Custom «Ronald Reagan» Essay Paper Sample

This paper evaluates how president Ronald Reagan evolved from being an artist,a governor and finally the president of the United State of America. From the research,its evident of the various personal skills that President Reagan employed in sxpressing his political ideas as well as the impacts his policies had on this great land of America. President Ronald Reagan helped restore the pride of Americans just after the hostages crisis with Iran by showing the rest of the world that ,it would not turn its back on its allies who were in need. Through the foreign policy, many Latin Americans were freed. His Strategic defense initiative led to the reduction of nuclear arms which helped stop the cold war. The Reaganomics policies helped stop the bby then rampant rates of inflation and unemployment which been experienced during the Carter administration. He was able to modernize the military by the development of the B2 Bomber, M1 Abrams Tanks, B-1 Lancer and the Humvee. His celebrity image in the Hollywood which si termed as a success is believed to have helped his politcal career in a significant way as it helped publicize him.

President Ronald Reagan was the fortieth president of the united state of America. He was born on the sixth of June , 1911 in Tampico ,Illinois .He was the second born of john Edward and Nellie Wilson .When he was born ,his father mentioned on a light note that he looked like a Dutch and that nobody could know if he would grow up and become the president of the United State of America. The Dutch name was as a result that, he looked like a Dutch and also his haircut looked similar to those of the Dutch. For that reason, he grew up with the nick-name Dutch Little did his father knew that his words would become fulfilled in his son and that he would become one of the most popular president of the United State of America in the 20th century. The republican president happens to be the oldest ever president in the united state of America to elected in office. He served as the President for two terms, that is, from 1981 to 1989.

When he was nine, his family moved to Dixon, still in Illinois. It's in this town that his father operated a as a shop clerk and also owned a shoe shop. In his high school days, he resort to selling popcorns usually homemade whenever there were school games functions. He also worked as a lifeguard at the Rock River, which was near Dixon. During his time here he managed to save seventy seven lives. He took this job in order to earn some extra money to pay for his tuition at the college. Before he graduated from high school, he had served in the capacity of the president of the student body. He also did involve himself in sports like football, swimming, basketball, track events and even school plays.

Later he got enrolled in Eureka College, where he was pursuing a bachelors degree in economics-sociology. It was at this college that he developed an interest in drama. It was after graduating that he worked as a sports broadcaster with several radio stations. During the Second World War, he joined the Army Air Corps and gained up to the position of the captain, after which he quit the job in 1945 and resumed his acting job. In 1937,he was able to win a screen test and fortunately got a seven year contract with Warner Brothers. This paved his way into the Hollywood movies and in this year he featured in his first famous movie, 'Love is in the Air'. It was then that his career in acting was developing and he was able to feature in more than 50 movies which really gained him a famous publicly recognized figure. It was at this period that he served as the president Screen actors Guild and afterwards he became the spokesman of the General Electric.

His political life started while serving at the General Electric. In 1945 he decided to settle down after experiencing sixteen years of acting. His wife Jane Wyman and the daughter Maureen decided to adopt a boy known as Michael. Their marriage didn't work well though as he was over-committed in the acting business that he spent less time with the family. Finally the wife fielded a divorce case claiming that in the recent months, they had engaged in serious arguments and that they held different political opinions. This was enough for her to say that, there was nothing in common left between them .After the divorce case was successful; Jane was given the custody of their son and daughter. Mr. Reagan carried on with his acting business though he complained of loneliness, and not that he didn't have friends .He dated many young and beautiful starlets, but his problem was that, he was loved but not able to love back. He eventually settled down with one Miss Nancy Davis, whom she had dated for two years .They bore a daughter Patti in 1952 and later a son Ronald Prescott Reagan.

Though he had been a loyal supporter of the Democratic party, he switched to the Republicans after the war and in 1952 and 1956 supported Dwight Eisenhower. He later rallied support behind Richard Dixonin1960. At one time while delivering among the many motivating speech's in support of Barry Goldwater's presidency candidacy in the year 1964, that he got persuaded to give a trial of the California governorship. While delivering his speech ,he stressed the need for having smaller government and there was the famous motivating speech of 27th October 1964, that revealed his great political ideas, he said, " The Founding Fathers of this nation that a government wouldn't control the economy without having thew control of people. And they they very well knew that a government which sets out to do that, it must use endavour to the use of force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have now come to a time for choosing." Despite the fact that Barry Goldwater's lost the presidential elections, Reagan had won the affection of many hearts and had so gained good grounds in the politics of the time. He won the governorship seat three years later in 1967 and again in 1971. Early in his governorship of California, there arose a national debate on abortion.

The then Democratic California State Senator, Anthony Beilenson brought up the "Therapeutic Abortion Act" in his endavour to reducing the back-room abortions which were being performed in California. A bill was sent to Reagan's desk by the State legislature where he spent several days of indecision ,but later signed it. Following that ,about two million abortions would be performed in California due to a provision in the bill which allowed for the abortion if it was in favour of the well being of the mother. He later blamed his four months short term experience as a governor, and that he regretted having signed it. He later recognized of his mistake and termed it as the "consequences" of the bill and he declared that he was a pro-life and afterwhich he wrote many books on the same issue.

However he was defeated in the run for the Republican presidential nominations in 1976.He had lost the nominations to Ford. After Gerald Ford won the elections, he offered Reagan some cabinet posts in his government. Reagan rejected the two offers and was determined to challenge him in the Republican Party presidential nominations, which lost to Ford. During the 1980 elections, he won the Republican presidential nominations and was favored for the presidency over Jimmy Carter. His important asset in the campaigns was Michael K. Deaver whom he had worked with when he was the governor of California. In addition to leading Reagan's; campaign, Deaver became a co-founder of the public relations company, known as Deaver and Hannaford in 1975. The company major role was to book Reagan's appearances, conduct research and sell his radio programs as well as ghost-write his column.

In his campaigns, he emphasized on improving the fundamental areas of the economy; the reduction of taxes, less involvement of the government in people's living and a firm national defense. This was the first time the Republican recaptured the presidential seat since 1952. After winning the nominations, he selected one of his primary opponents, George H.W. Bush as his running mate. At sixty-nine, Reagan won the presidential elections having 44 States rallying behind him with 489 electoral votes against 49 electoral votes for Jimmy Carter. He received 50.7% of the majority votes against 41% for Jimmy Carter and 6.7% for the Independent John B. Anderson. During the campaigns Reagan learnt that Jimmy Carter was negotiating to have some American hostages released from Iran. This news meant harm on their campaign since, if Carter had managed to get them out, his public perception would have changed and he could probably be re-elected for the second time. Deaver once reported that, among the things they had learnt was the, president Reagans' victory would have been impossible if Carter had managed to have the hostages released before the elections. He confessed that ,were it not for the delay ,Carter would have emerged victorious.

It had been established by a researcher and a policy analyst during the Reagan and Bush campaign ,that William J. Casey together with other representatives of the campaign team had held two meetings in July and August with the Iranians .The deal they were settleing was for Iran top delay the release of the hostages until the 1980 november elections were over. Reagan's camp had agreed to a better deal if they waited till Carter was defeated. In 1980 Iraq invaded Iran which made the Iranian government become desperate for spare parts and equipments for its armed forces. Jimmy Carter made a proposal that ,America would be willing to make the supplies in exchange for the hostages. Unfortunately for Carter the Central Investigations Agency leaked the details to the Reagans team which also leaked to the media. This kind of publicity was negative on Americans and so Carter could not continue with the deal. On the other hand Reagan had taken the opportunity to strike a deal with the Iranians of supplying them with the arms they so much needed. After the elections, Reagan won with 44million votes against 35 million by Carter. It was also the first time the Republicans had taken control of the Senate after 26 years.

During his first reign as president, he pursued policies which were based on his personal belief on individual freedom, drastic changes were evident on the improved national economy as well as the expanded military. He also contributed in the ceasing of the cold war. The Reagan Revolution was to re-establish and re-instill the morale of the American people as well as the reduction of people from depending on the government. It was during his first term in office that he used to keep diaries of what was happening on daily occurrences of his presidency together with his views of the daily happening. These dairies were later published in May 2007 and became the bestselling book known as The Reagan Diaries. At the inaugural address through his own written speech, he addressed the by the country economic malaise stating that, "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem."

His presidency kicked off in a style of its own since ,as he was giving the inaugural address , some 52 U.S hostages who had been held by the Iran for 444 days were set free. Later after only two months in office ,as he was leaving the Washington Hilton hotel,he was shot by the would -be assassin John Hinkley. The bullet missed the Presidents' heart by a single inch and instead went through the left lung. The President was rushed to the George Washinton University Hospital where it was thereafter established that his lung had collapsed. He had to have an emergency surgery to remove the bullet and it was in the operating room that he made a joke to the surgeons that, "I hope you're all Republicans!." And though they were all not republicans, Joseph Giorano (a Democrat) thus replied that, "Today, Mr. President, we're all Republicans."

The bullet was successfully removed and on the 11th of April , he was released from the hospital and thus became the first president to ever survive after being shot in an assassination attempt. This attempt worked to increase his popularity and as the polls indicated that his approval rating had hit 73%. The President belived that it was by Gods' mercy that his life had been reserved in order to accomplish greater hieghts and ambitions.

With just a short time in his administration ,he was faced with a national challenge when the air traffic controllers decided to go strike. This was targeted to prohibit a regulation which was prohibiting any government from going on strike . President Reagan termed the strike as an emergency which and on his style of dealing with the situation,he gave the workers a deadline on returning to their jobs. He issued a 48hrs grace perid for any worker on strike who wanted to retain his or her job. After the two days grace period elapsed, there were 11,359 workers who had purposed to defy the order and so the president fired them. This act had alot of influence on the labour management relations especially in the private sector. The president durng this strike case went against the provision which existed for the private sector employers who had the nominal role of firing any striking employers according to the National Labour Relation Act.

In his first term in office ,the greater mandate was to stablize the stagnating economy. He therefore implemented the suppt-side policicy which was to stimulate the economy with large tax cuts which worked well to improve the economy by increasing the tax base. Although his econoimic policies were faced by fierce criticism by mixed supporters , it was during his term the federal income tax rates were lowered and the gross domestic product(GDP) recovered from the 1982 major recession. There were more than 16 million jobs that were created as well as the reduction of the inflation rates by a big margin. As usual everything was met by a good share of critics where some argued that , his policies were meant for the wealthier to become more wealthier while the lives of the poor were not influenced in any significant way. However ,there were some economist like the nobel prize winner Midlton Friedman and Robert A.Mundell argued that ,it was due to his poicicies that America enjoyed the economic booms of 1990s. President Reagan comented during his 1984 State of the Union address saying that America had been founded by people who feared God as their rock of safety. He continued to warn the peple of America that ,they neede to be cautious in claiming that God was on their side whereas they were not on His side. His achievements and personality earned him to be one of the most loved President in America.

All along he knew that if they ever forgot that they were a nation under God they would be a nation gone under Him. In Reagan's presidency which is usually known as the Reagam Revolution since it caused some great re-alignment which spread to other nations abroad . Most people attribute the decline of the Iron Curtain to President Reagan which brought the cold war to an end . This as a result made the US the only super power in the whole world. Ronald Reagans' way of appreoaching the Presidency was somehow of a different direction from his predecessors by delegating a great deal of the work to his staffs whom he let handle most of the governments daily affairs . During his administration ,he appointed three Supreme Court Justices where the firstone was Sandra Day O'Connor who became the first woman to be in the Supreme Court. She was a centrist. The second one was Antonin Scalia in 1986 who was a conservative. In his third appointment of Douglas Ginsberg in1987 , it was marred by lots of controversies ands in the final , Douglas withdrew from his nomination after he admitted of his involvement and use of marijuana during his college days .