Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan was president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and reoriented both American politics and the end of the Cold War. Born in 1911 in Illinois to a shoe salesman with a drinking problem, he worked as a radio sports announcer, recreating baseball games from telegraph tickers, and went to Hollywood in 1937, where he made some fifty films without becoming a major star. He was president of the Screen Actors Guild through the blacklist years, and a New Deal Democrat who moved right through the 1950s while working for General Electric. A televised speech for Barry Goldwater in 1964 made him a national figure; he was elected governor of California in 1966 and served two terms. He won the presidency in 1980 against Jimmy Carter amid inflation and the Iran hostage crisis, and was shot two months into the term. His domestic programme cut the top marginal income tax rate from 70 to 28 per cent, deregulated substantially, and backed Paul Volcker's interest rate rises that broke inflation at the cost of a severe recession. Defence spending rose sharply and the federal deficit roughly tripled. He fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981, which changed the balance of labour relations for a generation. Abroad he called the Soviet Union an evil empire, deployed missiles in Europe, and proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative — and then negotiated seriously with Mikhail Gorbachev, meeting him five times and signing the INF Treaty in 1987, which eliminated an entire class of weapons. Iran-Contra nearly ended the presidency in 1986.
- Lived: 1911 CE – 2004 CE
- Nationality: American
- Roles: president, governor, actor
