the oldest
surviving president at 92, and if he lives until
November 11, 2006, he will hold the new record.
Reagan also holds the record as the oldest-elected
president at 69 and oldest president to serve at
77.

===Posthumous honors===


In 2005, Reagan was given two posthumous honors:
*On May 14, CNN, along with the editors of Time
magazine|TIME, named him the "most fascinating
person" of the network's first 25 years.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/02/cnn25.top.fascina
ting/index.html
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0505/14/se.
02.html
*On June 26, participating voters selected Reagan
as the "The Greatest American|Greatest American"
during a live television special sponsored by AOL
and broadcast live on the Discovery Channel.

==Further reading==
*Reed Brody. Contra Terror in Nicaragua. South End
Press. 1985. ISBN 0896083136.
*Dinesh D'Souza. Ronald Reagan: How An Ordinary
Man Became An Extraordinary Leader. Free Press.
1999. ISBN 0684848236 
*Curt Gentry. Last Days of the Late Great State of
California, (political history of the
gubernatorial period).
*Edmund Morris. Dutch, the "authorized" biography
which became controversial over a number of
acknowledged fictitious interpolations by the
author
*Frances Fitzgerald. Way Out There in the Blue:
Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War.
Touchstone. (political history of Reagan's S.D.I.)
2000. ISBN 0684844168.
*Lou Cannon. President Reagan: The Role of a
Lifetime  Public Affairs. ISBN 1891620916
*Lou Cannon. Governor Reagan: His Rise To Power
Public Affairs. ISBN 1586480308
*Lou Cannon. Ronald Reagan: The Presidential
Portfolio. Public Affairs. ISBN 1891620843
*Michael Deaver and Mickey Herskowitz. Behind the
Scenes. William Morrow. 1987.
*Elizabeth Drew. Campaign Journal: The Political
Events of 1981-1984. Macmillan. 1985.
*Marlin FitzWater. Call the Briefing! Bush and
Reagan, Sam and Helen, a Decade with Presidents
and the Press. Times Books 1995.
*Jack W. Germond and Jules Witcover. Blue Smoke &
Mirrors: How Reagan Won & Why Carter Lost the
Election of 1980.  Viking Press. 1981.
*Peter Schweizer. Victory: The Reagan
Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the
Collapse of the Soviet Union. Atlantic Monthly
Press. 1996. ISBN 0871136333 
*Gary Sick. October Surprise: America's Hostages
in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan. New
York: Random House. 1992.
*Alan Moore Bill Sienkiewicz, Martha Honey, Tony
Avirgan. Brought to Light: Shadowplay : The Secret
Team/Flashpoint: The LA Penca Bombing (Two Books
in One) ISBN 091303567X
*Peter Robinson (speechwriter)|Peter Robinson. How
Ronald Reagan Changed My Life. Regan Books. 2003.
ISBN 0060523999 
* Marc Green and Gail MacColl.  Reagan's Reign of
Error ISBN 0-394-75644-4 (a compendium of
reversals and inaccuracies).  1983, 1987.
*Paul Kengor. God and Ronald Reagan : A Spiritual
Life Regan Books, 2004. ISBN 0060571411.

== Reagan documentaries ==
* 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.

==See also==
* Death and state funeral of Ronald Reagan
* October Surprise
* Reagan Administration
* Republican Senatorial Medal of Freedom
* USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76)|USS Ronald Reagan
(CVN-76)
* Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

== External links ==
commons|Ronald Reagan
wikisourcecat


===Biographical information===
* http://www.ronaldreagan.com/ RonaldReagan.com -
The Official Site
*imdb name|id=0001654|name=Ronald Reagan
* http://www.reaganlibrary.com/ Ronald Reagan
Presidential Library and Foundation
* http://www.reaganlegacy.org/ Ronald Reagan
Legacy Project
* http://www.ronaldreaganmemorial.com Ronald
Reagan Memorial Foundation
*
http://marriage.about.com/od/celebritymarriages/p/
reaganronald.htm Ronald and Nancy Reagan Marriage
Profile
*
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/rr40.
html White House biography

===Videos===
* http://www.ronaldreagan.tk/ RonaldReagan.tk - A
Large Video Archive
*http://online.wsj.com/public/page/0,,8_0000-OdcmT
o|OCo7sfgXasBkHwZz1i7e5eeS8-HoZ|7u2DwDb7an4fzRzQy5
EoTD|wa2KV,00.html?mod=video_center  Kudlow &
Company - Short clip with Ronald Reagan on
government spending
*http://www.ge.com/stories/en/20208.html?category=
Customer A GE Tribute to Ronald Reagan

===News items===
*
http://edition.cnn.com/resources/video.almanac/198
1/reagan.shot/reagan.lg.mov Public Domain video in
Quicktime of CNN reporting attempted assassination
of President Reagan (Courtesy of CNN.com)

===Speeches===
* http://www.reagan2020.com/speeches Reagan 2020 -
numerous speeches collected
*
http://vvl.lib.msu.edu/showfindingaid.cfm?findaidi
d=ReaganR Audio recordings of Reagan's speeches
*
http://www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/govsgallery/h/b
iography/governor_33.html Profile, Portrait and
Inaugural Addresses as California Governor	 

start box
succession box|title=Screen Actors Guild|President
of Screen Actors Guild|before=Robert
Montgomery|after=Walter
Pidgeon|years=1947–1952
succession box|title=Screen Actors Guild|President
of Screen Actors Guild|before=Howard
Keel|after=George Chandler|years=1959–1960
succession box|title=Governor of
California|Governor of California|before=Pat
Brown|after=Jerry Brown|years=1967–1975
succession box|title=United States Republican
Party|Republican Party President of the United
States|Presidential :