PSIONWPDATAFILEêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêêê !:‚.ÆA r †6ÐÐÿÿÈÈðROM::PSAPPLE.WDRPBTBody Text ððð Рp@ à°€PNONormal ðð Рp@ à°€PZBNormal ZBÈÈ Ð p@ à°€PZCNormal ZC ´´ Рp@ à°€PZDNormal ZDÈÈ Ð p@ à°€PZENormal ZEðð Рp@ à°€PZFNormal ZFðÈ Ð p@ à°€NNNormal ÿÿUUUnderline ÿÿBBBold ÿÿIIItalic ÿÿEESuperscript ÿÿSSSubscript ÿÿZAZA ð´3Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was elected the 40th president of the United States on Nov. 4, 1980, and was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 1981. At the age of 69, he was the oldest man and the first movie actor ever sworn into that office. During his two terms in office the popular president helped raise the nation's spirits. He also oversaw the creation of large budget and trade deficits and ultimately effected a historic truce in the cold war with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.Early Life and CareerBorn on Feb. 6, 1911, in Tampico, Ill., Reagan had strong roots in small-town, middle America. He worked his way through Eureka College (B.A., 1932), had some success as a sportscaster, and began an acting career with Warner Bros. in 1937. He was to appear in about 53 films, with an interlude (1942-45) in the U.S. Army. Reagan married the actress Jane Wyman in 1940 (divorced 1948) and in 1952 wed Nancy Davis. He moved into television in the 1950s and became the popular host of "Death Valley Days" (1962-65) and spokesman for the General Electric Company. Inheriting from his father a New Deal orientation in politics, Reagan shifted his views in the 1950s and spoke out against "big government" and communism. By the 1960s he was a favorite conservative speaker and naturally supported Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964.With the shattering defeat of the Republican party that year, Reagan was widely regarded as an ex-movie actor with simplistic views, no constituency of any size, and no future. His big years lay ahead, however. In 1966 he easily defeated the incumbent governor of California, Democrat Edmund "Pat" Brown (see Brown, family), and began two 4-year terms that made him a national figure. Reagan won the loyalty of conservatives by initially opposing state spending and tax increases, but he proved to be a pragmatist when California's growth required an expansion of government services. When he left Sacramento the state's budget showed a $550-million surplus.Reagan had been mentioned as a presidential contender in every campaign since 1968, and he tirelessly traveled the lecture circuit, excoriating the evils of liberalism. Republican rivals thought him too old to be a force in 1980, but with well-financed, loyal support, he swept through the primaries to nomination. He selected George Bush as his running mate.Presidential CampaignDemocrats began the campaign by underestimating Reagan's strengths. His age was offset by robust health. His views, however, appeared to be further to the right than majority opinion¥a vulnerability that President Jimmy Carter expected to expose. But Reagan, the master of television, phrased his views with an air of reasonableness and geniality, promising prosperity by "getting the government off our backs." Burdened by his failure to free the Americans held hostage by Iran and by a deteriorating economy, Carter saw his thinly based support erode as the voters concluded that Reagan was a safe choice to replace an ineffective regime. The Californian carried 44 states against Carter's 6; the popular vote was 43 million to 36 million.First Presidential TermImmediately after his inauguration, Reagan launched a bold program that, if carried to conclusion, would fundamentally alter the U.S. political economy. Regarding the economy as in a state of crisis, the Reagan program for economic "revitalization" had been incubated by conservative theorists around the new president. To call forth the allegedly pent-up energies of entrepreneurial capitalism and restore growth, the Reagan plan offered a triad of measures: sharp budget cutting to shrink the public sector; tax cutting, especially in the higher and business brackets, to unleash investment; and a broad retreat from business and social regulation. This policy was "supply-side economics," and Reagan promised a surge of noninflationary growth.Despite many doubters, Reagan jammed his program through the Congress of the United States in 1981¥a major tax cut, $43 billion in budget cuts in domestic programs, and cutbacks in environmental and business regulation. House Democrats resisted this reversal in tax and spending policies, but Reagan's successful appeals to the public, combined with the assassination attempt in which he was wounded by shots fired by John W. Hinckley, Jr., on March 30, generated irresistible support.Reagan's economic policy was cast into serious doubt by the fall, when economic recession deepened. Wall Street agreed with Budget Director David Stockman's admission that Reagan's massive defense increases dwarfed budget cuts elsewhere and insured large continuing deficits, while public-opinion polls indicated a growing conviction that the tax cuts had mainly benefited the rich.The "revolution" seemed to have stalled, and 1982 was spent in budgetary wrangles, while all factions waited to see if the Reagan program would end the recession. Inflation dropped out of double figures, but interest rates remained high until the fall, when a change in Federal Reserve policy caused them to decline. Unemployment in 1982 was the highest in 40 years, however. The political future of the Reagan administration clearly depended on the response of the economy to supply-side medicine.Reagan's defense buildup commenced, while foreign relations saw a stronger anti-Soviet stance but no major departures. The administration appeared internally divided on many matters, such as the Middle East and Central America, and in July 1982, Alexander Haig was replaced as secretary of state by George P. Shultz. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982 prompted the dispatch of U.S. and other peacekeeping forces to that beleaguered country. In a September appeal to solve the Israeli-Arab dispute, Reagan laid out a detailed proposal for Palestinian self-rule in association with Jordan, which was flatly rejected by Israel. The congressional elections of November 1982 gave the Democrats a larger-than-normal, 26-seat gain in the House of Representatives of the United States, while the Senate of the United States was unchanged in party totals.Although the commitment of U.S. Marines to Lebanon had seemed a minor step in late 1982, the events of 1983 suggested a pattern that increasingly divided American opinion. Heavy casualties suffered by the Marines in Beirut raised anxieties about the administration's Lebanese intervention (and early in 1984 the Marines were withdrawn). In late October 1983 the president ordered an invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada and overthrew the country's anti-American dictatorship. U.S. troops were on extended maneuver in Central America, and the CIA worked openly to overturn the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Arms-control talks with the Soviet Union were frozen in mutual distrust as a new deployment of U.S. nuclear missiles began in Europe in November 1983. In each of these initiatives, the president's rationale was the necessity of countering Soviet advances, but this strategy worried many because of the lack of diplomatic results.In 1983 the economic picture brightened, with a resurgent stock market, low inflation, and rising production. Recovery was menaced by enormous deficits, but the jobless rate continued to inch downward.Second TermEarly in 1984, Ronald Reagan announced his decision to run for a second term. Strong support came primarily from conservatives who approved of the military buildup and probusiness policies. Equally fervent, however, were his critics¥environmentalists, minorities, and those who feared that nuclear war might come from the very arms race that Reagan proposed as a path to "strength." The Democrats nominated former vice-president of the United States, Walter F. Mondale, who made history by selecting N.Y. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate.Yet the campaign of 1984 developed no clear issues. Mondale charged that Reagan would cut social security benefits and raise taxes after reelection and criticized the huge federal deficits. Reagan, who said little of his program for a second term (except that he would not raise taxes), spoke of America "standing tall" again. The president's radiant optimism, plus the continued economic recovery, produced a stunning victory. Reagan won 59% of the vote and carried 49 states.Reagan and Bush were inaugurated for second terms in January 1985. In July Reagan underwent surgery to remove a cancerous intestinal polyp. The contrast between his upbeat mood and underlying ailments was mirrored in the national economy, where job expansion and steady economic growth overlay worrisome trends: huge trade deficits, a shaky farm sector, and a 1985 budget deficit of $211 billion. Reagan signed a tax reform bill in October 1986 that reduced and somewhat simplified taxes, but the Democratic party claimed equal credit. In November the Democrats took control of the Senate by the unexpectedly wide margin of 55 to 45 seats. The president's domestic policy agenda seemed depleted.In part this reflected White House preoccupation with the Nicaraguan revolutionary government and the effort to overthrow the Sandinistas in Managua by aiding the rebel "contra" forces operating out of Honduras. Congress had prohibited aid to the contras from 1983 to 1986, but Reagan's determination to continue the struggle led members of his administration, notably the National Security Council staff, into a variety of activities including the secret sale of arms to Iran and the clandestine diversion of profits to the contras. The damaging Iran-contra affair became public in late 1986, and when Reagan claimed not to have known of the diversion, a review board condemned his "management style" as inept. Subsequently, he was also criticized as detached and uninformed in memoirs published by former aides. (Later, after Reagan left office, serious charges involving political favoritism and corruption at the Department of Housing and Urban Development during his administration underscored the problem of lax management.) With the administration already on the defensive, a stock market collapse late in 1987 raised questions about Reagan's economic policies.Reagan's fumbling performance at a second summit conference with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Iceland during October 1986 (the first meeting had been in Geneva in November 1985) deepened doubts about the 75-year-old president. Reagan's persistent advocacy of his costly Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") appeared to block an agreement to reduce nuclear missiles. In December 1987, however, a buoyant Reagan, having resolved some of the differences with the Soviets, signed an arms-control agreement with Gorbachev in Washington. This eliminated intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Reagan visited Moscow in the spring of 1988.His popularity rating again high, Reagan contributed to George Bush's election as president on Nov. 8, 1988.LegacyAs Reagan left Washington for retirement in California, his poll ratings were the highest (two-thirds of those polled approved of his performance) of any president since World War II. Yet Reagan's place in history was unclear. His economic policies had been built upon deficit spending, pushing the national debt during his tenure from approximately $900 billion to over $2 trillion. Foreigners bought much of this debt, and this, combined with the staggering trade deficits, transformed the United States from the world's leading creditor (as late as 1983) to the number-one debtor by 1986, with $400 billion owed abroad when Reagan left office. This was a troubling mortgage upon the future, a hidden cost for six years (1983-88) of economic growth.Reagan's popularity survived concern over economic and other policy matters, for he possessed a leadership style that stressed inspiration over management. He performed as "the Great Reassurer" (in one columnist's words) and was not held closely to account for the government's effectiveness. Reagan had helped to alter the mood of the country from a brooding pessimism to a more confident outlook and had decisively changed the political agenda.Reagan appointed three conservatives to the Supreme Court of the United States¥Sandra D. O'Connor (the first woman justice), Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy. Observers expected these appointees to shift the court to the right in future years.The government was no smaller at the end of Reagan's tenure than at the start, but its priorities had shifted. Social services and environmental protection had yielded priority to an arms buildup. Many citizen concerns had been unattended to¥child care, the soaring costs of health care and higher education, and the drug epidemic. Against this would be weighed Reagan's claim to have pursued policies that made possible Gorbachev's transformation of Soviet society and foreign policy, and thus to be the American president who ended the cold war. This claim in Reagan's last State of the Union address was as bold as his campaign themes had been in 1980, and it framed a presidency sure to challenge the historians.In 1994 it was announced that the former president was suffering from Alzheimer disease. hNOZAZBNNÞZCNNZDNNZCBBZDNNIZCNNZDNN“ZCNNZDNNhZCNNZDNNZCBBZDNNæZCNNZDNNZCBBZDNNëZCNNZDNNæZCNNZDNNZCNNZDNNóZCNNZDNNbZCNNZDNN±ZCNNZDNNÊZCNNZDNN ZCBBZDNN%ZCNNZDNNÞZCNNZDNN¸ZCNNZDNN‘ZCNNZDNN„ZCNNZDNNmZCNNZDNNZCBBZDNNðZCNNZDNN¿ZCNNZDNN÷ZCNNZDNNÍZCNNZDNNYZCNNZDNNZENNZFNN