Ronald Wilson Reagan (
/ˈreɪɡən/; February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th
President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to the presidency, he was a
Hollywood actor and trade union leader before serving as the 33rd
Governor of California from 1967 to 1975.
Reagan was raised in a poor family in small towns of northern
Illinois. He graduated from
Eureka College in 1932 and worked as a sports announcer on several regional radio stations. After moving to Hollywood in 1937, he became an actor and starred in a few major productions. Reagan was twice elected President of the
Screen Actors Guild—the labor union for actors—where he worked to root out
Communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into television and was a motivational speaker at
General Electric factories. Reagan had been a
Democrat until 1962, when he became a conservative and switched to the
Republican Party. In
1964, Reagan's speech, "
A Time for Choosing", supported
Barry Goldwater's foundering presidential campaign and earned him national attention as a new conservative spokesman. Building a network of supporters, he was
elected Governor of California in 1966. As governor, Reagan raised taxes, turned a state budget deficit to a surplus, challenged the protesters at the
University of California, ordered in
National Guard troops during a period of
protest movements in 1969, and was
re-elected in 1970. He twice ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination, in
1968 and
1976. Four years later in
1980, he won the nomination, and then defeated
incumbentpresident
Jimmy Carter. At 69 years, 349 days of age at the time of his
inauguration, he became the oldest
president-elect to take the
oath of office (a distinction now held by
Donald Trump, since 2017). Reagan faced former vice president
Walter Mondale when he ran for re-election in
1984, and defeated him in a landslide with the largest
electoral college victory in American history.
Soon after taking office, Reagan began implementing sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His
supply-side economicpolicies, dubbed "
Reaganomics", advocated tax rate reduction to spur economic growth, economic deregulation, and reduction in government spending. In his first term he survived an
assassination attempt, spurred the
War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor. Over his two terms, the economy saw a reduction of inflation from 12.5% to 4.4%, and an average annual growth of
real GDP of 3.4%. Reagan enacted cuts in domestic discretionary spending, cut taxes, and increased military spending which contributed to increased federal outlays overall, even after adjustment for inflation. Foreign affairs dominated his second term, including ending the
Cold War, the
bombing of Libya, the
Iran–Iraq War, and the
Iran–Contra affair. In June 1987, four years after he publicly described the Soviet Union as an "
evil empire", Reagan challenged Soviet
General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "
tear down this wall!", during a speech at the
Brandenburg Gate. He transitioned Cold War policy from
détente to
rollback by escalating an
arms race with the USSR while engaging in talks with Gorbachev. The talks culminated in the
INF Treaty, which shrank both countries' nuclear arsenals. Reagan began his presidency during the decline of the Soviet Union, and the
Berlin Wall fell just ten months after the end of his term. Germany
reunified the following year, and on December 26, 1991 (nearly three years after he left office), the
Soviet Union collapsed.
When Reagan left office in 1989, he held an approval rating of sixty-eight percent, matching those of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later
Bill Clinton, as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era.
[1] He was the first president since
Dwight D. Eisenhowerto serve two full terms, after a succession of 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. An icon among American
conservatives, he is viewed favorably in
historical rankings of U.S. presidents, and his tenure constituted a
realignment toward conservative policies in the United States.
