America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents (31 page)

Reagan meets with Gorbachev

The results of the Geneva Conference were significant.  While no tangible agreement came out of the talks, the two leaders set up a plan to meet three more times: once in Reykjavik, once in Washington and a final time in Moscow.  By the final meeting in Moscow, the war that had divided the world for decades was nearing its end.

The Challenger Disaster

Before Reagan and Gorbachev could meet again to discuss the nuclear arms race, the U.S. was hit with a series of crises.  First among them was the worst accident in the history of American space exploration. 

On the morning of January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger launched for the 10
^th
time, beginning Space Shuttle Program mission STS-51-L. Since 1981, NASA’s space shuttles had already successfully completed 24 missions, and no American spacecraft had ever failed to reach orbit during a manned mission. The night before the launch, it was unseasonably cold in Florida, which worried some engineers at Morton Thiokol, Inc. The company was responsible for the plastic O-rings used to seal the solid rocket boosters on the space shuttle, and the engineers were worried that if the weather was too cold, the O-rings could become too stiff to properly seal the boosters.

It was a warning NASA didn’t want to hear. The management team at Morton Thiokol didn’t want to hear it either. They approved of launching the Challenger the following morning, assuring NASA that secondary O-rings would seal if the primary ones failed.

The next morning was cold, with temperatures just over freezing. About 75 seconds into the launch, one of the plastic O-rings failed to seal a joint in one of the solid rocket boosters, causing a breach of hot gas. The gas immediately spread to the other rocket booster and the external fuel tank, causing an explosion of the boosters, the fuel tank, and the space shuttle at nearly 50,000 feet in the air. Every astronaut onboard was killed.

The
Challenger
disaster set back NASA and the space program by two years.

The
Challenger
explosion

Libya and Iran Contra

Months later, after Muslim terrorism had plagued the U.S., Reagan ordered the air force to conduct raids in Libya, where the nation's leader, Colonel Gaddafi, was suspected of harboring terrorists. Gaddafi remained defiant after the attacks, continuing to use his bombed structures, and in 1988, Libyan terrorists were responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. 

Reagan's second term faced its greatest crisis, however, during the Iran-Contra scandal of late 1986.  In 1984, the Boland Amendment had passed through Congress and expressly banned the U.S. government from giving aid to the Contras in Nicaragua, a group of anti-communist rebels fighting the Sandinista government there. In secret, however, the Reagan administration continued to give aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.  It did so by selling arms to Iran, and sending the proceeds to Nicaragua.  These transactions were in direct conflict with federal law.

The public learned of the Iran-Contra Affair through an
Associated Press
article in November of 1986.  Reagan, however, professed to be unaware of the transactions happening within his White House.  This may, in fact, have been true: the President's hands-off style meant he delegated a lot of responsibility and authority to his staff.  Regardless, the public held Reagan accountable, and his approval rating plummeted by nearly 20 points within a week. 

Realizing the public relations disaster, Reagan, only after initial hesitancy, took responsibility for the scandal.  He fired his National Security Advisor and his assistant.  The scandal quickly subsided and Reagan's popularity recovered, giving the President the nickname “Teflon President,” because scandals never stuck to him for long.

Nearing the End of the Cold War

While the Iran-Contra Scandal blemished Reagan's Cold War bona fides, he managed to rapidly revive them throughout 1987 and 1988. Talks with Gorbachev had resumed around the time of the Iran-Contra crisis, in October of 1986, in Reykjavik, Iceland.  But discussions in Reykjavik quickly collapsed, and the two leaders were unable to come to any agreements on arms reduction.

Before meeting with Gorbachev a third time in December of 1987, Reagan travelled to Berlin.  There, in a speech at the Berlin Wall, Reagan pronounced: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate.  Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.  Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Gorbachev,
tear down this wall.
”  The statement was controversial within the Administration itself, with many fearing that it would tarnish Reagan’s relationship with Gorbachev and increase tensions again at a time when the two sides were trying to reach strategic arms limitations treaties. Ultimately, Reagan decided to leave it in because he liked it.

Reagan speaking at the Berlin Wall

After the forceful speech, Reagan and Gorbachev met in Washington in December 1987. This meeting yielded greater results.  Together, the two signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the two countries agreed to remove
all
2600 medium-range missiles they had stationed in Europe.  It was the first arms treaty that reduced the nation's two nuclear arsenals. 

Having come to an unprecedented agreement, Reagan travelled to Moscow in 1988 for his final meeting with Gorbachev.  American-Soviet relations had changed significantly.  Instead of being greeted as an enemy, Reagan was adorned as a celebrity in Russia.  A year later, the Berlin Wall fell, the Cold War was declared over, and within just a few years, the Soviet Union collapsed entirely.  Reagan's commitment to defeating – not just negotiating with – the Soviet Union had come to fruition.  Whether it was Reagan's doing, however, remains a point of debate.  While the president put enormous diplomatic pressure on the Soviets, the nation's collapsed from internal strife, not external aggression.

The War on Drugs

Drugs had been on the government’s radar for much of the 20
^th
century, but they were widely used and viewed as recreational during the ‘60s and ‘70s. That changed during the Reagan presidency.

Though nobody could mistake her speaking skills for her husband’s, Nancy Reagan coined one of the most famous slogans of the decade when asked by a young girl at an Oakland school what she should do if somebody offered her drugs. The First Lady responded, “Well, you just say no.”

“Just Say No” instantly became the slogan for the Regan Administration’s “War on Drugs.”

Though memorable, “Just Say No” is often viewed derisively today, and Americans in subsequent decades found “Just Say No” somewhat silly. Drug use in the United States went down substantially during the ‘80s, but “Just Say No” seemed like a naïve response to a problem that involved addictive drugs. On top of it, the “Just Say No” campaign, which was trying to make it cool to say no to drugs, was being led by a grandmother and other authority figures telling kids what they shouldn’t do. Of course, no kid or young adult has ever thought their elders were cool.

Leaving Office

Reagan’s presidency has sometimes been labeled the “Reagan Revolution,” because his popularity indicated a conservative shift in the country’s politics. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” policies, with government as people’s benefactor, had dominated the nation for nearly two decades, but now Reagan had assured Americans that “government is the problem.” Reagan was very popular when he left office, and the Reagan Revolution marked an ideological departure from the Great Society. A plurality of Americans has identified themselves as conservatives ever since, and Reagan’s name is constantly invoked by today’s Republicans as the model conservative.

Chapter 6: Later Life and Death, 1989-2004

Reagan's Vice President, George H.W. Bush, was elected President in November 1988.  At age 77, Reagan left the Office of President on January 20
^th
, 1989. Despite being the oldest person to ever leave the White House, Reagan's post-presidency was longer than many, as he lived for another 15 years.

Those 15 years, however, would be difficult ones for the elderly Reagan.  He continued to make public appearances occasionally throughout the early 1990's, with his final appearance being Richard Nixon's 1994 funeral. But that year would be a devastating one for Reagan. Diagnosed with the incurable Alzheimer's Disease, Reagan issued a handwritten letter to the public explaining the diagnosis, “I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease... At the moment I feel just fine. I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done... 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.”

Reagan spent the remaining years of his life battling the disease, and his wife Nancy ensured that her husband was kept out of the public eye, explaining that "Ronnie would want people to remember him as he was."  His mental capacity had deteriorated significantly, and he was able to recognize few people.  It’s been alleged that at the time of his death in 2004, the former president had no recollection of having lived in the White House.

Reagan died of pneumonia on June 5
^th
, 2004, at the age of 93.  President George W Bush declared June 11
^th
a national day of mourning.  A state funeral was given to the former president, with many notable public figures attending, including Mikhail Gorbachev and Margaret Thatcher. 

Chapter 7: Reagan’s Legacy

Reagan's death came at a point when his legacy was of politically-heated importance.  President Bush had loudly embraced Reagan's legacy in his political rhetoric after Reagan left the White House, and since 1989 the Republican Party as a whole has looked to the former president as their standard bearer, with mixed results.

Reagan is often championed as the ultimate conservative today, which does a disservice to the man. Particularly on economics, Reagan's ideology of reduced government dependency, lower taxes and supply-side theories has come to define the modern Republican Party.  But do modern Republicans understand Reagan for what he actually was, or have they created a mythologized and heavily exaggerated figure?  This is the contention not only of Reagan opponents, but of many moderate Republicans.  Today's Republican Party lauds the benefits of tax cuts, reduced government spending and social conservatism, but Reagan's record both as President and Governor suggest he was more willing to compromise than his contemporaries recall.  As Governor of California, Reagan signed a historic tax
increase
.  Even as President, after initially signing an unprecedented tax cut, Reagan backtracked and raised taxes to counter deficits.  On government spending, the total size of government increased under Reagan's watch as well.  The free-market parade, evidently, was led by Reagan through speeches more than through actions.

Another part of the modern Republican Party’s coalition, the Christian Right, views Reagan with more reverence than reality. While Reagan certainly courted the Christian Right as an important element of the GOP coalition, he was not really
of
the Christian Right.  He was, after all, a Hollywood actor who married another twice-divorced actress, got a divorce himself, remarried to the Astrology-believing Nancy Davis, signed a no-fault divorce law in California, and legalized abortion in that state as well.  Reagan's personal associations with the Christian Right were tepid at best.  He was more comfortable with Hollywood big shots than Southern Baptist Preachers.