Ronald Wilson Reagan, the fortieth President of the United States, was a charismatic politician whose greatest asset was a self-deprecating sense of humor. With thirty years of acting experience behind him, he was a master of manipulating the media to his advantage. His ability to weather unscathed that which would have ended the careers of lesser politicians earned him the nickname the "Teflon President". Unlike the Watergate Scandal of the Nixon Administration, the "Iran-Contra Affair" of the Reagan Administration did not injure the image of the President. On the contrary, President Reagan's apparent willingness to go beyond the law to institute his policies in the interest of America actually made him a hero in the eyes of many Americans. Entering office in 1981 at the age of 69, President Reagan was nevertheless tireless and full of vitality. He not only survived, but quickly recovered from, an assassination attempt during his first term and a risky cancer operation during his second term. With a soft, gentle voice, President Reagan delivered hard-line speeches which condemned the Soviet Union as an "Evil Empire." The Reagan Administration brought the largest peacetime military build up in American history. Reagan's detractors blame this build up for creating the largest federal budget deficit in American history. His supporters credit this build up for bringing about the end of the Cold War.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born February 6, 1911 in Tampica, Illinois. He was the second child of two born to Nelle and John Reagan, a shoe salesman. In 1920 the Reagan family moved from Tampica to Dixon, Illinois where young Ronald attended public schools. In 1928 Ronald Reagan enrolled at Eureka College near the city of Peoria, Illinois. At Eureka, Reagan played on the football team and became president of his class. He received a partial scholarship and worked part time as a life guard and as a dishwasher in one of the fraternity houses to pay his tuition. Ronald Reagan graduated in 1932 with a degree in economics and sociology. After graduation Reagan moved to Davenport, Iowa where he took a job as a sports caster for WOC radio. He later moved to Des Moines, Iowa and became a sports caster on WHO. While in California doing a story on the spring training of the Chicago Cubs, Reagan did a screen test for Warner Brothers Film Studios. Ronald Reagan played the part of an announcer on a small time radio station in his first film Love Is On the Air which premiered in 1937. Love Is On the Air marked the beginning of a thirty-year acting career, during which time Reagan would appear in over fifty films. Reagan films were usually formula pictures: war movies in which he played a heroic United States serviceman, or westerns in which he played the sheriff, or comedies in which Reagan costarred with a monkey named "Bonzo." Reagan also played sport figures; he was noted for his portrayal of George ("the gipper") Gipp in the 1947 film Knute Rockne. In 1942 Ronald Reagan enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps. He was not assigned to active duty due to his poor eyesight, but was commissioned with the rank of 2nd lieutenant and assigned to make training films. He had reached the rank of captain by the time he was discharged in 1945. From 1947 to 1952 Ronald Reagan served as president of the Screen Actor's Guild. In this capacity he was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in October of 1947. He embraced the Committee's efforts and supported the blacklisting of actors for alleged communist subversion. Reagan served as chairman of the Motion Picture Council from 1949 to 1950 which had been established in order to improve the negative image Hollywood had incurred in the popular press. Reagan was reelected president of the SAG in 1959 and led the union in a successful strike against the studios. The strike, which lasted over three years, won actors a percentage of the sales of their old films to television. From 1954 to 1962 Ronald Reagan was the spokesman for General Electric and hosted a weekly television show entitled "GE Theater." From 1962 to 1965 Ronald Reagan hosted and starred in a western television series entitled "Death Valley Days." During this period he also acted as spokesman for the U.S. Borax Chemical Company.
On January 24, 1940 Ronald Reagan married actress Jane Wyman. The couple had one daughter and adopted one son before divorcing in 1948. On March 4, 1952 Ronald Reagan married actress Nancy Davis. The couple met when Nancy registered a complaint with the Studio Actor's Guild that she was receiving communist literature in the mail. The couple had one daughter and one son.
See Nancy Reagan: As First Lady, Nancy Reagan championed the cause for stopping drug abuse among the nation's youth.
Politically Ronald Reagan was a New Deal Democrat during the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. His testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947, however, signaled a shift to more conservative politics. He became a supporter of the Eisenhower Administration, voted for Nixon over Kennedy in 1960, and officially declared himself a Republican in 1962. He quickly became associated with the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party led by Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Reagan gave an impressive speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention nominating Senator Goldwater for President, making Reagan a contender for governor of California in that state's upcoming election. Ronald Reagan secured the nomination of the California Republican Party in 1966 and went on to defeat his Democratic opponent, Governor Edmund G. Brown, in the general election. As governor of California, Reagan was responsible for a welfare reform bill which cut the number of people eligible to receive welfare, while increasing payments to the remaining beneficiaries. Governor Reagan became a fierce critic of student protesters of the Vietnam War. He passed legislation to cut all state funds for college-level education, but later restored, then doubled the funds during his second term. Though he was elected on a platform which called for a cut in taxes, Governor Reagan passed legislation that actually raised taxes, claiming that former Governor Brown had left the state in financial crisis. Governor Reagan's decision to return surplus revenue directly to the tax payers made him extremely popular with voters. Governor Reagan was reelected in 1970, but declined to run for a third term in 1974.
Ronald Reagan's name first appeared on the Presidential ballot at the Republican National Convention in 1968 when he lost the bid to former Vice President Richard Nixon. Reagan's name appeared on the ballot again in 1976 when he ran a close second to President Gerald Ford. After his 1976 defeat Reagan began campaigning for the 1980 election and devoted himself to working full time at gathering campaign funds. Reagan was defeated in the Iowa Caucuses by former director of the CIA, George Bush, but went on to secure the nomination in the New Hampshire Primaries. At the 1980 Republican National Convention, where Reagan was officially nominated, former President Ford was offered the Vice Presidential nomination, but declined. The nomination was then offered to the man who had been Reagan's opponent in the primaries, George Bush. The Democrats re-nominated President Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale. Reagan campaigned on a platform that advocated a small government with minimal regulation of business. He planned to revive the economy by cutting federal taxes and balancing the federal budget. Reagan's economic plan, which he called supply-side economics, argued that by cutting taxes the government would encourage more business, and ultimately generate more tax revenue. Reagan also advocated a strong military and more of a hard-line stance in the Cold War. Reagan criticized President Carter's failure to revive the economy and to solve the hostage crisis in Iran. The Reagan/Bush team went on to defeat Carter/Mondale by a large margin in the popular vote, and by 489-49 in the electoral college. Ronald Wilson Reagan became the fortieth President of the United States on January 20, 1981.
See President Reagan: Ronald Reagan remained a popular president among the people of the country, bedazzling the public with his mastery of broadcast media.
Minutes after Reagan's inauguration, Iranian terrorists holding 53 Americans hostages at the American Embassy in Iran announced that they would release the hostages. President Reagan's first major act in office was to welcome the hostages home. The peculiar timing of Iran's decision to release the hostages led to later speculation that Reagan's press agents had made a deal with the terrorists to hold the hostages until after the inauguration so that the new President could start off his administration on an impressive note. Allegations to this effect, introduced to Congress after Reagan had left office, were never proven.
The Reagan budget provided for a cut in taxes, a reduction in funding for social reform programs such as unemployment and Medicare welfare, and a large increase in military spending. The tax cut and the increase in military spending were passed by Congress in February of 1981. Congress would not approve the President's plan to cut domestic programs which was intended to balance the increase in defense spending, and as a result the federal government began to incur a massive deficit. The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 was the largest tax reduction in history. The Tax Act was repealed the following year, however, after the Reagan budget failed to revive the economy. To deal with the deficit, taxes were raised beyond what they had been when Reagan took office in January of 1981.
The nation's air traffic controllers went on strike in August of 1981 despite the fact that federal law forbade them to do so. When President Reagan ordered the controllers back to work and the controllers refused, the President had them all fired. He began a program to train over 11,000 replacements and refused to let the strikers back to work even after they recognized that their efforts had failed and were willing to return. President Reagan's handling of the air traffic controller strike set a precedent for union busting that would continue throughout the new decade.
On March 30, 1981 President Reagan was leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington D.C. after addressing a group of labor leaders when he was shot in the chest by John Hinckley Jr. Hinckley fired six shots at the President's entourage, killing one police man, a secret service agent, and severely wounding President Reagan's press secretary, James Brady. The President was rushed to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C. where doctors removed the bullet which had entered his left lung. Hinckley, who later confessed that he had shot the President in an effort to impress the actress Jodie Foster (she had recently starred in the film Taxi Driver, in which the hero aborts an attempt to assassinate a local politician), was found "not guilty" by reason of insanity. The judge ordered Hinckley to be committed to a mental institution.
In 1981 President Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court. Justice O'Connor was the first female member of the Supreme Court in the history of the United States. The Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 was a program that provided skilled job training for young people just entering the work force and older people whose former unskilled jobs had become obsolete. The Garn-St. Germain Depository Act of 1982 removed much of the federal restrictions on the banks and Savings and Loans. The mismanagement and fraud which resulted from this lifting of bank restrictions was responsible for the eventual collapse of the Savings and Loans which created a financial crisis during the Bush Administration. The Social Security Amendment of 1983 raised the retirement age, at which an individual was entitled to collect Social Security payments, from 65 to 70.
President Reagan's foreign policy was based on a hard-line approach to communism. President Reagan viewed the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," a threat to world harmony. His massive increase of the United States' military initiated an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union that would lead both governments into dire financial straits. President Reagan's plan to supply the United States' allies in Western Europe with nuclear missiles, a plan which he announced in 1981, did not start relations between the Reagan Administration and the Soviet government off on a friendly note. Soviet aid to the communist government in Nicaragua and to the communist rebel faction trying to overthrow the government in El Salvador was countered by U.S. military assistance to the Nicaraguan rebels, and to the El Salvador government. In October of 1983, the Reagan Administration responded to a successful revolution in Grenada with a U.S. invasion to restore the former government. President Reagan justified the invasion by explaining that it was meant to protect American lives and interests in Grenada and that it also helped to prevent Cuba from constructing a military base in Grenada, a plan which U.S. intelligence had found out about. In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon on a search and destroy mission of military bases operated by Israel's long-time enemy, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, or PLO. President Reagan sent in U.S. troops to put an end to the conflict. When the Israelis finally left Lebanon later in the year, American troops came under fire from Lebanese guerrilla forces. President Reagan finally removed the troops early in 1984, after 239 U.S. Marines were killed in a terrorist attack on the Marine barracks at the Beirut Airport.
President Reagan was re-nominated at the 1984 National Republican Convention in Dallas. Vice President George Bush was also re-nominated. The Democrats nominated former Vice President Walter Mondale for President and Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York for Vice President. By 1984 a surplus of world oil caused by better production by non-OPEC nations resulted in an improvement in the world economy, and an improvement in the United States' economy. President Reagan ran on a platform that asked voters the question "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" The Republican platform was also influenced by the Moral Majority organization led by television evangelist Jerry Falwell. The Moral Majority opposed drugs, homosexuality, communism, and abortion. The Reagan Administration became a symbol of "traditional American values," extolled by the Moral Majority. The Democratic platform criticized the Reagan Administration's policies as benefiting the rich at the expense of the poor. The Reagan/Bush team defeated the Mondale/Ferraro team by a landslide in the popular election and by 523 to 13 in the electoral college.
See Vice President George H.W. Bush: George Bush, after supporting Reagan during both of his terms as President, went on to win the Presidency, himself, in the 1989 election.
In July of 1985, President Reagan was hospitalized for a colon cancer operation. The operation was successful, and the President's recovery was quick.
Early in 1986 the Reagan Administration passed the Income Tax Act to simplify the federal tax system and reduce the federal budget deficit. The new tax system was designed to eliminate tax shelters and loopholes which the wealthy had used to avoid paying taxes. The new system also excused people in the lowest income bracket from paying any income tax at all. Under the new system taxable incomes below $29,750 would be taxed at the rate of 15 percent, while taxable incomes above this would be taxed at a rate of 28 percent. The Income Tax Act benefited the wealthiest of the wealthy by reducing their income tax from the 50 percent under the old system to 28 percent under the new. The Income Tax Act also reduced the tax on corporate profits from 46 to 34 percent.
On October 19, 1987 the New York Stock exchange experienced its worst crash since the 1929 crash that had ushered in the Great Depression. Though the crash hurt the economy, its effects were not as far reaching or as drastic as the 1929 crash. The Reagan administration dealt with the loss in tax revenue by increasing taxes on the wealthy, and on corporations in 1988.
President Reagan's policy toward the Soviet Union softened during his second term, largely due to the coming into power of Mikhail Gorbachev in March of 1985. Gorbachev was more liberal than his predecessors had been, and he looked to westernize the practice of communism in the Soviet Union. He encouraged criticism of the Soviet government and awarded capitalist-style enterprise ventures. President Reagan met Gorbachev for the first time in October of 1986 for an arms control summit at Reykjavik, Iceland. President Reagan's commitment to his Strategic Defense Initiative plan, known in the popular press as "Star Wars," prevented the negotiation of treaties. "Star Wars" was a plan to develop a defense station above the Earth's atmosphere that was capable of destroying nuclear missiles before they reached their intended targets. President Reagan had been using the successful launch and return of the space shuttle Columbia, which had occurred during his first term, to fuel support for his "Star Wars" plan. Therefore, when the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all of the seven crew members in 1986, the President ceased pushing his "Star Wars" program. President Reagan traveled to Moscow in 1988 for a second arms conference. The Moscow Summit of 1988 resulted in a U.S./Soviet treaty to ban medium-range nuclear missiles.
See Ronald Reagan And Soviet President Mikhail Gorvachev: President Reagan's policy toward the Soviet Union softened during his second term, largely due to the coming into power of Mikhail Gorbachev in March of 1985.
In October of 1985, four Palestinian terrorists seized control of the Italian passenger ship Achille Lauro while sailing in the Mediterranean Sea. The terrorists proceeded to kill an American passenger and dump his body overboard. The terrorists surrendered to the Egyptian government and were scheduled to be tried in Libya. Libya's leader, Muammar Qaddafi, was known for advocating terrorist tactics in international politics. President Reagan ordered U.S. Navy planes to intercept the airliner upon which the surrendered terrorists were aboard en route to Libya. The airliner was forced to land in Italy, where the terrorists were seized by western authorities. In April of 1986, President Reagan ordered a bombing campaign on Libya after learning of that country's responsibility for the bombing of a West Berlin nightclub patronized by U.S. servicemen. In May of 1987, Iraqi forces sunk the U.S.S. Stark stationed in the Persian Gulf. The action was declared a mistake. In July of 1988, United States forces shot down an Iranian airliner, killing all 290 people aboard. The action was declared a mistake.
In October 1984 Congress passed the Boland Amendment which forbade the aiding of the rebels in Nicaragua. In 1985, and again in January of 1986, President Reagan authorized secret arms deals with the Iranian government, involved at the time in a war with neighboring Iraq, in the hopes that the Iranian government would work for the release of American hostages being held in Lebanon, a close ally of Iran. The profits from the arms deal were used to provide secret aid to the rebels in Central America, a direct violation of the Boland Amendment. The deals were orchestrated by President Reagan's national security adviser, Admiral John Poindexter, and by Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North. Poindexter resigned his position, and North was fired from his job on the national security council when the secret deals were revealed to the public in November of 1986. In a 1987 televised hearing, Colonel North was convicted of obstructing justice, the illegal acceptance of personal gifts, and of altering, withholding and destroying evidence. In February of 1990, former President Reagan appeared before Congress to testify as to the extent of his involvement in the "Iran-Contra Affair." The former President was not charged. In 1990, the charges against North were reexamined, and the charges of altering, withholding and destroying evidence were overturned. Poindexter was tried in 1990 and convicted of obstruction of Congress, conspiracy, and perjury.
President Reagan declined to run for a third term in 1988. The victory of Vice President George Bush in the general election was a testament to Ronald Reagan's overwhelming popularity with the American people. Ronald Reagan retired to his home in Bel Air, California. His autobiography, An American Life, was published in 1990. In November of 1994 Ronald Reagan's doctors announced that the former president had Alzheimer's disease.
