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Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the
40th (1981–1989) President of the United States and the 33rd (1967–1975) Governor of California. Reagan was also a broadcaster and television and film actor before entering politics.
At the time of Reagan's death at the age of 93, he was the longest lived President of the United States.
Early life and career
Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, the second of two sons to John "Jack" Reagan and Nelle Wilson. One of his four great-grandfathers had
immigrated to the United States from Ballyporeen, Ireland in the 1860s. Prior to his grandfather's emigration, the
family name had been spelled Regan.
In 1920, after years of moving from town to town, the family settled in Dixon, Illinois. In 1921, at the age
of 10, Reagan was baptized in his mother's Disciples of Christ church in Dixon, and in 1924 he began
attending Dixon's Northside High School. Reagan always considered Dixon to be his home-town.
In 1926, at age 15, Reagan took a summer job as a lifeguard in Lowell Park, two miles away from Dixon on the nearby Rock River. He continued to work as a lifeguard for the next seven years, reportedly saving 77
people from drowning. Reagan would later joke that none of them ever thanked him.
In 1928, Reagan entered Eureka
College in Eureka, Illinois, majoring in economics and sociology and graduating in
1932. He earned excellent grades and made many lasting friendships. Reagan developed an
early gift for storytelling and acting. He was a radio announcer of Chicago Cubs baseball games, getting only the bare outlines of the game from a ticker and relying on his imagination and
storytelling gifts to flesh out the game. Once in 1934, during the ninth inning of a
Cubs-St. Louis Cardinals game, the wire went dead. Reagan
smoothly improvised a fictional play-by-play (in which hitters on both teams fouled off pitches) until the wire was restored.
Hollywood
Reagan had a successful career in Hollywood as a leading man, aided by his
clear voice and athletic physique. His first screen credit was the starring role in the 1937 movie Love Is On the Air. By the end of 1939, he had appeared in 19
films. In 1940 he played the role of George
"The Gipper" Gipp in the film Knute
Rockne, All American, from which he acquired the nickname the Gipper, which he retained the rest of his life.
Reagan himself considered that his best acting work was in Kings Row
(1942). He played the part of a young man whose legs are amputated. He used a line he spoke
in this film, "Where's the rest of me?" as the title for his autobiography. Other notable Reagan films include Hellcats of the Navy, This Is the Army, and Bedtime for
Bonzo. Reagan was kidded widely about the last named film because his co-star was a chimpanzee. He has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6374 Hollywood Blvd.
Reagan was commissioned as a reserve cavalry officer in the U.S. Army in 1935. After the
attack on Pearl Harbor he was activated and assigned,
partially due to his poor eyesight, to the First Motion Picture Unit in the United States Army Air Force, which made training and education films. He remained in
Hollywood for the duration of the war, and he attained the rank of captain. Reagan
tried repeatedly to go overseas for combat duty, but was turned down because of his astigmatism.
Reagan married actress Jane Wyman in 1940. They had a daughter, Maureen in 1941 and adopted a son, Michael in 1945. Their second
daughter, Christine, was born four months prematurely in 1947 and lived only one day. They
divorced in 1948. Reagan remarried in 1952 to actress
Nancy Davis. (Their daughter Patti was born on October 21 of the same year. In 1958 they had a second child, Ron. Reagan was a
loving and devoted husband. One of the most touching speeches he ever made as president was a tribute to his wife.[1] (http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1985/72085a.htm)
As Reagan's film roles became fewer in the late 1950s, he moved into television as a host and frequent performer for General Electric Theater. Reagan appeared in many live
television plays and often co-starred with Nancy. Reagan became head of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). In 1952, a Hollywood scandal raged
over his granting of a SAG blanket waiver to MCA, which allowed it to both represent and employ talent for its burgeoning
TV franchises. He went from host and program supervisor of General
Electric Theater to actually producing and claiming an equity stake in the TV show itself. At one point in the late 1950s,
Reagan was earning approximately $125,000 per year. His final regular acting job was as host and performer on Death Valley Days. Reagan's final big-screen appearance came in the
1964 film The Killers, in which, uncharacteristically, he played a mob chieftain. This
film was a remake of an earlier version based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway. Reagan's co-stars were John Cassavetes and Lee
Marvin.
Early political career
Ronald Reagan began his political life as a Democrat, supporting Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal. He
gradually became a staunch social and fiscal conservative. He embarked upon
the path that led him to a career in politics during his tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947 until 1952, and then again from 1959 to 1960. In this position, he testified before the House Un-American Activities
Committee on Communist influence in Hollywood. He also kept tabs on actors he considered
"disloyal" and informed on them to the FBI under the code name "Agent T-10," but he would not
denounce them publicly. He supported the practice of blacklisting in Hollywood.
Concluding that the Republican Party was better able to combat communism, Reagan gradually abandoned his left-of-center political
views, supporting the presidential candidacies of Dwight D.
Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 and Richard Nixon in 1960—all while
Reagan was still a Democrat.
His employment by the General Electric company further enhanced
his political image. By the 1964
election, Reagan was an outspoken supporter of conservative Republican Barry Goldwater. His nationally televised speech "A Time for Choosing" electrified conservatives and led to his being asked to run for Governor of
California. To this day, this speech is considered one of the most stirring ever made on behalf of a candidate. Soon after,
several top Republican contributors visited Reagan at his home in Pacific Palisades, California, urging him to seek the governorship in 1966. Though these requests were
initially "laughed off" by Reagan, he says in his autobiography, he eventually gave in, after countless sleepless nights.
Governorship
In 1966, he was elected the 33rd Governor of California, defeating two-term incumbent Pat
Brown; he was re-elected in 1970, defeating Jesse Unruh, but chose not to seek a third term. He had vowed to send "the welfare bums back to work," and "to
clean up the mess at Berkeley." For the latter, he had UC
President Clark Kerr fired and forced the University of California to charge tuition for the first
time by cutting its budget. During the People's Park protests, he sent
2,200 National Guard troops into Berkeley. Reagan made it clear that the policies of his administration would not be influenced
by the student agitators nor their actions tolerated, even "if it takes a bloodbath."
During his first term, he froze government hiring, but also approved tax hikes to balance the budget. One of Reagan's greatest
frustrations in office concerned the death penalty. He had gone on record
as a strong supporter. In 1967, Aaron Mitchell, a young African-American man, was executed in California's gas chamber for
the murder of a police officer. Reagan had refused to stop the execution. However, his efforts to enforce the state's death
penalty law were thwarted when the Supreme Court
of California issued its People v. Anderson decision, which invalidated all death sentences passed in California prior
to 1972. Although the decision was quickly overturned by a constitutional amendment, there
would not be another execution in California until 1992.
During his governorship, Reagan actively dismantled the public psychiatric hospital system, proposing that a community-based housing and treatment system replace it.
According to some Reagan critics, the first objective was effectively accomplished, but the community replacement facilities were
never adequately funded, either by Reagan or by his successors. Also, a statewide teachers strike started in Los Angeles due to disagreements with Reagan's cost-cutting plans.
Presidential campaigns
Reagan tried to gain the Republican presidential nomination in 1967, and again in
1975 over the incumbent Gerald Ford,
but was defeated at the Republican Convention. He succeeded in gaining the Republican nomination in 1979. The campaign, led by William J. Casey, was
conducted in the shadow of the Iran hostage crisis; some
analysts believe President Jimmy Carter's inability to solve the hostage
crisis played a large role to Reagan's victory against him in the 1980 election. Other issues in the campaign included inflation, lackluster economic growth, instability in the petroleum market leading to a return of gas lines, and the perceived weakness of the
U.S. national defense.
Reagan's showing in the presidential debates boosted his campaign. He seemed more at ease, almost making fun of the president
with remarks like "There you go again," though these did not need to be factual rebuttals to be effective. Perhaps his most
influential remark was a closing question to the audience, during a time of skyrocketing global oil prices and highly unpopular
Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, "Are you better off than you
were four years ago?" Reagan's victory was accompanied by an 12-seat change in the Senate from Democratic to Republican hands, giving the Republicans a majority in
the Senate for the first time in 28 years. Upon his election, Reagan became the oldest president to enter office, at almost 70
years of age.
In the 1984 presidential
election, he was re-elected in a landslide over Carter's Vice President Walter Mondale, winning 49 of 50 states and receiving nearly 60 percent of the popular vote. At the
Democratic National Convention, Mondale accepted the party nomination with a speech that is believed to have constituted a
self-inflicted mortal wound. In it he remarked "Reagan will raise taxes, I will raise taxes. Reagan won't tell you this, I just
did."[2] (http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/conventions/chicago/facts/famous.speeches/mondale.84.shtml)
Reagan accepted the Republican nomination in Dallas, Texas, on a wave of good feeling bolstered by the recovering economy and the
dominating performance by the U.S. athletes at the Los Angeles Olympics. Despite a weak performance in the first debate, Reagan
recovered in the second and was considerably ahead of Mondale in polls taken throughout much of the race. Reagan's landslide win
in the 1984 presidential election is often attributed by politcal commentators to be a result of his conversion of the so-called "Reagan Democrats," the traditionally Democratic voters who voted for Reagan
in that election.
Presidency
- Main article: Reagan Administration
Domestic record
Ronald Reagan portrayed himself as being conservative, anti-communist, in favor of tax cuts and
smaller government. Reagan also liked to think of himself and was thought of by many others as being supportive of business interests and tough on crime.
Reagan's first official act upon taking the presidency was to remove the solar water heating panels [3] (http://www.northernskynews.com/backissue%20pages/UnitySolar.html) on the roof of the White House which had been placed there in the Carter administration, thus marking a sharp change from the previous administration's perceived greater
environmental awareness. Perhaps the high point of the Reagan presidency's first 100 days was the freeing of American hostages in
Tehran at the conclusion of the Iran hostage crisis, within minutes of his inauguration.
While leaving the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC on March 30, 1981, Reagan, his Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim
McCarthy, and District of Columbia police officer
Thomas Delanty were shot by John Hinckley, Jr.. Reagan turned
what could have been a low point in his first 100 days into another high point by remarking "I hope you're all Republicans," to
his surgeons and "Honey, I forgot to duck" to his wife.[4] (http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/05/reagan.obit/) Reagan also said that he forgave
Hinckley and hoped he asked God's forgiveness as well.
In the summer of 1981 Reagan fired a majority of the nation's air traffic controllers when they went on strike. This action proved to be a political coup for Reagan as the public came to perceive the strikers as
greedy and unconcerned with public safety. Not only did this set limits for public employee unions, but also signaled that it was
acceptable for businesses to play hardball with unions.
A large focus of Reagan's first term was reviving the stagflation-troubled
economy his administration inherited. His administration sought to fight the high inflation recession with large across-the-board tax cuts,
controversially combined with reductions in social welfare spending. Reagan's fiscal
theories were variously referred to as "Reaganomics", "Trickle-down
economics", and "Vodoo Economics". The end result was that public spending as a percentage of the national income, steadily
growing in the pre-Reagan era, now folded to a steady level that it has fluctuated around ever since.[5] (http://libertyunbound.com/archive/2004_10/friedman-reagan.pdf) Also, in order to achieve
increases in military spending to fight the Cold War, the administration had to
allow increases in spending on social programs, resulting in record deficit spending and a tripling of the national
debt by the end of his second term. At the same time, Reagan was able to bring inflation down from 13 percent in 1979 to
under 4 percent in 1982. Unemployment also dropped from 7.5 percent in the year that Reagan took office to 5.2 percent in the
year that he left. Proponents often note that Reagan used his veto on public spending projects 78 times in all.
A renewal of the "war on drugs" was also declared during his presidency,
spearheaded by Nancy Reagan's high-profile "Just Say No" series of messages.
President Reagan was criticized by the gay rights movement
and others for not responding quickly enough to the HIV-AIDS epidemic. The first official mention of the disease in the White House was on October 15, 1982 when Reagan's press secretary Larry Speakes, in response to a reporter's inquiry about "the gay plague," said
"I don't have it, do you?" to general laughter. Reagan's communication director Pat Buchanan argued that "AIDS is nature's revenge on gay men."
Reagan made the abolition of communism and the implementation of supply-side economics the primary focuses of his presidency, but he also took a strong stand against
abortion. He published "Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation," which decried
what Reagan saw as a disrespect for life, promoted by the practice of abortion. Many conservative activists refer to Reagan as
the most pro-life president in history (although two of the President's three
Supreme Court picks, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, have voted to uphold Roe v. Wade).
Although Reagan's second term was mostly noteworthy for matters related to foreign affairs, his administration supported
significant pieces of legislation on domestic matters, including an overhaul of the Internal Revenue Code in 1986, as well as the
Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which compensated
victims of the Japanese American Internment
during World War II. Reagan also signed legislation authorizing the death
penalty for offenses involving murder in the context of large-scale drug trafficking; wholesale reinstatement of the federal
death penalty would not occur until the presidency of Bill Clinton.
Foreign policy and interventions
Reagan forcefully confronted the Soviet Union, marking a sharp departure
from the détente observed by his predecessors Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter. Sensing that planned economies could not compete against market
economies in a renewed arms race, he made the Cold War economically and rhetorically hot. The administration oversaw a massive military build-up that
represented a policy of "Peace through strength." Many Reagan supporters credit Reagan administration military polices with
winning the Cold War. Others argued, however, that the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union was due more to internal separatist
problems, an inherent weakness in communist economic theory, and the depressed global price of crude oil, on which the Soviet economy during those years depended heavily.
Among European leaders, his main ally and undoubtedly his closest friend was the Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who always supported Reagan's policies of deterrence against the Soviets.
Although the administration negotiated arms-reduction treaties such as the INF Treaty and START Treaty
with the USSR, it also aimed to increase strategic defense. A controversial plan, named the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), was proposed to
deploy a space-based defense system that was supposed to make the U.S.
invulnerable to nuclear weapon missile attack. Critics dubbed the
proposal "Star Wars" and argued that SDI was unrealistic and would likely inflame the Arms Race. Supporters responded that even the threat of SDI forced the Soviets into unsustainable spending to
keep up. In fact, the Soviets did not attempt to follow suit with their own program, but instead followed a program of arms
reduction treaties. The technology required to implement SDI is still being researched in the United States, but remains
elusive.
Support for anti-communist groups including armed insurgencies against communist governments was also a part of administration policy, referred to by his supporters as the Reagan Doctrine. Following this policy, the administration funded "freedom fighters" such as the mujahideen in Afghanistan, the Contras in Nicaragua, and Jonas Savimbi's rebel forces in Angola. The administration
also helped fund central European anti-communist groups such as the Polish Solidarity movement and took a hard
line against the Communist regime in Cambodia. Covert funding of the Contras in
Nicaragua would lead to the Iran Contra Affair, while overt
support led to a World Court ruling
against the United States in Nicaragua v. United
States.
At the same time, the administration considered paramilitary groups resisting Israeli occupations, such as Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, Palestinian guerrillas in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, and
left-wing guerrillas fighting US-backed right-wing military dictatorships in Honduras and El Salvador to be terrorists. The Reagan administration also considered guerrillas of the ANC's armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK or Spear of the Nation) and other anti-apartheid militants (e.g. the PAC) fighting the apartheid government in South Africa to be terrorists.
U.S. involvement in Lebanon followed a limited term United Nations mandate for a Multinational Force. A force of 800 U.S. Marines was sent to Beirut to evacuate PLO forces. The September 16, 1982 massacre of hundreds of
Palestinian civilians in Beirut (see Sabra and Shatila Massacre) prompted Reagan to form a
new multinational force. Intense administration diplomatic efforts resulted in a peace agreement between Lebanon and Israel. U.S. forces were withdrawn shortly after the October 23, 1983 bombing of a barracks in which 241 Marines were killed.
Reagan called this day the saddest day of his life and of his presidency.
A communist coup on the small island nation of Grenada in 1983 led the administration to develop an invasion plan to restore the former government. The resulting
Operation Urgent Fury was successful.
Initially neutral, the administration increasingly became involved in the Iran-Iraq War. At various times, the administration supported both nations, but mainly sided with Iraq, believing that Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein was less dangerous than Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The American fear was that an Iranian victory would embolden Islamic
fundamentalists in other Arab states, perhaps leading to the overthrow of secular governments in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Kuwait. After initial Iraqi military victories were reversed and an Iranian victory appeared possible in 1982, the American government initiated Operation Staunch to attempt to
cut off the Iranian regime's access to weapons (notwithstanding their later shipment of weapons to Iran in the Iran-Contra Affair). The United States also provided intelligence
information and weapons to the Iraqi military, although most Iraqi weaponry was supplied by Germany, Britain, and the USSR.
The Administration also did not prevent the supply of some biological and "dual use" materials to Iraq by American companies,
which Iraq claimed were required for medical research.
Concurrent with the support of Iraq, the Administration also engaged in covert arms sales to Iran in order to fund Contra
rebels in Nicaragua. The resulting Iran-Contra Affair became a
scandal. Reagan professed ignorance of the plot's existence and quickly called for an Independent Counsel to investigate the
scandal. The President was eventually found to be culpable of lax control over his own staff. A significant number of officials
in the Reagan Administration were either convicted or forced to resign as a result of the scandal.
In 1985, on an official visit to West
Germany, Reagan laid a wreath at a cemetery where approximately 50 SS
soldiers were buried along with many German regular army veterans of both World Wars. This visit incited a great deal of
controversy; see Bitburg for more details concerning the visit.
"The Great Communicator"
Reagan was dubbed "The Great Communicator" for his ability to express ideas and emotions in an almost personal manner, even
when making a formal address. He honed these skills as an actor, live television and radio host, and politician, and as president
hired skilled speechwriters who could capture his folksy charm.
Reagan's style varied. Especially in his first term, he used strong, even bombastic language to condemn the Soviet Union and
communism.
But he could also evoke lofty ideals and a vision of the United States as a defender of liberty. His October 27, 1964 speech entitled "A Time for
Choosing" introduced the phrase "rendezvous with destiny" to popular culture.[6] (http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1983/32183e.htm) Other speeches recalled
America as the "shining city on a hill", "big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair," whose citizens had the "right to
dream heroic dreams." [7] (http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/second.asp)[8] (http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/first.asp)
On January 28, 1986, after the
Challenger accident, he postponed his State of the Union address and addressed the nation on the disaster, saying "We will never forget them,
nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds
of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'" [9] (http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan/speeches/challenger.asp)
It was perhaps Reagan's humor, especially his one-liners, that
disarmed his opponents and endeared him to audiences the most. Discussion of his advanced age led him to quip in his first debate
against Walter Mondale during the 1984 campaign, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my
opponent's youth and inexperience." On his career he joked "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many
rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."
Both opponents and supporters noted his "sunny optimism", which was welcomed by many in comparison to his often smiling, but
somewhat dour and serious, immediate Presidential predecessor.
"The Great Prevaricator" and other criticisms
A frequent objection by his critics, however, was that his personal charm also permitted him to say nearly anything and yet
prevail, a quality that earned him the nickname "the Teflon president" (i.e., to whom
nothing sticks). It was further claimed that Reagan reversed his position on the 1980 Olympic boycott no fewer than five distinct times, on the fifth reversal claiming he had never
changed his position. His denial of awareness of the Iran-Contra illegalities
was belied by quotations in now-archived notes by his defense secretary, Casper Weinberger, that he (Reagan) could survive violating the law or Constitution, but not the negative
public image that "big, strong Ronald Reagan passed up a chance to get the hostages free." However, in the almost twenty years
since Iran Contra, no "smoking gun" has yet been revealed to show that he in fact did know about trading arms for hostages.
Reagan era papers were originally scheduled to be released starting in 2000, but President George W. Bush enacted a rule change to allow these to be withheld indefinitely. Reagan was also faulted for
considering Nelson Mandela a terrorist and for fiscal and tax policies said to have increased social inequality.
Quotes and witticisms
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must
be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children
and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." [10] (http://www.authenticgop.com/)
On August 11, 1984, Reagan's sound check
for his weekly national radio address was taped and later broadcast by reporters. He said: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to
tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." The remark was
almost universally regarded as a joke, however the Soviets were not amused and some critics wondered if it did not express
Reagan's truest wishes.
Appointments
Cabinet
Supreme Court appointments
Reagan appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
Major presidential acts
Legacy and retirement from public life
On January 11, 1989, Ronald Reagan
addressed the nation one last time on television from the Oval Office of the White House, nine days before handing over the
presidency to George H. W. Bush. After the inauguration, Reagan
returned to California, to write his autobiography, ride his horses, and chop wood on his ranch, and to a new house in Bel-Air. In fall, Fujisankei Communications Group of Japan hired him to make two speeches and attend some ceremonies. Reagan's weekly fee was about two million dollars,
more than he had earned during eight years as president. Reagan made occasional appearances on behalf of the Republican party,
including a well-received speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention.
In 1994, Reagan was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. He informed the nation of his condition on November 5, 1994 with a hand-written letter, which displayed his trademark
optimism, stating in conclusion: "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." As the years went on, the disease
slowly destroyed his mental capacity, forcing him to live in quiet isolation.
His health was further destabilized by a fall in 2001, which shattered part of his hip and rendered him virtually immobile. By
2004, Reagan had begun to enter the final stage of Alzheimer's. It is frequently reported
that Secret Service agents had to inform Reagan every morning that he was once the president.
On February 6, 1998, Washington
National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan
National Airport by a bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Three years later, on March 4, 2001, the
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) was christened by the Navy. It
is one of few ships christened in honor of a living person and the first to be named in honor of a living former president. On
February 9, 2005, the United States Post Office released a stamp to commemorate
the late President Ronald Reagan.
Many other highways, schools and institutions were also named after Reagan in the years after his retirement and death. (See
List of things named
after Ronald Reagan).
Death, funeral, and tributes afterward
On the morning of Saturday, June 5, 2004,
initial reports indicated that Reagan's health had significantly deteriorated, and that his death would likely come in weeks or
months. However, as the day progressed, it became clear that Reagan would pass away before week's end. Within hours, Reagan died
at his home in Bel Air,
California at the age of 93. He died of pneumonia.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said, "I take the death
of Ronald Reagan very hard. He was a man whom fate set by me in perhaps the most difficult years at the end of the 20th century.
He has already entered history as a man who was instrumental in bringing about the end of the Cold War.... It was his goal and
his dream to end his term and enter history as a peacemaker."[11] (http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/1869.cfm)
Not all the world's tributes and editorials were adulatory, however. The news of Reagan's passing sparked mixed reactions in
the Latin American press, with some outlets editorializing against Reagan's policies.
Jose Luis Oliveira
of the leading human rights organization in East Timor took the opportunity to
remind the world that "under his leadership, America helped the Indonesian military commit genocide in East Timor." [12] (http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/1869.cfm)
Iran's state-run evening paper reminded readers that "During the Reagan administration, weapons of mass destruction flooded
Iraq and were used against Iran." [13] (http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/1869.cfm)
Reagan was given a full presidential state funeral on June 9, the first since Lyndon
Johnson in 1973. Vice President Dick
Cheney presided over the state funeral because President George W.
Bush was in Sea Island, Georgia, hosting the G-8 Summit.
The final services in honor of Reagan on June 11 at the National Cathedral included eulogies by former British Prime Minister
Lady Thatcher, former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, former president George H. W. Bush, and his son, the current President Bush.
Reagan holds the record as the longest-living president, at 93 years and 120 days. Since Reagan's death, Gerald Ford is now the oldest surviving president at 91, and if he lives until
November 11, 2006, he will hold the new
record.
Further reading
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