The Passing of An Era.

I am putting the whole report in my blog as I see the event as a passing if an era. I used to watch many of his films, used to collect many of his film star photoes, but lost interest when I got older. Then he began his political career and I was early in my career so I was more like minding my own business than his. But I admired his achievement, and in the end he reaching the office of the President of the USA. Many have achieved and held that office but he did it 'his way', and for a long time to come I suppose very few will do it 'his way'. It was sad though he had to suffer the way he did after leaving the office. My condolence to his family.

From Melbourne Age / Sydney Morning Herald

Ronald Reagan dead at 93
June 6, 2004

Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States, died today aged 93
after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease.

He died at his home in California, according to a family friend, who
initially disclosed the death on condition of anonymity. The friend
said the family had turned to making funeral arrangements. A formal
statement from the family was expected later.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said President George W Bush had
been notified of Reagan's death in Paris by White House chief of staff
Andy Card.

Card learned of the death from Fred Ryan, Reagan's former California
chief of staff, Buchan said.

The White House was told Reagan's health had taken a turn for the
worse in the last few days.

Five years after leaving office, the nation's 40th president told the
world in November 1994 that he had been diagnosed with the early
stages of Alzheimer's, an incurable illness that destroys brain cells.
He said he had begun "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of
my life".

Reagan's body was expected to be taken to his presidential library
and museum in Simi Valley, California, and then flown to Washington to
lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. His funeral was expected to be at
the National Cathedral, an event likely to draw world leaders. The
body was to be returned to California for a sunset burial at his
library.

Reagan lived longer than any US president, spending his last decade in
the shrouded seclusion wrought by his disease, tended by his wife,
Nancy, whom he called Mommy, and the select few closest to him. Now,
Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H W Bush and Bill Clinton are the
surviving ex-presidents.

Although fiercely protective of Reagan's privacy, the former first
lady let people know his mental condition had deteriorated terribly.
Last month, she said: "Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to
a distant place where I can no longer reach him."

Reagan's oldest daughter, Maureen, from his first marriage, died in
August 2001 at age 60 from cancer. Three other children survive:
Michael from his first marriage and Patti Davis and Ron from his
second.

Over two terms, from 1981 to 1989, Reagan reshaped the Republican
Party in his conservative image, fixed his eye on the demise of the
Soviet Union and Eastern European communism and tripled the national
debt to $US3 trillion ($A4.37 trillion) in his single-minded
competition with the other superpower.

Taking office at age 69, Reagan had already had a career outside
Washington, one that spanned work as a radio sports announcer, an
actor, a television performer, a spokesman for the General Electric Co
and a two-term governor of California.

At the time of his retirement, his very name suggested a populist
brand of conservative politics that still inspires the Republican
Party.

He declared at the outset: "Government is not the solution, it's the
problem", although reducing that government proved harder to do in
reality than in his rhetoric.

Even so, he challenged the status quo on welfare and other programs
that had put government on a growth spurt ever since Franklin D
Roosevelt's New Deal strengthened the federal presence in the lives of
average Americans.

In foreign affairs, he built the arsenals of war while seeking and
achieving arms control agreements with the Soviet Union.

In his second term, Reagan was dogged by revelations that he
authorised secret arms sales to Iran while seeking Iranian aid to gain
release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Some of the money was
used to aid rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua.

Despite the ensuing investigations, he left office in 1989 with the
highest popularity rating of any retiring president in the history of
modern-day public opinion polls.

That reflected, in part, his uncommon ability as a communicator and
his way of connecting with ordinary Americans, even as his policies
infuriated the left and as his simple verities made him the butt of
jokes. "Morning again in America" became his re-election campaign
mantra in 1984, but typified his appeal to patriotrism through both
terms.

At 69, Reagan was the oldest man ever elected president when he was
chosen on November 4, 1980, by an unexpectedly large margin over
incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Near-tragedy struck on his 70th day as president. On March 30, 1981,
Reagan was leaving a Washington hotel after addressing labour leaders
when a young drifter, John Hinckley, fired six shots at him. A bullet
lodged an inch from Reagan's heart, but he recovered.

Four years later he was re-elected by an even greater margin, carrying
49 of the 50 states in defeating Democrat Walter F Mondale, Carter's
vice president.

- AP

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Those famous Reagan gaffes

Former US president Ronald Reagan was famous for his gaffes.

His most noted came in 1984, at the height of the Cold War.

He said: "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed
legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five
minutes."

He was joking around in a voice-level test before broadcast, but it
turned out the microphone was switched on.

He was a keen humorist and sometimes it was hard to tell which of his
remarks were jokes and which were gaffes.

His assertion that "trees cause more pollution than automobiles" may
have been seriously meant - at least it caused outrage among green
groups.

He also reportedly said: "All the waste in a year from a nuclear power
plant can be stored under a desk".

Asked by a reporter in 1966 what kind of governor he would be, the
former B-movie actor is said to have replied: "I don't know. I've
never played a governor".

And he was presumably deliberately joking when he said: "They say hard
work never hurt anybody, but, I figure, why take the chance?"

And his intention may have been similar when he said: "I am not
worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself".

And again when he quipped: "I have left orders to be awakened at any
time in case of national emergency - even if I'm in a Cabinet
meeting".

But "We are trying to get unemployment to go up, and I think we're
going to succeed" appears to have been a slip of the tongue.

- PA
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A strong, controversial world statesman

Ronald Reagan, Hollywood star turned political force, swept into
office as the 40th US president in 1981 on a flag-waving conservative
revival that changed America's political and economic landscape.

Reagan, who died today at 93 after a long struggle with Alzheimer's
disease, was a genial optimist and maestro of a simple - critics said
too simple - creed promising lower taxes, less government, a powerful
national defence and unabashed patriotism.

That might sound familiar against a succeeding parade of conservative
leaders from Newt Gingrich to George W Bush, but as a governing credo
it was bold and new when Reagan began a turbulent White House reign
marked by economic resurgence, the collapse of Soviet communism, vast
budget deficits, an assassination attempt and a scandal or two.

Early in his political rise, analysts laughed him off as a shallow
show-business buffoon, all grin and pompadour. One high-ranking
Democrat, Clark Clifford, dismissed him as an "amiable dunce".

But Reagan's crystal-clear convictions and sunny manner captivated
voters tired of blurry, indecisive politicos. And Reagan marched
steadily upward from popular ideologue to California governor to
two-term Republican president from 1981 to 1989 - a force from the
right such as modern America had never seen.

If sabre-rattling Senator Barry Goldwater made conservative hearts
flutter in the 1960s at the prospect of their own president, his
philosophy of "extremism in defence of liberty" frightened off
middle-of-the-road and liberal voters.

But the die of the conservative revolution in American politics had
been cast with Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, and Reagan
became the answer to conservative prayers.

Fifteen years later, Reagan became the first right-wing president in
50 years; the first in 30 years to serve two terms; the first ever to
spend a trillion dollars on peacetime defence, the first to hold five
US-Soviet summits or witness a doubling of the national debt.

A conservative hero

He made his conservative successors politically possible. Historians
may long argue his proper rank among US presidents - great or not? -
but few would contest that he was a leader who left a deep imprint,
grudgingly admired even by opponents and revered by millions.

Reagan left the presidency more popular than any predecessor, despite
the Iran-Contra scandal that marred his last years in office. And when
he passed the mantle to protege George H W Bush in January 1989, it
was with a sweeping farewell boast typical of his glowing
self-confidence.

"We meant to change a nation and instead we changed a world," he said
as he and his adoring wife, Nancy, headed for retirement in Los
Angeles' swank Bel-Air district.

Even when stricken by the disabling Alzheimer's disease in 1994 - a
disease that confined him to final years of seclusion, not even able
to recognise his wife - Reagan disclosed it in a "My fellow Americans"
letter brimming with upbeat faith in the future.

"When the Lord calls me home ... I will leave with the greatest love
for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future," he said
in the letter released on November 5, 1994. "... I know that for
America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."

Three days later, Americans illustrated the enduring allure of the
conservative credo he espoused by putting Republicans in full control
of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

As president, however, Reagan was in fact a paradox.

He railed against federal spending but followed policies - twinning a
vast military buildup with tax cuts - that more than doubled the total
national debt and left succeeding presidents and Congresses to deal
with the consequences.

He abhorred bargaining with hostage-takers and called for an arms
boycott against states accused of fomenting terrorism. But he also
sold arms to Iran in a clandestine operation that mushroomed into the
gravest scandal of his presidency.

He built a career on fiery anti-communist rhetoric and
Kremlin-bashing, but developed an affection for Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev in the course of five summit meetings.

His meeting with Gorbachev in Moscow in 1988 typified the ironies that
made Reagan such a fascinating public figure for so long. Here was
America's best-known anti-communist, the man who called the Soviet
Union an "evil empire", doing business in the Kremlin with the
political heir of Lenin on a chummy "Ron" and "Mikhail" basis.

It was Reagan being Reagan: accepting compromise and doing business
while still proclaiming the patriotic conservative cause, just as he
has done all his political life.

Evil Empire

Asked if he still saw the Soviet Union as the "evil empire," he
retired his famous phrase without a flinch. "No," he said, "I was
talking about another time, another era."

He and Gorbachev put into force a treaty banning intermediate-range
missiles, the first to abolish an entire class of nuclear weapons.

Many traced the collapse of the Soviet Union a few years later in part
to the economic stress of trying to compete with Reagan's relentless
US military buildup.

He left office two weeks shy of his 78th birthday in 1989, by far the
oldest president America had ever had.

It was typical of the amazing physical resilience he had shown in
office, surviving a 1981 assassination attempt that put a bullet near
his heart, a 1985 colon cancer operation and 1987 prostate and
skin-cancer surgery.

In his last years he slipped further into his own world as Alzheimer's
took its toll. Eventually he failed to recognise old friends or even
recall he had been president. Physical frailties followed - he broke a
hip in a fall at home in January 2001 - and his beloved second wife,
Nancy, became his primary care-giver in their home in Los Angeles'
exclusive Bel-Air district.

She called Alzheimer's a "long goodbye", and in a rare public speech
last May she called for stem cell research, saying "Ronnie's long
journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer
reach him".

She added that, because of this, stem cell research was needed to
"save other families from this pain".

Career in Hollywood movies

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico,
Illinois, the second son of Jack and Nellie Reagan.

His father was an itinerant salesman and a heavy drinker, barely able
to eke out a living for his wife and two children as the family moved
from one small Midwestern town to another.

After graduation from Eureka College in 1932, Reagan became a radio
sportscaster known throughout the Midwest as "Dutch". More than 60
years later, that moniker provided the ironic title for a highly
controversial, Reagan-authorised biography by historian Edmund Morris.

Reagan headed for Hollywood and a career in films in the midst of the
Great Depression years. He made 51 movies from 1937 to 1964, mostly
B-grade comedies and romances. He co-starred with a chimpanzee in
"Bedtime for Bonzo", which achieved cult-film status during his
presidency.

During his film career, he met both his wives, actresses Jane Wyman
and Nancy Davis. He and Wyman had a daughter, Maureen, and adopted a
son, Michael. The second marriage produced another daughter, Patricia,
and a son, Ronald.

Reagan, a liberal Democrat and admirer of Franklin D Roosevelt,
converted to conservatism in the Cold War era of the early 1950s. In
1964 he entered politics as a Goldwater supporter. He won terms as
governor of California in 1966 and 1970 - a path later followed by
another sunny, charismatic Hollywood celebrity, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Reagan lost to Richard Nixon in a bid for the Republican presidential
nomination in 1968, and in 1976 fell just short of wresting it from
the Republican incumbent, Gerald Ford.

He kept trying and thrashed President Carter in 1980.

His candidacy profited from low national morale caused partly by the
Iran hostage crisis, in which Muslim militants held 52 Americans
hostage for over a year despite Carter's efforts to free them. They
were released as Reagan took his oath of office.

In retrospect, that seems the dawning of a radical Muslim force that
now shapes America's international horizons, and the Middle East was a
particular challenge for Reagan, too. The periodic seizing of American
hostages in Lebanon led him into the Iran-Contra crisis. A guerrilla
bomb killed 239 US servicemen during an abortive peace mission in
Beirut in 1983.

A busy foreign policy

Reagan made good a threat to retaliate against "terrorists" by
ordering air strikes on Libya in April 1986.

He protected Gulf oil-shipping lanes during the Iran-Iraq war by
having warships escort US-flagged Kuwaiti tankers.

To Americans, his most popular foreign policy success was an invasion
of the Caribbean island of Grenada in October 1983. It ousted a
Marxist regime and rescued stranded Americans.

On the domestic front, he scored victory after victory in Congress
during his first term. After pushing through the largest tax cuts in
US history - 25 per cent over three years - in 1981, Reagan saw
America emerge from its worst recession since World War II. Inflation
fell sharply.

But federal budget deficits mushroomed to then-astronomical
$US200-billion-plus annual levels by the mid-1980s - although that
seems modest next to the far greater deficits rung up later under
George W Bush, the son of Reagan's successor.

Reagan's last political hurrah came in 1984, when he scored the
biggest electoral landslide in US history, winning 525 of a possible
538 votes in the Electoral College and sweeping 49 of 50 states
against liberal Democrat Walter Mondale.

Only after he achieved many of his economic and military goals did his
political magic desert him. The Republicans lost their Senate majority
in the 1986 election, and a Democratic Congress reined in such Reagan
programs as "Star Wars" missile-defence research and aid to
Nicaragua's Contra rebels.

Finally he was thrust into his gravest crisis with the disclosure in
November 1986 that the United States had sold arms to Iran in 1985-86
and diverted proceeds to the Contras.

Congressional hearings in 1987 backed Reagan on one central point:
witnesses said he was never told about the Contra funds diversion. But
the hearings also portrayed an out-of-control White House and an
out-of-touch president, whose zealous aides made major foreign policy
moves on their own.

Reagan himself always insisted he was guilty of nothing but poor
judgment.

- Reuters
http://www.theage.com.au/
http://www.smh.com.au/



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