One of the most famous and popular world politicians, the 40th US President Ronald Reagan is best known in Russia as the author of the "Star Wars" program and one of the perpetrators of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many Americans put him on a par with the greatest presidents in US history, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Reagan took a long time to achieve his goal, he was 69 years old when he took the highest government post and became the oldest US president. Nevertheless, he left a bright and noticeable mark in the history of world politics.
Early years
In the small town of Tampico, Illinois, on February 6, 1911, a boy was born in the family of John Edward and Nellie Wilson Reagan, who was named Ronald Wilson. Mom was Scottish and dad was Irish. The family was not rich, John worked as a salesman, Nelly was a housewife andwas raising two boys. Ron loved his parents and always emphasized that his father taught him to be persistent and hardworking, and his mother taught him patience and mercy. Ronald Reagan wrote in a brief biography that when his father saw him for the first time, he said that his son looked like a little fat Dutchman, but maybe someday he would become president. And Ron was nicknamed the Dutchman for a long time. Throughout their childhood, the Reagan family roamed the Middle East in search of a better life.
Ron changed many schools and cities and thanks to this he learned to be sociable, easy to make acquaintances, became charming and friendly. He studied average, devoting more time to American football and the drama club, becoming a real star of the stage. In 1920, the family returned to Dixon, where Ron graduated from high school. A list of interesting facts from the biography of Ronald Reagan can be started from his childhood, for example, in 1926 he received his first money working as a lifeguard on the beach, he even saved several people. Then Ron worked on this beach every summer vacation for 7 years. Despite the fact that they did not live well, Ronald Reagan noted in his biography, and his family also confirmed this, his childhood was happy and dignified.
Steps into adulthood
Ronald graduated from high school during the hard times of the Great Depression. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, including John Reagan. In particular, due to the fact that his father drank a lot, the guy made the right life conclusions, and there were never cases of abuse in the biography of Ronald Reaganalcohol.
Despite the difficult economic situation, Reagan managed to find an inexpensive college in the small town of Eureka, 150 kilometers from Dixon. As a good athlete, he managed to get a discount on tuition fees. He paid for college by himself, working in two places where he washed dishes. The money he earned was also enough for the material support of his parents, and a year later, for partial payment for the studies of his older brother, whom he offered to study at the same college. Ronald spent a lot of time playing sports and participating in student theater, but he hardly studied. Ronald Reagan, in a brief biography, noted that the professor knew that he only needed a diploma, and he never received a grade higher than "C" (three).
Radio Star
After receiving a bachelor's degree, Ronald decided to get a job as a commentator on the radio. In the era of the rapid development of radio and cinema, this work was extremely prestigious. But all the leading radio stations refused the guy without special education and connections. Reagan was lucky a few months later in Davenport, in neighboring Iowa, where he was hired to fill in for an ill football commentator. He received $5 for his first experience. But more importantly, they liked his work, and Ronald got a job at the WOW station with his own program covering the games of the local basketball club. Six months later, the local broadcast star was invited to work for a more prestigious job at the NBC radio station in the largest city in the state of Des Moines. The reason for his success was the amazing ability to improvise and voice, as they later wrote,characteristic and charming. He became a real celebrity of the state, earning money wherever he could earn money. Reagan led political banquets and parties, was the toastmaster at weddings and anniversaries. Thus passed the stage (1932-1937) of his adult life as a radio commentator. As Ronald Reagan later wrote in a short biography, these years were the best of his life.
Second movie character
In 1937, he went to Los Angeles to comment on another baseball game, where he also participated in screen tests. Under the patronage of a native of Des Moines, the famous Hollywood actress Joy Hodges, he was screened at the Warner Brothers film studio. He was not told anything, and he returned home, thinking that nothing had worked out with his film career. However, after some time, as Ronald Reagan wrote in his biography, information about the conclusion of a contract with him caught up with him in Des Moines. The studio offered him a six-month contract with a seven-year extension, guaranteed movie roles and $200 a week. In his first film, Love on the Air, Reagan played the role of a radio commentator who entered into an unequal battle with the local mafia. The film was low-budget, with a primitive script, and this picture forever defined the role in the cinema - "an honest, but narrow-minded guy with an attractive appearance." In total, over the years of his acting career, Reagan played in 56 films, all the roles were the main ones in low-budget films and secondary ones in first-class films. In the movies, he was always the third wheel in love triangles, and in cowboy shootouts he was always killed.first. Maybe a successful film career was hindered by military service. He did not go to the front due to severe myopia, Reagan spent all the years of the war making training films for the Air Force and playing roles in propaganda videos.
First experiments
Almost immediately after starting his acting career, in 1938, Reagan joined the right-wing film union - the Screen Actors Guild. And by 1941, he became a member of the Guild's board, although at meetings he was more silent. Along with the first experience of participating in public life, Reagan first married Hollywood star Jane Wyman (real name - Sarah Jane Fulks). Against the backdrop of the fight against "debauched" morals in the acting environment, Jane and Ronald became the flag of the film industry's counter-propaganda.
They have become an exemplary Hollywood couple who love each other, do not use drugs, drink almost no alcohol and do not swear. Later it turned out, as Ronald Reagan wrote in his biography, his personal life was not so cloudless. Jane fully indulged in the temptations of Los Angeles, considering Ronald a boring puritan. Returning from the army after the end of the war, Reagan began to devote more and more time to trade union activities, almost not acting in films. He managed to restore order in the trade union, tried to harmoniously ensure the interests of employers and actors and avoid strong economic conflicts. Reagan became president of the Actors Guild in 1947, devoting himself to the fight against communism in the film industry. Realizing that he could not become a movie superstar, he decided to become a politician.
Defeating the Left in Hollywood
Reagan was elected five times president of the Screen Actors Union between 1947 and 1952. Over the years, he managed to reorganize the Actors Guild and purge it of people of leftist persuasion. During the war years, many people appeared among actors and directors who, to varying degrees, sympathized with the ideas of Marxism. As a right-winger, Reagan was troubled by this increase in left-wing sentiment. He willingly began to cooperate with the Un-American Activities Commission, to which he was called in 1947. The commission, headed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, de alt with the fight against the communists. Speaking at Senate hearings, Reagan said that the Communists were going to take over the film industry in order to create a worldwide propaganda base. Around the same time, information appeared in the biography of Ronald Reagan that he became one of the authors of the famous black list. It included all figures in the film industry who adhered to leftist, pro-communist beliefs. All these people then lost their jobs and were forbidden to return to the film industry.
Thanks to these lists, he got married a second time. By this time he had been single for two years, Reagan divorced in 1949. In 1951, he was asked to help Nancy Davis, who was erroneously included in the lists of the Left. In March 1952, Nancy and Reagan were married, she became his assistant and adviser for the rest of his life. During the five years of his presidency, he managed to ensure national unity within the framework of a separate trade union. This was the first big success of Ronald Reagan in the biography of a politician.
Coming into politics
The first and only time he participated in the election campaign of the Democratic Party in support of Hollywood actress Helen Douglas in the US Senate. When the Republican Party nominated the famous war hero, General Dwight Eisenhower, he voted for him, joining the Democrats for Eisenhower organization. Then, in the next two elections, he again voted for the Republican candidates, considering their programs more convincing. Thus began the smooth transition from the Democratic to the Republican Party.
In 1954, he changed his profession, becoming the host of the television program "Theatre General Electric". Reagan brought the theater, film and stage star every week to one of the 139 factories where they performed and talked with workers about American values. In one of these broadcasts, Reagan announced that he was moving to the Republican Party, after which he was offered to leave the company.
In 1964, Reagan took part in the Goldwater election campaign as the head of the California branch of the Goldwater-Miller Citizens for Goldwater committee. At the Republican party conference, he delivered the "Time to Choose" speech to a multi-million television audience. So he gained nationwide fame and the support of functionaries of the Republican Party.
California Reaganomics
In 1966, Ronald Reagan becomes the Republican candidate for Governor of California. His colorful campaign speeches attracted and shocked voters. He wasan ardent anti-communist and a staunch supporter of a free market economy, low taxes and minimal social policies. With a landslide victory by 1 million votes, Reagan embarked on the reforms that became the basis of the famous Reaganomics.
The conservative policy of the new governor met with fierce resistance from left-liberal Democrats. Nevertheless, he managed to somewhat reduce the number of staff of institutions, reduce funding for colleges, social assistance to the black population, and the volume of free medical care. Already in the first year of his reign, he managed to restore order at the University of Berkeley, where many supporters of leftist and anti-war views studied. Reagan dispatched the National Guard to quell student unrest.
In 1970 he was re-elected governor of the we althiest and most industrialized state in the US. As noted by Ronald Reagan in a brief biography, then his main political and economic priorities finally took shape.
Trip to Washington
The first attempt to run for the US presidency from the Republican Party was unsuccessful. In the internal party elections, he received only 2 votes, losing to future President Richard Nixon and runner-up Nelson Rockefeller. Then he was governor for only two years and has not yet become a politician of national scale.
In 1976, he was already an established politician who was supported by many Republican conservatives, but he stilllost the right to become the Republican candidate to President Gerald Ford, who replaced Nixon, who was forced to resign due to the Watergate scandal. There are such periods of relative stagnation in many biographies of famous people, for Reagan Ronald this is a period of doubt and reflection. He is already 65 years old, and he confessed to his son that most of all he regrets that he will not be able to say "no" to the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. As a politician, the personality of Ronald Reagan historically finally took shape by this time. He already had national recognition, successful experience in managing a prosperous state, which was his great merit.
In the Capitol
The biography of President Ronald Reagan began in 1980, he convincingly won both the intra-party and national elections. He inherited a country in deep crisis, and, above all, it was necessary to urgently take measures to restore the economy. And Reagan succeeded brilliantly. During his two terms in office, GDP grew by 26%. As a supporter of a free market economy, he, above all, believed that the state should reduce its interference in all spheres of activity. Reagan consistently cut income taxes for everyone, rich and poor, by 10% over three years.
Tax incentives have been introduced for investors, especially in high-tech industries. At the same time, budget expenditures and social programs were sharply cut. All these measures are called"Reaganomics", Reagan himself called them "supply-driven economies". In foreign policy, he actively fought against communism and the Soviet Union, which he called the "Evil Empire". The second term was the beginning of a policy of détente.
Reagan died in 2004 at the age of 94. For most Americans, Ronald Reagan is the man of the century, the most popular and wisest US president.
