Name: Ronald Wilson Reagan Age: The count stopped at 93 Nationality: American Claim to fame: The 40th president of the United States of America
He was the Teflon president — nothing he did wrong seemed to stick to him. Even criticism didn’t stick. Instead, it became a point of admiration. After his death through complications resulting from Alzheimer’s Disease, Ronald Reagan, is being remembered with a lot of affection and admiration. His two terms in office are seen as an epoch-making era in American history when he won the Cold War for his country by ushering in the demise of the USSR, the “evil empire”.
Ronnie, the former actor who never made it beyond B-grade movies, was elected the 40th president of the United States in 1980 at the age of 69, the oldest man elected to the office. To his countrymen, he was among the greatest half-dozen or so presidents that the country has had, and in the 20th century was second only to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
However, the Regan years, did have their bad points as well. Economically, the Reagan years were epitomized by a freewheeling entrepreneurialism and free spending. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The number of families living below the poverty line increased by one-third. He left office with a budget deficit larger than the combined total of all of his 39 predecessors. This was basically due to the increase in defence spending in his bid to build up a nuclear arsenal that the Russians could never match. He succeeded in it.
He was also a staunch anti-communist with a sense of humour. Once, he said, just before an address, “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.” He thought the microphone was off, whereas it was on. However, in dramatic meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, he negotiated a treaty that would eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
This former radio commentator was lucky as a president — he got away with the Iran-Contra Scandal while many consider it to be more of an impeachable offence than Watergate.
It is amazing that as Americans mourn the passing of President Ronald Reagan, they simply choose to forget the decisive part his administration played in the survival of the then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein through his war with Iran. Reagan, determined to check arch-foe Iran, opened a back door to Iraq through which flowed US intelligence and hundreds of millions of dollars in loan guarantees — even as Washington professed neutrality in Baghdad’s war with Tehran.
More of a figurehead than a strong leader with a grasp for detail, Reagan knew how to project a public persona that would win hearts even though some of them followed a different beat. With his, an important era of the 20th century passes away but the world today is enduring the results of the actions taken then.
He was the Teflon president — nothing he did wrong seemed to stick to him. Even criticism didn’t stick. Instead, it became a point of admiration. After his death through complications resulting from Alzheimer’s Disease, Ronald Reagan, is being remembered with a lot of affection and admiration. His two terms in office are seen as an epoch-making era in American history when he won the Cold War for his country by ushering in the demise of the USSR, the “evil empire”.
