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Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th
president of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd
governor of California The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard. Established in the Constitution of California, the g ...
from 1967 to 1975, after having a career in entertainment. Reagan was born in
Tampico, Illinois Tampico () is a village located in Tampico Township, Whiteside County, Illinois, United States next to Rock Falls and Sterling, Illinois. As of the 2010 census the village had a total population of 790, up from 772 at the 2000 census. It is known ...
. He graduated from
Eureka College Eureka College is a private liberal arts college in Eureka, Illinois, that is related by covenant to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Enrollment in 2018 was approximately 567 students. Eureka College was the third college in the Unite ...
in 1932 and began to work as a sports announcer in Iowa. In 1937, Reagan moved to California, where he found work as a film actor. From 1947 to 1952, Reagan served as the president of the
Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...
, working to root out alleged communist influence within it. In the 1950s, he moved to a career in television and became a spokesman for
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
. From 1959 to 1960, he again served as the guild's president. In 1964, his speech "
A Time for Choosing "A Time for Choosing", also known as "The Speech", was a speech presented during the 1964 U.S. presidential election campaign by future president Ronald Reagan on behalf of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. 'A Time For Choosing' launched R ...
" earned him national attention as a new conservative figure. Building a network of supporters, Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966. During his governorship, he raised taxes, turned the state
budget deficit Within the budgetary process, deficit spending is the amount by which spending exceeds revenue over a particular period of time, also called simply deficit, or budget deficit; the opposite of budget surplus. The term may be applied to the budget ...
into a surplus, and challenged student protesters by ordering in National Guard troops. After challenging and nearly defeating sitting president
Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
in the 1976 Republican presidential primaries, Reagan easily won the Republican nomination in the 1980 presidential election and went on to defeat incumbent Democratic president
Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...
. At the time of his first inauguration, Reagan was the oldest person to become president of the United States. Early in his presidency, he began implementing new political and economic initiatives. His
supply-side economics Supply-side economics is a macroeconomic theory that postulates economic growth can be most effectively fostered by lowering taxes, decreasing regulation, and allowing free trade. According to supply-side economics, consumers will benefit fr ...
policies, dubbed "
Reaganomics Reaganomics (; a portmanteau of ''Reagan'' and ''economics'' attributed to Paul Harvey), or Reaganism, refers to the neoliberal economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. These policies are commonly associat ...
", promoted economic
deregulation Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a ...
and reductions in both taxes and
government spending Government spending or expenditure includes all government consumption, investment, and transfer payments. In national income accounting, the acquisition by governments of goods and services for current use, to directly satisfy the individual o ...
. He also survived an assassination attempt, fought public sector labor unions, spurred the
war on drugs The war on drugs is a Globalization, global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of prohibition of drugs, drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the Unite ...
, and ordered an
invasion of Grenada The United States invasion of Grenada began at dawn on 25 October 1983. The United States and a coalition of six Caribbean nations invaded the island nation of Grenada, north of Venezuela. Codenamed Operation Urgent Fury by the U.S. military, ...
. Reagan was reelected in 1984, defeating Carter's vice president,
Walter Mondale Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota ...
, in an electoral landslide. Foreign affairs dominated Reagan's second term, including the bombing of Libya, the
Iran–Iraq War The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council ...
, the
Iran–Contra affair The Iran–Contra affair ( fa, ماجرای ایران-کنترا, es, Caso Irán–Contra), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair (in Iran), or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States ...
, and the ongoing
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
. In a speech in 1987, four years after he publicly described the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
as an " evil empire", Reagan challenged Soviet General Secretary
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
to open the
Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
. He transitioned Cold War policy from
détente Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduc ...
to
rollback In political science, rollback is the strategy of forcing a change in the major policies of a state, usually by replacing its ruling regime. It contrasts with containment, which means preventing the expansion of that state; and with détente, w ...
by escalating an
arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and t ...
with the Soviet Union while engaging in talks with Gorbachev. The talks culminated in the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty, formally the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles; / ДРСМ ...
, which shrank both countries' nuclear arsenals. By the end of Reagan's presidency, the American economy saw a significant reduction of inflation, and the unemployment rate fell. His cuts in domestic discretionary spending and taxes, as well as his increases in military spending, contributed to a near tripling of the federal debt. Reagan had planned an active post-presidency, but he disclosed in 1994 that he had been diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
. His public appearances became more infrequent as the disease progressed. In 2004, Reagan died at his home in Los Angeles. His tenure constituted a realignment towards conservatism in the United States, and he is often considered a conservative icon. Evaluations of Reagan's presidency among historians and the general public place him among the upper tier of American presidents.


Early life

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in an apartment on the second floor second floor of a commercial building in
Tampico, Illinois Tampico () is a village located in Tampico Township, Whiteside County, Illinois, United States next to Rock Falls and Sterling, Illinois. As of the 2010 census the village had a total population of 790, up from 772 at the 2000 census. It is known ...
, as the younger son of Nelle Clyde Wilson and
Jack Reagan John Edward Reagan (July 13, 1883 – May 18, 1941) was the father of Ronald Reagan, motion picture actor, who served as the 33rd governor of California and 40th president of the United States and radio station manager Neil Reagan. Ancestry Jac ...
. Nelle, who was of Irish, English, and Scottish descent, lead prayer meetings, ran mid-week prayers at her church when the pastor was out of town, and supported the
Social Gospel The Social Gospel is a social movement within Protestantism that aims to apply Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean envir ...
. She committed to the
Disciples of Christ The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...
and influenced Reagan to become a Christian. According to Stephen Vaughn, Reagan's values came from his pastor, and the First Christian Church's religious, economic, and social positions "coincided with the words, if not he beliefs of the latter-day Reagan." Jack was an Irish American focused on making money so that he could take care of the family. He nicknamed Reagan "Dutch" for his "fat little Dutchman" appearance and Dutch boy haircut. Neil was Reagan's older brother. Jack's alcoholism complicated his ability to make money, and the family briefly lived in Chicago, Galesburg, and
Monmouth Monmouth ( , ; cy, Trefynwy meaning "town on the Monnow") is a town and community in Wales. It is situated where the River Monnow joins the River Wye, from the Wales–England border. Monmouth is northeast of Cardiff, and west of London. I ...
before returning to Tampico. In 1920, Reagan and his family settled in the city of Dixon, which he called "his hometown". They lived in
a house A House were an Irish rock band that was active in Dublin from the 1985 to 1997, and recognized for the clever, "often bitter or irony laden lyrics of frontman Dave Couse ... bolstered by the and'sseemingly effortless musicality". The single " ...
near the H. C. Pitney Variety Store Building. In Dixon, Reagan attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in drama and football. His first job involved working as a lifeguard at the Rock River in Lowell Park. In 1928, Reagan attended
Eureka College Eureka College is a private liberal arts college in Eureka, Illinois, that is related by covenant to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Enrollment in 2018 was approximately 567 students. Eureka College was the third college in the Unite ...
with Nelle's approval on religious grounds. He was as an "indifferent student" who studied economics and maintained a "C average" grade. He was involved in sports, drama, and campus politics. He was elected student body president and joined a student strike that resulted in the college president's resignation. Reagan's parents stance on "racial questions" were seemingly unusual when racial segregation was common in many Midwestern communities. His father strongly opposed the
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
and their
anti-semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
and anti-black racism. When his college football team was staying at a hotel that would not allow two black teammates to stay there, he invited them to his parents' home nearby in Dixon and his parents welcomed them. Reagan would later express his opposition to racism as a sports announcer, even meeting with black groups in private.


Entertainment career


Radio and film

After graduating from Eureka in 1932, Reagan took a job in
Davenport, Iowa Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. Located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, it is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and a ...
as a sports announcer for four football games in the
Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
. He then worked for WHO radio in
Des Moines Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...
as an announcer for the
Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
of
Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
. His specialty was creating play-by-play accounts of games using only basic descriptions that the station received by wire as the games were in progress. In 1936, while traveling with the Cubs to their spring training in California, Reagan took a screen test that led to a seven-year contract with the
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Di ...
studio. Reagan arrived at Hollywood in 1937 and made his film debut in the
B film A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...
''
Love Is on the Air ''Love is on the Air'' is a 1937 American film directed by Nick Grinde, and starring Ronald Reagan (in his film debut), June Travis, Eddie Acuff, Robert Barrat, Raymond Hatton and Willard Parker. It was the first of three remakes of the 1933 P ...
'' (1937). After that film, he appeared in 22 films before serving in the military in April 1942 such as ''
Dark Victory ''Dark Victory'' is a 1939 American melodrama film directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Bette Davis, and featuring George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers, and Cora Witherspoon. The screenplay by Casey ...
'' (1939) with
Bette Davis Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her pe ...
and
Humphrey Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart (; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film In ...
, ''
Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, th ...
'' (1940), ''
Knute Rockne, All American ''Knute Rockne, All American'' is a 1940 American biographical film that tells the story of Knute Rockne, Notre Dame's legendary football coach. It stars Pat O'Brien as Rockne and Ronald Reagan as player George Gipp, as well as Gale Page, Donald ...
'' (1940), and ''
Desperate Journey ''Desperate Journey'' is a 1942 American World War II action and aviation film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan. The supporting cast includes Raymond Massey, Alan Hale Sr., and Arthur Kennedy. The melodramati ...
'' (1942) with co-star
Errol Flynn Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian-American actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Olivia ...
. In ''
Kings Row ''Kings Row'' is a 1942 film starring Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan and Betty Field that tells a story of young people growing up in a small American town at the turn of the twentieth century. The picture was directed by Sam Wood. ...
'' (1942), Reagan's character gets his legs amputated and recites the line "Where's the rest of me?"—later used as the title of his 1965 autobiography. Although it was condemned by ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' critic
Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...
, the film made Reagan a star and Warner tripled his weekly pay.
Gallup polls Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. Starting in the 1980s, Gallup transitioned its bu ...
from 1941 to 1942 placed him "in the top 100 stars". His rise to stardom was accelerated by his warm relationship with the studio.
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
interrupted the movie stardom that Reagan would never be able to achieve again. Warner became uncertain about Reagan's ability to generate ticket sales, though he was dissatisfied with the roles he received. As a result,
Lew Wasserman Lewis Robert Wasserman (March 22, 1913 – June 3, 2002) was an American talent agent and studio executive, described as "the last of the legendary movie moguls" and "arguably the most powerful and influential Hollywood titan in the four decades ...
, renegotiated his contract with Warner, allowing him to also make films with
Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
and
Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
as a freelancer. With this, Reagan appeared in '' Louisa'' (1950) and ''
Bedtime for Bonzo ''Bedtime for Bonzo'' is a 1951 American comedy film directed by Fred de Cordova and starring Ronald Reagan, Diana Lynn, and a chimpanzee named Tamba as Bonzo. Its central character, psychology professor Peter Boyd (Reagan), tries to teach human m ...
'' (1951). By 1952, he ended his relationship with Warner although he would appear in a total of 53 films. Reagan's last appearance was in ''
The Killers The Killers are an American rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingd ...
'' (1964).


Military service

When Reagan was working in Iowa, a
United States Army Reserve The United States Army Reserve (USAR) is a Military reserve force, reserve force of the United States Army. Together, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard constitute the Army element of the reserve components of the United States Armed F ...
member pitched him to join a local cavalry regiment that still used horses during the branch's decline. Reagan was interested in riding a horse at a young age and, without "a burning desire to be an army officer", he enlisted in April 1937. He was assigned as a private in Des Moines' 322nd Cavalry Regiment and reassigned to
second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army until ...
in the Officers Reserve Crops. He later became a part of the 323rd Cavalry Regiment in California. As relations between the United States and Japan worsened, Reagan was ordered for active duty while he was filming ''Kings Row''. Reagan's agent Wasserman and Warner's lawyers successfully sent draft deferments to complete the film in October 1941. However, to avoid accusations of Reagan being a
draft dodger Draft evasion is any successful attempt to elude a government-imposed obligation to serve in the military forces of one's nation. Sometimes draft evasion involves refusing to comply with the military draft laws of one's nation. Illegal draft ev ...
, the studio let him go in April 1942. As Reagan reported for duty, the army was using machines as opposed to horses, and he had severe near-sightedness. His first assignment was at
Fort Mason Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California originated as a coastal defense site during the American Civil War. The nucleus of the property was owned by John C. Frémont and disputes over compensation by the United States continued into 1968. In 188 ...
as a liaison officer, a role allowed that him to transfer to the
United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
(AAF). He would became an AAF public relations officer and be subsequently assigned to the
18th AAF Base Unit The 18th AAF Base Unit (Motion Picture Unit), originally known as the First Motion Picture Unit, Army Air Forces, was the primary film production unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) during World War II, and was the first military unit mad ...
in
Culver City Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most ...
. During his time in Culver City, Reagan felt that it was "impossible to remove an incompetent or lazy worker"; J. David Woodard suggests that "the incompetence, the delays, and inefficiencies" annoyed him. Despite this, Reagan participated Provisional Task Force Show Unit in Burbank and continued to make films such as the musical ''
This Is the Army ''This Is the Army'' is a 1943 American wartime musical comedy film produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, and directed by Michael Curtiz, adapted from a wartime stage musical with the same name, designed to boost morale in the U.S. duri ...
'' (1943), though the unit was not involved in its production. Reagan was also ordered to temporary duty in New York City to participate in the sixth War Loan Drive before being reassigned to
Fort MacArthur Fort MacArthur is a former United States Army installation in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California (now the port community of Los Angeles). A small section remains in military use by the United States Air Force as a housing and administrative annex ...
until his discharge on December 9, 1945, as a captain. Throughout his military service, Reagan produced over 400 training films and obtained and kept a copy of a film depicting the horrors of
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, believing that doubts would someday arise as to whether it had occurred.


Screen Actors Guild presidency

Reagan became a member of the
Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...
's (SAG) board of directors as an alternate member for Heather Angel in 1941, and resumed the role for
Boris Karloff William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established h ...
in 1945. He was elected to the position of third vice president in 1946. When President Robert Montgomery resigned on March 10, 1947, Reagan was elected the guild's president in a special election. Reagan's initial tenure as the SAG president saw various labor-management disputes, the
Taft–Hartley Act The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft–Hartley Act, is a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions. It was enacted by the 80th United States Congress over the veto of Preside ...
's implementation, and the
Hollywood blacklist The Hollywood blacklist was an entertainment industry blacklist, broader than just Hollywood, put in effect in the mid-20th century in the United States during the early years of the Cold War. The blacklist involved the practice of denying emplo ...
. On April 10, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
interviewed Reagan and he provided them with the names of actors whom he believed to be
communist sympathizers The term ''fellow traveller'' (also ''fellow traveler'') identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that o ...
. During a hearing held by the
House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...
, Reagan testified that some members who "consistently opposed the policy of the guild board and officers of the guild" were associated with the Communist Party and that he was well-informed on a "jurisdictional strike". When asked if he was aware of communist efforts within the
Screen Writers Guild The Screen Writers Guild was an organization of Hollywood screenplay authors, formed as a union in 1933. In 1954, it became two different organizations: Writers Guild of America, West and the Writers Guild of America, East. Founding Screenwriter ...
, Reagan called the efforts "hearsay". Reagan would remain SAG president until he resigned on November 10, 1952;
Walter Pidgeon Walter Davis Pidgeon (September 23, 1897 – September 25, 1984) was a Canadian-American actor. He earned two Academy Award for Best Actor nominations for his roles in ''Mrs. Miniver'' (1942) and ''Madame Curie'' (1943). Pidgeon also starred in ...
succeeded him, but Reagan stayed on the board. In 1958,
MCA Inc. MCA Inc. (originally an initialism for Music Corporation of America) was an American media conglomerate founded in 1924. Originally a talent agency with artists in the music business as clients, the company became a major force in the film ind ...
purchased the rights to air certain Paramount-produced films on television, resulting in significant profits that actors were not entitled to receive. The SAG would fight with film producers over residual payments and in November 1959, the board and Wasserman convinced Reagan to replace the resigning
Howard Keel Harold Clifford Keel (April 13, 1919November 7, 2004), known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer, known for his rich bass-baritone singing voice. He starred in a number of MGM musicals in the 1950s and in the CBS tel ...
as SAG president. In his second stint, Reagan managed to secure the payments for actors whose theatrical films were released from 1948 to 1959 were televised. The producers were initially required to pay the actors fees, but they ultimately settled for pensions instead. However, they were still required to pay residuals for films after 1959. Reagan resigned from the presidency on June 7, 1960 and
George Chandler George Chandler (June 30, 1898 – June 10, 1985) was an American actor who starred in over 140 feature films, usually in smaller supporting roles, and he is perhaps best known for playing the character of Uncle Petrie Martin on the televi ...
succeeded him. Reagan also left the board.


Marriages and children

Reagan married ''
Brother Rat ''Brother Rat'' is a 1938 American comedy drama film about cadets at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, directed by William Keighley, and starring Ronald Reagan, Priscilla Lane, Eddie Albert (in his film debut), Jane Wyman, and Wa ...
'' (1938) co-star
Jane Wyman Jane Wyman ( ; born Sarah Jane Mayfield; January 5, 1917 – September 10, 2007)"Actress, P ...
on January 26, 1940. Together, they had two biological daughters,
Maureen Maureen is a female given name. In Gaelic, it is Máirín, a pet form of ''Máire'' (the Irish cognate of Mary), which is derived from the Hebrew Miriam. The name has sometimes been regarded as corresponding to the male given name Maurice. Some ...
in 1941, and Christine, born prematurely and dead the next day in 1947. They adopted one son,
Michael Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...
, in 1945. In 1948, Wyman filed to divorce Reagan, citing "mental cruelty". Wyman was uninterested in politics, and she would occasionally separate and reconcile with Reagan. Although Reagan was unprepared, they split amicably, and the divorce was finalized in July 1949. Reagan would also remain close to his children. Later that year, Reagan met
Nancy Davis Nancy Davis Reagan (; born Anne Frances Robbins; July 6, 1921 – March 6, 2016) was an American film actress and First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989. She was the second wife of president Ronald Reagan. Reagan was born in New ...
after she contacted him in his capacity as the guild's president about her name appearing on a communist blacklist in Hollywood; she had been mistaken for another Nancy Davis. According to Reagan biographer
Lou Cannon Louis Cannon (born 1933) is an American journalist, non-fiction author, and biographer. He was state bureau chief for the ''San Jose Mercury News'' in the late 1960s, and later senior White House correspondent of ''The Washington Post'' during the ...
, Davis chose not to pursue a career in acting, instead staying loyal to Reagan. They married on March 4, 1952 and had two children, Patti in 1952, and
Ron Ron is a shortening of the name Ronald. Ron or RON may also refer to: Arts and media * Big Ron (''EastEnders''), a TV character * Ron (''King of Fighters''), a video game character *Ron Douglas, the protagonist in ''Lucky Stiff'' played by Joe A ...
in 1958.


Television

Reagan initially refused to work in television as he feared that it would reduce his chances of obtaining roles in film. In addition, he refused to work on
Broadway theatre Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Th ...
, and after receiving offers to work in nightclubs in 1954, he became the host of the MCA television production ''
General Electric Theater ''General Electric Theater'' was an American anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan that was broadcast on CBS radio and television. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public Relations. Radio After an audition show ...
'' at his agent's recommendation. The anthology series featured multiple guest stars, and Ronald and Nancy Reagan, who continued to use the stage name Nancy Davis, acted together in three episodes. Television was a new medium, and when asked how Reagan was able to recruit the stars to appear on the show, he said, "Good stories, top direction, production quality." However, the viewership declined in the 1960s and the show was canceled in 1962. In 1965, Reagan became the host another MCA production, ''
Death Valley Days ''Death Valley Days'' is an American old-time radio and television anthology series featuring true accounts of the American Old West, particularly the Death Valley country of southeastern California. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program ...
''. Through television, he established the "cowboy hero" image he yearned for when he was working with Warner. His time in Hollywood helped pave way for his future in politics.


Early political activities

Reagan began as a Democrat, viewing
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
as "a true hero". He joined left-wing political committees such as the American Veterans Committee and Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions (HICCASP) while fighting with the
AFL–CIO The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million ac ...
against
right-to-work law In the context of labor law in the United States, the term "right-to-work laws" refers to state laws that prohibit union security agreements between employers and labor unions which require employees who are not union members to contribute to ...
s. In 1945, Reagan planned to lead an HICCASP anti-nuclear rally with
Helen Gahagan Douglas Helen Gahagan Douglas (born Helen Mary Gahagan; November 25, 1900 – June 28, 1980) was an American actress and politician. Her career included success on Broadway, as a touring opera singer, and in Hollywood films. Her portrayal of the villain ...
, but Warner prevented him from going. Regardless, he continued his support for the abolition of nuclear weapons when he was the
president of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
. Reagan also supported President
Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
in the 1948 presidential election and Douglas for the United States Senate in 1950 although she would lose to
Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
. It was Reagan's belief that communism was a powerful backstage influence in Hollywood that led him to rally his friends against them. Reagan began shifting to the right when he supported the presidential campaigns of
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
in 1952 and Nixon in 1960. When Reagan was contracted by
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
(GE), he began giving speeches to all of their employees. His speeches had a positive take on businesses and a negative take on government. Under
Lemuel Boulware Lemuel Ricketts Boulware (1895 in Springfield, Kentucky – November 7, 1990 in Delray Beach, Florida) was General Electric's vice president of labor and community relations from 1956 until 1961. Boulware's business tutelage and political cult ...
, the employees were encouraged to vote for business-friendly officials. Boulware opposed communism and believed that "Our
free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any o ...
s and our free persons" were at stake. In 1961, Reagan adapted his speeches into another speech to criticize Medicare. In his view, its legislation would have meant "the end of individual freedom in the United States". In 1962, Reagan was dropped by GE and he formally registered as a Republican. He said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me." In 1964, Reagan gave a speech for presidential contender
Barry Goldwater Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and United States Air Force officer who was a five-term U.S. Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party nominee for presiden ...
that was eventually known as "
A Time for Choosing "A Time for Choosing", also known as "The Speech", was a speech presented during the 1964 U.S. presidential election campaign by future president Ronald Reagan on behalf of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. 'A Time For Choosing' launched R ...
". Reagan argued that the Founding Fathers "knew that governments don't control things. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose" and that "We've been told increasingly that we must choose between left or right." Even though the speeches were not enough to turn around the faltering Goldwater campaign, it increased Reagan's political profile. David S. Broder and
Stephen H. Hess Stephen H. Hess (born April 20, 1933 in New York City) is a senior fellow emeritus in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution. He studies media, the U.S. presidency, political dynasties and the U.S. government. He first joined ...
called it "the most successful national political debut since
William Jennings Bryan William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator and politician. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, running ...
electrified the 1896 Democratic convention with his famous 'Cross of Gold' address".


1966 California gubernatorial election

California Republicans lost control of power to
Pat Brown Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown (April 21, 1905 – February 16, 1996) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 32nd governor of California from 1959 to 1967. His first elected office was as district attorney for San Francisco, and he w ...
and the Democrats in 1958. Brown's reelection over Nixon in 1962 and Goldwater's loss in the 1964 presidential election left the Republicans without a clear pathway to victory. In January 1966, Reagan announced his campaign for the governorship. In his announcement, he repeated his stances on individual freedom and big government. During a meeting with black Republicans in March, he was accused of appealing to white racial resentment and backlash against the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and United States labor law, labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on Race (human categorization), race, Person of color, color, religion, sex, and nationa ...
. Certain in his own lack of prejudice, Reagan responded resentfully that bigotry was not in his nature before walking out. He returned to the meeting and later argued that certain provisions of the bill infringed on a citizens' right to private property. After the
Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...
struck down the
Rumford Act California Proposition 14 was a November 1964 initiative ballot measure that amended the California state constitution to nullify the 1963 Rumford Fair Housing Act, thereby allowing property sellers, landlords and their agents to openly discrim ...
in May, he voiced his support for the bill's repeal, though he later preferred amending it. In the June primary, Reagan resoundingly defeated
George Christopher George Christopher (born George Christopheles; December 8, 1907 – September 14, 2000) was a Greek-American politician who served as the 34th mayor of San Francisco from 1956 to 1964. He is the most recent Republican to be elected mayor of San ...
, a moderate who
William F. Buckley Jr. William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...
thought had portrayed Reagan as extreme. Facing Governor Brown in the general election, Reagan portrayed himself as a political outsider. Biographer Cannon indicated that many Californians felt that the state civil unrest, as seen in the Watts riots, was linked to crime. He also indicated that the
Free Speech Movement The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a massive, long-lasting student protest which took place during the 1964–65 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. The Movement was informally under the central leadership of B ...
, high taxes, unrestrained spending, and lack of accountability were issues that Reagan used against Brown. Furthermore, Republican primary opponent Christopher promised to help unseat Brown, and Reagan was endorsed by Eisenhower and
William Scranton William Warren Scranton (July 19, 1917 – July 28, 2013) was an American Republican Party politician and diplomat. Scranton served as the 38th Governor of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1967, and as United States Ambassador to the United Nations f ...
, who believed that Reagan could be a presidential contender if he won the governorship. Meanwhile, the press continued to perceive Reagan as "monumentally ignorant of state issues", but with the skills he had developed, the charismatic Reagan benefited on television and in his campaign speeches, compared to the unpleasant governor. Ultimately, Reagan won the election by another resounding amount.


Governor of California (1967–1975)

Governor Brown had spent much of California's funds on new projects, prompting them to use
accrual accounting Accrual (''accumulation'') of something is, in finance, the adding together of interest or different investments over a period of time. Accruals in accounting For example, a company delivers a product to a customer who will pay for it 30 days l ...
as a way to avoid raising taxes. Consequently, it generated a larger deficit, and after becoming governor on January 2, 1967, Reagan called for reduced government spending and tax hikes to balance the budget. He left his conservative principles on fiscal responsibility behind to work with Democratic State Assembly Speaker
Jesse M. Unruh Jesse Marvin Unruh (, ; September 30, 1922 – August 4, 1987), also known as Big Daddy Unruh, was an American politician who served as speaker of the California State Assembly and as the California State Treasurer. Early life and education Born ...
to fulfill Unruh's wish of securing a series of tax increases that raised rates while also cutting property taxes. As a result, the sales tax increased, as did the taxes on banks, corporate profits, and inheritances; even liquor and cigarette taxes saw jumps. According to historian
Kevin Starr Kevin Owen Starr (September 3, 1940 – January 14, 2017) was an American historian and California's state librarian, best known for his multi-volume series on the history of California, collectively called "Americans and the California Dream." ...
, Reagan "gave Californians the biggest tax hike in their history—and got away with it." In the 1970 gubernatorial election, Unruh used the property tax cuts and Governor Reagan's tax relief requests against him for benefiting the wealthy. The strategy worked as Reagan would raise taxes once more. By 1973, the budget had a surplus, which Reagan preferred using "to give back to the people" instead of funding more projects. In 1967, Governor Reagan signed the
Mulford Act The Mulford Act was a 1967 California bill that prohibited public carrying of loaded firearms without a permit. Named after Republican assemblyman Don Mulford, and signed into law by governor of California Ronald Reagan, the bill was crafted w ...
, which prohibited the public carrying of loaded firearms. On May 2, before the bill was passed, 26 members of the
Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...
were arrested after interrupting a debate on the bill in the
California State Capitol The California State Capitol is the seat of the California state government, located in Sacramento, the state capital of California. The building houses the chambers of the California State Legislature, made up of the Assembly and the Senate, al ...
. The Mulford Act was California's most aggressive piece of gun control legislation, with critics saying that it was "overreaching the political activism of organizations". Hopeful that handgun buyers could reconsider their own actions in the wake of the Panthers' protest, Reagan approved additional legislation on a waiting period of fifteen days. Although the Panthers gained national attention, their membership was stagnant. After Reagan won the governorship, he and his advisors planned a run for the upcoming Republican presidential nomination. Some of the issues raised in that year's presidential election included
law and order In modern politics, law and order is the approach focusing on harsher enforcement and penalties as ways to reduce crime. Penalties for perpetrators of disorder may include longer terms of imprisonment, mandatory sentencing, three-strikes laws a ...
and the ongoing
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, which helped contribute to a Republican victory. Yet, the candidates' views on the war contrasted from each other, with Reagan presented himself as a
war hawk In politics, a war hawk, or simply hawk, is someone who favors war or continuing to escalate an existing conflict as opposed to other solutions. War hawks are the opposite of doves. The terms are derived by analogy with the birds of the same name ...
in hopes of slowing down the spread of communism. Ultimately, he ran as an unofficial candidate in an attempt to cut into Nixon's southern support and be a compromise candidate if there were to be a
brokered convention A brokered convention (sometimes referred to as an open convention and closely related to a contested convention), in US politics, can occur during a presidential election when a political party fails to choose a nominee on the first round of dele ...
. By the time of the convention though, Nixon received enough delegate votes to secure the nomination. Reagan's only primary victory came in California, where his name was the only one on the ballot. Reagan was critical of administrators tolerating student demonstrations at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
that had been going on since 1964. On May 15, 1969, he sent the
California Highway Patrol The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is a state law enforcement agency of the U.S. state of California. The CHP has primary patrol jurisdiction over all California highways and roads and streets outside city limits, and can exercise law enfor ...
and other officers to quell the People's Park protests. This led to one student being shot and killed, and the injuries of numerous police officers and two reporters in the conflict. Governor Reagan then commanded the state National Guard troops to occupy the
city of Berkeley Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emeryvi ...
for seventeen days to subdue the protesters, which allowed the students to attend class safely. Reagan had also blamed the student's death on the protestors. One year after the incident, Reagan responded to questions about the protests, saying, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement." In the same year, more violent protests broke out at the
University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...
, which neither the university or Reagan administration expected. Reagan himself visited Santa Barbara in February, calling the protestors "cowardly little bums" as the National Guard brought the area under control. Nevertheless, other deadly student protests emerged across the United States as the Vietnam War progressed. During his victorious reelection campaign, Governor Reagan, remaining critical of government, promised to prioritize welfare reform. He was concerned that the state's programs were disincentivizing work and that the growing welfare rolls would lead to an unbalanced budget and even worse, another big tax hike in 1972. At the same time, the
Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...
increased interest rates to combat inflation, sending the American economy into a mild recession. Reagan worked with the new speaker,
Bob Moretti Robert Moretti (June 3, 1936 – May 12, 1984) was an American politician. A Democrat, Moretti served as Speaker of the California State Assembly from 1971 to 1974. Life and career Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1936 to Marino and Mary Moretti, ...
, to tighten up the eligibility requirements so that the financially needy could continue receiving payments. This was only accomplished after Reagan softened his criticism of the
Family Assistance Plan The Family Assistance Plan (FAP) was a welfare program introduced by President Richard Nixon in August 1969, which aimed to implement a negative income tax for households with working parents. The FAP was influenced by President Lyndon B. Johnson' ...
introduced by Nixon, now the president of the United States, who then lifted regulations to shepherd California's experiment. In 1975, the
Employment Development Department In California, the Employment Development Department (EDD) is a department of government that administers the Unemployment Insurance (UI), Disability Insurance (DI), and Paid Family Leave (PFL) programs. The department also provides employment ...
released a report revealing that the experiment that ran from 1971 to 1974 was unsuccessful. Reagan left the governorship to Pat's son,
Jerry Brown Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...
, on January 6, 1975. His tenure as California's governor saw its public schools deteriorate due to a lack of funding, especially the ones in the
Los Angeles Unified School District Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a public school district in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the 2nd largest public school district in ...
. As for higher education, William Trombley of the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'' believed that the budget cuts Reagan enacted damaged Berkeley's student-faculty ratio and research, and University of California chancellor emeritus
Dean McHenry Dean E. McHenry (18 October 1910 – 17 March 1998) was an American professor of political science, and the founding chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz. McHenry was born in Lompoc, California north of Santa Barbara, and receive ...
suggested that Reagan's "bark proved worse than his bite." Reagan also used the veto power 943 times without any them being overridden by the legislature. However, he stated that he regretted signing the Family Law Act that granted
no-fault divorce In a no-fault divorce the dissolution of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party. Laws providing for no-fault divorce allow a family court to grant a divorce in response to a petition by either party of the marriage w ...
s and Therapeutic Abortion Act that allowed abortions in the cases of rape and incest due to a mental health provision. Additionally, Reagan strongly supported capital punishment, but his efforts to enforce it were thwarted by ''
People v. Anderson ''The People of the State of California v. Robert Page Anderson'', 493 P.2d 880, 6 Cal. 3d 628 ( Cal. 1972), was a landmark case in the state of California that outlawed capital punishment for nine months until the enactment of a constitutional ...
'' in 1972.


Seeking the presidency (1975–1981)


1976 Republican primaries

Reagan's 1976 campaign relied on a strategy crafted by campaign managerJohn Sears to win several primaries early to lessen the possibility of President
Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
's likely nomination. Reagan won North Carolina, Texas and California, but the strategy failed as he lost New Hampshire, Florida and his native state of Illinois. The Texas primary lent renewed hope to Reagan when he swept all 96 delegates, with four more awaiting at the state convention. Much of the credit for that victory came from the work of three cochairmen including Ernest Angelo and
Ray Barnhart Ray Anderson Barnhart (January 12, 1928 – May 26, 2013) was an American businessman who served as Federal Highway Administrator from 1981 to 1987. He started his career as City Councilman in Pasadena, Texas. He was a member of the Texas House ...
, whom Reagan as president would appoint in 1981 as director of the
Federal Highway Administration The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program a ...
. As the Republican National Convention neared, Ford appeared close to victory. Acknowledging the moderate wing, Reagan chose moderate U.S. senator
Richard Schweiker Richard Schultz Schweiker (June 1, 1926 – July 31, 2015) was an American businessman and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 14th U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Ronald Reagan from 198 ...
as his
running mate A running mate is a person running together with another person on a joint Ticket (election), ticket during an election. The term is most often used in reference to the person in the subordinate position (such as the vice presidential candidate ...
in the event he was nominated. Ford would prevail, earning 1,187 delegates to Reagan's 1,070. Reagan's concession speech emphasized the dangers of nuclear war and the threat posed by the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. In the general election, Reagan received 307 write-in votes in New Hampshire, 388 votes as an independent on Wyoming's ballot, and one electoral vote from a
faithless elector In the United States Electoral College, a faithless elector is an elector who does not vote for the candidates for U.S. President and U.S. Vice President for whom the elector had pledged to vote, and instead votes for another person for one or ...
in the state of Washington.


Opposition to the Briggs Initiative

In 1978 California state elections, conservative
state legislator A state legislature is a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of each of the fifty state governments of the United Stat ...
John Briggs sponsored Proposition 6, which sought to ban gays and lesbians from working in California's public schools. Early opposition was led by LGBT activists and a few progressive politicians, but to many people's surprise, Reagan moved to publicly oppose the measure. He issued an informal letter of opposition to the initiative, told reporters that he was opposed, and wrote an editorial in the ''
Los Angeles Herald Examiner The ''Los Angeles Herald Examiner'' was a major Los Angeles daily newspaper, published in the afternoon from Monday to Friday and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the Hearst syndicate. It was formed when the afternoon ' ...
'' opposing it. The timing of his opposition was significant and surprised many because he was then preparing another run for president, a race in which he would need the support of conservatives and those moderates who were uncomfortable with homosexual teachers. Reagan actively courted leaders from the religious right, including
Jerry Falwell Jerry Laymon Falwell Sr. (August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007) was an American Baptist pastor, televangelism, televangelist, and conservatism in the United States, conservative activist. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, ...
, who would later form the
Moral Majority Moral Majority was an American political organization associated with the Christian right and Republican Party. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr. and associates, and dissolved in the late 1980s. It played a key role in ...
to fight the
culture war A culture war is a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices. It commonly refers to topics on which there is general societal disagreement and polarization in societal value ...
issues. As Reagan biographer
Lou Cannon Louis Cannon (born 1933) is an American journalist, non-fiction author, and biographer. He was state bureau chief for the ''San Jose Mercury News'' in the late 1960s, and later senior White House correspondent of ''The Washington Post'' during the ...
wrote, Reagan was "well aware that there were those who wanted him to duck the issue", but "chose to state his convictions." Cannon also wrote that Reagan was "repelled by the aggressive public crusades against homosexual life styles which became a staple of right wing politics in the late 1970s." Reagan's editorial stated, in part, "homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this."


1980 election

The 1980 presidential election pitted Reagan against incumbent president Jimmy Carter and was conducted amid a multitude of domestic concerns as well as the ongoing
Iran hostage crisis On November 4, 1979, 52 United States diplomats and citizens were held hostage after a group of militarized Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over t ...
. Reagan's campaign stressed some of his fundamental principles: lower taxes to stimulate the economy, less government interference in people's lives,
states' rights In American political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments rather than the federal government according to the United States Constitution, reflecting especially the enumerated powers of Congress and the ...
, and a strong national defense. Reagan launched his campaign with an indictment of a federal government that he believed had "overspent, overstimulated, and overregulated." After receiving the Republican nomination, Reagan selected one of his opponents from the primaries,
George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
, as his running mate. Reagan's relaxed and confident appearance during the televised debate on October 28 boosted his popularity and helped to widen his lead in the polls. On November 4, Reagan won a decisive victory over Carter, carrying 44 states and receiving 489 electoral votes to Carter's 49 in six states and the District of Columbia. He won the popular vote, receiving 50.7 percent to Carter's 41.0 percent, with independent
John B. Anderson John Bayard Anderson (February 15, 1922 – December 3, 2017) was an American lawyer and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives, representing Illinois's 16th congressional district from 1961 to 1981. A member o ...
garnering 6.6 percent. Republicans also won a majority of seats in the Senate for the first time since 1952, even though Democrats retained a majority in the House of Representatives. According to
Bob Herbert Robert Herbert (born March 7, 1945) is an American journalist and former op-ed columnist for ''The New York Times''. His column was syndicated to other newspapers around the country. Herbert frequently writes on poverty, the Iraq War, racism a ...
of ''The New York Times'', Reagan's campaign was "elbow deep in the same old-race baiting
Southern strategy In American politics, the Southern strategy was a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans. As the civil rights movement and dismantling of ...
of Goldwater and Nixon."


Presidency (1981–1989)


First inauguration

Reagan was of age when he was sworn into office for his first term on January 20, 1981, making him the oldest first-term president at the time. He held this distinction until 2017 when
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
was inaugurated at the age of . In his inaugural address, he addressed the country's economic malaise, arguing: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem."


Organized prayer

Reagan campaigned vigorously to restore organized prayer to the schools, first as a moment of prayer and later as a moment of silence. His election reflected an opposition to ''
Engel v. Vitale ''Engel v. Vitale'', 370 U.S. 421 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and encourage its recitation in public school ...
'', which prohibited state officials from composing an official state prayer and requiring that it be recited in the public schools. In 1981, he proposed a constitutional amendment on school prayer, which stated: "Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions. No person shall be required by the United States or by any state to participate in prayer." In 1984, he again raised the issue to Congress. In 1985, he expressed his disappointment that the Supreme Court ruling still banned a moment of silence for public schools, and said that efforts to reinstitute prayer in public schools were "an uphill battle". In 1987, he renewed his call for Congress to support voluntary prayer in schools.


Assassination attempt

On March 30, 1981, Reagan, his press secretary
James Brady James Scott Brady (August 29, 1940 – August 4, 2014) was an American public official who served as assistant to the U.S. president and the seventeenth White House Press Secretary, serving under President Ronald Reagan. In 1981, Brady b ...
, Washington police officer
Thomas Delahanty Thomas K. Delahanty (born c. 1935) is an American retired policeman who served in the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia. He was one of the people who were wounded during the assassination attempt on U.S. President Ronal ...
, and Secret Service agent
Tim McCarthy Timothy J. McCarthy (born June 20, 1949) is an American former policeman and special agent in the United States Secret Service. McCarthy is best known for defending President Ronald Reagan during the assassination attempt on Reagan's life on M ...
were struck by gunfire from would-be assassin
John Hinckley Jr. John Warnock Hinckley Jr. (born May 29, 1955) is an American man who attempted to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Washington, D.C. on March 30, 1981, two months after Reagan's first inauguration. Using a .22 caliber revolver, Hinck ...
outside the
Washington Hilton The Washington Hilton is a hotel in Washington, D.C. It is located at 1919 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., roughly at the boundaries of the Kalorama, Dupont Circle, and Adams Morgan neighborhoods. The Washington Hilton, located on the former site of t ...
. Although "close to death" upon arrival at
George Washington University Hospital The George Washington University Hospital is a for-profit hospital, located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is affiliated with the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. The current facility opened on ...
, Reagan was stabilized in the emergency room before undergoing emergency exploratory surgery. He recovered and was released from the hospital on April 11, becoming the first American president to survive being shot in an assassination attempt while in office. The attempt had a significant influence on Reagan's popularity; polls indicated his approval rating to be around 73 percent.Leuchtenberg, pp. 597–598 Reagan believed that God had spared his life so that he might go on to fulfill a higher purpose.


Fighting public sector labor unions

In August 1981, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) went on strike, violating a federal law prohibiting government unions from striking. Declaring the situation an emergency as described in the Taft–Hartley Act, Reagan stated that if the air traffic controllers "do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated". They did not return, and on August 5, Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order and used supervisors and military controllers to handle the nation's commercial air traffic until new controllers could be hired and trained. The breaking of the PATCO strike demoralized organized labor, and the number of strikes fell dramatically in the 1980s.Patterson, pp. 157–158 Many of the strikes that did occur, including the
Arizona copper mine strike of 1983 The 1983 Arizona copper mine strike began as a bargaining dispute between the Phelps Dodge Corporation and a group of union copper miners and mill workers, led by the United Steelworkers. The subsequent strike lasted nearly three years and resul ...
, the 1983
Greyhound The English Greyhound, or simply the Greyhound, is a breed of dog, a sighthound which has been bred for coursing, greyhound racing and hunting. Since the rise in large-scale adoption of retired racing Greyhounds, the breed has seen a resurge ...
bus driver strike, and the 1985–1986 Hormel strike, ended with dismissal of the strikers. With the assent of Reagan's sympathetic
National Labor Relations Board The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the federal government of the United States with responsibilities for enforcing U.S. labor law in relation to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices. Under the Natio ...
appointees, many companies also won wage and benefit cutbacks from unions, especially in the manufacturing sector.Rossinow, p. 87–88 During Reagan's time in office, the share of employees who were part of a labor union dropped from approximately one-fourth of the total workforce to approximately one-sixth of the total workforce.


"Reaganomics" and the economy


Taxation

Reagan implemented
neoliberal Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
policies based on
supply-side economics Supply-side economics is a macroeconomic theory that postulates economic growth can be most effectively fostered by lowering taxes, decreasing regulation, and allowing free trade. According to supply-side economics, consumers will benefit fr ...
, advocating a ''
laissez-faire ''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups. ...
'' philosophy and seeking to stimulate the economy with large, across-the-board tax cuts.Cannon & Beschloss (2001) p. 99. He signed the
Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA), or Kemp–Roth Tax Cut, was an Act that introduced a major tax cut, which was designed to encourage economic growth. The federal law enacted by the 97th US Congress and signed into law by US Preside ...
, which significantly lowered federal income tax rates and required exemptions and brackets to be indexed for inflation starting in 1985. The
Tax Reform Act of 1986 The Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA) was passed by the 99th United States Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on October 22, 1986. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was the top domestic priority of President Reagan's second term. The a ...
simplified the tax code by reducing the number of tax brackets to four and slashing several tax breaks. Citing the economic theories of
Arthur Laffer Arthur Betz Laffer (; born August 14, 1940) is an American economist and author who first gained prominence during the Reagan administration as a member of Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981–1989). Laffer is best known for the Laf ...
, Reagan promoted the proposed tax cuts as potentially stimulating the economy enough to expand the tax base, offsetting the revenue loss due to reduced rates of taxation, a theory that entered political discussion as the
Laffer curve In economics, the Laffer curve illustrates a theoretical relationship between rates of taxation and the resulting levels of the government's tax revenue. The Laffer curve assumes that no tax revenue is raised at the extreme tax rates of 0% and ...
. Reagan's policies proposed that economic growth would occur when marginal tax rates were low enough to spur investment, which would then lead to higher employment and wages. Critics labeled this "
trickle-down economics Trickle-down economics is a term used in critical references to economic policies that favor the upper income brackets, corporations, and individuals with substantial wealth or capital. In recent history, the term has been used by critics of ...
", the belief that tax policies that benefit the wealthy will spread to the poor. Conversely,
Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...
and
Robert Mundell Robert Alexander Mundell (October 24, 1932 – April 4, 2021) was a Canadian economist. He was a professor of economics at Columbia University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences i ...
argued that Reagan's tax policies invigorated America's economy and contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s. Despite being viewed as an anti-tax hero, Reagan raised taxes eleven times as president, all in the name of fiscal responsibility. He signed the
Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (), also known as TEFRA, is a United States federal law that rescinded some of the effects of the Kemp-Roth Act passed the year before. Between summer 1981 and summer 1982, tax revenue fell by ...
as he was faced with concerns about the mounting federal debt. Many of his conservative supporters condemned the bill, but he argued that his administration would be unable to win further budget cuts without the tax hike. Among other provisions, the bill doubled the federal cigarette tax and rescinded a portion of the corporate tax cuts from the 1981 tax bill. By 1983, the amount of federal tax had fallen for all or most taxpayers, but most strongly affected the wealthy. According to
Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was th ...
, "Over all, the 1982 tax increase undid about a third of the 1981 cut; as a share of
GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is often ...
, the increase was substantially larger than Mr. Clinton's 1993 tax increase." As deficits continued to be an issue, Reagan signed another tax hike bill, the
Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 The Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 (), also known as the DEFRA, was a federal law enacted in the United States in 1984. Originally part of the stalled Tax Reform Act of 1983, it was adjusted and reintroduced as the Tax Reform Act of 1984. After passi ...
.


Deficits

Rising deficits became an issue as Reagan was unwilling to match his tax cuts with cuts to defense spending or
Social Security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specificall ...
. These deficits were exacerbated by the
early 1980s recession The early 1980s recession was a severe economic recession that affected much of the world between approximately the start of 1980 and 1983. It is widely considered to have been the most severe recession since World War II. A key event leading to ...
, which cut into federal revenue. Nonetheless, the national debt more than tripled between fiscal year 1980 and fiscal year 1989; and national debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP) nearly doubled. Reagan never submitted a
balanced budget A balanced budget (particularly that of a government) is a budget in which revenues are equal to expenditures. Thus, neither a budget deficit nor a budget surplus exists (the accounts "balance"). More generally, it is a budget that has no budge ...
during his time in office. The United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad in order to cover newly spawned federal budget deficits. Reagan described the tripled debt the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.Cannon & Beschloss (2001), p. 128.
Robert Solow Robert Merton Solow, GCIH (; born August 23, 1924) is an American economist whose work on the theory of economic growth culminated in the exogenous growth model named after him. He is currently Emeritus Institute Professor of Economics at the Ma ...
cited the deficits as a major reason why his successor, Bush, reneged on his campaign promise by raising taxes.


Inflation and unemployment

Reagan took office in the midst of
stagflation In economics, stagflation or recession-inflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high or increasing, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It presents a dilemma for economic policy, since action ...
. The economy briefly experienced growth early in his first year in office before it plunged into a recession in July 1981.
Federal Reserve chairman The chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is the head of the Federal Reserve, and is the active executive officer of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The chair shall preside at the meetings of the Boa ...
Paul Volcker Paul Adolph Volcker Jr. (September 5, 1927 – December 8, 2019) was an American economist who served as the 12th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. During his tenure as chairman, Volcker was widely credited with having ended the ...
sought to fight inflation by pursuing a "tight money" policy of high interest rates to restrict lending and investment, reduce inflation, raise unemployment and temporarily reduce economic growth. Unemployment reached a high of nearly 11 percent in 1982.Brands, pp. 317–319 That same year, the United States began its then-longest peacetime expansion, emerging from the recession the next year,Brands, pp. 452–453 but not all shared equally in the economic recovery, and
economic inequality There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of we ...
and the number of homeless individuals both increased during the 1980s. Fearful of damaging confidence in the economic recovery, Reagan nominated Volcker to a second term in 1983.Brands, pp. 668–671 Inflation dropped to approximately 3.5 percent in 1985, while the unemployment rate fell to about 5 percent in 1988. In 1987, Reagan appointed
Alan Greenspan Alan Greenspan (born March 6, 1926) is an American economist who served as the 13th chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. He works as a private adviser and provides consulting for firms through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC. ...
to succeed Volcker. Greenspan raised interest rates in another attempt to curb inflation, setting off the
1987 stock market crash Black Monday is the name commonly given to the global, sudden, severe, and largely unexpected stock market crash on Monday, October 19, 1987. In Australia and New Zealand, the day is also referred to as ''Black Tuesday'' because of the time z ...
although the markets recovered in the following weeks.


Government spending

Reagan's policy of "
peace through strength "Peace through strength" is a phrase that suggests that military power can help preserve peace. It has been used by many leaders from Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century AD to former US President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. The concept has ...
" resulted in an increase in defense spending between 1981 and 1985. He opposed government intervention and cut the budgets of non-military programs including
Medicaid Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and pers ...
, food stamps, federal education programs, and
the Environmental Protection Agency ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
. He protected entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, but his administration attempted to purge many people with disabilities from the Social Security disability rolls. He also froze the minimum wage, slashed federal assistance to local governments, cut the budget for public housing and Section 8 rent subsidies in half, and eliminated the
Community Development Block Grant The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), one of the longest-running programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, funds local community development activities with the stated goal of providing affordable housing, anti-po ...
.


Deregulation

Reagan sought to loosen federal regulation of economic activities, and he appointed key officials who shared this agenda. According to historian
William Leuchtenburg William Edward Leuchtenburg (born September 28, 1922) is an American historian. He is the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a leading scholar of the life and career of Fr ...
, by 1986, the Reagan administration eliminated almost half of the federal regulations that had existed in 1981. The 1982
Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act The Garn–St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 (, , enacted October 15, 1982) is an Act of Congress that deregulated savings and loan associations and allowed banks to provide adjustable-rate mortgage loans. It is disputed whether the a ...
deregulated
savings and loan association A savings and loan association (S&L), or thrift institution, is a financial institution that specializes in accepting savings deposits and making mortgage and other loans. The terms "S&L" or "thrift" are mainly used in the United States; simi ...
s and allowed banks to provide
adjustable-rate mortgage A variable-rate mortgage, adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM), or tracker mortgage is a mortgage loan with the interest rate on the note periodically adjusted based on an index which reflects the cost to the lender of borrowing on the credit markets.Wie ...
s. After the bill's passage, savings and loans associations engaged in riskier activities, and the leaders of some institutions embezzled funds. The administration's stance toward the industry contributed to the savings and loan crisis.


Civil rights

The Reagan administration was often criticized for inadequately enforcing, if not actively undermining,
civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
legislation. In 1982, he signed a bill extending the
Voting Rights Act The suffrage, Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of Federal government of the United States, federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President of the United ...
for 25 years after a grassroots lobbying and legislative campaign forced him to abandon his plan to ease that law's restrictions. He also signed legislation establishing a federal
Martin Luther King holiday Martin Luther King Jr. Day (officially Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., and sometimes referred to as MLK Day) is a federal holiday in the United States marking the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. It is observed on the third Monda ...
, though he did so with reservations. In March 1988, he vetoed the
Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 The Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, or Grove City Bill, is a United States legislative act that specifies that entities receiving federal funds must comply with civil rights legislation in all of their operations, not just in the program ...
, but his veto was overridden by Congress. Reagan had argued that the legislation infringed on states' rights and the rights of churches and business owners. Early in his presidency, Reagan appointed
Clarence M. Pendleton Jr. Clarence McClane Pendleton Jr. (November 10, 1930 – June 5, 1988), was the politically conservative African American chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, a position that he held from 1981 until his death during the adminis ...
as the first African American to chair the
United States Commission on Civil Rights The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (CCR) is a bipartisan, independent commission of the United States federal government, created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 during the Eisenhower administration, that is charged with the responsibility for ...
. Pendleton tried to steer the commission into a conservative direction in line with Reagan's views on social and civil rights policy during his tenure from 1981 until his sudden death in 1988. Pendleton soon aroused the ire of many civil rights advocates and feminists when he ridiculed the
comparable worth Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals in the same workplace be given equal pay. It is most commonly used in the context of sexual discrimination, in relation to the gender pay gap. Equal pay relates to the full ...
proposal as being "
Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros. starting from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series ''Merrie Melodies'', during the golden age of American animation.
".


War on drugs

In response to concerns about the increasing
crack epidemic The crack epidemic was a surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States throughout the entirety of the 1980s and the early 1990s. This resulted in a number of social consequences, such as increasing crime and violence in Ameri ...
, Reagan began the war on drugs campaign in 1982, a policy led by the federal government to reduce the illegal drug trade. Though Nixon had previously declared war on drugs, Reagan advocated more aggressive policies. He said that "drugs were menacing our society" and promised to fight for drug-free schools and workplaces, expanded drug treatment, stronger law enforcement and drug interdiction efforts, and greater public awareness. In 1986, Reagan signed the
Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was a law pertaining to the War on Drugs passed by the United States Congress, U.S. Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Among other things, they changed the system of federal supervised re ...
to fund the war on drugs and specify a mandatory minimum penalty for drug offenses. The bill was criticized for promoting significant racial disparities in the prison population, and critics also charged that the policies did little to reduce the availability of drugs on the street while resulting in a tremendous financial burden for Americans. Defenders of the effort point to success in reducing rates of adolescent drug use which they attribute to the Reagan administration's policies; according to Herbert Kleber, marijuana use among high school seniors declined from 33 percent in 1980 to 12 percent in 1991. First Lady Nancy Reagan made the war on drugs her main priority by founding the "
Just Say No "Just Say No" was an advertising campaign prevalent during the 1980s and early 1990s as a part of the U.S.-led war on drugs, aiming to discourage children from engaging in illegal recreational drug use by offering various ways of saying ''no' ...
" drug awareness campaign to discourage children and teenagers from engaging in
recreational drug use Recreational drug use indicates the use of one or more psychoactive drugs to induce an altered state of consciousness either for pleasure or for some other casual purpose or pastime by modifying the perceptions and emotions of the user. When a ...
by offering various ways of saying "no". Nancy Reagan traveled to 65 cities in 33 states, raising awareness about the dangers of drugs, including alcohol.


Escalation of the Cold War

Reagan escalated the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, accelerating a reversal from the policy of
détente Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduc ...
that began during
Carter's presidency Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. A Democrat from Georgia, Carter took office after defeating incumbent Republican President G ...
, following the
Saur Revolution The Saur Revolution or Sowr Revolution ( ps, د ثور انقلاب; prs, إنقلاب ثور), also known as the April Revolution or the April Coup, was staged on 27–28 April 1978 (, ) by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) ...
and subsequent Soviet invasion. He ordered a massive buildup of the
United States Armed Forces The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...
and implemented new policies that were directed towards the Soviet Union; he revived the
B-1 Lancer The Rockwell B-1 Lancer is a supersonic variable-sweep wing, heavy bomber used by the United States Air Force. It is commonly called the "Bone" (from "B-One"). It is one of three strategic bombers serving in the U.S. Air Force fleet along wit ...
program that had been canceled by the Carter administration, and he produced the
MX missile The LGM-118 Peacekeeper, originally known as the MX for "Missile, Experimental", was a MIRV-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) produced and deployed by the United States from 1985 to 2005. The missile could carry up to twelve Mark ...
. In response to Soviet deployment of the
SS-20 The RSD-10 ''Pioneer'' (russian: ракета средней дальности (РСД) «Пионер» tr.: ''raketa sredney dalnosti (RSD) "Pioner"''; en, Medium-Range Missile "Pioneer") was an intermediate-range ballistic missile with a ...
, Reagan oversaw
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
's deployment of the
Pershing missile The MGM-31A Pershing was the missile used in the Pershing 1 and Pershing 1a field artillery missile systems. It was a solid-fueled two-stage theater ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the PGM-11 Redstone missile as ...
in West Germany. In 1982, Reagan tried to cut off Moscow's access to hard currency by impeding its proposed gas line to Western Europe. It hurt the Soviet economy, but it also caused ill will among American allies in Europe who counted on that revenue; Reagan retreated on this issue. In March 1983, Reagan introduced the
Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the "''Star Wars'' program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballistic ...
(SDI), a defense project that would have used systems from the ground and space to protect the United States from an attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. Reagan believed that this defense shield could make nuclear war impossible. There was much disbelief surrounding the program's scientific feasibility, leading opponents to dub the SDI "Star Wars" and argue that its technological objective was unattainable. The Soviets became concerned about the possible effects SDI would have; leader
Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the po ...
said it would put "the entire world in jeopardy".Beschloss, p. 294.


Soviet denunciation

In a 1982 address to the
British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...
, Reagan said, "the march of freedom and democracy will leave
Marxism–Leninism Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology which was the main communist movement throughout the 20th century. Developed by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various co ...
on the
ash heap of history The phrase "ash heap of history", literarily speaking, refers to ghost towns or artifacts that have lost their relevance. Visiting Rome in the 14th century, Italian writer Petrarch called the city "a rubbish heap of history". In 1887 the Englis ...
." On March 3, 1983, he predicted that communism would collapse. In a speech to the
National Association of Evangelicals The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is an association of evangelical denominations, organizations, schools, churches and individuals, member of the World Evangelical Alliance. The association represents more than 45,000 local churches ...
five days later, Reagan called the Soviet Union " an evil empire".Cannon (1991, 2000), pp. 314–317. He labeled them a failure with its demise being a godsend for the world before explaining his strategy of an arms buildup that would leave the Soviets far behind, with no choice but to negotiate arms reduction. Finally, he praised liberal democracy and promised that such a system eventually would triumph over Soviet communism. After Soviet fighters downed
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (KE007/KAL007)The flight number KAL 007 was used by air traffic control, while the public flight booking system used KE 007 was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alask ...
on September 1, 1983, which included U.S. Representative
Larry McDonald Lawrence Patton McDonald (April 1, 1935 – September 1, 1983) was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Democrat from 1975 until he was killed ...
, Reagan labeled the act a "massacre" and declared that the Soviets had turned "against the world and the moral precepts". His administration suspended all Soviet passenger air service to the United States and dropped several agreements being negotiated with the Soviets, wounding them financially. As a result of the shootdown, and the cause of the flight's going astray thought to be inadequacies related to its navigational system, Reagan announced on September 16 that the
Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...
would be made available for civilian use, free of charge, once completed in order to avert similar navigational errors in the future.Pellerin, ''United States Updates Global Positioning System Technology: New GPS satellite ushers in a range of future improvements''.


Reagan Doctrine

The Reagan administration provided overt and covert aid to
anti-communist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...
resistance movements in an effort to "
rollback In political science, rollback is the strategy of forcing a change in the major policies of a state, usually by replacing its ruling regime. It contrasts with containment, which means preventing the expansion of that state; and with détente, w ...
" Soviet-backed communist governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. However, in a break from the Carter administration's policy of arming Taiwan under the
Taiwan Relations Act The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA; ; Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: ''Thôi-van Kwan-hè-fap''; ) is an act of the United States Congress. Since the formal recognition of the People's Republic of China, the Act has defined the officially substantial but non-diplom ...
, Reagan also agreed with the communist government in China to reduce the sale of arms to Taiwan. President Reagan deployed the
Special Activities Division The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert operation, covert and paramilitary operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to 2015. Within S ...
to Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were instrumental in training, equipping and leading Afghan mujahideen forces against the
Soviet Army uk, Радянська армія , image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg , alt = , caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army , start_date ...
. Reagan's Covert Action program has been given credit for assisting in ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, though some of the United States funded armaments introduced then would later pose a threat to American troops in the war in Afghanistan. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began sharing information with the
Iranian government The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran ( fa, نظام جمهوری اسلامی ایران, Neẓām-e jomhūrī-e eslāmi-e Irān, known simply as ''Neẓām'' ( fa, نظام, lit=the system) among its supporters) is the ruling state a ...
it was secretly courting. In one instance, in 1982, this practice enabled the government to identify and purge communists from its ministries and to virtually eliminate the pro-Soviet infrastructure in Iran. Although leading conservatives argued that Reagan's foreign policy strategy was essential to protecting their security interests, critics labeled the initiatives as aggressive and imperialistic, and chided them as "warmongering". Reagan was also heavily criticized for backing anti-communist leaders accused of severe
human rights violations Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...
, including
Efraín Ríos Montt José Efraín Ríos Montt (; 16 June 1926 – 1 April 2018) was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as ''de facto'' President of Guatemala in 1982–83. His brief tenure as chief executive was one of the bloodiest periods i ...
, who was accused of genocide for massacres of members of the
Ixil people The Ixil (pronounced ) are a Maya people indigenous to Guatemala. The Ixil live in three municipalities in the Cuchumatanes mountains in the northern part of the department El Quiché. These municipalities, also known as the Ixil Triangle, are Sa ...
and other indigenous groups. Reagan had said that Montt was getting a "bum rap", and described him as "a man of great personal integrity". Previous human rights violations had prompted the United States to cut off aid to the Guatemalan government, but the Reagan administration unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to restart military aid. However, the administration successfully provided nonmilitary assistance such as the
United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...
.


Lebanese Civil War

With the approval of Congress, Reagan sent forces to
Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
in 1983 to reduce the threat of the
Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...
. The American peacekeeping forces in
Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
, a part of a multinational force during the war, were attacked on October 23. The barracks bombing killed 241 American servicemen and wounded more than 60 others by a suicide truck bomber. Reagan sent in to shell Syrian positions in Lebanon before withdrawing all marines from Lebanon. The international peacekeeping force was withdrawn from Lebanon in 1984. In reaction to the role Israel and the United States played in the Lebanese Civil War, a
Shia Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his S ...
militant group known as
Hezbollah Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...
began to take American hostages, holding eight Americans by the middle of 1985. The Reagan administration's attempts to release these hostages would be a major component of the
Iran–Contra affair The Iran–Contra affair ( fa, ماجرای ایران-کنترا, es, Caso Irán–Contra), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair (in Iran), or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States ...
.


Invasion of Grenada

On October 25, 1983, President Reagan ordered American forces to invade Grenada, where a 1979 coup d'état had established a Soviet-Cuban supported Marxist–Leninist government led by
Maurice Bishop Maurice Rupert Bishop (29 May 1944 – 19 October 1983) was a Grenadian revolutionary and the leader of New Jewel Movement – a Marxist–Leninist party which sought to prioritise socio-economic development, education, and black liberation ...
. A week before the invasion, Bishop was overthrown and executed following a coup d'état by
Bernard Coard Winston Bernard Coard (born 10 August 1945) is a Grenada, Grenadian politician who was Deputy Prime Minister in the People's Revolutionary Government (Grenada), People's Revolutionary Government of the New Jewel Movement. Coard launched a coup ...
. A formal appeal from the
Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS; French: ''Organisation des États de la Caraïbe orientale'', OECO) is an inter-governmental organisation dedicated to economic harmonisation and integration, protection of human and legal ri ...
led to the intervention of American forces; Reagan also cited a regional threat posed by a Soviet-Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean nation and concern for the safety of several hundred American medical students at St. George's University as adequate reasons to invade. This invasion was the first major military operation conducted by the United States since the Vietnam War. Several days of fighting commenced, resulting in a American victory, with 19 American fatalities and 116 wounded American soldiers. In mid-December, after a new government was appointed by the governor-general, American forces withdrew. While the invasion enjoyed public support in the United States and Grenada, it was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada, and the
United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
as "a flagrant violation of
international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
".


1984 election

Reagan accepted the Republican nomination at the party's convention in Dallas, Texas. He proclaimed that it was " morning again in America", regarding the recovering economy and the dominating performance by the American athletes at the
1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the secon ...
on home soil, among other things. Reagan's opponent in the general election was former vice president
Walter Mondale Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota ...
. Following a weak performance in the first presidential debate, Reagan's ability to win another term was questioned. Reagan rebounded in the second debate; confronting questions about his age, he quipped: "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". This remark generated applause and laughter, even from Mondale himself. That November, Reagan won a landslide reelection victory, carrying 49 of the 50 states. Mondale won only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. Reagan won 525 of the 538 electoral votes, the most of any presidential candidate in U.S. history. In terms of electoral votes, Roosevelt's 1936 victory over
Alf Landon Alfred Mossman Landon (September 9, 1887October 12, 1987) was an American oilman and politician who served as the 26th governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937. A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's nominee in the 1936 presidential ...
, in which he won 98.5 percent or 523 of the then-total 531 electoral votes, was the most-lopsided presidential election. Reagan won 58.8 percent of the popular vote to Mondale's 40.6 percent. Reagan was sworn in as president for the second time on January 20, 1985. At the time, the 73-year-old Reagan was the oldest person to take the oath of office, though the 78-year-old Joe Biden surpassed this record in 2021.


Response to the AIDS epidemic

According to AIDS activist organizations such as
ACT UP AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...
and scholars such as
Don Francis Donald Pinkston Francis (born October 24, 1942) is an American epidemiologist who worked on the Ebola outbreak in Africa in the late 1970s, and as an HIV/AIDS researcher. He retired from the U.S. Public Health Service in 1992, after 21 years of s ...
and Peter S. Arno, the Reagan administration largely ignored the
AIDS crisis The AIDS epidemic, caused by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), found its way to the United States between the 1970s and 1980s, but was first noticed after doctors discovered clusters of Kaposi's sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia in homosexu ...
, which began to unfold in the United States in 1981. They also said that AIDS research was chronically underfunded during Reagan's administration and requests for more funding by doctors at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgi ...
were routinely denied. In 1984, according to Reagan's White House physician John Hutton, Reagan thought of AIDS as though "it was the measles and would go away". However, the death of his friend
Rock Hudson Rock Hudson (born Roy Harold Scherer Jr.; November 17, 1925 – October 2, 1985) was an American actor. One of the most popular movie stars of his time, he had a screen career spanning more than three decades. A prominent heartthrob in the Golde ...
changed Reagan's view, approaching Hutton for more information on the disease.Cannon (1991, 2000), p.731. In a September 1985 press conference, a few months after Hudson's announcement that he had the disease, Reagan responded to a AIDS related question: "This is a top priority with us, yes, there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer."
Deroy Murdock Deroy Murdock (born 1963) is an American political commentator and a contributing editor with ''National Review Online''. A native of Los Angeles, Murdock lives in New York City. A first-generation American, his parents were born in Costa Rica. ...
of the ''
National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief i ...
'' responded to the charge of the underfunding of AIDS by saying that AIDS spending under President Reagan rose from $8 million in 1982 to $2.3 billion by 1989, when more than 100,000 people had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States and more than 59,000 of them had died of it. By 1986, Reagan asked his surgeon general
C. Everett Koop Charles Everett Koop (October 14, 1916 – February 25, 2013) was an American pediatric surgeon and public health administrator. He was a vice admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and served as the 13th Surgeon Ge ...
to draw up a report on the AIDS issue. Koop drew the ire of many evangelical conservatives, both in and out of the Reagan administration, by stressing the importance of sex education including condom usage in schools. Attitudes such as these helped galvanize gay rights activists; large demonstrations followed such as ACT UP's march in New York City in 1987. When President Reagan gave his first prepared speech on the epidemic, six years into his tenure, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS, and 20,849 had died of it.


Addressing apartheid

From the late 1960s onward, the American public grew increasingly vocal in its opposition to the
apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
policy of the white-minority government of South Africa, and in its insistence that the United States impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on South Africa. The strength of the anti-apartheid opposition surged during Reagan's first term in office as its component
disinvestment from South Africa Disinvestment (or divestment) from South Africa was first advocated in the 1960s, in protest against South Africa's system of apartheid, but was not implemented on a significant scale until the mid-1980s. The disinvestment campaign, after bein ...
movement, which had been in existence for quite some years, gained critical mass following in the United States, particularly on college campuses and among
mainline Protestant The mainline Protestant churches (also called mainstream Protestant and sometimes oldline Protestant) are a group of Protestant denominations in the United States that contrast in history and practice with evangelical, fundamentalist, and charis ...
denominations. President Reagan was opposed to divestiture because, as he wrote in a letter to
Sammy Davis Jr. Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, comedian, film producer and television director. At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the ...
, it "would hurt the very people we are trying to help and would leave us no contact within South Africa to try and bring influence to bear on the government". He also noted the fact that the "American-owned industries there employ more than 80,000 blacks" and that their employment practices were "very different from the normal South African customs". As an alternative strategy for opposing apartheid, the Reagan administration developed a policy of
constructive engagement Constructive engagement was the name given to the conciliatory foreign policy of the Reagan administration towards the apartheid regime in South Africa. Devised by Chester Crocker, Reagan's U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs ...
with the South African government as a means of encouraging it to move away from apartheid gradually. It was part of a larger initiative designed to foster peaceful economic development and political change throughout southern Africa. This policy however, engendered much public criticism and renewed calls for the imposition of stringent sanctions. In response, Reagan announced the imposition of new sanctions on the South African government, including an
arms embargo An arms embargo is a restriction or a set of sanctions that applies either solely to weaponry or also to "dual-use technology." An arms embargo may serve one or more purposes: * to signal disapproval of the behavior of a certain actor * to maintain ...
in late 1985. These sanctions were seen as weak by anti-apartheid activists and as insufficient by the president's opponents in Congress. In August 1986, Congress approved the
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 was a law enacted by the United States Congress. The law imposed sanctions against South Africa and stated five preconditions for lifting the sanctions that would essentially end the system of apart ...
, which included tougher sanctions. Reagan vetoed the act, but the veto was overridden by Congress. Afterward, Reagan reiterated that his administration and "all America" opposed apartheid, and said, "the debate... was not whether or not to oppose apartheid but, instead, how best to oppose it and how best to bring freedom to that troubled country." Several European countries, as well as Japan, also imposed their sanctions on South Africa soon after.


Libya bombing

Relations between Libya and the United States under President Reagan were continually contentious, beginning with the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident; by 1982, Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...
was considered by the CIA to be, along with Soviet Union leader
Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet Union, Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Gener ...
and Cuban leader
Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
, part of a group known as the "unholy trinity" and was also labeled as "our international public enemy number one" by a CIA official. These tensions were later revived in early April 1986 when a bomb exploded in a Berlin discothèque, resulting in the injury of 63 American military personnel and death of one serviceman. Stating that there was "irrefutable proof" that Libya had directed the "terrorist bombing", Reagan authorized the use of force against the country. In the late evening of April 15, 1986, the United States launched a series of
airstrike An airstrike, air strike or air raid is an offensive operation carried out by aircraft. Air strikes are delivered from aircraft such as blimps, balloons, fighters, heavy bombers, ground attack aircraft, attack helicopters and drones. The offic ...
s on ground targets in Libya. British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
allowed the
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
to use Britain's air bases to launch the attack, on the justification that the United Kingdom was supporting America's right to self-defense under Article 51 of the
Charter of the United Nations The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...
. The attack was, according to Reagan, designed to halt Gaddafi's "ability to export terrorism", offering him "incentives and reasons to alter his criminal behavior". After the attacks began, Reagan addressed the nation, stating, "When our citizens are attacked or abused anywhere in the world on the direct orders of hostile regimes, we will respond so long as I'm in this office." The attack was condemned by many countries; by a vote of 79 in favor to 28 against with 33 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 41/38, which condemned the attack and deemed it a violation of the Charter and international law.


Iran–Contra affair

President Reagan authorized CIA director William J. Casey to arm the
Contras The Contras were the various U.S.-backed and funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to 1990 in opposition to the Marxist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction Government in Nicaragua, which came to power in 1979 fol ...
, fearing that Communists would take over Nicaragua if it remained under the leadership of the
Sandinistas The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas () in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto Cé ...
. Congress passed the 1982
Boland Amendment The Boland Amendment is a term describing three U.S. legislative amendments between 1982 and 1984, all aimed at limiting U.S. government assistance to the Contras in Nicaragua. The first Boland Amendment was part of the House Appropriations Bill ...
, prohibiting the CIA and
United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...
from using their budgets to provide aid to the Contras. Still, the Reagan administration raised funds for the Contras from private donors and foreign governments. When Congress learned that the CIA had secretly placed
naval mine A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, any ...
s in Nicaraguan harbors, Congress passed a second Boland Amendment that barred granting any assistance to the Contras. Reagan decided to procure the release of seven American hostages held by Hezbollah by selling American arms to Iran, then engaged in the
Iran–Iraq War The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council ...
, in hopes that Iran would pressure Hezbollah to release the hostages. Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger Caspar Willard Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006) was an American statesman and businessman. As a prominent Republican, he served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades, including chairman of the Californ ...
and Secretary of State
George Shultz George Pratt Shultz (; December 13, 1920February 6, 2021) was an American economist, businessman, diplomat and statesman. He served in various positions under two different Republican presidents and is one of the only two persons to have held fou ...
both opposed the arrangement, leaving it to National Security Advisor
Robert McFarlane Robert Carl "Bud" McFarlane (July 12, 1937 – May 12, 2022) was an American Marine Corps officer who served as National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1983 to 1985. Within the Reagan administration, McFarlane was a leading arc ...
and
John Poindexter John Marlan Poindexter (born August 12, 1936) is a retired United States naval officer and Department of Defense official. He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor during the Reagan administration. He was convicte ...
. The Reagan administration sold over 2,000 missiles to Iran without informing Congress; Hezbollah released four hostages but captured an additional six Americans. On the initiative of
Oliver North Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. A veteran of the Vietnam War, North was a National Secu ...
, the administration redirected the proceeds from the missile sales to the Contras.Weisberg, pp. 129–134 The transactions became public knowledge by early November 1986. Reagan initially denied any wrongdoing, but on November 25, he announced that Poindexter and North had left the administration and that he would form the
Tower Commission The Tower Commission was a United States presidential commission established on December 1, 1986, by President Ronald Reagan in response to the Iran–Contra affair (in which senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arm ...
to investigate the transactions. A few weeks later, Reagan asked a panel of federal judges to appoint a special prosecutor who would conduct a separate investigation. The Tower Commission released a report in February 1987 that confirmed that the administration had traded arms for hostages and sent the proceeds of the weapons sales to the Contras. The report laid most of the blame on North, Poindexter, and McFarlane, but it was also critical of Chief of Staff
Donald Regan Donald Thomas Regan (December 21, 1918 – June 10, 2003) was the 66th United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1981 to 1985 and the White House Chief of Staff from 1985 to 1987 under Ronald Reagan. In the Reagan administration, he advocat ...
and other White House staffers. Investigators did not find conclusive proof that Reagan had known about the aid provided to the Contras, but the report noted that Reagan had "created the conditions which made possible the crimes committed by others" and had "knowingly participated or acquiesced in covering up the scandal." The affair damaged the administration and raised questions about Reagan's competency and the wisdom of conservative policies. The administration's credibility was also badly damaged on the international stage as it had violated its own arms embargo on Iran.Brands, pp. 653, 674


Soviet decline and thaw in relations


Ascension of Gorbachev

Three different
Soviet leaders During its 69-year history, the Soviet Union usually had a ''de facto'' leader who would not necessarily be head of state but would lead while holding an office such as premier or general secretary. Under the 1977 Constitution, the chairman of ...
died between 1982 and 1985, leaving the Soviet Union with an unstable leadership until
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
came to power in 1985. Although the Soviets did not accelerate military spending in response to Reagan's military buildup, their enormous military expenses, in combination with collectivized agriculture and inefficient planned manufacturing, were a heavy burden for the
Soviet economy The economy of the Soviet Union was based on state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, and Industrial engineering, industrial manufacturing. An administrative-command system managed a Soviet-type economic planning, distinc ...
. At the same time, the prices of oil, the primary source of Soviet export revenues, fell to one third of the previous level in 1985. These factors contributed to a stagnant economy during Gorbachev's tenure.


Initial meetings

Reagan's foreign policy towards the Soviets entailed both
carrots and sticks The phrase "carrot and stick" is a metaphor for the use of a combination of reward and punishment to induce a desired behaviour. In politics, "carrot or stick" sometimes refers to the realist concept of soft and hard power. The carrot in this ...
. Reagan appreciated Gorbachev's revolutionary change in the direction of the Soviet policy and shifted to diplomacy, intending to encourage him to pursue substantial arms agreements. They held four summit conferences between 1985 and 1988. Reagan believed that if he could persuade the Soviets to allow for more democracy and free speech, this would lead to reform and the end of communism. The critical summit was in Reykjavík in 1986, where they met alone with translators but no aides. To the astonishment of the world, and the chagrin of Reagan's most conservative supporters, they agreed to abolish all nuclear weapons. Gorbachev then asked the end of SDI, to which Reagan said no, claiming that it was defensive only, and that he would share the secrets with the Soviets. No deal was achieved.


Berlin Wall Speech

Reagan spoke at the
Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
on June 12, 1987, to challenge Gorbachev to open it, saying, "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev,
tear down this wall! "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall", also known as the Berlin Wall Speech, was a speech delivered by United States President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin on June 12, 1987. Reagan called for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the So ...
" In November 1989, the
Berlin Wall fell The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of ...
, as did the
inner German border The inner German border (german: Innerdeutsche Grenze or ; initially also ) was the border between the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany) from 1949 to 1990. Not including the ...
, due to the
Peaceful Revolution The Peaceful Revolution (german: Friedliche Revolution), as a part of the Revolutions of 1989, was the process of sociopolitical change that led to the opening of East Germany's borders with the West, the end of the ruling of the Socialist Unity ...
in East Germany. Authorities began allowing citizens to pass freely through border checkpoints and began dismantling the wall the following June; its demolition was completed in 1992.


Treaties

Reagan and Gorbachev met again at the 1987 Washington Summit to sign the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty, formally the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles; / ДРСМ ...
(INF Treaty); their signatories committed to the total abolition of their respective short-range and medium-range missile stockpiles. The treaty marked the first time that the United States and the Soviet Union had committed to the elimination of a type of nuclear weapon. It also established an inspections regime designed to ensure that both parties honored the agreement. In addition to the INF Treaty, Reagan and Gorbachev discussed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, but the SDI continued to be a major point of contention. In May 1988, the U.S. Senate voted 93–5 in favor of ratifying the treaty, providing a major boost to Reagan's popularity in the aftermath of the Iran–Contra affair. A new era of trade and openness between the two powers commenced, and the United States and Soviet Union cooperated on international issues such as the Iran–Iraq War. When Reagan visited the 1988 Moscow Summit, he was viewed as a celebrity by the Soviets. A journalist asked the president if he still considered the Soviet Union the evil empire to which he replied, "No, I was talking about another time, another era." At Gorbachev's request, Reagan gave a speech on free markets at
Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
.


Supreme Court nominations

On July 7, 1981, Reagan announced that he planned to appoint Sandra Day O'Connor as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, replacing the retiring Justice Potter Stewart. He had pledged during his 1980 presidential campaign that he would appoint the first woman to the court. On September 21, O'Connor was confirmed by the United States Senate, U.S. Senate with a vote of 99–0. In September 1986, Reagan nominated incumbent Associate Justice William Rehnquist to succeed the retiring Warren E. Burger as chief justice of the United States. Then, following Rehnquist's confirmation, the president named Antonin Scalia to fill the consequent associate justice vacancy. Reagan's final opportunity to fill a vacancy arose in mid-1987 when Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. announced his intention to retire. Reagan initially chose Robert Bork to succeed Powell, but Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination, Bork's nomination faced strong opposition by civil and women's rights groups and Senate Democrats. The nomination was rejected by a roll call vote of 42–58 after a contentious Senate debate in October. Soon afterward, Reagan announced his intention to nominate Douglas H. Ginsburg to that seat, though Ginsburg withdrew himself from consideration before his name was submitted to the Senate. Anthony Kennedy was subsequently nominated and confirmed as Powell's successor.


Post-presidency (1989–2004)

After leaving office on January 20, 1989, the Reagans purchased a home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, in addition to Rancho del Cielo in Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara. They regularly attended Bel Air Church and made public appearances including at the dedication and opening of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in 1991. On April 13, 1992, Reagan was assaulted by Richard Springer, an anti-nuclear protester, while accepting an award from the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas, though Reagan was not injured. Reagan later gave a well-received speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention. He continued to speak publicly in favor of the Brady Bill, a constitutional amendment requiring a
balanced budget A balanced budget (particularly that of a government) is a budget in which revenues are equal to expenditures. Thus, neither a budget deficit nor a budget surplus exists (the accounts "balance"). More generally, it is a budget that has no budge ...
, and the repeal of the 22nd Amendment. His final public speech occurred on February 3, 1994, during a tribute to him in Washington, D.C.; his last major public appearance was at the funeral of Richard Nixon on April 27, 1994.


Alzheimer's disease

In August 1994, Reagan was diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...
, an incurable neurodegenerative disease which destroys brain cells and ultimately causes death.Reagan, Nancy (2002), pp. 179–180. In November of that year, he revealed the diagnosis through a handwritten letter. Letters of support from well-wishers then poured into his home, but there was also speculation over how long Reagan had demonstrated symptoms of mental degeneration. Reagan's son Ron said he had suspected early signs of his father's dementia as early as 1984, but later clarified that he did not believe his father was actually inhibited by Alzheimer's while in office, only that "the disease was likely present in him" for years prior to the diagnosis. Nancy, citing what doctors told her, asserted that her husband falling from a horse in July 1989 hastened the onset of Alzheimer's, although acute brain injury has not been conclusively proven to accelerate Alzheimer's or dementia. Reagan's White House physician, Daniel Ruge, said it was possible that the accident affected Reagan's memory. Lay observations that Reagan suffered from Alzheimer's while still in office have been widely refuted by medical experts. All four of Reagan's White House physicians maintained they never had any concerns, "even with the hindsight of" his diagnosis while he was in office. They were all familiar with the disease, but not experts in Alzheimer's specifically. An outside specialist who reviewed both Reagan's public and medical records agreed with the conclusion that he displayed no signs of dementia back then, as did Lawrence Altman, upon reviewing his medical records and interviewing his doctors and other staff members, former aides, and friends in spite of Reagan experiencing occasional memory lapses, especially with names. Reagan's doctors said that he first began exhibiting overt symptoms of the illness in late 1992 or 1993. As the years went on, the disease slowly destroyed Reagan's mental capacity. He was able to recognize only a few people including Nancy. Yet, he continued to walk through parks and on beaches, playing golf, and until 1999, often going to his office in nearby Century City. In January 2001, Reagan fell at his Bel Air home and broke his hip. The fracture was repaired the following day and Reagan returned home later that week with difficult physical therapy. Eventually, his family decided that he would live in quiet semi-isolation with Nancy, who became a stem-cell research advocate, asserting that it could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's.


Death and funeral

Reagan died of pneumonia, complicated by Alzheimer's disease, at his home in Los Angeles, in the afternoon of June 5, 2004. President George W. Bush called Reagan's death "a sad hour in the life of America". Three days later, a brief family funeral was held at Reagan's his presidential library. On June 9, his body was flown to Washington, D.C. to lie in state in the Capitol rotunda with a state funeral conducted in the Washington National Cathedral on June 11, the day Bush declared Reagan's death a national day of mourning. Eulogies were given by former British Prime Minister Thatcher, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and both former President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush. Many other world leaders attended, including Gorbachev and Charles III of the United Kingdom, Prince Charles, representing his mother Queen Elizabeth II. Reagan, then the List of presidents of the United States by age, longest-lived American president at 93 years and 120 days, was interred at his library.


Legacy

Reagan's legacy is the subject of substantial debate among scholars, historians, and the general public. Supporters have pointed to a more efficient and prosperous economy as a result of his economic policies, foreign policy triumphs including a peaceful end to the Cold War, and a restoration of American pride and morale. Proponents say that he had an unabated and passionate love for the United States which restored faith in the American Dream after a decline in American confidence and self-respect under Carter's perceived weak leadership, particularly during the Iran hostage crisis, as well as his gloomy, dreary outlook for the future of the United States during the 1980 election. Critics point out that Reagan's economic policies resulted in rising budget deficits and the national debt, a wider Wealth inequality in the United States, gap in wealth, and an increase in homelessness, and that the Iran–Contra affair lowered American credibility. Opinions of Reagan's legacy among the country's leading policymakers and journalists differ as well. Edwin Feulner, president of The Heritage Foundation, said that Reagan "helped create a safer, freer world" and that his economic policies "took an America suffering from 'malaise'... and made its citizens believe again in their destiny." Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, contended that Reagan's "economic policies were mostly a failure" and Howard Kurtz of ''The Washington Post'' opined that Reagan was "a far more controversial figure in his time than the largely gushing obits on television would suggest". Despite the debate, many conservative and liberal scholars agree that Reagan has been the most influential president since Roosevelt, leaving his imprint on American politics, diplomacy, culture, and economics through his effective communication and pragmatic compromising. As summarized by British historian M. J. Heale, since Reagan left office, historians have reached a broad consensus that he rehabilitated conservatism, turned the nation to the right, practiced a considerably pragmatic conservatism that balanced ideology and the constraints of politics, revived faith in the presidency and American exceptionalism, and contributed to victory in the Cold War.


Cold War

Reagan's exact role in the Soviet Union's collapse is debated, with many proponents believing that Reagan's defense policies, economic policies, military policies and hard-line rhetoric against the Soviet Union and communism—together with his summits with General Secretary Gorbachev—played a significant part in ending the Cold War. He was the first president to reject containment and détente and to put into practice the concept that the Soviet Union could be defeated rather than simply negotiated with, a post-détente strategy, a conviction that was vindicated by Gorbachev's foreign ministry spokesman, Gennadi Gerasimov, who said that the SDI was "very successful blackmail....The Soviet economy couldn't endure such competition." David Gergen, a former aide to Reagan, believes that in retrospect, the SDI hastened the end of the Cold War. Gorbachev said Reagan "was instrumental in bringing about the end of the Cold War", and deemed him "a great president". Gorbachev did not acknowledge a win or loss in the war, but rather a peaceful end; he said he was not intimidated by Reagan's harsh rhetoric. Thatcher said that Reagan, who noticed the Soviet Union's "systemic failures", "had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired." Mulroney said that Reagan "enters history as a strong and dramatic player". Former Polish President Lech Wałęsa acknowledged, "Reagan was one of the world leaders who made a major contribution to communism's collapse." Professor Jeffrey Knopf has argued that Reagan's leadership was only one of several causes of the end of the Cold War and that his aggressive rhetoric toward the Soviet Union had mixed effects; being labeled "evil" probably made no difference to the Soviets but gave encouragement to the East-European citizens opposed to communism. President Truman's policy of containment is also regarded as a force behind the fall of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan undermined the Soviet system itself.


Political legacy

Reagan reshaped the Republican Party and led a new conservative movement, altering the political dynamic of the United States. Conservatism became the dominant ideology for Republicans, displacing the party's liberals and moderates. More men voted Republican and Reagan tapped into religious voters, resulting in Reagan Democrats. He often emphasized family values, despite being the first president to have been divorced. Furthermore, Reagan, the oldest president at the time, was supported by young voters, an allegiance that shifted many of them to the party. He also appealed to black voters in 1980, but he did not fare well with them and some other minority groups in terms of approval. The period of American history most dominated by Reagan and his policies that concerned taxes, welfare, defense, the federal judiciary, and the Cold War is known as the Reagan era, which emphasized that the Reagan Revolution had a permanent impact on the United States in domestic and foreign policy. The Bill Clinton administration is often treated as an extension of the era, as is the George W. Bush administration. Since 1988, List of United States Republican Party presidential tickets, Republican presidential candidates have invoked Reagan's policies and beliefs, especially the 2008 Republican Party presidential candidates, 2008 candidates who aimed to liken themselves to him during the primary debates, even imitating his campaign strategies; John McCain frequently said that he came to office as "a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution". ''Washington Post'' reporter Carlos Lozada (journalist), Carlos Lozada noted Trump's praising of Reagan in a book he published during Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign, his 2016 campaign. Conversely, historian Eric Foner noted that Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign "aroused a great deal of wishful thinking among those yearning for a change after nearly thirty years of Reaganism".


Public image

Shortly before Reagan left the presidency, polls indicated that he held an approval rating of 70 percent, setting the record as the highest for a departing president. Retrospective Gallup polls continued to show a majority of Americans approving Reagan's performance in 2010 and 2018. Similarly, their 2001, 2005, and 2011 surveys considered Reagan the "greatest president" in American history. C-SPAN's surveys of scholars ranked Reagan tenth place in 2000 and ninth in 2009, 2017, and 2021. Reagan's ability to talk about substantive issues with understandable terms and to focus on mainstream American concerns earned him the laudatory moniker "The Great Communicator". Of it, he said, "I won the nickname the great communicator. But I never thought it was my style that made a difference—it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things." He also earned the nickname "Teflon President" in that public perceptions of him were not tarnished by the Reagan administration scandals, controversies that arose during his administration. According to U.S. Representative Pat Schroeder, who coined the phrase, the epithet referred to Reagan's ability to "do almost anything and not get blamed for it". Reagan's age and soft-spoken speech gave him a warm grandfatherly image. He was known for storytelling and humor in which many of his jokes and one-liners have been labeled "classic quips" and "legendary". In preparation for a radio address in 1984, Reagan joked about We begin bombing in five minutes, outlawing and bombing Russia. During the celebration of the 750th anniversary of Berlin in 1987, a balloon popped. Without missing a beat, he quipped, "missed me" in reference to his assassination attempt. Former aide David Gergen commented, "It was that humor... that I think endeared people to Reagan." Reagan also had the ability to offer comfort and hope at times of tragedy as demonstrated in aftermath of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' disaster. The combination of Reagan's speaking style, unabashed patriotism, negotiation skills, and savvy use of the media, played an important role in defining the 1980s and his legacy.


Recognition

Since leaving office, Reagan received numerous awards and honors such as the List of honorary British knights and dames, honorary knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, and Presidential Medal of Freedom. On his 87th birthday in 1998, Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. In 2001, was christened by Nancy and the U.S. Navy. In 2002, Congress authorized the creation of the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home. In 2009, Nancy unveiled Statue of Ronald Reagan (U.S. Capitol), a statue of her late husband in the National Statuary Hall Collection.


Depictions

Reagan is depicted in television films such as ''The Day Reagan Was Shot'' (2001), ''The Reagans'' (2003), and ''Killing Reagan (film), Killing Reagan'' (2016). Reagan is also depicted in a feature film named ''The Butler'' (2013). In 2018, feature film ''Reagan (2023 film), Reagan'', based on two biographies by Paul Kengor, received funding with a scheduled release year of 2023. In music, Reagan has been the subject of rock and pop songs.


References


Bibliography


Biographies

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Historiographies

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Primary sources

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Other sources

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External links


Official sites


Ronald Reagan Foundation and Presidential Library

Ronald Reagan
on whitehouse.gov
The Ronald W. Reagan Society of Eureka College


Media

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"Life Portrait of Ronald Reagan"
from ''American Presidents: Life Portraits'', December 6, 1999
Ronald Reagan Oral Histories
at Miller Center
Ronald Reagan's 1976 presidential campaign television ads

Ronald Reagan's timeline
at PBS *


News coverage

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Ronald Reagan
from ''The Washington Post''
Ronald Reagan
at CNN *


Essays and historiographies


Ronald Reagan
at Miller Center


Other

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