America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents (30 page)

Due in part to the assassination attempt, Reagan's popularity skyrocketed to a 73% approval rating.  In the summer following the attempt, Reagan vowed to fulfill one of his major campaign promises: a tax cut.  Reagan's supply-side plan called for a three-phase tax cut and sharp reductions in spending on social programs such as health, housing and education.  The President contended that cutting taxes would free up money for business owners to increase the supply of goods and hire more employees.  In late July, Congress passed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, reducing income tax rates across the board.  The total cut represented a 23% reduction on the nationwide tax burden.

Sandra Day O’Connor and the Air Traffic Control Strike

During the campaign, Reagan promised to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court if there was an opening.  His opportunity arose in the summer of 1981, and Reagan made an historic move by nominating Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court. While Democrats and women's groups were thrilled, conservative Republicans had reservations.  Would O'Connor be willing to overturn
Roe v. Wade,
the landmark case that had legalized abortion?  Despite the less-than-warm reception from Republicans, O'Connor was confirmed by a 99-0 vote in the Senate.  She quickly assumed the position of a moderate judge, much as conservatives had suspected and feared.

Justice O’Connor

On August 3
^rd
, the President was confronted with his first major crisis.  The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) went on strike that morning, threatening to bring all of the nation's air traffic to a halt.  In the 1980 election, PATCO had been one of the few unions to support Reagan.  Reagan himself had been a union president at the Screen Actors Guild, which made him the only president to have ever been part of a union.  To a point, he sympathized with striking workers.

However, the PATCO workers were public workers, employed by the federal government.  Federal law expressly forbade strikes by federal employees of “critical industries.”  Reagan thus refused to negotiate with the strikers, and told them to return to work within 48 hours or lose their jobs.  Reagan was committed to following the law.

Two days later, only 38% of the workers returned to their jobs.  Reagan fired the rest.  Nearly two-thirds of Americans supported the move, and the firing burnished Reagan's image as a strong and assertive leader.  Many union leaders, however, thought the President was unsympathetic to the plight of workers.

Star Wars and Korean Air

Today Reagan is often cited as the president who won the Cold War, but in 1981 he was criticized by the Soviets and some Americans for escalating tensions between the two sides. His most famous comment on the Soviet Union was in his description of it as an “evil empire”, and Reagan initially vowed to take an aggressive stance that would ensure the United States maintained a superior strategic capability. That Fall, Reagan ratcheted up the U.S.-Soviet arms race by announcing an ambitious defense program.  It called for the development of stationary MX missiles and B-1 bombers.  In December, Congress approved the biggest peace-time military budget in history, providing nearly $200 billion for military spending for fiscal year 1982. 

Just over a year later, Reagan proposed a course of action that would throw off the intricate nuclear balance between East and West and tilt it in America’s favor. Reagan proposed a Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) that has come to be more popularly known as Star Wars.  The program attempted to develop a laser-operated missile defense system that could intercept enemy missiles launched at U.S. targets.  It got its playful name from the hope of proponents that it would one day be able to destroy enemy missiles and warheads from outer space.

SDI was controversial.  While Reagan and his supporters thought it evidenced Americans strength, opponents thought it threatened to push the Soviet Union to the brink of something drastic.  The nuclear balance “detente” had been the framework that guaranteed peace between the two nations for decades; developing SDI threatened to reduce the geopolitical significance of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, potentially leading to war. Reagan, however, viewed the Cold War differently than his predecessors.  He proposed to
defeat
the Soviet Union, not just provide a counterweight to it. 

In early 1983, Soviet-American relations deteriorated further when the Soviets shot down a Korean Air Lines flight, killing all passengers, including 61 Americans.  Reagan denounced the move as a massacre and banned air traffic from the Soviet Union into the United States.  Once again, Americans saw the President exerting strength in the face of the Soviet Union.

Beirut and the Invasion of Grenada

In 1975, Lebanon was turned into a battleground for several Middle Eastern nations. Although it is referred to as the Lebanon Civil War, the country had Shiite militias, Sunni militias, Christian militias, Syrian forces, Israeli forces and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) all engaged in combat, with different alliances loosely connecting some of the groups together. After the Israelis had pulled out in the late ‘70s, they invaded Lebanon in 1982 to go after the PLO, which was using Lebanon as a staging ground for attacks across the Israeli border. Reagan initially supported Israel, hoping the invasion would keep Lebanon from being controlled by Muslim radicals who were closely allied with the Soviet Union.

Under a UN agreement, American, French, and Italian troops arrived in Lebanon to oversee the withdrawal of PLO forces from the country.  In return, Israel agreed to stop shelling the country.  To the international community's disappointment, however, Israel resumed its invasion of Beirut.    Lebanese Christians then begin massacring hundreds of Palestinians settled in refugee camps.  Reagan came under fire for his initial support of Israel's invasion, and his Secretary of State resigned over an agreement.  Secretary of State Haig was quickly replaced by George Shultz.  It was a low moment in Reagan's first term.

Matters in Lebanon only got worse, however.  Some U.S. Marine Corps members remained stationed in Beirut on a peacekeeping mission. The Islamic militant groups had more in store. On October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber drove a hijacked truck into the U.S. Marine barracks at Beirut’s airport, blowing himself and the truck up inside the building. When rescuers converged on the rubble, they were subjected to sniper fire. Nearly 250 Americans lay dead, making it the deadliest day for the military since Vietnam. Another suicide bomber destroyed the French forces’ building, killing over 50. In response, Reagan authorized the marines to begin shelling Muslim stations around Beirut.  Reagan had committed the country to an all-out war in Lebanon. 

The mission was enormously unpopular at home.  After a car bomb attacked the American embassy in the country, Congress threatened to use the War Powers Act of 1973 to force the President to withdraw all forces from Lebanon.  Reagan, realizing the unpopularity of the mission, agreed to transfer the Marines from Lebanon to a naval base in the Mediterranean.  The strong Reagan Presidency had suffered a major chink in its armor.

Around the same time – on October 25
^th
, 1983 – Prime Minister Maurice Bishop of Grenada was assassinated by pro-Marxist rebels.  Reagan deployed military forces to the island country on the same day, citing concerns over the 1,000 American students studying there.  The invasion, however, was part of Reagan's policy to militarily confront communism wherever it threatened to spread.  The invasion of Grenada was militarily much more successful than Lebanon, with the U.S. installing a pro-American government in weeks.  In terms of popularity, the move boosted Reagan at home but further tarnished his international appeal.  Even Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a strong Reagan ally, condemned the invasion.  The U.S. had to veto a resolution at the U.N. condemning the Grenada action.

“It’s Morning Again in America”

By the beginning of 1984, Reagan was gearing up for reelection on uncertain terms.  Throughout most of Reagan's first term, supply-side economics had failed to deliver an improved economy.  Unemployment was highest in early 1983, at nearly 11%, the highest since the Great Depression.  In many ways, the early 1980's represented a nadir in the country’s economic history.  Even bank failures – unheard of since the Great Depression – occurred in 1982.  The Federal budget deficit was also at an all-time peacetime high.  As a result of the economic tumult, Reagan's popularity was in decline, and the Democrats picked up seats in Congress in the 1982 midterm elections.

By November of 1984, however, the economy brightened and it became “morning again in America.”  The unemployment rate was in steady decline, though by November it was still above 7%.  Interests rates had fallen from all-time highs.  In a compromise with Congress, Reagan agreed to both close tax loopholes and raise some taxes to combat the budget deficit.  With each of these economic successes, Reagan's popularity improved significantly.  He asked Americans the same question he had asked in 1980: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?”

Actions speak louder than words, even for great communicators. Reagan’s speeches and “Morning in America” campaign ad worked because of results. In the Cold War, Reagan managed to strike a balance between tough and conciliatory. He famously called the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” but he also negotiated reductions in each country’s nuclear arsenals. Reagan’s conservative philosophy was most apparent in his economic policies. He lowered tax rates in his first year, deregulated the economy, and increased defense spending. Reaganomics appeared to be working by 1984.

In 1984, Reagan faced former Vice President Walter Mondale of Minnesota.  At many points, the campaign focused on Reagan's age.  While Reagan was already the oldest president in history, at 73 he was vying to be an even older president.  The media portrayed Reagan as a senile old man, but Reagan, in a masterful quip, refuted all of his detractors in a presidential debate.  In response to a question about his age, Reagan famously pledged that “I will not make age an issue of this campaign.  I will not exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.” Much like “there you go again”, Reagan had permanently disarmed his opponent of a potential attack angle.

Reagan’s campaign also ran one of the most famous and effective political ads in American history that year. Known as the “Morning in America” ad, it began with pictures of Americans heading to work while a narrator tells viewers it was morning again in America. The narrator talks about how well the economy is doing, how low interest rates are, and how many people will get married that day. As pictures of smiling Americans flash across the screen, the narrator notes the country is “prouder and stronger and better.” The advertisement personified Reagan’s sunny demeanor and positive tone, focusing on the accomplishments of the administration and its confidence in the direction the country was going. At the same time, it ended with a subtle jab tying Mondale to Jimmy Carter’s unpopular administration, while managing not to come across like an attack ad. 

With that, Reagan was set to win. On election night, he outdid his 1980 return by winning every state in the union except Mondale's home state of Minnesota.  With 525 electoral votes, Reagan's reelection was one for the history books.

Reagan and Gorbachev

A new, younger, and entirely different Soviet premier came to power in 1985.  After the deaths of two Soviet leaders in the early 1980's, Reagan had been unable to form lasting relationships with any of his Soviet counterparts.  In March of 1985, as Reagan was beginning his second term, Mikhail Gorbachev was at the dawn of his reign in Moscow.

Gorbachev signaled a change in Soviet priorities, even suggesting he was open to unilateral arms reductions.  Reagan thus hoped to meet Gorbachev in person.  Soviet and American heads of state had not met face-to-face since 1979, but Reagan and Gorbachev proposed to change that, starting with a first conference in Geneva in November 1985.