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Ronald Reagan

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Ronald Wilson Reagan was the fortieth President of the United States of America and he held office between 1981 and 1989. Ronald Reagan was born in 1911 and first began work as a radio broadcaster before becoming a successful actor in films and television, appearing in over 50 movies and becoming a well-known public figure prior to his involvement in politics.

In 1967 he was elected the 33rd Governor of California, a role later filled by another movie actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and in the 1980 presidential elections, he defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter taking office on 20th January 1981 as the new President of the United States.

As President of the USA, Ronald Reagan introduced some dramatic new political and economic initiatives which included the reduction of taxes to promote economic growth, reduction of government spending and deregulation of the economy.

However, after only 69 days as President, Reagan was very nearly killed in an assassination attempt that left Reagan, his press secretary James Brady, Police Officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy seriously injured. Miraculously Reagan survived the near fatal incident, as did all his colleagues, and he came to believe that God had spared his life so that he might go on to fulfil a greater purpose.

As it turns out, the incident had a great influence on Reagan’s popularity polls which peaked at 73% after the shooting and he went on to complete two terms in office.

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Do You Remember Ronald Reagan?

Do You Remember Ronald Reagan?

  • Anonymous user
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    An utterly charming man completely devoid of brains, whose best acting role was playing being the President of the United States. Reagan presided over one of the most dangerous phases of the Cold War, essentially acting as a glove-puppet for the John Birch Committee and other neo-Con interest groups within the US political establishment. You can't blame somebody who hasn't the wit to make serious geo-political decisions for the awful things that happened in the early 1980s, but even so his administration presided over a dangerous escalation of East-West tension, including the deployment of Cruise missiles in Europe (especially in the UK), the pointless antagonising of a paranoid Soviet leadership, the disastrous mishandling of Operation Able Archer in November '83 that nearly triggered WW3, and the funding of right-wing paramilitaries in Latin America. He also authorised the bombing of Libya that led to the Lockerbie Disaster two years later, and then of course there was the Iran-Contra affair... On the plus side, he was one of the first Western leaders to recognise Mikhail Gorbachev as a genuine reformer, and to believe in his call for the ending of Cold War enmity, which led to the landmark INF Treaty of December '87. Reagan was a charming man, but a useless and dangerous politician whose very lack of intellect allowed all manner of background figures in the US Government to pursue their own agendas.

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