Ronald Reagan
The neutrality of this article is disputed.
 White House Portrait | |
| Order: | 40th President |
|---|---|
| Term of Office: | January 20, 1981–January 20, 1989 |
| Predecessor: | Jimmy Carter |
| Successor: | George H. W. Bush |
| Date of Birth: | Monday, February 6, 1911 |
| Place of Birth: | Tampico, Illinois |
| Date of Death: | Saturday, June 5, 2004 |
| Place of Death: | Bel Air, Los Angeles, California |
| First Lady: | Nancy Reagan |
| Profession: | Actor and labor union leader |
| Political Party: | Republican |
| Vice President: | George H. W. Bush |
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th (1981–1989) President of the United States and the 33rd (1967–1975) Governor of California. Reagan was also an actor in films before entering politics. He lived longer than any other President (93 years, 119 days) and was the oldest elected President (69 years, 349 days when taking office).
Early life and career
Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, the second of two sons to John (Jack) Reagan and Nelle Wilson. His great-grandfather had immigrated to the United States from Ballyporeen, Co. Tipperary, Ireland in the 1860s. Prior to his grandfather's emigration, the family name had been spelled "Regan." On a visit to Ballyporeen in 1984, he was presented with a family tree that showed he was distantly related to both John F. Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II.[1]. Such a ceremonial genealogy would necessarily contain much guesswork, as his ancestry beyond four generations is not known with certainty.
In 1920, after years of moving from town to town, the family settled in the Illinois town of Dixon. In 1921, at the age of 10, Reagan was baptized in his mother's Disciples of Christ church in Dixon, and in 1924 he began attending Dixon's Northside High School.
In 1926, at age 15, Reagan took a summer job as a lifeguard in Lowell Park, two miles away from Dixon on the nearby Rock River. He continued to work as a lifeguard on the Rock for the next seven years, reportedly saving 77 people from drowning.
In 1928, Reagan entered Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois majoring in economics and sociology, graduating in 1932. The child of an alcoholic father, Reagan developed an early gift for storytelling and acting. He was a radio announcer of 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 gained an ability to foul off pitches) until the wire was restored.
Reagan had a successful career in Hollywood as a second-rank leading man, aided by his clear voice and athletic physique. His first screen credit was the starring role the 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 "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 that his best acting work was in Kings Row (1942). Other notable Reagan films include Hellcats of the Navy, This Is the Army, and the campy Bedtime for Bonzo. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6374 Hollywood Blvd.
Reagan was commissioned as a reserve cavalry officer in the U.S. Army in 1935. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he was activated and assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit in the Army Air Force, which made training and education films. He remained in Hollywood for the duration of the war. He attained the rank of captain.
Reagan married actress Jane Wyman in 1940. They had a daughter, Maureen in 1941, adopted a son Michael in 1946, and had a daughter born four months prematurely in 1947 who lived but one day. They divorced in 1948. Reagan remarried in 1952 to actress Nancy Davis at a time when she may have already become pregnant. (Their marriage was on March 4th; daughter Patti was born on October 21 of the same year.) In 1958 they had a second child, Ron.
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. Reagan – then not just the talent agency's client but boss Lew Wasserman's first million-dollar client – became head of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). Back in 1952, a Hollywood scandal concerned his granting of a SAG blanket waiver to MCA, which allowed it both to represent and employ talent for its burgeoning 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—equivalent to at least $600,000 in 2004 dollars. Before that, Ronald Reagan had been working Las Vegas, Nevada as song-and-dance act's master of ceremonies. Dennis McDougal, author of the unauthorized Wasserman biography The Last Mogul: Lew Wasserman, MCA, and the Hidden History of Hollywood commented that "He and his board engineered it, thus giving MCA carte blanche control over US television for the next six years." McDougal goes on to say that Reagan didn't recall his role in the waiver when he was before US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's grand jury in 1962. It was In 1945 that Wasserman brokered Ronald Reagan's unprecedented seven-year, $1 million deal with Warner Brothers. 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, in which, uncharacteristically, he portrayed the heel; at one point, he belts Angie Dickinson across a room.
Early political career
Ronald Reagan began his political life as a Democrat, supporting Franklin Delano 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 (SAG) from 1947 until 1952, and then again from 1959 to 1960. In this position he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee on Communist influence in Hollywood. He also kept tabs on actors he considered "disloyal" and informed on them to the FBI, but he would not implicate them publicly to HUAC. He supported the practice of blacklisting in Hollywood, defending it in a letter to Hugh Hefner because he claimed he would help anyone wrongly accused "avail himself of machinery to solve this problem." In that letter he claimed that the list of suspected leftists in Hollywood was not a "blacklist" but rather a list created by disgruntled moviegoers.
His employment by the General Electric company further enhanced his political image. By the 1964 election, Reagan was an outspoken supporter of conservative Republican Barry Goldwater. His nationally televised speech "A Time for Choosing" electrified conservatives and led to his being asked to run for Governor of California.
Governorship
In 1966, he was elected the 33rd 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. He had vowed to send "the welfare bums back to work," and "to clean up the mess at Berkeley." For the latter, he had UC President Clark Kerr fired and forced the University of California to charge tuition for the first time by cutting its budget. During the People's Park protests, he sent 2,200 National Guard troops into Berkeley. During his first term, he froze government hiring, but also approved tax hikes to balance the budget.
During his governorship, Reagan actively dismantled the public psychiatric hospital system, proposing that a 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, neither by Reagan nor his successors, contributing nationwide to current problems with homeless people, and an overfilling of jails and penitentiaries by people who would be better served with the earlier hospital system. Many of these ill people still are on the street. Also, a statewide teachers strike started in Los Angeles due to Reagan's cost cutting and poor budgeting at the same time.
Presidential nomination
Reagan tried to gain the Republican presidential nomination in 1968, and again in 1976 over the incumbent Gerald Ford, but was defeated at the Republican Convention. He succeeded in gaining the Republican nomination in 1980. The campaign was greatly affected by the Iran hostage crisis; most analysts believe President Jimmy Carter's inability to solve the hostage crisis played a large role to Reagan's victory against him in the 1980 election.
In 1984, he was re-elected in a landslide over Carter's Vice President Walter Mondale, winning in 49 of 50 states and receiving nearly 60 percent of the popular vote. Much of his first election and this second term landslide is attributed to the then-named "Reagan Democrats", a newly emerged but mostly unorganized political force.
Presidency
Main article: Reagan Administration
Domestic record
Ronald Reagan portrayed himself as being conservative, anti-communist and expanding the military to those ends, in favor of tax cuts and smaller government. He also liked to think of himself as supportive of business interests and tough on crime.
Perhaps the high point of the Reagan presidency's first 100 days was the freeing of American hostages in Tehran at the conclusion of the Iran Hostage Crisis, within minutes of his inauguration. While leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC on March 30, 1981, Reagan, his Press Secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent, and District of Columbia police 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 using remarking to his surgeons, that "I hope you're all Republicans," [2] and to his wife Nancy, "Honey, I forgot to duck."
A large focus of Reagan's first term was on reviving a stagflation-troubled economy his administration inherited. His administration sought to fight the high inflation recession with large across-the-board tax cuts controversially combined with reductions in social welfare spending. Reagan's fiscal theories soon became known as "Reaganomics." The end result was a marginal reduction in the rate that government spending was increasing. Also, in order to get increases in military spending to fight the Cold War, the administration had to allow increases in spending on social programs, resulting in record deficit spending and a tripling of the national debt by the end of his second term.
The "war on drugs" was also declared during his presidency as well as the signing of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which compensated victims of the Japanese American Internment during World War II. Reagan also fired air traffic controllers when they went on strike. He was also criticized by the gay rights movement for not quickly responding to the HIV-AIDS epidemic but did eventually appoint the Watkins Commission to study the issue. Its recommendations for increased funding were largely not acted upon, however.
Foreign policy and interventions
Reagan forcefully confronted the Soviet Union, marking a sharp departure from the detente 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 made the Cold War economically and rhetorically hot. The administration oversaw a massive military buildup that represented a policy of "Peace Through Strength." Many Reagan supporters credit Reagan administration military polices with winning the Cold War. Others state that the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union was due to internal problems.
Among European leaders, his main ally and undoubtedly his closest friend was the Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who always 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 USSR it also aimed to increase strategic defense. A controversial proposal, named the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), sought to deploy a space-based defense system Reagan hoped would make the U.S. invulnerable to nuclear weapon missile attack. 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.
Support for anti-communist groups including armed insurgencies against what Reagan considered to be communist governments was also a part of administration policy as the Reagan Doctrine. Following this policy, the administration funded "freedom fighters" such as the mujahideen in Afghanistan (calling them the "moral equivalent of our [America's] founding fathers") and the Contras in Nicaragua. The administration also helped fund central European anti-communist groups such as the Polish Solidarity movement and took a hard line against Communist regimes in Angola and Cambodia. Covert funding of the Contras in Nicaragua would lead to the Iran Contra Affair while overt support led to a World Court ruling against the United States in Nicaragua v. United States.
At the same time the administration considered organizations such as Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, Palestinian guerrillas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and left-wing guerrillas fighting US-backed right-wing military dictatorships in Honduras and El Salvador to be terrorists. The Reagan administration also considered guerrillas of the ANC's armed wing Mkhonto we-Sizwe (MK or Spear of the Nation) and other anti-apartheid militants (e.g. the PAC) fighting the apartheid government in South Africa to be terrorists. These same groups were and still are in many places, considered to be freedom fighters just as Reagan's freedom fighters were often considered terrorists (especially the Contras).
U.S. involvement in the 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.
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 covertly involved in the Iran-Iraq War. At various times the administration supported both nations but mainly sided withIraq, believing that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was less dangerous than Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Weapons and tactical support were sent to Iraq, including the transfer of chemical and biological materials, ostensibly for humanitarian purposes. These materials were in fact used to make chemicals and biological weapons.
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 Independent Counsel to investigate the scandal. The President was eventually found to be culpable of lax control over his own staff. A significant number of officials in the Reagan Administration were either convicted or forced to resign as a result of the scandal.
"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 style varied. Especially in his first term, he used strong, even bombastic language to condemn the Soviet Union and communism. 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" ([3]) introduced the phrase "rendezvous with destiny" to popular culture. Other speeches recalled America as the "shining city on a hill", "big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair" ([4]), whose citizens had the "right to dream heroic dreams" ([5]). After the 1986 Challenger accident, he quoted an Air Force hymn to console the nation: "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])
It was perhaps Reagan's humor, especially his one-liners, that disarmed his opponents and endeared himself to audiences the most. Discussion of his advanced age led him to quip in his first 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 often smiling, but somewhat dour and serious, immediate Presidential predecessor. His style of relating to others had often been described as avuncular – in the demeanor of an uncle, one not responsible for discipline but who can provide well-meaning guidance.
Legacy and retirement from public life
Reagan is in many ways the father of the modern Republican Party. Among the positions that he propelled forward are the following:
- Fiscal policy focused more on tax cuts and increased military spending (Reaganomics) than on reducing the national debt.
- Opposition to progressive taxation, government regulation in business and environmental concerns, and abortion.
- The importance of the evangelical Christians and social conservatives in the electoral coalition that supported him.
- Support of missile defense systems.
- A relatively idealist view of the role America could play in spreading Western liberalism and freedom.
- Appeal to blue collar workers who traditionally had been Democrats.
In 1989, after the inauguration of George H. W. Bush as president, Ronald Reagan returned to California, to writing his autobiography, to riding his horses and chopping wood on his ranch and to the new house in Bel-Air. In the fall, Fujisankei Communications Group of Japan had hired him to make two speeches and attend some ceremonies. Reagan's weekly fee was about two million dollars, more than he had earned during eight years as president.
Reagan's retirement was marred by an allegation against him dating back decades. In April 1991, major newspapers carried the report that Selene Walters claimed that, in 1952, Reagan, when he was President of SAG, had raped her in her home. The charge was publicized in muckraker Kitty Kelley's unauthorized biography of Nancy Reagan.
In 1992, Reagan was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. As the years went on, the disease slowly destroyed the former president's mental capacity, forcing him to live his post-presidency in quiet isolation. He informed the nation of his condition himself on November 5, 1994 in the form of a personal letter. A tragic anecdote told of this time is of his removing from a friend's aquarium a ceramic model of the White House; he reportedly said, "I know this is important, but I don't know why." His ailing 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.
On February 6, 1998, Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia (near Washington, D.C.) was renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Also, the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) was christened on March 4, 2001, making it one of the very few United States Navy ships to be named after a living person. On June 15, 2001, the United States Army Kwajalein Missile Range was renamed the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, or Reagan Test Site.
Reagan died at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California on June 5, 2004 at 1:09 PM local (Pacific) time. He died of pneumonia, with his wife Nancy and their children Patti and Ron present. He is survived also by his son Michael, from his first marriage to Wyman; his daughter Maureen preceded him in death in 2001.
Reagan was given a full presidential state funeral on June 9, the first since Lyndon Johnson. With 4,000 people in attendance, Reagan's national service at the National Cathedral on June 11 included eulogies by George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher and Brian Mulroney. Numerous other past and present world leaders attended the service, including Mikhail Gorbachev. He was buried that evening at sunset in a private ceremony, with 600 people in attendance, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, which included remarks from his three surviving children.
Reagan holds the record for the longest-living President in American history. John Adams lived a record 90 years and 247 days before Reagan surpassed it on October 11, 2001.
Further reading
- Reed Brody. Contra Terror in Nicaragua. South End Press. 1985. ISBN 0896083136.
- Curt Gentry. Last Days of the Late Great State of California, (political history of the gubernatorial period).
- Edmund Morris. Dutch, (full biography).
- 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 Whitcover. Blue Smoke & Mirrors: How Reagan Won & Why Carter Lost the Election of 1980. Viking Press. 1981.
- 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
External links
Biographical information
- Ronald Reagan biography
- Ronald Reagan Filmography from Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
- Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
- Ronald Reagan Legacy Project
- Ronald Reagan Memorial Foundation
News items
- CNN Obituary
- Survey of various press obits from The Guardian
- Public Domain video in Quicktime of CNN reporting attempted assassination of President Reagan (Courtesy of CNN.com)
Speeches and documents
- First Inaugural Address
- Second Inaugural Address
- Evil Empire Speech
- President's News Conference September 17 1985 (makes reference to AIDS)
- Message to the Congress on America's Agenda for the Future, February 6 1986 (repeated mention of AIDS)
- Shuttle Challenger Disaster Address
- Profile, Portrait and Inaugural Addresses as California Governor
- Lebanon: 1982-1984 by John H. Kelly
Commentary (pro-Reagan)
Commentary (anti-Reagan)
- 66 (Unflattering) Things About Ronald Reagan
- Journalist Joan Didion on the Reagan administration
- Remembering the Dead: Democracy Now! Special Coverage of Reagan's Presidency
- Journalist William Blum on Reagan and the cold war
- Slate's “Gipper the Ripper” – Selene Walters revisited
| Preceded by: Jimmy Carter |
President of the United States 1981-1989 |
Succeeded by: George H. W. Bush |
| Preceded by: Pat Brown |
Governor of California 1967-1975 |
Succeeded by: Jerry Brown |