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• Born: 6 February 1911
• Birthplace: Tampico, Illinois
• Died: 5 June 2004 (natural causes)
• Best Known As: 40th President of the United States, 1981-89

President of the United States from 1981-1989, Ronald Reagan was known as a staunch conservative, a cheery optimist, and an implacable foe of Soviet communism. Reagan began his career as a sports announcer on radio, then moved to Hollywood and became a movie star. Reagan made over fifty movies as a reliable supporting actor or benign leading man, but his real calling seemed to be in politics. He served as the governor of California (1967-75) and then in 1980 defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter to become the 40th U.S. president. He advocated lower taxes and higher defense spending, and aggressively challenged the Soviet Union. The final years of his administration were clouded by a back-door scheme to fund anti-communist forces in Central America -- the so-called Iran Contra affair -- but the popular president emerged from the scandal unscathed. He stepped down after two full terms and was succeeded by his vice-president, George Bush the elder. In 1994 Reagan announced that he suffered from Alzheimer's Disease. He spent the next ten years in seclusion and increasingly poor health until his death in 2004.

Reagan married the actress Nancy Davis on 4 March 1952; he previously had been married to actress Jane Wyman from 1941-48... He had four children, Maureen and Michael (with Wyman) and Patricia and Ron Jr. (with Nancy Reagan)... In March of 1981, Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr., an unbalanced fan of actress Jodie Foster... For Reagan's 1994 letter to Americans about his Alzheimer's disease, see this page from the Reagan Library... Reagan wrote two autobiographies: Where's the Rest of Me? (1965, updated in 1981) and An American Life (1990)... In 2003 another actor became governor of California: Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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• Born: Feb 06, 1911 in Tampico, Illinois
• Died: Jun 05, 2004
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: '30s-'60s, '80s-2000s
• Major Genres: Drama, History
• Career Highlights: Kings Row, Knute Rockne, All American, Dark Victory
• First Major Screen Credit: Love Is on the Air (1937)

Biography

It is a fairly safe assumption that if not for a career change which, ironically enough, took him out of the motion picture industry, Ronald Reagan would not rank among Hollywood's best-known stars; a genial if not highly skilled actor, he made few memorable films, and even then he rarely left much of a lasting impression. Of course, in 1980 Reagan became the President of the United States, and with his political ascendancy came a flurry of new interest in his film career. His acting work -- especially the infamous Bedtime for Bonzo -- became the subject of much discussion, the majority of it highly satirical. Still, there is no denying that he enjoyed a long and prolific movie career. Moreover, he remains among the first and most famous actors to make the move into politics, a trend which grew more and more prevalent in the wake of his rise to power.

Born February 6, 1911, in Tampico, IL, Ronald Wilson Reagan began his acting career while studying economics at Eureka College. He broke into show business as a sportscaster at a Des Moines, IA, radio station, and from there assumed the position of play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Cubs. By the mid-'30s, he relocated to Hollywood, signing with Warner Bros. in 1937 and making his screen debut later that year in Love Is on the Air. Reagan made over a dozen more films over the course of the next two years, almost all of them B-movies. In 1939, however, he won a prominent role in the Bette Davis tearjerker Dark Victory, a performance which greatly increased his visibility throughout the Hollywood community. It helped him win his most famous role, as the ill-fated Notre Dame football hero George Gipp in the 1940 film biography Knute Rockne: All American. At the film's climax he delivered the immortal line "Win one for the Gipper!," an oft-quoted catchphrase throughout his White House tenure.

In 1940, Reagan married actress Jane Wyman, with whom he had two children. The following year, he co-starred in Sam Wood's acclaimed Kings Row, arguably his most accomplished picture. During World War II, he served as a non-combative captain in the Army Air Corps, producing a number of training films. Upon returning to Hollywood in 1947, he began a five-year term as president of the Screen Actors Guild, a position he again assumed in 1959. It was during this period that Reagan, long a prominent liberal voice in Hollywood politics, became embroiled in McCarthy-era battles over communism in the film industry, and gradually his views shifted from the left to the right. He also continued appearing in films and in 1950 co-starred in the well-received melodrama The Hasty Heart. A year later, Reagan accepted perhaps his most notorious role, in Bedtime for Bonzo, in which he portrayed a college professor who befriends his test subject, a chimpanzee; throughout his political career, the picture was the butt of a never-ending series of jokes.

During the 1950s, Reagan freelanced among a variety of studios. Still, his film career began to wane, and in 1954 he began an eight-year stint as the host of the television series General Electric Theater. Among Reagan's final film appearances was 1957's Hellcats of the Navy, where he appeared with actress Nancy Davis, his second wife. He did not make another film prior to narrating 1961's The Young Doctors, and with 1964's remake of The Killers, he effectively ended his performing career. That same year he entered politics, actively campaigning for Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. In 1966, Reagan was elected Governor of California, and over the course of his eight-year gubernatorial stint emerged as one of the Republican party's most powerful and well-recognized voices. In 1976, Reagan ran against Gerald Ford in the Republican Presidential primary, but was unsuccessful; four years later, however, he defeated Jimmy Carter to become the nation's 40th President. The rest, as they say, is history. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

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(b. Tampico, Illinois, 6 February 1911; d. 5 June 2004) US; President 1980 – 8 The son of a bankrupt store manager, Reagan was educated at Eureka College, Illinois, and became first a radio sportscaster in Davenport, Iowa, and then a film actor in Los Angeles after 1934. His role in the film King's Row gave him, finally, star status. Through the later 1930s he was an official of the Screen Actor's Guild. A liberal Democrat, he was a member of both Americans for Democratic Action and United World Federalists. Clashing with "communists" in the Guild he became an active anti-Communist and appeared as a "friendly witness" in the 1949 hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee. With his film career declining after 1952 he became a paid speaker for the Gerneral Electric Corporation. He first appearance before the national public came in 1964 when he made a televised speech supporting Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate for President.

In 1966 Reagan defeated Pat Brown to become the Republican Governor of California seeking to impose tax cuts of 10 per cent across the board. He found that budgets could be cut only slowly and went on to preside over the largest budgets and some of California's largest ever tax increases. Personally opposed to abortions, he had to accept an extension of abortion rights and, though enraged by student lifestyles and anti-Vietnam activities, he increased spending on higher education. He presided over a return to the use of the death penalty and sacked homosexuals on his staff, always denying that he did so. Re-elected in 1969, his second term was marked by a greater willingness to compromise with Democrats and, generally, to present the "soft face" of conservatism. In part he did so in order to position himself to challenge President Ford for the Republican nomination for President in 1976. He failed, but during a tough campaign he articulated growing official and public fears that the Russians were rearming during the period of détente while the USA was facing economic obsolescence because of business taxes and regulation and social dissolution because of welfare dependence. Three years later President Carter's volte-face on defence and welfare gave these concerns legitimacy. Reagan campaigned on a platform of less government, lower taxes and balanced budgets, family values, and peace through military strength. He was able to ride to the White House on a tide of widespread, if shallow, "conservative" sentiment, but his margin in the popular vote presaged difficulty in legislating his programme.

Reagan's accession ushered in a short-lived period of popular acceptance of supply-side economics at home and bellicosity abroad. The normal political "honeymoon" given to a new President was lengthened by a failed assassination attempt in March of 1981. In domestic policy, with the support of conservative southern and western Democrats, a programme of large, phased tax cuts and increased defence expenditure was instituted. Cuts in welfare and education budgets were partially accepted by Congress as was a programme of business deregulation and tightened control over the supply of government information. Admirers of the British Official Secrets Acts, Reagan's staff contemplated similar legislation until they realized that they themselves would have to take loyalty oaths and lie detector tests.

In foreign policy allies and enemies alike were alarmed by the frank triumphalism of American rhetoric and the seeming determination of the administration to impose American leadership and priorities everywhere. NATO partners were pushed into increased defence expenditure and military readiness. Even Margaret Thatcher, a staunch supporter, was affronted by Reagan's willingness to sell grain to Russia — pleasing his agribusiness sector — while trying to use subsidiaries of US companies in Europe and technology licences to prevent Western Europe importing much needed Russian natural gas. When such policies were accompanied by a potential invasion of Nicaragua and an actual invasion of Grenada — a British Commonwealth state — without informing London, North Atlantic relationships were in real disarray. Only when Reagan agreed to resume serious arms limitation talks with the Russians, and toned down bellicose rhetoric, did fears of nuclear was recede and matters improve. The summits with Gorbachev at Geneva and Reykjavik marked this progress.

Reagan's domestic policies recessed the US economy and re-election seemed uncertain. By November 1984, however, a pre-election recovery gave him victory by bigger margins than in 1980 and began the longest peacetime economic boom in the twentieth century. With "peace abroad and prosperity at home" Reagan seemed set to enjoy the most successful two-term presidency since Roosevelt. He presided over the 1986 refurbishing of the Statue of Liberty, a very symbolic moment for him. Almost immediately the arms for Iran affair — later called Irangate — began to leak out. The Senate's Tower Report of March 1987 heavily criticized his involvement in the Iran affair and his general competence. It is possible that only his personal popularity and willingness "to reign and not rule" kept him from further congressional action. His last months in office were clouded by this knowledge.

Reagan presided over the break-up of the USSR and claimed that he "won the Cold War". More a rhetorical and symbolic conservative than a systemic thinker his legacy was a long economic boom, a recapturing of national self-confidence, but a decay of community spirit as inequalities increased. History may remember him mostly for being the man who tripled the US national debt.

(1911–2004), actor, governor, U.S. president

Reagan grew up in Dixon, Illinois, in an impoverished family, and worked his way through Eureka (Ill.) College. From a radio station in Des Moines, Iowa, he left for Hollywood, where he worked as a film and TV actor, 1937–66. A captain during World War II, he made training films for the Army Air Forces. Later, as a TV spokesman for General Electric Company, he became an active Republican. Urged by conservative Southern California businesspeople, Reagan entered politics and was elected governor of California, serving from January 1967 to January 1975. A champion of the GOP's conservative wing, Reagan defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter to become president in 1980. He was reelected in 1984.

As president (1981–89), Reagan sought to reduce the federal government's domestic programs. Initially, his administration adopted the “supply side” theory to stimulate production and control high inflation through tax cuts and sharp reductions in federal spending. Following a major recession in 1982, economic growth resumed, fueled in part by massive defense spending and a dramatic increase in the national debt.

Reagan's foreign policy was defined by his antipathy toward the Soviet Union, which he called the “evil empire.” He and his security advisers, especially Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, called for preparedness for war with the Soviet Union and its allies on a global scale. Exhorting patriotism, Reagan presided over the largest military buildup in peacetime U.S. history: probably around $2.4 trillion on the armed forces, of which an estimated $536 billion represented increases over previous projected trends for the decade. The largest (in inflation‐adjusted dollars) single‐year defense budget was $296 billion in fiscal year 1985.

The massive investment in new weapons systems—from missiles, ships, planes, and tanks to the speculative Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars”—was designed not simply to build American strength but also to push the Soviet Union toward economic bankruptcy. In addition, the Reagan Doctrine offered support to anti‐Soviet guerrillas anywhere. CIA director William Casey provided covert aid in Central America, Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. Reagan sent Marines to Beirut, Lebanon, to aid Christian militias, but he withdrew them after a truck‐bomb killed 241 persons on 23 October 1983. On 25 October, he ordered the U.S. invasion of Grenada in the Caribbean, where pro‐Castro military officers had seized power and were thought to endanger American students. In Central America, Reagan was determined to support the government of El Salvador in its battle with leftist guerrillas and to overthrow the Soviet‐leaning Sandinista regime in Nicaragua by providing direct (or, when Congress prohibited this, covert) aid to anti‐Communist Contra guerrillas. Congressional hearings in 1987 revealed the illegal Iran‐Contra Affair, in which a group in the National Security Council covertly sold weapons to Iranians to help finance the Contra operation. Reagan's popularity plummeted.

When he and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to reduce short‐ and intermediate‐range missiles, much of his popularity was restored. The INF Treaty (1988) was the first time the two countries had agreed to destroy an entire category of strategic weapons.

As the Cold War ended, Reagan and his supporters insisted that the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of U.S. military spending and covert operations, an assertion contested by those who credit, instead, long‐term structural problems of the Soviet economy and the reformism of Gorbachev.

[See also Cold War: Changing Interpretations; Grenada, U.S. Intervention in; Lebanon, U.S. Military Involvement in; Nicaragua, U.S. Military Involvement in.]

Bibliography

• John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the End of the Cold War, 1992.
• Michael Schaller, Reckoning with Reagan: America and Its President in the 1980s, 1992.
• Daniel Wirls, Buildup: The Politics of Defense in the Reagan Era, 1992

(b. Tampico, Ill., 6 Feb. 1911; d. Los Angeles, 5 June 2004; interred Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, Calif.), governor of California, 1967–1974, and president of the United States, 1981–1989. Ronald Reagan was inaugurated fortieth president of the United States in January 1981 and was reelected in November 1984. He was the first president to serve two complete terms since Dwight Eisenhower. During his tenure, Reagan pulled together a coalition of conservatives and libertarians who were dedicated to promoting what they dubbed the Reagan Revolution, an attempt to restructure American politics, law, and economics. The core of this effort was Reagan's of‐trepeated desire to reduce the role of government in American life.

When Reagan won the presidency, he promised to effect great change in many areas. One of the most important was that of changing the direction of the federal courts generally and the Supreme Court in particular. To Reagan's way of thinking, the judiciary, inspired by the liberalism of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, had moved beyond merely exercising judgment and had begun to make policy. Part of Reagan's pledge to get the government off the backs of the people included returning the courts to what he deemed their proper and limited constitutional roles.

The means to this end lay in the power of the president to nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint the federal judges. Reagan took this power seriously and set about to appoint to the federal courts only those who shared his philosophy of judicial restraint (see Selection of Justices). By the time he finished his second term Reagan had, to a great extent, delivered on his campaign promise to redirect the courts.

During his two terms President Reagan appointed 372 of the 736 Article III judges on the federal courts. This included 290 judges on the district courts; 78 on the courts of appeal; and four justices to the Supreme Court. At the end of his tenure 346—some 47 percent of the federal judiciary—were still in active service.

Reagan's effort to transform the federal judiciary through his appointments began to draw heavy political fire. The Department of Justice became the focus of attention for Reagan's critics on the issue of the courts. Under his first attorney general, William French Smith, and especially later during the second term under Smith's replacement, Edwin Meese III, the Department of Justice went about the business of picking judges with a precision never before seen. The newly created Office of Legal Policy screened potential nominees with great care in an effort to fulfill the president's wish to have on the bench those who shared his views on the nature and extent of judicial power.

As Reagan's tenure wore on, the politics of judicial selection became more heated. While there were controversies over particular nominees at all levels, the primary concern was over the Supreme Court. When Justice Potter Stewart retired in 1982, the politically shrewd Reagan sidestepped any real controversy by nominating a largely unknown state judge from Arizona, Sandra Day O'Connor, making her the first woman ever to sit on the Supreme Court.

In 1985, when Chief Justice Warren Burger announced his retirement, the political path to the Court had become tougher to traverse. Reagan's nomination of Justice William Rehnquist, the most outspoken judicial conservative then on the Court, had drawn a great deal of political opposition. Ironically, the more conservative Antonin Scalia, then a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who was named to replace Rehnquist as associate justice, was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate. Much was made of the fact that he was the first Italian‐American ever to sit on the high court.

With three nominees in place it was inevitable that any other vacancies would generate ever more heated opposition. This was made clear when the centrist Justice Lewis Powell resigned in 1987 and Reagan nominated Judge Robert H. Bork to take his seat. Bork was the best‐known conservative judge then sitting on the federal courts. Despite his public service as both a federal judge and solicitor general of the United States, his distinguished career as a professor at Yale Law School, and his experience in private practice, he was decisively denied confirmation after a bruising confirmation hearing.

After Reagan's next nominee, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, withdrew following disclosures that as a Harvard law professor he had smoked marijuana, Reagan finally replaced Powell with Judge Anthony Kennedy, then sitting on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. By the end of Justice Kennedy's second term on the Court, it seemed clear that Reagan had indeed succeeded in shifting the direction of the Supreme Court. Although the shift was not as pronounced as the President might have wished, there was a difference with the Reagan justices in place.

Reagan had the greatest influence on the Supreme Court—both as to the actions of the Court and its place in the broader political context—of any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Not only because of his appointments to the Supreme Court but also because of his lower court appointments, the contours of American law have been changed. The kinds of cases and their attendant opinions that now go before the Supreme Court on appeal also bear the mark of judges who share Reagan's vision of judicial power under the Constitution. As had President Roosevelt a half‐century earlier, President Reagan dramatically demonstrated that a president's most powerful legacy can be the judges he appoints to the federal courts.

; Judicial Self‐Restraint; Nominations, Controversial.

See also Judicial Activism

Bibliography

• Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America; The Political Seduction of the Law (1989).
• Terry Eastland, Taking the Presidency Seriously (1991)

— Gary L. McDowell

Beginning as a radio sports announcer, Ronald W. Reagan (born 1911) enjoyed success as a motion picture actor and television personality before embarking on a political career. After two terms as governor of California (1967-1975), he defeated incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter for the presidency in 1980 and was easily re-elected over Walter Mondale in 1984.

Born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, Ronald Wilson Reagan was the second son of John Edward ("Jack") and Nelle Wilson Reagan. His parents were relatively poor, as Jack Reagan moved the family to a succession of small Illinois towns trying to establish himself in business. After living briefly in Chicago, the Reagans moved to Galesburg, Monmouth, and then - when Ronald was nine - to Dixon, where he grew to adulthood.

Nicknamed "Dutch," young Reagan liked solitude, but was popular; he enjoyed nature, reading, and especially sports. The elder Reagan's heavy drinking caused problems at home, but Nelle, a staunch member of the Disciples of Christ, exerted a powerful stabilizing influence. Ronald was raised a member of his mother's church. He graduated from Dixon High School in 1928 as a star athlete and student body president and enrolled the following fall at Eureka College, a small (250-student) Illinois school related to his church.

At Eureka Reagan held a partial athletic scholarship, earning additional income by washing dishes in his fraternity house, Tau Kappa Epsilon. He first demonstrated his skills in persuasive oratory as freshman representative in a successful student strike. Never a highly motivated student, he made an undistinguished record as an economics and sociology major but was well known on campus as a football player and swimmer. He also turned to theater - with such success that at least one faculty member urged him to turn professional. Reagan graduated from Eureka in 1932, later serving two terms on the school's board of trustees and receiving from it an honorary doctorate of humane letters.

On the Air and Screen

Graduating in the middle of the Great Depression, Reagan was unsuccessful in his job hunt in Chicago, but was finally hired by Davenport, Iowa, radio station WOC as a freelance sports announcer. His skill earned him a regular staff position at WOC in January 1933, and shortly afterward he moved to WHO in Des Moines, where one of his chief duties was to reconstruct Chicago Cubs baseball game broadcasts from telegraphic reports. In this role "Dutch" Reagan perfected a spontaneous speaking style and won at least a degree of fame throughout the Midwest. He sent a significant portion of his income home to his family, his father having suffered a series of heart attacks; he also helped pay his brother Neil's college expenses.

In 1937 Reagan persuaded the radio station to send him to cover the Cubs' spring training games in California. His real motive was to try to launch an acting career in Hollywood. A screen test with Warner Brothers netted him an initial seven-year contract. Unlike many performers, he chose to retain his own name.

As an actor Reagan received decent reviews, but not especially good roles. After a series of unmemorable films in which he typically played the innocent "good guy," in 1940 he landed a role which made him famous: that of Notre Dame football star George Gipp ("the Gipper") in Knute Rockne - All American. In January 1940 Reagan married starlet Jane Wyman. With her he had a daughter, Maureen, in 1941, and adopted a son, Michael, in 1945; another infant born to them died in June 1947.

The finest role of Reagan's movie career came in King's Row (1941), in which the character he played woke up to a double amputation crying out, "Where's the rest of me?" Reagan later used this line as the title for his autobiography, published in 1965; the role won him a new seven-year, million-dollar contract.

Reagan's film career was interrupted by World War II, which he spent as a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps making training films (including one preparing pilots for the important bombing raids on Tokyo). Discharged in December 1945 as a captain, he resumed his film career, but with less artistic success. His income sufficient to sustain a playboy's life-style, Reagan encountered bad luck: in 1947 he contracted a nearly fatal viral pneumonia and, following his wife's miscarriage, his marriage failed. In June 1948 Jane Wyman divorced him on grounds of "extreme mental cruelty," winning custody of both children.

Actor-Politician

Part of the cause for the divorce was apparently Reagan's near-obsession in the late 1940s with the business of the Screen Actors Guild (he served as president from 1947 to 1952 and again in 1959), and particularly with its anti-communist activities. Reagan emerged from the ballyhooed hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that produced contempt citations for (and "blacklisted") ten Hollywood figures in 1947 as a champion of civil liberties with strong anti-Communist views. He skirted the "blacklist" issue by denying that such a list existed.

In his acting career, Reagan found himself limited mainly to uninspired, unsuccessful comedies (including, in 1951, the unfortunately titled Bedtime for Bonzo, for which he was ridiculed in his later political career). Personally, however, Reagan achieved happiness with his marriage in March 1952 to actress Nancy Davis, who shelved her own career ambitions to be his full-time wife. They had two children, Patricia Ann (1952) and Ronald Prescott (1958).

Disillusioned by his diminishing movie opportunities and financially pressed, Reagan tried a stint as a Las Vegas nightclub entertainer, but soon found his preferred medium in television. (He continued to make occasional films, the last in 1957.) Signed by General Electric in 1954 as host and sometime star for the company's weekly half-hour dramatic series, General Electric Theater, Reagan was a success. Capitalizing on their television host's polish, popularity, and personableness, G.E. insisted that he go on personal appearance tours; during the shows' eight-year run, he spoke to about 250,000 workers at 135 G.E. plants.

Within a few years, he perfected "the speech": a paean to private enterprise and condemnation of the "rising tide of collectivism," combined with a salespitch for G.E. products. Though some critics later contended that his rightward political drift was due to the influence of Nancy (daughter of a strongly conservative Chicago physician), Reagan travelled the political path of many successful Americans in the post-World War II years: having voted Democratic through 1950, he backed Republicans Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 and Richard Nixon in 1960. Then, in 1962, he formally registered as a Republican.

Avidly sought as a speaker by business and civic groups, Reagan became too controversial for G.E., and the show was cancelled in 1962. He continued as a television host on another series for a time, but gradually became a full-time political activist, narrating anti-Communist films, speaking at rallies, and becoming a member of the advisory board for Young Americans for Freedom. Reagan captured national attention and temporarily boosted Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign with an impressive televised speech in October of 1964.

By early 1965 a group of prominent California conservatives decided Reagan should run for governor of their state. Benefitting from massive financial support, shrewd campaigning, and a strong conservative trend in the California electorate, Reagan easily won the Republican primary. Then, pressing the "law and order" issue by linking Democratic Governor Edmund G. (Pat) Brown with unrest in the cities and on California's campuses, he bested Brown in the 1966 gubernatorial election, receiving nearly 58 percent of the vote.

Governor and Presidential Candidate

Facing a state cash-flow shortage and large deficit, Reagan took immediate and dramatic action as governor, approving across-the-board budget reductions and a hiring freeze for state agencies. From the outset, the new governor jousted with higher education in the state, as he successfully sought increases in student fees and on several occasions detailed state troopers to quell campus antiwar protests. Combining the image of an ideological conservative with pragmatism in action, Reagan agreed to an increase in state income tax rates in 1967.

Re-elected with nearly 53 percent of the vote in 1970, Governor Reagan pressed for a major welfare reform act the next year. That law, the centerpiece of his second term, tightened eligibility requirements for welfare aid, strengthened family planning, and required the able to seek work, while increasing aid to the "truly needy." State spending increased more than inflation over the course of his eight years as governor, but Reagan firmly established a reputation for sound fiscal management as the state became solvent once again.

During his first term Reagan made a last-moment but energetic run for the 1968 Republican presidential nomination, and nearly managed to block Richard Nixon's victory by winning support in southern delegations. Though he did not contest Nixon's renomination four years later, Reagan's brief campaign of 1968 established him as a future presidential possibility, and in 1975 - after rejecting at least two offers of cabinet posts from Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford - he once again declared his availability.

After a poor beginning in the 1976 primaries, Reagan gave President Ford a hard race for the nomination, campaigning as a strong conservative. He could not recover politically from his earlier ill-advised proposal for the massive transfer of federal programs to the states, however. Having been graceful in defeat at the GOP convention, Reagan became his party's frontrunner for the 1980 nomination after Ford was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election. By means of his own syndicated newspaper column Reagan maintained high visibility during Carter's term, strongly attacking the Democrat on a wide range of issues.

Early White House Years

After announcing his candidacy once again in late 1979, Reagan defused the issue of his age (68) and campaigned aggressively and successfully in the primaries. Nominated easily, he selected his chief rival for the nomination, George Bush, as his running mate. Reagan's campaign against the incumbent Carter went well, despite some early gaffes, and his masterful performance in a televised debate with the president in late October sealed his victory. Taking 51 percent of the popular vote against Carter and Independent candidate John B. Anderson, Ronald Reagan became the nation's 40th president by an electoral vote of 489 to 49 for Carter. His election was viewed by many as a "new beginning," as the Republicans also won control of the Senate for the first time in 26 years.

As chief executive Reagan established an effective image of strong-mindedness tempered by occasional self-deprecation. Despite jibes by political opponents that he was lazy and lacked knowledge on many issues, he maintained generally high ratings in the public opinion polls. An assassination attempt by John Hinckley in March 1981 wounded him slightly, but served also to boost further his popular support.

Reagan appointed the first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, in July 1981. This particular move irritated his most conservative supporters, but he retained most of his following on the right through dogged adherence to the goals of reduced taxes and increased defense spending coupled with domestic program cuts ("Reaganomics"). Holding true to the precepts of the "supply-side economics" he had embraced since 1978, Reagan persuaded Congress to pass in 1981 a large, three-year reduction in income tax rates, even though federal deficits were well over $100 billion per year.

The skill displayed by Reagan with the media (which won him the nickname "the Great Communicator") enabled him to deflect most criticisms, including those aimed at his role in perpetuating huge federal deficits, his opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and to abortion, and his seeming indifference to the issue of minority civil rights. His media talents also allowed him to become, more than any of his recent predecessors, the spokesman and symbol of the political movement that elected him.

Reagan's actions as president were not always as aggressive as his rhetoric. He did not launch an all-out assault on federal programs, for example, despite threats to do so. And - though he darkly characterized the Soviet Union as "evil" - he ended the Carter-imposed embargo on grain shipments to that country. He committed a large contingent of U.S. Marines to help police the civil war in Lebanon, but removed them, rather than escalating the effort, after a commando attack resulted in 240 American deaths. He launched a successful paratroop strike against Communist insurgents on the island of Grenada in late 1983 - a feat generally applauded by the American public.

Despite suffering numerous setbacks in Congress (notably on his "social agenda" issues such as banning abortion and permitting school prayer), Reagan appeared difficult to beat for reelection in 1984. And so it proved, as Democratic challenger Walter Mondale was unable to capitalize on the ever-increasing deficit or criticisms of Reagan's policies in Central America and South Africa (where he refused to apply sanctions to oppose apartheid). In the 1984 election, Reagan defeated Mondale easily, with 58 percent of the popular vote and 525 of the 538 electoral votes.

Holding On - The Second Term

After his reelection, Reagan continued to talk a hard line against the Soviet Union, while simultaneously pursuing a new arms limitation agreement with that nation. Two summit meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev - in Geneva (1985) and Reykjavik, Iceland (1986) - accomplished little and Reagan pressed ahead with an aggressive (and costly) program of national defense, including the MX missile and the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars").

Economic problems proved intractable during Reagan's second term, as the deficit continued at record-high levels and the nation's negative trade balance grew steadily worse. Hoping to bring the deficit under control, Reagan endorsed a 1985 congressional measure mandating a series of large annual budget cuts (the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act), but the law had little real impact before its enforcement mechanism was voided by the Supreme Court the following year.

In late 1986, following substantial Democratic gains in the off-year elections, Reagan ran into serious problems due to the "Iran-contra" deal. At issue were the administration's secret sale of arms to Iran, apparently to gain the release of American hostages (and in contravention of Reagan's announced policy never to "yield to terrorist blackmail"), and subsequent diversion of the proceeds to the Nicaraguan "contras" (in seeming violation of a congressional ban on such aid). Joint congressional hearings on the Iran-contra episode captured headlines through the spring and summer of 1987, revealing significant misstatements by Reagan and, more damagingly, excessive arrogation of power by the president's national security adviser and others. Though the resulting decline in Reagan's public support was relatively slight, revelations from the hearings severely damaged his image, calling into question the degree to which he was in control of policy.

Despite these problems, in mid-1987 the resilient president seized the initiative from his detractors by means of three bold actions. The most controversial was his dispatch of American forces to the Persian Gulf in order to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers from attacks by the warring Iraqis and Iranians. Political opponents charged that the action called for invoking the 1973 War Powers Resolution, but neither Reagan nor Congress acted to do so. The president also kept his domestic critics busy by nominating a strongly conservative federal judge, Robert Bork, for a seat on the Supreme Court, and then - just as the divisive hearings on his confirmation were beginning - announcing a tentative agreement with the Soviets on limitation of intermediate range missiles. The Bork nomination backfired - the Senate rejecting the nomination by a vote of 58 to 42. But success in both of his other ventures held the potential of neutralizing any harm to Reagan's reputation produced by the hearings held earlier in the year.

As Reagan's second term drew to a close, with the Democrats once again in control of the Senate and looking optimistically to the 1988 presidential election, it was clear that he had not effected the "revolution" predicted in 1980. A number of domestic programs had been cut back, but aside from the 1981 tax cuts (and perhaps the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act), no truly significant legislation had been produced. The president even found himself in the ironic position of appearing to oppose reduction of the deficit, as he tried to fend off efforts by Congress either to cut defense spending or increase taxes. But an important part of Reagan's political legacy was the increased conservatism of the Supreme Court; although the Bork nomination failed, his "replacement" (actually the opening provided by the resignation of Justice Lewis Powell), Anthony Kennedy, represented Reagan's fourth conservative appointment to that body, following the appointments of Justices O'Connor and Antonin Scalia, and the elevation of William Rehnquist to be Chief Justice.

After his return to private citizenship in 1989, Reagan continued to be a popular and active public figure. Shortly after his retirement, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was opened in Simi Valley, California. By the mid-1990s Reagan had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, an ultimately fatal degeneration of the central nervous system. He and Nancy publicized his condition in an attempt to create greater public awareness and to gain support for research into treatment. As his condition deteriorated, Reagan gradually withdrew from public appearances.

Through a mix of conservative dogma, pragmatic action, and mastery of the media, Ronald Reagan retained throughout his presidency a hold on public affection unequalled since Dwight Eisenhower's years in the White House. Paradoxically, he accomplished this feat even though polls showed that a majority of the voters consistently disagreed with his policies. Many people would agree that Ronald Reagan, whatever the verdict of history on his presidency, truly possessed that hard-to-define quality, political charisma.

Further Reading

Reagan's early life and film career are well covered in Anne Edwards, Early Reagan: The Rise to Power (1987), and in two comprehensive biographies: Lou Cannon, Reagan (1982) and Frank Van der Linden, The Real Reagan: What He Believes, What He Has Accomplished, What We Can Expect From Him (1981). Reagan's 1965 autobiography, Where's the Rest of Me?, written with Richard G. Hubler, does not deal with his political career but illuminates the character of the man. His 1990 autobiography, covers his personal and political life through the end of his second term in office. A second personal perspective is offered by Nancy Reagan's (1989). Solid treatments of the 1980 election include Elizabeth Drew, Portrait of an Election: The 1980 Presidential Campaign (1981), and John F. Stacks, Watershed: The Campaign for the Presidency, 1980 (1981). Rowland Evans, Jr., and Robert D. Novak, The Reagan Revolution (1981), treats Reagan's political rise through his election to the presidency.

Strong assessments of Reagan's presidency may be found in John Palmer, editor, Perspectives on the Reagan Years (1986), and - though it covers only the first two years - Laurence I. Barrett, Gambling With History: Ronald Reagan in the White House (1983). Two critical appraisals, written from very different perspectives, are Garry Wills, Reagan's America: Innocents Abroad (1986) and Michael P. Rogin, "Ronald Reagan," the Movie, and Other Episodes in Political Demonology (1987).

For more information on Ronald Wilson Reagan, visit Britannica.com.

• Born: Feb. 6, 1911, Tampico, III.
• Political party: Republican
• Education: Eureka College, B.A., 1932
• Military service: U.S. Army Air Force, 1942–45
• Previous government service: governor of California, 1967–74
• Elected President, 1980; served, 1981–89
• Died June 5, 2004, California

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the first actor to be elected President. He was also the oldest man ever elected and the first to have been divorced. Reagan brought conservatives to power in the Republican party and in the nation. His economic program of tax and spending cuts led to a boom between 1982 and 1987 that stimulated economic growth, but it also led to high federal budget deficits and the conversion of the United States from the largest creditor to the largest debtor in the world. His popularity declined during the Iran-Contra crisis but returned to high levels as he left office. The most popular President since Dwight Eisenhower, he was the first since Franklin Roosevelt to serve two or more full terms and hand over the office to a member of his own party.

Reagan's father worked in a shoe store and for the Works Progress Administration during the New Deal, and his mother was a store clerk. Reagan was a popular football player in high school and won election as student government president. At Eureka College he also played football, participated in student government, and joined the drama society.

After graduating from college in 1932 with a major in economics, he began his career as a radio sports announcer in Iowa. In 1937 he became a contract motion picture actor for Warner Brothers, starring in such movies as Knute Rockne—All American, King's Row, and Bedtime for Bonzo. He married actress Jane Wyman in 1940; they had two children (one adopted), then divorced in 1948.

During World War II, Reagan served as a captain in the army, making films for the military. He was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947 and served through 1952, devoting much of his time to combating the influence of communists in the union. He was active in Democratic politics, supporting Harry Truman for President in 1948 and Helen Gahagan Douglas against Richard Nixon in the California senatorial contest of 1950. In 1952 he married Nancy Davis, a contract actress at MGM, and they had two children. Between 1954 and 1962 he was the host of the television show General Electric Theater. In 1959 Reagan again led the Screen Actors Guild, this time in a strike that gave actors a share in television profits from their movies.

Reagan became more conservative in the 1950s and supported the Presidential candidacies of Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 and Nixon in 1960. He switched his voter registration to the Republican party in 1962. In October 1964 Reagan gave a televised speech for Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate for President. After Goldwater's defeat, Reagan became one of the leading conservative spokesmen.

Reagan was twice elected governor of California, in 1966 and 1970, but for six of his eight years in office he had to work with a Democratic legislature. He cut the welfare rolls, instituted the Medi-Cal program to pay medical bills for the poor, increased income taxes in order to eliminate a projected budget deficit (but later gave rebates when the government ran a surplus), and managed to lower property taxes. He took a strong stance against student demonstrators against the Vietnam War who closed down many campuses of the state university system, and he more than doubled funding for California's public colleges and universities.

Reagan was a dark-horse candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1968, but Nixon won the nomination on the first ballot. Reagan declined to run for a third gubernatorial term and challenged President Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976. Reagan lost the nomination by a slim margin. His followers did influence the Republican party platform, which repudiated much of Ford's foreign policy of détente, or accommodation, with the Soviet Union.

In 1980 Reagan ran again for the Republican nomination, defeating George Bush handily. Reagan attempted to get ex-President Ford to join the ticket, but Ford insisted on a “co-Presidency” arrangement in which he would share responsibility for policy-making. Reagan then chose Bush to complete the ticket.

With interest rates close to 20 percent, inflation around 12 percent, and unemployment near 10 percent, the voters responded by giving Reagan a landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter and independent candidate John Anderson. Reagan's coattails brought in a Republican-controlled Senate, though the House remained strongly Democratic.

Reagan's inaugural address emphasized economic recovery and putting all Americans back to work. He called for fewer government regulations and lower taxes. Reagan's first State of the Union address offered a four-point program of reduced expenditures, tax cuts, lessened government regulation, and policies to reduce inflation.

Reagan had a “hands off” management style that involved setting overall priorities but then delegating to others the work of translating these into specific policies. He often seemed lackadaisical in his duties: “It's true that hard work never killed anybody, but why take the chance?” he would joke.

Reagan was known as the Great Communicator. No President in the 20th century, with the possible exception of Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, could match his ability as a speech maker. He presented his arguments to the American people in the form of stories. He used concrete examples involving real people rather than abstract principles to make his points. And often the public responded to his down-to-earth analogies. The Democrats had no one who could match him, and often the President would bypass Congress and appeal directly to the people to support his conservative policies.

Eventually, Reagan's inattention to details and disinterest in economic theory would catch up with him. His budget and tax numbers never did add up. A few of his subordinates were involved in conflicts of interest that led to embarrassing investigations. In his second term, his national security advisers took advantage of his management style to launch illegal operations, then covered up their involvement by lying to Congress.

On March 30, 1981, Reagan was shot outside a hotel in Washington, D.C., by John W. Hinckley, Jr., in an attempted assassination. The President lost a great deal of blood and at one point was near death, but the bullet had not hit any vital organs and he soon recovered. His popularity soared, which helped him deal with Congress in promoting his plan, popularly known as Reaganomics. Much of what Reagan asked for was passed by Congress in June. But instead of promoting prosperity, Reaganomics took the nation into a steep recession, a time of decline in the gross national product and an increase in unemployment. As joblessness increased, Reagan's popularity plummeted, down to the levels of Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

In foreign affairs Reagan took a confrontational line with the Soviets, referring to the U.S.S.R. as the “evil empire.” He announced plans to equip NATO forces in Europe with new medium-range Pershing nuclear-tipped missiles. He asked for funds to deploy a new generation of intercontinental MX missiles. He reversed President Jimmy Carter's decision to cancel the B-1 bomber and ordered development of the radar-evading Stealth bombers and fighters. He increased the size of the navy to 600 surface ships and ordered new submarines and aircraft carriers. He announced a Strategic Defense Initiative program of antimissile weapons to defend against Soviet attack, which his critics promptly dubbed Star Wars. Over five years he increased the annual level of defense spending from $200 billion to $300 billion.

Reagan equipped the government of El Salvador in its fight against leftist guerrillas and also supported the Contra rebels in their struggle against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. He provided covert funding for anticommunist rebels in Afghanistan. He ordered the invasion of Grenada in October 1983, ostensibly to protect American medical students during disorders between two factions of the Marxist government; this action led to the replacement of the leftist government with leaders backed by the United States. Reagan also used U.S. Marines as part of an international peacekeeping force in Lebanon but withdrew the forces several months after guerrillas blew up the marine barracks, killing 241 marines in October 1983.

The economy started to revive in 1983 and with it Reagan's standing in the polls. Reagan was almost unanimously renominated in 1984 for the Presidency. He handily defeated the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Walter Mondale.

In Reagan's second term the economy continued to expand, resulting in millions of new jobs, record corporate profits, and lower inflation. Reagan adhered to the supply-side theory of economics, concentrating on stimulating the supply of goods and services. He felt that lower tax rates on producers would stimulate the economy and producer greater tax revenues, which could shrink the deficit. But the result of tax cuts turned out to be massive budget deficits: in the Reagan years the total national debt rose from $1 trillion (accumulated through 190 years of U.S. history) to $3 trillion. Moreover, the nation had entered the Reagan years with a surplus in its accounts with foreign nations but began to run large trade deficits and became a debtor nation for the first time since before World War 1. The stock market rose dramatically, then dropped sharply on October 19, 1987; the DowJones average (of stock prices) lost a third of its value in a few days. Deregulation of financial institutions led to a savings and loan scandal, in which bank officials used poor judgment in making loans and