Former President Ronald Reagan Dies At 93

[george]

Former President Ronald Reagan dies at 93

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Ronald Reagan, the one-time movie actor who became one of the nation's most important 20th century presidents, died Saturday in his California home.

He was 93.

Reagan, whose legacy combined extraordinary successes with some major missteps, was the oldest person ever elected president and lived longer than any other chief executive.

An icon to generations of Republicans who was seen by many as the ideological father of the current Bush administration, he had rarely been seen in public in recent years after his 1994 announcement he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

"My family and I would like the world to know that President Ronald Reagan has passed away after 10 years of Alzheimer's disease at 93 years of age," Nancy Reagan said in a statement. "We appreciate everyone's prayers." Nancy Reagan, son Ron Reagan and daughter Patti Davis were at the former president's Bel-Air home when he died shortly after 4 p.m. EDT from pneumonia, complicated by Alzheimer's disease, family spokeswoman Joanne Drake said. His son Michael arrived shortly after.

His eight-year tenure included one of the longest economic expansions since World War II and the beginning of a new era in the U.S.-Soviet relations that supporters said led to the end of the Cold War.

He also reshaped the terms of domestic political debate, helped to create a new confidence among the American people and brought the Republican Party to its strongest position in a half century.

But Reagan failed to reverse the steady growth of the domestic welfare state and, while he helped the GOP control the Senate for six of his eight years in office, his party failed to break the Democratic grip on the House until six years after he left office.

His presidency was marked by record budget deficits and a series of scandals that included the Iran-contra affair abroad and the ethical problems of a number of top advisers.

But his memory was cherished by the Republican faithful, as well as by many other Americans. In every campaign since his retirement, GOP candidates for the White House have vowed to emulate his leadership and his policies.

During his two terms, Reagan survived a 1981 assassination attempt and 1985 surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his colon. He left office just weeks before his 78th birthday in apparent good health.

But nearly six years later, he disclosed in a handwritten letter to the American people that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

"I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life," he wrote on Nov. 5, 1994. Three months later, his biographer, Edmund Morris, disclosed that the former president hadn't recognized him for six months. Alzheimer's is a degenerative disease marked by memory loss and disorientation.

For some years afterward, Reagan went to his office, entertained visitors and was seen near his California home. But in late 1999, his wife Nancy disclosed that he no longer recognized close friends and had stopped outside activities.

Historians agreed that Reagan's presidency was one of the most important of the post-World War II era.

"I think he'll probably turn out to have a rather significant place in American history," said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution.

Professor George Edwards, director of the Center for Presidential Studies at Texas A&M University, agreed. "He had a lasting impact on defense policy and on domestic policy and he changed the terms of American politics," he said. But there was less agreement on the merits of his contributions.

"I don't think he was a good president," Professor Edwards said, citing the degree to which his policies polarized the American people and the legacy of massive deficits that his successors struggled to control.

"But I certainly think he was an important president."

However, Hess noted that, despite a widespread belief that Reagan lacked the intelligence of some other chief executives, "he figured out how to be a very good president, while very smart people like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton had so much trouble getting the hang of it."

Ronald Wilson Reagan had a genial, yet confident manner that was the source of much of his personal popularity. It enabled him to become one of Hollywood's best-known leading men during the 1930s and 1940s and then move seamlessly into the world of politics.

But it was accompanied by a laid-back style of management that was a source of controversy throughout his years in public office. During the latter half of his presidency, for example, some of the Iran-contra disclosures revealed he was unaware of what top aides were doing.

Even before he left office in January 1989, analysts had begun to disagree over whether history would accord him the same high marks that he had received from the American people.

"The short-term prospective is that he's been highly successful," acknowledged Stephen Wayne, professor of government at Georgetown University. "But in the long run, while the verdict is still out, I think historians will be much more severe in their analysis."

Indeed, Reagan had barely left office when a massive scandal unfolded, involving the mishandling of billions of dollars by his Department of Housing and Urban Development.

His successor, George Bush, spent much of his first year cleaning up the residue of the Reagan years in areas ranging from the financial collapse of the savings and loans industry to U.S. policy in Central America.

And both Bush and the man who unseated him in 1992, Bill Clinton, were forced to seek $500 billion legislative packages of spending cuts and tax increases to curb the national debt that had spiraled during the Reagan presidency.

Later on, however, his historical standing began to rise. A 1999 survey of historians by C-SPAN, which rated presidents according to 10 categories of skills and leadership, placed Reagan in 11th place, just behind John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower and well ahead of George Bush, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford.

Because he was the first president since 1960 to serve two full terms, Reagan enjoyed a historic opportunity to leave his imprint on the nation. He entered office vowing to restore America's global military supremacy and reverse the trends that built the modern welfare state.

The defense buildup that marked his first term slowed dramatically during his second term amid signs that four decades of a U.S.-Soviet "Cold War" were coming to an end. When the Soviet Union broke apart during the presidency of Bush, supporters and critics disagreed over the extent to which Reagan's defense buildup was responsible.

"Some people will say that it led to the collapse of the Soviet empire," Edwards said. "Others will say it merely affected the timing. Quite frankly, I don't see there's a way to definitely decide that issue."

But even Reagan's political rivals agreed that his presidency had transformed the nation's domestic political environment, emphasizing limits on the role of the federal government that forced future presidents to make hard choices on how to allocate reduced federal resources.

"Even the Democrats no longer talk much about the expansion of social programs," said Benjamin Ginsberg, a Cornell University professor of government who wrote a book on the Reagan legacy.

Many scholars believe that the principal factor was less Reagan's conservative philosophy than the massive growth of the federal budget deficit, which more than doubled during his eight years in the White House after the president won congressional approval in 1981 of major tax and spending cuts.

"Reagan reshaped the terrain of political debate and refocused attention on the revenue side of the budget and away from the spending side," Ginsberg added. "And he enforced the chance of terrain with a structural deficit that curbed government spending."

Wayne said that the deficit had not become a significant political issue by the end of the Reagan presidency because Americans had been enjoying the benefits of the money that deficit spending pumped into the nation's economy.

"It's like borrowing money to buy a car," he said. "When you get the car, it seems like a great buy. But when you get the bills, you're not going to like the car nearly as much. We're going to look back and wonder why we borrowed so much money."

More importantly, he said, "it will prevent the federal government from trying to solve the big problems of the future."

His forecast was borne out when, following the one-term Bush presidency, Clinton won the White House and found that his efforts to spend more on domestic problems were constrained by the huge budget deficits he inherited. The new president was able to narrowly win congressional approval of a deficit reduction plan that reversed some of the tax cuts on wealthier Americans that formed the core of Reagan's policies.

But concern about the deficit prevented the first Democratic president in 12 years from expanding funds for many domestic programs and enacting a separate package designed to stimulate economic expansion.

That may have been what Reagan had intended. In a 1982 speech, he said there were two options for curbing government spending: "We can lecture it about extravagance until we're blue in the face or we can discipline it by cutting its allowance."

Just as Reagan's success as a tax cutter was linked to his failure as a budget balancer, other aspects of his presidency were marked by contradictory forces that complicated efforts to make a conclusive assessment of his tenure.

Areas in which success was offset by failure include:

Foreign Policy. Entering office with an outspoken, anti-Soviet policy, Reagan wound up helping to put U.S.-Soviet ties on a new, firmer footing by forging a working relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who took power midway through his presidency.

His tenure also saw the restoration of democratic governments in nations from Argentina to the Philippines.

But his foreign policy record also included a failure to build on the Carter administration's progress in the Middle East, intervention in Lebanon that saw 241 Marines killed in a bomb blast, a Central American policy that neither produced stability nor ended Communist subversion and a controversial failed effort to free U.S. hostages in Lebanon by selling arms to Iran.

Defense Buildup. Reagan presided over a substantial buildup in Pentagon spending that partisans credited with fostering the improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations.

But public support for the buildup waned amid budget constraints spawned by the huge deficits, doubts about the efficacy of such major programs as the "Star Wars" space defense system and a major defense procurement scandal.

Some Reagan enthusiasts, however, credited the space defense system with precipitating the end of the Cold War when Soviet leaders realized they could not afford to match it.

American Spirit. The first part of the Reagan presidency was marked by a patriotic surge that climaxed with the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1986 centennial of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

But his second term was clouded by scandals that affected such close associates as Attorney General Edwin Meese and White House aides Lyn Nofizger and Michael Deaver.

While Democrats proved unable to exploit what they called the "sleaze" factor, the aura of scandal continued to spread after his presidency ended with the exposure early in the Bush presidency of the massive HUD scandal.

Judges. Reagan appointed more federal judges than any predecessor and also filled three of the nine seats on the U.S. Supreme Court, appointments that both friend and foe expected would shift the federal judiciary strongly to the right.

His high court nominations played a key role in a 1989 decision to permit states to enact stiffer restrictions on abortions. But he was rebuffed by the Senate in his controversial efforts to install Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg on the high court, and his choice as chief justice, William Rehnquist, proved somewhat more moderate than expected.

Political Realignment. Reagan's election was accompanied by a Republican resurgence that wrestled control of the Senate from the Democrats for the first time in 26 years and encouraged Republicans to believe they would soon become the nation's majority party for the first time since the 1920s.

The GOP made particular gains in the once solidly Democratic South. But prospects for a national political realignment faded as Democrats regained the Senate in 1986, continued to hold a majority of state governorships and legislatures and regained the presidency in 1992.

But Reagan did get the major credit for the 1988 triumph of his vice president, Bush. That gave the Republicans a third consecutive presidential victory for the first time in 60 years and ended a post-World War II pattern in which neither party held the White House for more than eight years.

A native of central Illinois, the man destined to become the nation's most popular president since the martyred John F. Kennedy was, like many other modern presidents, the son of a strong mother and an unsuccessful father. His father, Jack, was a shoe salesman who often changed jobs, drank too much and was once described by Reagan biographer Lou Cannon as "engaging, if alcoholic." His mother Nelle, recalled by neighbors as very religious, imparted her interest in theater to him.

"He was a good little boy and went to church with his mother," a neighbor, Gladys Pierce, recalled during a 1980 campaign visit.

The future president was born on Feb. 6, 1911, in a second story apartment in the town of Tampico and lived with his parents and brother Neil in a number of other small towns before the family settled in 1920 in Dixon. Over the years, they lived in five separate rented houses in Dixon, one of which was restored some years ago as his "boyhood home" during "his formative years."

As a teenager, he acted in high school plays and became renowned for his exploits over seven summers as a lifeguard in Lowell Park. A plaque credits him with saving some 77 swimmers who had gotten into trouble in the Rock River.

At nearby Eureka College, he played football, was an active member of the drama club and became student body president. After graduation, he got a job as a sports announcer with WOO in Davenport, Iowa. During his days there, and later at its sister station, WHO, Des Moines, he became well-known through the Middle West as a baseball and football announcer under the name of Dutch Reagan, a nickname given him at birth by his father who said he looked like "a little bit of a fat Dutchman."

While in California covering spring training in 1937, an agent from Warner Brothers signed him to play the part of a radio announcer in a movie called "Love Is on the Air." That was the first of some 50 movie roles, ranging from his best-known part as ill-fated Notre Dame football star George Gipp in "Knute Rockne - All American" to a part opposite a chimpanzee in "Bedtime for Bonzo."

He married actress Jane Wyman in 1940, served in the military in a non-combat role during World War II and became active in the Screen Actors Guild during the post-war period when Congress was investigating Communist influence in all walks of American life, including Hollywood.

His increasing political involvement played a role in the end of his first marriage. But through his union activities, he met Nancy Davis, an aspiring starlet and the daughter of a strongly conservative Chicago physician, who became his second wife.

As his movie career declined, Reagan became the host of the GE Theatre, a television program sponsored by General Electric Co. He began a new career speaking to business groups in behalf of the firm at a time when his political views began to veer sharply to the right.

He first gained attention in the political world with a nationally televised speech for the doomed 1964 GOP candidacy of Barry Goldwater. Two years later, he set out on his own and was elected governor of California.

Reagan had only held that office for little more than a year when he made his first, abortive run for the White House, entering at the last moment a Republican race that had already been won by Richard Nixon. But eight years later, after the conclusion of his second gubernatorial term, Reagan made a serious challenge against Gerald Ford, the nation's first unelected president who had assumed the White House when Nixon was forced to resign by the Watergate scandal.

Though his bid narrowly failed, Mr. Reagan emerged as the 1980 front-runner after Ford lost the November election to Democrat Jimmy Carter. Though he was 69 years old and considered too conservative, Reagan capitalized on discontent with Carter's handling of the economy and the Iranian capture of 66 U.S. hostages to win the White House in November 1980.

When he entered the White House the following January, Reagan had an unusually clear agenda: cut taxes and federal spending, rearm American and stand firm against the Soviet Union.

"He was one of the presidents who did what he was elected to do," said William Schneider, an analyst based at the American Enterprise Institute. "He restored military superiority and he lowered inflation. And he restored a sense of successful presidential leadership."

By the late 1980s, Schneider noted, it was easy to forget that "Ronald Reagan succeeded four failed presidents in a row (Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter). People had lost confidence for 20 years in the presidency. Even (Massachusetts Sen. Edward) Kennedy congratulates him."

"President Reagan closed the gap between the public and its leader," said Charles O. Jones, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Reagan survived a March 1981 assassination attempt to win congressional approval of his agenda, which included a 25-percent tax cut, a major cutback in domestic spending and a big increase for defense.

But a political stalemate set in between him and Congress after the 1982 elections, which occurred at the climax of the recession that marked his first two years. It resulted in Democrats regaining 26 House seats they had lost in 1980.

"For all the president's political popularity, he was unable to regain the legislative initiative he had in 1981," wrote Paul E. Peterson, a Harvard University professor, and Mark E. Rom, then a Brookings Institution researcher and now a Georgetown university professor, in analyzing Reagan's dealings with Congress.

Though Reagan had won the votes of many conservative Democrats by vowing to push such "social issues" as a ban on abortion and legalization of public school prayers, he made only a minimal effort on their behalf. That helped President Reagan seem somewhat more moderate than candidate Reagan had appeared in 1980.

In 1984, Reagan ran for re-election on the success of his first term without promising much more. He carried 49 of 50 states against his Democratic rival, former Vice President Walter Mondale, but in the eyes of some observers, helped to create some of his second-term problems.

"He has been a lame duck since he was elected because he didn't have an agenda," Schneider said. "The two main achievements of his second term - tax reform and the Intermediate Nuclear Treaty - occurred because the Democrats who controlled Congress also wanted them. Things he wanted and they didn't want, like contra aid and the Bork nomination, he didn't get."

"As time passed and issues came up on which there was no firm notion of where Reagan stood, his type of management, his incuriosity and his sense of not taking hold of details caught up with him," Hess said.

That occurred most spectacularly in the bungled effort to sell arms to Iran in the hopes of freeing U.S. hostages in Lebanon. It became public in November 1986, at about the time that the GOP loss of the Senate ended talk of a Reagan-led political realignment.

"He suffered because he really didn't have a successful second term," said Kevin Phillips, a conservative Republican analyst and author. "If he had a successful second term like the first one, it might have produced the alignment that his supporters talked about."

Besides, he added, toward the end of the Reagan presidency, "the last 3 1/2 years have created more problems than they have solved." He cited the deficit and increasing U.S. dependence on the international economy and said, "The legacy is that those are going to come more into focus."

But Hess noted that few presidents have enjoyed successful second terms. "An administration runs out of energy and becomes a lame duck after the sixth year elections," he said. "His failures in the second term were not unique."

Some analysts contended that Reagan would suffer in the verdict of history because of the disclosures in a number of accounts, some by his own sides, that he was often out of touch with events taking place around him.

The Iran-contra reports by the commission headed by former Texas Sen. John Tower and by Congress "clearly portrayed Reagan as a person of very meager management skills and capability," said Norman Thomas, Taft professor emeritus of political science at the University of Cincinnati.

But Hess contended that such evidence of the president's personal shortcomings would seem less significant over time. "My hunch is that they would fade just as Harry Truman's personal peculiarities faded," he said.

Others suggested that Reagan's place in history depended in considerable measure on how his successors fared.

"If his successors are able to resolve some of the problems Reagan left for them, such as the deficit, Reagan will be seen as a turning point," Cornell's Ginsberg predicted in the mid-1990s.

Thomas said, "Reagan will be remembered for a long time with great affection." But he added, "I don't think many people will regard him as a truly great president."

Hess said, "There's no way he's going to be seen as another Roosevelt. But he's certainly not going to be seen as another Carter or another Ford."

-- 2004-06-06

[george]

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/reagan/

[highlander]

R.I.P. Ron , you were great on spitting image

[maerim]

Ronald Reagan Dies At 93

I wonder how they could tell?

[stroll]

The heart stopped beating.

[PlanetMan]

Thanks for posting this, George.

[maerim]

I wonder if the astrologer he and his wife"Mommy" employed to let them know if the time was right to do things such as invade Grenada saw his demise in the stars?

So saying 93 its' no age to have him snatched from us.

Pity he wasn't snatched before he made such classic movies as "Bedtime for Bonzo"

[NedKelly]

2 things..............

who cares

Thai related ?

[konangrit]

2 things..............

who cares

Thai related ?

Depends on if you think the Reagan administration had any influence over the Thai government during the 1980s. Seeing as there were a few communist regimes in the region at the time I would suggest they did.

[snowleopard]

Ronald Reagan Dies At 93

I wonder how they could tell?

Ronald Reagan's heart stopped beating and he officially ceased to exist on June 6;but,at that point,he had already been close to brain-dead for at least ten years!

Maybe partially so even during his last few months in the Oval Office!

His two nemeses of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's got him long ago!

I was living state-side when "Ronbo Reagan" overshadowed Jimmy Carter in the election of 1980 and then took the helm.

I can still remember how Reagan's win somewhat depressed me because I've always been a Democrat-never G.O.P.!

At first I didn't really like the "Gipper" that much;but,he soon began to kinda grow on me in incremental steps due to his great communicative abilities,which,by the way, were only recently surpassed by the one and only master communicator!

Namely the man from Hope,"Hill-Billy-Boy" Clinton himself!

My change of heart might have been because I began enjoying Reagan's incessant source of anecdotes and well-adapted movie lines which he could shoot out during speeches and interviews.

One defining moment for me might have been while I was observing his tough cowboy demeanor when he unaided walked into the hospital,with a stiff upper lip,after he'd taken a slug in the lung from John Hinckley's gun in the assassination attempt of 81!

He acted out his role as the nation's president in a manner that only an averagely intelligent but very dedicated B-actor from Hollywood can,when following the script in his head and playing out his part!

The acting president!(a pun extraordinaire )

He will go down in history as the second most influential president in the world who had a hand in,and can actually claim some credit for,having ended the Cold War!

The greater president of that period in world history was undoubtably President Mikhail Gorbachev who paved the way with his glasnost and peristroika reforms.

Reagan's silliest quotes:

1)"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do."

2)"My fellow Americans. I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." (He thought the microphones were off.)

My favorite "Gipper" quote:

"Roses are red,but violets are blue;

stay out of El Salvador,and out of Poland too!"

What a coincidence that he passed away on D-Day.

R.I.P.

Snowleopard.

[maerim]

Maybe partially so even during his last few months in the Oval Office! 

His two nemeses of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's got him long ago!

Well that's a relief, the most powerful man in the world his shaking hand over the red button hasn’t got a clue what day it is, my life and just about everyones elses in his mitt.

Ahaa, the free world good to know we are in safe shaking hands.

Remember his mate Al Haigh another nuke em fan? He said he was in charge when old Ron got shot.

Makes you think though that God must have a sense of humour Ron survived and John Lennon didn't.

Looking at past presidents of the good old U.S. of A. why not have a lottery as to who should do the waving for the next four years.

It surely couldn't be any worse than the last lot.

[tutsiwarrior]

Ronald Reagan was a filthy scumbag with the blood of tens of thousands of central americans on his hands. I am only sad that he did not die alone and in pain.

[Jimbo]

I am appealed because of some of the replies on this forum relating to the death of Reagan.

If you agree with his policies or not, a man has just died. One should not speak bad about him at this time. There are other who thought he was a good leader and let them mourne the loss of Ronnie. If his family was to ever read this forum ( which i seriously doubt) it would greatly upset them to read some of these nasty replies.

President Reagan, may you rest in peace!

[maerim]

I am appealed because of some of the replies on this forum relating to the death of Reagan.

I hope you mean appalled, but any way why are you?

Just because he is dead?

It has always been a puzzle to me when you walk around graveyards as to where they bury the bad people, the tombstones are always glowing what a great person is or was 6 feet down.

Pol Pot was just understood then according to you.

[Jimbo]

And now you make it worse by comparing him to that dictator from Cambodia. That is plain <deleted> ridiculous. Dont but him on the same level like that guy or Hitler or whoever.

Just look at all the countries that just recently became part of the EU or Nato. I doubt if they would have without Reagan and Gorbie offcouse.

[maerim]

If his family was to ever read this forum ( which i seriously doubt) it would greatly upset them to read some of these nasty replies.

I bet they are not as upset as the people killed and maimed through his gung ho policies throughout the world.

Good riddance.

[george]

I am closing this thread. Please continue in the Bearpit

/Admin