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Ronald Reagan Essay Ronald Reagan came from humble beginnings. He was born on February 6, 1911 in the town of Tampico, Illinois. His parents were Jack and Nelle. Jack Reagan was an unsuccessful salesman who was also known as an alcoholic. His mother, Nelle Wilson Reagon was a devout farmwoman who raised Ronald and his older brother, Neil, in the Disciples of Christ Church despite their fathers Catholicism. The family moved frequently, sometimes in response to new job opportunities, sometimes after Jack had been fired because of his drinking. In 1920 they settled in Dixon, Illinois, where Jack became the proprietor and part owner of a shoe store (Reeves 2). Ronald Reagan was an outgoing, optimistic, popular, and apparently happy youth despite the problems of his family. He was interested in sports from an early age and particularly liked football and swimming. Ronald was also nearsighted, which was later diagnosed, made baseball difficult for him. He was a hardworking and modestly successful student, with a talent for memorization (Miller Center). He was active early in school dramatics. As a teenager, he worked during summers as a lifeguard at the swimming area of the local river and put aside much of what he earned for his education (Reeves 6). Reagans youth was in many ways oddly similar to that of other provincial Americans who rose to political prominence: a boyhood in a small town, a family struggling precariously on the edges of the middle class, education in small, undistinguished schools. Huey P. Long, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and many others had grown up in comparable circumstances. But unlike most other small-town boys who rose to political greatness, Reagan showed little early interest in politics (Brinkley). Jack Reagan, like most American Catholics of his era, was a staunch Democrat and Ronald inherited his fathers unreflective enthusiasm for the party even though, throughout the 1920s, it enjoyed little national success. He became a fervent admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, an attachment that grew stronger when the New Deal agencies began providing jobs to unemployed men (among them his father) in depression-ravaged central Illinois (Miller Center). But he never became actively involved in Democratic politics in the state. He found himself drawn occasionally into campus politics at Eureka and in his senior year won election as class president. But when he graduated in 1932, with a B. A. in economics and sociology, politics and public life remained far from his thoughts. He was, he later wrote, drawn to some form of show business, an interest born in part of his experiences in the Eureka drama society (Brinkley). Following graduation, at a time when a quarter of Americans were unemployed, Reagan found work as a radio announcer, first in Davenport, Iowa, then later Des Moines. Reagan struggled at first but in time became one of the best-known sports announcers in the Midwest (Reeves 9). He also became a popular speaker before Des Moines service groups and enlisted as a reserve officer in the U. S. Cavalry so he could ride horses regularly. But he dreamed of bigger things. In 1937, Reagan went to California with the Chicago Cubs baseball team on spring training and arranged through a friend for a screen test at Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers offered Reagan a contract for $200 a week that launched his film career (Brinkley). His growing success also won him a series of deferments from military service (at the request of Warner Brothers) once the United States entered World War II, and then after he was called up and commissioned an officer in the cavalry, an assignment with an army film unit. He spent the war in California making army training movies at a military base in Los Angeles, with time off to make feature films at Warner Brothers (among them the successful 1943 tribute to the military, This Is the Army ) (D’Souza 10). Much of the time, he lived at home with his family. Despite his later claims to the contrary, he never left the country and never saw combat. But he cooperated with studio public relations efforts to portray him as a soldier, who, like other soldiers, left his family to go off to war. Feature stories described Wyman bravely carrying on, raising the children and maintaining the household while her man was away. Newsreels and magazine photos depicted Reagan coming home for leaves and visits. Reagan later sometimes seemed actually to have believed the ruse. Even decades later, he liked to talk about coming back from the war, like other veterans, eager to take up family life again (a life that in his case had hardly been interrupted) (D’Souza 11). Reagans postwar acting career never regained the momentum it had enjoyed in the early 1940s. He had some occasional successes (among them The Hasty Heart in 1949), but he found himself working more often now in minor roles or minor films. Jane Wymans career, in the meantime, was flourishing, and her absorption with it contributed to what were already growing tensions within the marriage. The couple divorced in 1948 (Reagan 4). As his career and his marriage languished, Reagan had begun to become active in politics. His first vehicle was the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the film actors union. Reagan had been active in SAG since his first months in Hollywood, and his involvement grew with his marriage to Wyman, who was also an important figure in the organization. In 1946, he chaired a union strike committee and demonstrated an energy and a toughness that his SAG colleagues had not previously seen. In 1947, he became president of the union, a position he held for six years. Reagan still considered himself a liberal Democrat, and he used his new political distinction to campaign for Harry Truman in 1948. There was occasional talk of Reagan himself running for Congress as a Democrat, but party leaders apparently opposed the idea because they considered him too liberal (Barlietta 15-17). In reality, Reagans political views were changing more rapidly than his public activities suggested. During the war, he had harshly criticized the waste and corruption he saw in the awarding of military contracts, and his suspicion of government bureaucracies only grew in the following years. He was also now complaining frequently about taxes. He had signed a million-dollar contract with Warner Brothers in 1944, but the very high wartime tax rates (up to 90 percent in the upper brackets) greatly reduced his income. In 1950, after initially endorsing the actress Helen Gahagan Douglas for the United States Senate, he switched his support to Richard Nixon in mid-campaign. And as president of SAG, he became active in efforts to distance the union from Communist influence (driven to do so, no doubt, by the savagely anti-Communist political climate, but also by his own deep and growing aversion to Communists) (D’Souza 12). By the late 1940s, he was cooperating with the FBI and testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities against Communism in the union (although he was not asked to name any individual Communists). Subsequently, he cooperated with the studios as they quietly administered the notorious blacklist of alleged Communists who were to be barred from employment in the movie industry. Reagan later claimed that the effort by Hollywood Communists to take over the motion picture business, and the unwillingness of many liberals to confront them, was responsible for his political turn to the right (Brinkley). At least as responsible, however, was his marriage in 1952 to Nancy Davis, a young and largely unknown actress whom he had met at a dinner party in 1949. Davis was the daughter of a once-successful stage actress, Edith Luckett. Her natural parents separated when she was an infant, and she spent most of her childhood in the home of her mothers second husband, Loyal Davis, whose name Nancy took and whose right-wing political views she uncritically absorbed. Her familys conservatism reinforced Reagans own accelerating drift to the right (Brinkley). Reagans second marriage was a happy one. The couple lived in a comfortable home in Pacific Palisades and began to spend time at a ranch Reagan had bought near Santa Barbara. They had two children, Patricia, born in 1952, and Ronald, born in 1958. But Reagans film career was now in serious decline. Warner Brothers had not renewed his contract, and he was having difficulty finding steady work elsewhere. He was now in his mid-forties, and major stardom was coming to seem beyond his reach (Reeves 13). Over the next few years FBI agents working with the House of Un-American Activities Committee and the Hollywood Motion Picture Producers, got 320 people blacklisted from the entertainment industry. As president of the Screen Actors Guild, Reagan refused to support those actors such as Larry Parks, Joseph Bromberg, Charlie Chaplin, John Garfield, Howard Da Silva, Gale Sondergaard, Jeff Corey, John Randolph, Canada Lee, and Paul Robeson who were on this list.   Reagans support of McCarthyism enabled him to continue working in Hollywood but his films continued to appear in mediocre films such as Bedtime for Bonzo (1951), The Last Outpost (1951), The Winning Team (1952), Law and Order (1953), Cattle Queen of Montana (1954), Tennessees Partner (1955) and Hellcats in the Navy (1957). Between 1954 and 1962 Reagan also worked for General Electric as host of the companys weekly half-hour dramas for television. (Miller Center) In the 1930s and 40s Reagan had been a loyal supporter of the Democratic Party. However, he switched to the Republican Party after the war and supported Dwight Eisenhower (1952 and 1956) and Richard Nixon (1960). In 1964 that Reagan became a national political figure. (Barlietta 67) This was as a result of a televised speech in support of Barry Goldwater. It did not help Goldwater win the election (he was seen by most people in America as a dangerous, right-wing extremist). However, it did convince members of the Californian business community that here was a man with the charm to sell right-wing extremism. Reagan was approached about becoming the Republican Party candidate as Governor of California with the help of a smear campaign against Pat Brown and promises of tax cuts he won an easy victory. (Miller Center)? As governor Reagan quickly established himself as one of the countrys leading conservative political figures. This included dramatic budget cuts and a hiring freeze for state agencies. He also put up student fees and when they complained he sent state troopers to deal with their protest meetings. (D’Souza 45) Re-elected with 52 per cent of the vote in 1970, Reagan introduced a series of welfare reforms during his second term in office. This included tightening eligibility requirements for welfare aid and requiring the able to seek work rather than receiving benefits. However, the tax cuts never came, in fact, he presided over the largest tax increase any state had ever demanded in American history. Ronald Reagan won the Republican Presidential nomination in 1980 and chose as his running mate former Texas Congressman and United Nations Ambassador George Bush. Voters troubled by inflation and by the year-long confinement of Americans in Iran swept the Republican ticket into office. Reagan won 489 electoral votes to 49 for President Jimmy Carter. (Miller Center) On January 20, 1981, Reagan took office. Only 69 days later he was shot by a would-be assassin, but quickly recovered and returned to duty. His grace and wit during the dangerous incident caused his popularity to soar. (Brinkley) Dealing skillfully with Congress, Reagan obtained legislation to stimulate economic growth, curb inflation, increase employment, and strengthen national defense. He embarked upon a course of cutting taxes and Government expenditures, refusing to deviate from it when the strengthening of defense forces led to a large deficit. (Brinkley) A renewal of national self-confidence by 1984 helped Reagan and Bush win a second term with an unprecedented number of electoral votes. Their victory turned away Democratic challengers Walter F. Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro. In 1986 Reagan obtained an overhaul of the income tax code, which eliminated many deductions and exempted millions of people with low incomes. At the end of his administration, the Nation was enjoying its longest recorded period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression. (Brinkley) In foreign policy, Reagan sought to achieve peace through strength. During his two terms he increased defense spending 35 percent, but sought to improve relations with the Soviet Union. In dramatic meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, he negotiated a treaty that would eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles. (Brinkley) Reagan declared war against international terrorism, sending American bombers against Libya after evidence came out that Libya was involved in an attack on American soldiers in a West Berlin nightclub. By ordering naval escorts in the Persian Gulf, he maintained the free flow of oil during the Iran-Iraq war. In keeping with the Reagan Doctrine, he gave support to anti-Communist insurgencies in Central America, Asia, and Africa. D’Souza 74) After leaving office in 1989, the Reagans purchased a home in Bel Air, Los Angeles in addition to the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara. They regularly attended Bel Air Presbyterian Church and occasionally made appearances on behalf of the Republican Party; Reagan delivered a well-received speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention. Previously on November 4, 1991, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was dedicated and opened to the public. (D’Souza 111) At the dedication ceremonies, five presidents were in attendance, as well as six first ladies, marking the first time five presidents were gathered in the same location. Reagan continued publicly to speak in favor of a line-item veto; the Brady Bill; a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget; and the repeal of the 22nd Amendment, which prohibits anyone from serving more than two terms as president. In 1992 Reagan established the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award with the newly formed Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. His final public speech was on February 3, 1994 during a tribute to him in Washington, D. C. , and his last major public appearance was at the funeral of Richard Nixon on April 27, 1994. Brinkley) In August 1994, at the age of 83, Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease, an incurable neurological disorder which destroys brain cells and ultimately causes death. In November he informed the nation through a handwritten letter, writing in part: â€Å"I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimers Disease At the moment I feel just fine. I intend to live the remainde r of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead. Thank you, my friends. May God always bless you. † (Miller Center) After his diagnosis, letters of support from well-wishers poured into his California home, but there was also speculation over how long Reagan had demonstrated symptoms of mental degeneration. In her memoirs, former CBS White House correspondent Lesley Stahl recounts her final meeting with the president, in 1986: Reagan didnt seem to know who I was. Oh, my, hes gonzo, I thought. I have to go out on the lawn tonight and tell my countrymen that the president of the United States is a doddering space cadet. But then, at the end, he regained his alertness. As she described it, I had come that close to reporting that Reagan was senile. (Miller Center) However, Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, a physician employed as a reporter for the New York Times, noted that the line between mere forgetfulness and the beginning of Alzheimers can be fuzzyand all four of Reagans White House doctors said that they saw no evidence of Alzheimers while he was president. Dr. John E. Hutton, Reagans primary physician from 1984 to 1989, said the president absolutely did not show any signs of dementia or Alzheimers. (Miller Center) Reagan did experience occasional memory lapses, though, especially with names. Once, while meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, he repeatedly referred to Vice President Bush as Prime Minister Bush. Reagans doctors, however, note that he only began exhibiting overt symptoms of the illness in late 1992or 1993, several years after he had left office. His former Chief of Staff James Baker considered ludicrous the idea of Reagan sleeping during cabinet meetings. Other staff members, former aides, and friends said they saw no indication of Alzheimers while he was President. Barlietta 197) Complicating the picture, Reagan suffered an episode of head trauma in July 1989, five years prior to his diagnosis. After being thrown from a horse in Mexico, a subdural hematoma was found and surgically treated later in the year. Nancy Reagan asserts that her husbands 1989 fall hastened the onset of Alzheimers disease, citing what doctors told her, although acute brain injury has not been conclusively proven to accelerate Alzheimers or dementia. Reagans one-time physician Dr. Daniel Ruge has said it is possible, but not certain, that the horse ccident affected the course of Reagans memory. (Barlietta 209) Reagan died of pneumonia at his home in Bel Air, California on the afternoon of June 5, 2004. A short time after his death, Nancy Reagan released a statement saying: My family and I would like the world to know that President Ronald Reagan has died after 10 years of Alzheimers Disease at 93 years of age. We appreciate everyones prayers. (Brinkley) President George W. Bush declared June 11 a National Day of Mourning, and international tributes came in from around the world. Reagans body was taken to the Kingsley and Gates Funeral Home in Santa Monica, California later in the day, where well-wishers paid tribute by laying flowers and American flags in the grass. On June 7, his body was removed and taken to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where a brief family funeral was held conducted by Pastor Michael Wenning. His body lay in repose in the Library lobby until June 9; over 100,000 people viewed the coffin. (Miller Center) On June 9, Reagans body was flown to Washington, D. C. where he became the tenth United States president to lie in state; in thirty-four hours, 104,684 people filed past the coffin. On June 11, a state funeral was conducted in the Washington National Cathedral, and presided over by President George W. Bush. Eulogies were given by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and both Presidents Bush. Also in attendance were Mikhail Gorbachev, and many world leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and interim presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and Ghazi al-Yawer of Iraq. Brinkley) After the funeral, the Reagan entourage was flown back to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, where another service was held, and President Reagan was interred. (Brinkley) At the time of his death, Reagan was the longest-lived president in U. S. history, having lived 93 years and 120 days (2 years, 8 months, and 23 days longer than John Adams, whose record he surpassed). He is now the second longest-lived president, just 45 days fewer than Gerald Ford. He was the first United States president to die in the 21st century, and his was the first state funeral in the United States since that of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1973. (Miller Center) His burial site is inscribed with the words he delivered at the opening of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and that there is purpose and worth to each and every life.