Ronald Wilson Reagan (/ˈreɪɡən/; February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and became a highly influential voice of modern conservatism. Prior to his presidency, he was a Hollywood actor and union leader before serving as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975.
Reagan was raised in a low-income family in small towns of northern Illinois. He graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and worked as a radio sports commentator. After moving to California in 1937, he found work as an actor and starred in a few major productions. As president of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan worked to root out communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into television and was a motivational speaker at General Electric factories. In 1964, his speech "A Time for Choosing" earned him national attention as a new conservative spokesman. Building a network of supporters, Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966. As governor, he raised taxes, turned a state budget deficit to a surplus, challenged the protesters at UC Berkeley, and ordered in National Guard troops during a period of protest movements.
In 1980, Reagan won the Republican presidential nomination and defeated the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter. At 69 years, 349 days of age at the time of his first inauguration, Reagan was the oldest person to assume the U.S. presidency, a distinction he held until 2017, when Donald Trump was inaugurated at age 70 years, 220 days. Reagan faced former vice president Walter Mondale when he ran for re-election in 1984 and defeated him, winning the most electoral votes of any U.S. president, 525, or 97.6% of the 538 votes in the Electoral College. It was the second-most lopsided presidential election in modern U.S. history after Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1936 victory over Alfred M. Landon, in which he won 98.5%, or 523, of the (then-total) 531 electoral votes.
Immediately on taking office as president, Reagan began implementing sweeping new political and economic initiatives that were highly popular among conservatives but denounced by liberals. Reagan won over enough conservative Democrats to pass his program through Congress. Economic conditions had deteriorated under Carter, with slow growth and high inflation. Reagan promised that his supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", would turn around the economy with lower tax rates, economic deregulation, and reduction in government spending. However conditions remained harsh until they finally turned as promised in time for his reelection in 1984. Over his two terms, the economy saw a reduction of inflation from 12.5% to 4.4% and an average real GDP annual growth of 3.6%. Reagan enacted cuts in domestic discretionary spending, cut taxes, and increased military spending, which contributed to increased federal debt overall. In his first term, he survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor unions.
In foreign affairs he denounced Communism and invaded the island country of Grenada after far-left elements took control. It represented a rollback of Communism that astonished the world. With the economy booming again, foreign affair crises dominated his second term. Major concerns were the bombing of Libya, the Iran–Iraq War, the Iran–Contra affair, and the renewed Cold War. In June 1987, four years after he publicly described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire", Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!", during a speech at the Berlin Wall. He transitioned Cold War policy from détente to rollback by escalating an arms race with the USSR. He then engaged in talks with Gorbachev that culminated in the INF Treaty, which shrank both countries' nuclear arsenals. Reagan began his presidency during the decline of the Soviet Union. The Cold War ended in October 1989 and Soviet communism suddenly collapsed in 1991.
When Reagan left office in January 1989, he held an approval rating of 68%, matching those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later Bill Clinton, as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era. He was the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to serve two full terms, after the five prior presidents did not. Although he had planned an active post-presidency, Reagan disclosed in November 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier that year. Afterward, his informal public appearances became more infrequent as the disease progressed. He died at home on June 5, 2004. His tenure constituted a realignment toward conservative policies in the United States, and he is an icon among conservatives. Evaluations of his 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 of a commercial building in Tampico, Illinois. He was the younger son of Nelle Clyde (née Wilson; 1883–1962) and Jack Reagan (1883–1941). Jack was a salesman and storyteller whose grandparents were Irish Catholic emigrants from County Tipperary, while Nelle was of English, Irish and Scottish descent. Reagan's older brother, Neil Reagan (1908–1996), became an advertising executive.
Reagan's father nicknamed his son "Dutch", due to his "fat little Dutchman" appearance and Dutch-boy haircut; the nickname stuck with him throughout his youth. Reagan's family briefly lived in several towns and cities in Illinois, including Monmouth, Galesburg, and Chicago. In 1919, they returned to Tampico and lived above the H. C. Pitney Variety Store until finally settling in Dixon, Illinois. After his election as president, Reagan lived in the upstairs White House private quarters, and he would quip that he was "living above the store again".
Religion
Ronald Reagan wrote that his mother "always expected to find the best in people and often did." She attended the Disciples of Christ church regularly and was active, and very influential, within it; she frequently led Sunday school services and gave the Bible readings to the congregation during the services. A firm believer in the power of prayer, she led prayer meetings at church and was in charge of mid-week prayers when the pastor was out of town. She was also an adherent of the Social Gospel movement. Her strong commitment to the church is what induced her son Ronald to become a Protestant Christian rather than a Roman Catholic like his Irish father. He also stated that she strongly influenced his own beliefs: "I know that she planted that faith very deeply in me." Reagan identified himself as a born-again Christian. In Dixon, Reagan was strongly influenced by his pastor Beh Hill Cleaver, an erudite scholar. Cleaver was the father of Reagan's fiancé. Reagan saw him a second father. Stephen Vaughn says:
At many points the positions taken by the First Christian Church of Reagan's youth coincided with the words, if not the beliefs of the latter-day Reagan. These positions included faith in Providence, association of America's mission with God's will, belief in progress, trust in the work ethic and admiration for those who achieved wealth, an uncomfortableness with literature and art that questioned the family or challenged notions of proper sexual behavior, presumption that poverty is an individual problem best left to charity rather than the state, sensitivity to problems involving alcohol and drugs, and reticence to use government to protect civil rights for minorities.
According to Paul Kengor, Reagan had a particularly strong faith in the goodness of people; this faith stemmed from the optimistic faith of his mother and the Disciples of Christ faith, into which he was baptized in 1922. For that period, which was long before the civil rights movement, Reagan's opposition to racial discrimination was unusual. He recalled the time when his college football team was staying at a local hotel which would not allow two black teammates to stay there, and he invited them to his parents' home 15 miles (24 kilometers) away in Dixon. His mother invited them to stay overnight and have breakfast the next morning. His father was strongly opposed to the Ku Klux Klan due to his Catholic heritage, but also due to the Klan's anti-semitism and anti-black racism. After becoming a prominent actor, Reagan gave speeches in favor of racial equality following World War II.
Formal education
Reagan attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in acting, sports, and storytelling. His first job involved working as a lifeguard at the Rock River in Lowell Park in 1927. Over six years, Reagan performed 77 rescues. He attended Eureka College, a Disciples-oriented liberal arts school, where he became a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, a cheerleader. He was an indifferent student, majored in economics and sociology and graduated with a C grade. He developed a reputation as a "jack of all trades", excelling in campus politics, sports, and theater. He was a member of the football team and captain of the swim team. He was elected student body president and participated in student protests against the college president.
Entertainment career
Radio and film
After graduating from Eureka in 1932, Reagan took jobs in Iowa as a radio announcer at several stations. He moved to WHO radio in Des Moines as an announcer for Chicago Cubs baseball games. 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.
The Bad Man (1941)
While traveling with the Cubs in California in 1937, Reagan took a screen test that led to a seven-year contract with Warner Bros. Studios. He spent the first few years of his Hollywood career in the "B film" unit, where, Reagan joked, the producers "didn't want them good; they wanted them Thursday".
He earned his first screen credit with a starring role in the 1937 movie Love Is on the Air, and by the end of 1939, he had already appeared in 19 films, including Dark Victory with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. Before the film Santa Fe Trail with Errol Flynn in 1940, he played the role of George Gipp in the film Knute Rockne, All American; from it, he acquired the lifelong nickname "the Gipper." In 1941, exhibitors voted him the fifth most popular star from the younger generation in Hollywood.
Reagan played his favorite acting role in 1942's Kings Row, where he plays a double amputee who recites the line "Where's the rest of me?"—later used as the title of his 1965 autobiography. Many film critics considered Kings Row to be his best movie, though the film was condemned by The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther.
Kings Row made Reagan a star—Warner immediately tripled his salary to $3,000 a week. Early in 1942, he was ordered to military active duty in San Francisco and never became a true film star. After his wartime military service he co-starred in such films as The Voice of the Turtle, John Loves Mary, The Hasty Heart, Bedtime for Bonzo, Cattle Queen of Montana, Tennessee's Partner, Hellcats of the Navy (the only film in which he appears with Nancy Reagan), and the 1964 remake The Killers (his final film). Throughout his film career, Reagan's mother answered much of his fan mail.
Military service
After completing 14 home-study Army Extension Courses, Reagan enlisted in the Army Enlisted Reserve and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Officers' Reserve Corps of the Cavalry on May 25, 1937.
On April 18, 1942, Reagan was ordered to active duty for the first time. Due to his poor eyesight, he was classified for limited service only, which excluded him from serving overseas. His first assignment was at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation at Fort Mason, California, as a liaison officer of the Port and Transportation Office. Upon the approval of the Army Air Forces (AAF), he applied for a transfer from the cavalry to the AAF on May 15, 1942, and was assigned to AAF Public Relations and subsequently to the First Motion Picture Unit (officially, the 18th AAF Base Unit) in Culver City, California. On January 14, 1943, he was promoted to first lieutenant and was sent to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit of This Is the Army at Burbank, California. He returned to the First Motion Picture Unit after completing this duty and was promoted to captain on July 22, 1943.
In January 1944, Reagan was ordered to temporary duty in New York City to participate in the opening of the Sixth War Loan Drive, which campaigned for the purchase of war bonds. He was reassigned to the First Motion Picture Unit on November 14, 1944, where he remained until the end of World War II. By the end of the war, his units had produced some 400 training films for the Air Force, including cockpit simulations for B-29 crews scheduled to bomb Japan. He was separated from active duty on December 9, 1945, as an Army captain. While he was in the service, Reagan obtained a film reel depicting the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp; he held on to it, believing that doubts would someday arise as to whether the Holocaust had occurred.
Screen Actors Guild presidency
Reagan was first elected to the Board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) in 1941, serving as an alternate member. After World War II, he resumed service and became third vice president in 1946. When the SAG president and six board members resigned in March 1947 due to the union's new bylaws on conflict of interest, Reagan was elected president in a special election. He was subsequently re-elected six times, in 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1959. He led the SAG through implementing the 1947 Taft–Hartley Act, various labor-management disputes, and the Hollywood blacklist era. First instituted in 1947 by Studio executives who agreed that they would not employ anyone believed to be or to have been Communists or sympathetic with radical politics, the blacklist grew steadily larger during the early 1950s as the U.S. Congress continued to investigate domestic political subversion.
Also during his tenure, Reagan was instrumental in securing residuals for television actors when their episodes were re-run, and later, for motion picture actors when their studio films aired on TV.
FBI informant
In 1946, Reagan served on the national board of directors for the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions (ICCASP) and had been a member of its Hollywood chapter (HICCASP). His attendance at a July 10, 1946, meeting of HICCASP brought him to the attention of the FBI, which interviewed him on April 10, 1947, in connection with its investigation into HICCASP. Four decades later it was revealed that, during the late 1940s, Reagan (under the code name T-10) and his then-wife, Jane Wyman, provided the FBI with the names of actors within the motion picture industry whom they believed to be communist sympathizers. Even so, he was uncomfortable with the way the SAG was being used by the government, asking during one FBI interview, "Do they (i.e. the House Un-American Activities Committee) expect us to constitute ourselves as a little FBI of our own and determine just who is a Commie and who isn't?"
HUAC's Hollywood hearings
In October 1947 during HUAC's Hollywood hearings, Reagan (whose name also appears as "Regan" in text of the hearings printed by the US GPO testified as resident of the Screen Actors Guild:) testified:
There has been a small group within the Screen Actors Guild which has consistently opposed the policy of the guild board and officers of the guild... suspected of more or less following the tactics that we associate with the Communist Party... At times they have attempted to be a disruptive influence... I have heard different discussions and some of them tagged as Communists... I found myself misled into being a sponsor on another occasion for a function that was held under the auspices of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee.
Regarding a "jurisdictional strike" going on for seven months at that time, Reagan testified:
The first time that this word "Communist" was ever injected into any of the meetings concerning the strike was at a meeting in Chicago with Mr. William Hutchinson, president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, who were on strike at the time. He asked the Screen Actors Guild to submit terms to Mr. Walsh, for Walsh to give in the settling of this strike, and he told us to tell Mr. Walsh that if he would give in on these terms he in turn would run this Sorrell and the other Commies out—I am quoting him—and break it up.
However, Reagan also opposed measures soon to manifest in the Mundt-Nixon Bill in May 1948 by opining:
As a citizen I would hesitate, or not like, to see any political party outlawed on the basis of its political ideology... I detest, I abhor their philosophy, but I detest more than that their tactics, which are those of the fifth column, and are dishonest, but at the same time I never as a citizen want to see our country become urged, by either fear or resentment of this group, that we ever compromise with any of our democratic principles through that fear or resentment.
Further, asked whether he was aware of Communist efforts within the Screen Writers Guild, Reagan would not play along, saying, "Sir, like the other gentlemen, I must say that that is hearsay."
Television
Reagan landed fewer film roles in the late 1950s and moved into television. He was hired as the host of General Electric Theater, a series of weekly dramas that became very popular. His contract required him to tour General Electric (GE) plants 16 weeks out of the year, which often demanded that he give 14 talks per day. He earned approximately $125,000 (equivalent to $1.1 million in 2019) in this role. The show ran for ten seasons from 1953 to 1962, which increased Reagan's national profile. On January 1, 1959, Reagan was the host and announcer for ABC's coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade. In his final work as a professional actor, Reagan was a host and performer from 1964 to 1965 on the television series Death Valley Days. Following their marriage in 1952, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, who continued to use the stage name Nancy Davis, acted together in three TV series episodes, including a 1958 installment of General Electric Theater titled "A Turkey for the President".
Marriages and children
In 1938, Reagan co-starred in the film Brother Rat with actress Jane Wyman (1917–2007). They announced their engagement at the Chicago Theater and married on January 26, 1940, at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church in Glendale, California. Together they had two biological children, Maureen (1941–2001) and Christine (b. in 1947 but lived only one day), and adopted a third, Michael (b. 1945). After the couple had arguments about Reagan's political ambitions, Wyman filed for divorce in 1948, citing a distraction due to her husband's Screen Actors Guild union duties; the divorce was finalized in 1949. Wyman, who was a registered Republican, also stated that their break-up was due to a difference in politics (Reagan was still a Democrat at the time). When Reagan became president 32 years later, he became the first divorced person to assume the nation's highest office; Donald Trump (2 divorces) would be the second, 36 years later. Reagan and Wyman continued to be friends until his death, with Wyman voting for Reagan in both his runs and, upon his death, saying "America has lost a great president and a great, kind, and gentle man."
Reagan met actress Nancy Davis (1921–2016) in 1949 after she contacted him in his capacity as president of the Screen Actors Guild. He helped her with issues regarding her name appearing on a Communist blacklist in Hollywood. She had been mistaken for another Nancy Davis. She described their meeting by saying, "I don't know if it was exactly love at first sight, but it was pretty close." They were engaged at Chasen's restaurant in Los Angeles and were married on March 4, 1952, at the Little Brown Church in the Valley (North Hollywood, now Studio City) San Fernando Valley. Actor William Holden served as best man at the ceremony. They had two children: Patti (b. 1952) and Ronald "Ron" (b. 1958).
The couple's relationship was close, authentic and intimate. During his presidency, they often displayed affection for one another; one press secretary said, "They never took each other for granted. They never stopped courting." He often called her "Mommy", and she called him "Ronnie." He once wrote to her, "Whatever I treasure and enjoy ... all would be without meaning if I didn't have you." In 1998, while he was stricken by Alzheimer's, Nancy told Vanity Fair, "Our relationship is very special. We were very much in love and still are. When I say my life began with Ronnie, well, it's true. It did. I can't imagine life without him." Nancy Reagan died on March 6, 2016, at the age of 94.
Early political career
Reagan began as a Hollywood Democrat, and Franklin D. Roosevelt was "a true hero" to him. He moved to the right-wing in the 1950s, became a Republican in 1962, and emerged as a leading conservative spokesman in the Goldwater campaign of 1964.
In his early political career, he joined numerous political committees with a left-wing orientation, such as the American Veterans Committee. He fought against Republican-sponsored right-to-work legislation and supported Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950 when she was defeated for the Senate by Richard Nixon. It was his realization that Communists were a powerful backstage influence in those groups that led him to rally his friends against them.
At rallies, Reagan frequently spoke with a strong ideological dimension. In December 1945, he was stopped from leading an anti-nuclear rally in Hollywood by pressure from the Warner Bros. studio. He would later make nuclear weapons a key point of his presidency when he specifically stated his opposition to mutual assured destruction. Reagan also built on previous efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. In the 1948 presidential election, Reagan strongly supported Harry S. Truman and appeared on stage with him during a campaign speech in Los Angeles. In the early 1950s, his relationship with actress Nancy Davis grew, and he shifted to the right when he endorsed the presidential candidacies of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1952 and 1956) and Richard Nixon (1960).
Reagan was hired by General Electric (GE) in 1954 to host the General Electric Theater, a weekly TV drama series. He also traveled across the country to give motivational speeches to over 200,000 GE employees. His many speeches—which he wrote himself—were non-partisan but carried a conservative, pro-business message; he was influenced by Lemuel Boulware, a senior GE executive. Boulware, known for his tough stance against unions and his innovative strategies to win over workers, championed the core tenets of modern American conservatism: free markets, anticommunism, lower taxes, and limited government. Eager for a larger stage, but not allowed to enter politics by GE, he quit and formally registered as a Republican. He often said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me."
When the legislation that would become Medicare was introduced in 1961, he created a recording for the American Medical Association (AMA) warning that such legislation would mean the end of freedom in America. Reagan said that if his listeners did not write letters to prevent it, "we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free." Other Democratic initiatives he opposed in the 1960s included the Food Stamp Program, raising the minimum wage, and the establishment of the Peace Corps. He also joined the National Rifle Association (NRA) and would become a lifetime member.
Reagan gained national attention in his speeches for conservative presidential contender Barry Goldwater in 1964. Speaking for Goldwater, Reagan stressed his belief in the importance of smaller government. He consolidated themes that he had developed in his talks for GE to deliver his famous speech, "A Time for Choosing":
The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing ... You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream—the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order—or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.— October 27, 1964
This "A Time for Choosing" speech was not enough to turn around the faltering Goldwater campaign, but it was the crucial event that established Reagan's national political visibility. David Broder of the Washington Post called it, "the most successful national political debut since William Jennings Bryan electrified the 1896 Democratic convention with his Cross of Gold speech."
Governor of California (1967–1975)
California Republicans were impressed with Reagan's political views and charisma after his "Time for Choosing" speech, and in late 1965 he announced his campaign for governor in the 1966 election. He defeated former San Francisco mayor George Christopher in the Republican primary. In Reagan's campaign, he emphasized two main themes: "to send the welfare bums back to work," and, in reference to burgeoning anti-war and anti-establishment student protests at the University of California, Berkeley, "to clean up the mess at Berkeley." In 1966, Reagan accomplished what both U.S. senator William Knowland in 1958 and former vice president Richard Nixon in 1962 failed to do: he was elected, defeating Pat Brown, the Democratic two-term governor. Reagan was sworn in on January 2, 1967. In his first term, he froze government hiring and approved tax hikes to balance the budget.
In 1966, Reagan was elected governor of California with 57.5 percent of the vote.
Reagan: 50–59% 60–69% 70–79%
Brown: 50–59%
Shortly after assuming office, Reagan tested the 1968 presidential waters as part of a "Stop Nixon" movement, hoping to cut into Nixon's southern support and become a compromise candidate if neither Nixon nor second-place candidate Nelson Rockefeller received enough delegates to win on the first ballot at the Republican convention. However, by the time of the convention, Nixon had 692 delegate votes, 25 more than he needed to secure the nomination, followed by Rockefeller with Reagan in third place.
Reagan was involved in several high-profile conflicts with the protest movements of the era, including his public criticism of university administrators for tolerating student demonstrations at the Berkeley campus. On May 15, 1969, during the People's Park protests at the university's campus (the original purpose of which was to discuss the Arab–Israeli conflict), Reagan sent the California Highway Patrol and other officers to quell the protests. This led to an incident that became known as "Bloody Thursday," resulting in the death of student James Rector and the blinding of carpenter Alan Blanchard. In addition, 111 police officers were injured in the conflict, including one who was knifed in the chest. Reagan then called out 2,200 state National Guard troops to occupy the city of Berkeley for two weeks to crack down on the protesters. The Guard remained in Berkeley for 17 days, camping in People's Park, and demonstrations subsided as the university removed cordoned-off fencing and placed all development plans for People's Park on hold. One year after the incident, Reagan responded to questions about campus protest movements saying, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement." When the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patty Hearst in Berkeley and demanded the distribution of food to the poor, Reagan joked to a group of political aides about a botulism outbreak contaminating the food.
Early in 1967, the national debate on abortion was starting to gain traction. In the early stages of the debate, Democratic California state senator Anthony Beilenson introduced the Therapeutic Abortion Act in an effort to reduce the number of "back-room abortions" performed in California. The state legislature sent the bill to Reagan's desk where, after many days of indecision, he reluctantly signed it on June 14, 1967. About two million abortions would be performed as a result, mostly because of a provision in the bill allowing abortions for the well-being of the mother. Reagan had been in office for only four months when he signed the bill and later stated that had he been more experienced as governor, he would not have signed it. After he recognized what he called the "consequences" of the bill, he announced that he was anti-abortion. He maintained that position later in his political career, writing extensively about abortion.
In 1967, Reagan signed the Mulford Act, which repealed a law allowing the public carrying of loaded firearms (becoming California Penal Code 12031 and 171(c)). The bill, which was named after Republican assemblyman Don Mulford, garnered national attention after the Black Panthers marched bearing arms upon the California State Capitol to protest it.
Despite an unsuccessful attempt to force a recall election on Reagan in 1968, he was re-elected governor in 1970, defeating Jesse M. Unruh. He chose not to seek a third term in the following election cycle. One of Reagan's greatest frustrations in office was the controversy of capital punishment, which he strongly supported. His efforts to enforce the state's laws in this area were thwarted when the Supreme Court of California issued its People v. Anderson decision, which invalidated all death sentences issued in California before 1972, though the decision was later overturned by a constitutional amendment. The only execution during Reagan's governorship was on April 12, 1967, when Aaron Mitchell's sentence was carried out by the state in San Quentin's gas chamber.
In 1969, Reagan signed the Family Law Act, which was an amalgam of two bills that had been written and revised by the California State Legislature over more than two years. It became the first no-fault divorce legislation in the United States. Years later, he told his son Michael that signing that law was his "greatest regret" in public life.
Reagan's terms as governor helped to shape the policies he would pursue in his later political career as president. By campaigning on a platform of sending "the welfare bums back to work," he spoke out against the idea of the welfare state. He also strongly advocated the Republican ideal of less government regulation of the economy, including that of undue federal taxation.
1976 presidential campaign
Reagan's 1976 campaign relied on a strategy crafted by campaign manager John Sears of winning a few primaries early to damage the inevitability of Ford's likely nomination. Reagan won North Carolina, Texas, and California, but the strategy failed, as he ended up losing New Hampshire, Florida, and his native Illinois. The Texas campaign lent renewed hope to Reagan when he swept all 96 delegates chosen in the May 1 primary, with four more awaiting at the state convention. Much of the credit for that victory came from the work of three co-chairmen, including Ernest Angelo, the mayor of Midland, and Ray Barnhart of Houston, whom Reagan as president would appoint in 1981 as director of the Federal Highway Administration.
However, as the GOP convention neared, Ford appeared close to victory. Acknowledging his party's moderate wing, Reagan chose moderate senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as his running mate if nominated. Nonetheless, Ford prevailed with 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. Though he lost the nomination, he received 307 write-in votes in New Hampshire, 388 votes as an independent on Wyoming's ballot, and a single electoral vote from a faithless elector in the November election from the state of Washington.
After the campaign, Reagan remained in the public debate with the Ronald Reagan Radio Commentary series and his political action committee, Citizens for the Republic, which was later revived in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2009 by the Reagan biographer Craig Shirley.
1980 presidential campaign
1980 electoral vote results
The 1980 presidential election featured Reagan against incumbent president Jimmy Carter and was conducted amid a multitude of domestic concerns as well as the ongoing Iran hostage crisis. Reagan's campaign stressed some of his fundamental principles: lower taxes to stimulate the economy, less government interference in people's lives, states' rights, and a strong national defense.
Reagan launched his campaign with an indictment of a Federal Government which he believed had "overspent, overstimulated, and over-regulated." After receiving the Republican nomination, Reagan selected one of his opponents in the primaries, George H. W. Bush, to be his running mate. His relaxed and confident appearance during the televised Reagan–Carter 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 plus D.C. He also won the popular vote, receiving 50.7 percent to Carter's 41.0 percent, with independent John B. Anderson garnering 6.6 percent. Republicans also won a majority of seats in the Senate for the first time since 1952, though Democrats retained a majority in the House of Representatives.
Presidency (1981–1989)
During his presidency, Reagan pursued policies that reflected his personal belief in individual freedom; brought changes domestically, both to the U.S. economy and expanded military; and contributed to the end of the Cold War. Termed the "Reagan Revolution," his presidency would reinvigorate American morale, reinvigorate the U.S. economy and reduce reliance upon government. As president, Reagan kept a diary in which he commented on daily occurrences of his presidency and his views on the issues of the day. The diaries were published in May 2007 in the bestselling book, The Reagan Diaries.
First term
Inauguration parade. As Reagan read his inauguration address, 52 U.S. hostages held by Iran for 444 days were set free.
Ronald Reagan was 69 years old when he was sworn into office for his first term on January 20, 1981. 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."
Prayer in schools and a moment of silence
During his term in office, Reagan campaigned vigorously to restore organized prayer to the schools, first as a moment of prayer and later as a moment of silence. In 1981, Reagan became the first president to propose a constitutional amendment on school prayer. Reagan's election reflected an opposition to the 1962 Supreme Court case Engel v. Vitale, prohibiting state officials from composing an official state prayer and requiring that it be recited in the public schools. Reagan's 1981 proposed amendment 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, Reagan again raised the issue, asking Congress "why can't [the] freedom to acknowledge God be enjoyed again by children in every schoolroom across this land?" In 1985, Reagan expressed his disappointment that the Supreme Court ruling still banned a moment of silence for public schools, and said that efforts to re-institute prayer in public schools were "an uphill battle". In 1987 Reagan renewed his call for Congress to support voluntary prayer in schools and end "the expulsion of God from America's classrooms."
Assassination attempt
On March 30, 1981, Reagan, his press secretary James Brady, Washington police officer Thomas Delahanty, and Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy were struck by gunfire from would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr. outside the Washington Hilton hotel. Although "close to death" upon arrival at George Washington University Hospital, Reagan was stabilized in the emergency room, then underwent emergency exploratory surgery. He recovered and was released from the hospital on April 11, becoming the first serving U.S. president to survive being shot in an assassination attempt. The attempt had a significant influence on Reagan's popularity; polls indicated his approval rating to be around 73 percent. Reagan believed that God had spared his life so that he might go on to fulfill a higher purpose.
Air traffic controllers' strike
In August 1981, PATCO, the union of federal air traffic controllers, went on strike, violating a federal law prohibiting government unions from striking. Declaring the situation an emergency as described in the 1947 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. A leading reference work on public administration concluded, "The firing of PATCO employees not only demonstrated a clear resolve by the president to take control of the bureaucracy, but it also sent a clear message to the private sector that unions no longer needed to be feared."
"Reaganomics" and the economy
During Jimmy Carter's last year in office (1980), inflation averaged 12.5 percent, compared with 4.4 percent during Reagan's last year in office (1988). During Reagan's administration, the unemployment rate declined from 7.5 percent to 5.4 percent, with the rate reaching highs of 10.8 percent in 1982 and 10.4 percent in 1983, averaging 7.5 percent over the eight years, and real GDP growth averaged 3.4 percent with a high of 8.6 percent in 1983, while nominal GDP growth averaged 7.4 percent, and peaked at 12.2 percent in 1982.
Reagan implemented policies based on supply-side economics, advocating a laissez-faire philosophy and free-market fiscal policy, seeking to stimulate the economy with large, across-the-board tax cuts. He also supported returning the United States to some sort of gold standard and successfully urged Congress to establish the U.S. Gold Commission to study how one could be implemented. Citing the economic theories of Arthur Laffer, 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. Reaganomics was the subject of debate with supporters pointing to improvements in certain key economic indicators as evidence of success, and critics pointing to large increases in federal budget deficits and the national debt. His policy of "peace through strength" resulted in a record peacetime defense buildup including a 40 percent real increase in defense spending between 1981 and 1985.
During Reagan's presidency, federal income tax rates were lowered significantly with the signing of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which lowered the top marginal tax bracket from 70 percent to 50 percent over three years (as part of a "5–10–10" plan), and the lowest bracket from 14 percent to 11 percent. Other tax increases passed by Congress and signed by Reagan ensured however that tax revenues over his two terms were 18.2 percent of GDP as compared to 18.1 percent over the 40 years of 1970–2010. The 1981 tax act also required that exemptions and brackets be indexed for inflation starting in 1985.
Conversely, Congress passed and Reagan signed into law tax increases of some nature in every year from 1981 to 1987 to continue funding such government programs as Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA), Social Security, and the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 (DEFRA). TEFRA was the "largest peacetime tax increase in American history." Gross domestic product (GDP) growth recovered strongly after the early 1980s recession ended in 1982, and grew during his eight years in office at an annual rate of 7.9 percent per year, with a high of 12.2 percent growth in 1981. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent monthly rate in December 1982—higher than any time since the Great Depression—then dropped during the rest of Reagan's presidency. Sixteen million new jobs were created, while inflation significantly decreased. The Tax Reform Act of 1986, another bipartisan effort championed by Reagan, simplified the tax code by reducing the number of tax brackets to four and slashing several tax breaks. The top rate was dropped to 28 percent, but capital gains taxes were increased on those with the highest incomes from 20 percent to 28 percent. The increase of the lowest tax bracket from 11 percent to 15 percent was more than offset by the expansion of personal exemption, standard deduction, and earned income tax credit. The net result was the removal of six million poor Americans from the income tax roll and a reduction of income tax liability at all income levels.
The net effect of all Reagan-era tax bills was a 1 percent decrease in government revenues when compared to Treasury Department revenue estimates from the Administration's first post-enactment January budgets. However, federal income tax receipts increased from 1980 to 1989, rising from $308.7 billion to $549 billion or an average annual rate of 8.2 percent (2.5 percent attributed to higher Social Security receipts), and federal outlays grew at an annual rate of 7.1 percent.
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"—the belief that tax policies that benefit the wealthy will create a "trickle-down" effect reaching the poor. Questions arose whether Reagan's policies benefited the wealthy more than those living in poverty, and many poor and minority citizens viewed Reagan as indifferent to their struggles. These views were exacerbated by the fact that Reagan's economic regimen included freezing the minimum wage at $3.35 an hour, slashing federal assistance to local governments by 60 percent, cutting the budget for public housing and Section 8 rent subsidies in half, and eliminating the antipoverty Community Development Block Grant program. The widening gap between the rich and poor had already begun during the 1970s before Reagan's economic policies took effect. Along with Reagan's 1981 cut in the top regular tax rate on unearned income, he reduced the maximum capital gains rate to 20 percent. Reagan later set tax rates on capital gains at the same level as the rates on ordinary income like salaries and wages, with both topping out at 28 percent. Reagan is viewed as an anti-tax hero despite raising taxes eleven times throughout his presidency, all in the name of fiscal responsibility. According to Paul Krugman, "Over all, the 1982 tax increase undid about a third of the 1981 cut; as a share of GDP, the increase was substantially larger than Mr. Clinton's 1993 tax increase." According to historian and domestic policy adviser Bruce Bartlett, Reagan's tax increases throughout his presidency took back half of the 1981 tax cut.
Reagan was opposed to government intervention, and he cut the budgets of non-military programs including Medicaid, food stamps, federal education programs and the EPA. 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.
The administration's stance toward the savings and loan industry contributed to the savings and loan crisis. A minority of the critics of Reaganomics also suggested that the policies partially influenced the stock market crash of 1987, but there is no consensus regarding a single source for the crash. To cover newly spawned federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion. Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.
He reappointed Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and in 1987 he appointed monetarist Alan Greenspan to succeed him. Reagan ended the price controls on domestic oil that had contributed to the energy crises of 1973–74 and the summer of 1979. The price of oil subsequently dropped, and there were no fuel shortages like those in the 1970s. Reagan also fulfilled a 1980 campaign promise to repeal the windfall profits tax in 1988, which had previously increased dependence on foreign oil. Some economists, such as Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman and Robert Mundell, argue that Reagan's tax policies invigorated America's economy and contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s. Other economists, such as Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow, argue that Reagan's deficits were a major reason his successor, George H. W. Bush, reneged on his campaign promise and resorted to raising taxes.
During Reagan's presidency, a program was initiated within the United States Intelligence Community to ensure America's economic strength. The program, Project Socrates, developed and demonstrated the means required for the United States to generate and lead the next evolutionary leap in technology acquisition and utilization for a competitive advantage—automated innovation. To ensure that the United States acquired the maximum benefit from automated innovation, Reagan, during his second term, had an executive order drafted to create a new federal agency to implement the Project Socrates results on a nationwide basis. However, Reagan's term came to an end before the executive order could be coordinated and signed, and the incoming Bush administration, labeling Project Socrates as "industrial policy," had it terminated.
Civil rights
The Reagan administration was often criticized for inadequately enforcing, if not actively undermining, civil rights legislation. In 1982, he signed a bill extending the Voting Rights Act for 25 years after a grass-roots 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, though he did so with reservations. In March 1988, he vetoed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, 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.
Escalation of the Cold War
As the first U.S. president invited to speak before the British Parliament (June 8, 1982), Reagan predicted Marxism–Leninism would end up on the "ash heap of history."
Reagan escalated the Cold War, accelerating a reversal from the policy of détente that began during the Carter administration, following the Afghan Saur Revolution and subsequent Soviet invasion. He ordered a massive buildup of the United States Armed Forces and implemented new policies that were directed towards the Soviet Union; he revived the B-1 Lancer program that had been canceled by the Carter administration, and he produced the MX missile. In response to Soviet deployment of the SS-20, Reagan oversaw NATO's deployment of the Pershing missile 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 1984, journalist Nicholas Lemann interviewed Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and summarized the strategy of the Reagan administration to roll back the Soviet Union:
Their society is economically weak, and it lacks the wealth, education, and technology to enter the information age. They have thrown everything into military production, and their society is starting to show terrible stress as a result. They can't sustain military production the way we can. Eventually it will break them, and then there will be just one superpower in a safe world—if, only if, we can keep spending.
Lemann noted that when he wrote that in 1984, he thought the Reaganites were living in a fantasy world. But by 2016, Lemann stated that the passage represents "a fairly uncontroversial description of what Reagan actually did."
Reagan and the United Kingdom's prime minister Margaret Thatcher both denounced the Soviet Union in ideological terms. In a famous address on June 8, 1982, to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster, Reagan said, "the march of freedom and democracy will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history." On March 3, 1983, he predicted that communism would collapse, stating, "Communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written." In a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals on March 8, 1983, Reagan called the Soviet Union "an evil empire."
After Soviet fighters downed Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near Moneron Island on September 1, 1983, carrying 269 people, including Georgia congressman Larry McDonald, Reagan labeled the act a "massacre" and declared that the Soviets had turned "against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere." The Reagan administration responded to the incident by suspending 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 KAL 007's going astray thought to be inadequacies related to its navigational system, Reagan announced on September 16, 1983, that the Global Positioning System would be made available for civilian use, free of charge, once completed in order to avert similar navigational errors in future.
Under a policy that came to be known as the Reagan Doctrine, Reagan and his administration also provided overt and covert aid to anti-communist resistance movements in an effort to "rollback" 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, Reagan also agreed with the communist government in China to reduce the sale of arms to Taiwan.
Reagan deployed the CIA's Special Activities Division to Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were instrumental in training, equipping and leading Mujahideen forces against the Soviet Army. President 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 U.S. troops in the 2001 War in Afghanistan. The CIA also began sharing information with the Iranian government which 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.
In March 1983, Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative, a defense project that would have used ground- and space-based systems to protect the United States from 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 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 said it would put "the entire world in jeopardy." For those reasons, David Gergen, a former aide to President Reagan, believes that in retrospect, SDI hastened the end of the Cold War.
Though supported by leading American conservatives who argued that Reagan's foreign policy strategy was essential to protecting U.S. security interests, critics labeled the administration's foreign policy initiatives as aggressive and imperialistic, and chided them as "warmongering." The administration was also heavily criticized for backing anti-communist leaders accused of severe human rights violations, such as Hissène Habré of Chad and Efraín Ríos Montt of Guatemala. During the 16 months (1982–1983) Montt was President of Guatemala, the Guatemalan military was accused of genocide for massacres of members of the Ixil people 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 appealed to Congress to restart military aid. Although unsuccessful with that, the administration was successful in providing nonmilitary assistance such as USAID.
Lebanese Civil War
With the approval of Congress, Reagan sent forces to Lebanon in 1983 to reduce the threat of the Lebanese Civil War. The American peacekeeping forces in Beirut, a part of a multinational force during the Lebanese Civil War, were attacked on October 23, 1983. The Beirut barracks bombing killed 241 American servicemen and wounded more than 60 others by a suicide truck bomber. Reagan sent in the USS New Jersey battleship to shell Syrian positions in Lebanon. He then withdrew all the Marines from Lebanon.
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