Ronald Reagan
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Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975). Before entering politics, Reagan was also a broadcaster, film actor, and head of the Screen Actors Guild.
Reagan's presidency is regarded as a turning point for the United States Republican Party and the American conservative movement. His presidency was marked by new economic policies, dubbed Reaganomics and a confrontational foreign policy towards the Soviet Union that eventually led to dissolution of the Soviet empire.
Reagan defeated incumbent President Jimmy Carter to win election in a 1980 electoral college landslide, the start of the so-called "Reagan Revolution" that marked a major shift in American electoral politics and brought a 12-seat change in the United States Senate, giving the Republican Party a majority for the first time in 28 years. Upon his election, Reagan became the oldest president to enter office, at the age of 69. He was the first Republican to defeat an incumbent Democratic president since 1888, and the first from any party to defeat an incumbent elected president since 1932. Reagan was reelected in a landslide in the 1984 presidential election, defeating Carter's Vice President Walter Mondale by winning 49 of 50 states and receiving nearly 60 percent of the popular vote.
He died in 2004 at the age of 93, after a decade suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
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Domestic record
Reagan was an economic libertarian, in favor of tax cuts, smaller government, and deregulation. He also took a strong "tough-on-crime" stance.
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. Reagan's first official act upon entering office was to terminate oil price controls, a policy designed to boost America's domestic production and exploration of oil. [1]
A major focus of Reagan's first term was reviving the economy his administration inherited, which was plagued by a new phenomenon known as stagflation (a stagnant economy combined with high inflation). His administration fought the double-digit inflation caused by Jimmy Carter's policies by supporting Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker's decision to tighten the money supply by dramatically hiking interest rates.
Reagan combined this tight-money policy with across-the-board tax cuts designed to boost business investment (supply-side economics). While ridiculed by opponents as "voodoo," "trickle-down," and "Reaganomics," he managed to push across-the-board tax cuts through the congress in 1981.
Following the recession, the economy staged a dramatic recovery beginning in 1983. The Reagan tax cuts helped revived the economy and create jobs, which led to the increase of federal income tax revenues during the 1980's from $517 billion to over $1 trillion per year.
During the Reagan presidency, the inflation rate dropped from 13.6% in 1980 (President Carter's final year in office) to 4.1% by 1988, the economy added 16,753,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell from 7.5% to 5.3%.
Despite the fact that President Reagan was criticized by the gay rights movement and others for the perception that his administration did not respond quickly enough to the HIV-AIDS situation, under Reagan $5.7 billion was spent on AIDS and HIV, with large amounts going to the National Institutes of Health. The resources for research increased by 450% in 1983, 134% in 1984, 99% the next year, and 148% the year after. In September 1985, Reagan said: "Including what we have in the budget for '86, it will amount to over a half a billion dollars that we have provided for research on AIDS, in addition to what I'm sure other medical groups are doing. And we have $100 million in the budget this year; it'll be $126 million next year. So this is a top priority with us. Yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer." By 1986 Reagan had endorsed a large prevention and research effort and declared in his budget message that AIDS "remains the highest public-health priority of the Department of Health and Human Services."
With regards to gay rights, Reagan opposed the 1978 California anti-gay Briggs Initiative and in 1984 he had the first openly homosexual couple spend the night in the White House. He is also said to have taught his children that homosexuality was a normal state of being for some people and was a longtime friend of Rock Hudson.
Although Reagan's second term was mostly noteworthy for matters related to foreign affairs, his administration supported significant pieces of legislation on domestic matters. In 1982, Reagan signed legislation reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for another 25 years. This extension added protections for blind, disabled, and illiterate voters.[2]
Other significant legislation included the overhaul of the Internal Revenue Code in 1986, as well as the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which compensated victims of the Japanese American Internment during World War II.
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 realization that the Soviet Union could not then outspend the US government in a renewed arms race, he strove 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 Afghani insurgents 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 Mikhail Gorbachev in Iceland where Gorbachev ardently opposed this defensive/offensive shield. By the end of 1991, 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."
Among European leaders, his main ally and undoubtedly his closest friend was Thatcher, who as British Prime Minister supported Reagan's policies of deterrence against the Soviets.
Although the administration negotiated arms-reduction treaties such as the INF Treaty and START Treaty with the U.S.S.R., it also aimed to increase strategic defense. A controversial plan, named the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), was proposed to deploy a space-based defense system to make the U.S. invulnerable to nuclear weapon missile attack, by means of a network of armed satellites orbiting the Earth. Critics dubbed the proposal "Star Wars" and argued that SDI was unrealistic, a violation of ABM treaties, and as a weapon that defends the U.S. if it strikes first, would inflame the Arms Race. Supporters responded that even the threat of SDI forced the Soviets into unsustainable spending to keep up. 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 communist governments was also a part of administration policy, referred to by his supporters as the Reagan Doctrine. The administration helped fund central European anti-communist groups such as the Polish Solidarity movement and took a hard line against the Communist regime in Cambodia.
The administration took a strong stance against the Lebanese Hezbollah 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.
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.
In 1985 Reagan visited the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he cited Anne Frank and ended his speech with the words, "Never again."
"The Great Communicator"
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" reintroduced a phrase, "rendezvous with destiny," first made famous by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to popular culture.[3] 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." [4][5]
On January 28, 1986, after the Challenger accident, he postponed his State of the Union address and addressed the nation on the disaster. In a speech written by Peggy Noonan, he said, "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'" [6] (quotations in this speech are from the famous poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr..)
It was perhaps Reagan's humor, especially his one-liners, that disarmed his opponents and endeared him to audiences the most. Discussion of his advanced age led him to quip in his second debate against Walter Mondale during the 1984 campaign, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." On his career he joked, "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."
Both supporters and opponents alike noted his "sunny optimism", which was welcomed by many in comparison to his Presidential predecessor, the often smiling, but overly serious and somewhat dour, Carter.
Assassination Attempt
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 Delehanty were shot by John Hinckley, Jr. during an assassination attempt. 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. [7] Reagan also said that he forgave Hinckley and hoped he would ask for God's forgiveness as well.
Death
Reagan died on June 5, 2004 at his home in Bel-Air and is buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
In 2003, Reagan's death had been 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 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 will overtake Reagan's record if he lives to or beyond November 11, 2006. 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, named him the "most fascinating person" of the network's first 25 years on a broadcast anchored by Bill Hemmer. [8] [9]
- On June 26, participating voters selected Reagan as the "Greatest American" during a live television special sponsored by AOL and broadcast live on the Discovery Channel.
The honors were "a final win for the Gipper," as Hemmer said on May 14 to close his broadcast.
