Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan, W(ilson) (1911- ). US film actor and politician; 40th president of the US (1981-89). The son of a shoe salesman, Reagan worked as a sports announcer before going to Hollywood in 1937. Over the next 20 years he appeared in some 50 films, mainly routine B-movies. He was also president of the Screen Actors Guild (1947-52; 1959-60). During the 1960s Reagan became increasingly involved in Republican politics; he was governor of California from 1967 to 1974. In the presidential elections of 1980 he defeated the incumbent, Jimmy Carter, to become (at 69) the oldest-ever president of the US. He survived an assassination attempt in March 1981. As president, Reagan pursued free-market economic policies, cutting income taxes and reducing government spending in nearly all areas except defence. The result was a massive federal budget deficit. In foreign affairs he took a tough line against the Soviet Union and authorized US action in Grenada (1983). The following year he was re-elected by a landslide. His second term saw a major arms-limitation treaty with the Soviet Union (1987), then under Gorbachov. A scandal involving covert arms sales to Iran and the diversion of these funds to right-wing insurgents in Nicaragua failed to dent his popularity. He was succeeded by his vice-president, George Bush. Reagan’s folksy laid-back style made him at the same time one of the most popular and one of the most ridiculed figures in US political history. In 1994 he announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
