One of the most famous and popular world politicians, the 40th US President Ronald Reagan in Russia is best known as the author of the Star Wars program and one of the culprits 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 walked toward his goal for a long time, he was 69 years old when he took the highest state post and became the oldest president of the United States. 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 Nelly Wilson Reaganov, who was named Ronald Wilson. Mom was Scottish and Dad was Irish. The family was not rich, John worked as a seller, Nelly was a housewife and was engaged in 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 to be patient and merciful. Ronald Reagan wrote in a short biography that when his father saw him for the first time, he said that his son looked like a little fat Dutchman, but maybe he would someday become president. And Ron was nicknamed the Dutchman for a long time. Throughout 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 friends, became charming and friendly. He studied medium, devoting more time to American football and the drama club, becoming a real star in the scene. In 1920, the family returned to Dickson, 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, even saved a few people. Then Ron worked for 7 years every summer vacation on this beach. 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 worthy.
Steps into adulthood
Ronald graduated from school in difficult times, during the years of the Great Depression. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, including John Reagan. In particular, due to the fact that his father drank a lot, the guy made the right conclusions in life, and in the biography of Ronald Reagan there were never any cases of alcohol abuse.
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. He paid for college himself, working in two places where he washed dishes. He also earned enough money for the financial support of his parents, and a year later for the partial payment of the studies of his older brother, whom he proposed to study at one college. Ronald spent a lot of time playing sports and participating in the student theater, but he hardly studied. Ronald Reagan in a brief biography noted that the professor knew that he needed only 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 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 the neighboring state of Iowa, where he was taken to replace a sick commentator on a football match. For his first experience, he received $ 5. But more importantly, he liked his work, and Ronald got a job at 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 of Des Moines. The reason for his success was an amazing ability for improvisation and a voice, as they later wrote, characteristic and charming. He became a real celebrity of the state, earning money wherever he could earn. Reagan led political banquets and parties, was a toastmaster at weddings and anniversaries. So the stage (1932-1937) of his adult life passed as a radio commentator. As Ronald Reagan later wrote in a brief biography, these years were the best in his life.
Second movie hero
In 1937 he went to Los Angeles to comment on another baseball game, where he also participated in film screenings. Under the patronage of a native of Des Moines, the famous Hollywood actress Joy Hodges, he got to see in the movie studio "Warner Brothers". They did not say anything to him, 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 concluding a contract with him caught up with him in Des Moines. The studio offered him a six-month contract with the right to renew for seven years, with guaranteed roles in the movie and paid $ 200 per week. In his first film, “Love on 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 movie - "an honest, but near-by guy with an attractive appearance." In total, over the years of his acting career, Reagan played in 56 films, all the roles were main in low-budget films and secondary in first-class ones. In cinema, he was always the third odd in love triangles, and in cowboy shootings he was always killed first. Perhaps a successful film career was hindered by military service. He did not get to the front due to severe myopia; Reagan spent all the years of the war shooting educational films for the Air Force and playing roles in propaganda videos.
First experiences
Almost immediately after the start of his acting career, in 1938, Reagan joined the right film union - the Screen Actors Guild. And by 1941, he became a member of the board of the Guild, although at meetings he was silent more. Together with his first experience in public life, Reagan first married Jane Wyman, a Hollywood star (real name is Sarah Jane Fulkes). Against the background of the struggle with "depraved" morals in the acting environment, Jane and Ronald became the flag of the counter-propaganda of the film industry.
They became a model Hollywood couple who love each other, do not use drugs, almost do not drink alcohol and do not swear. Later it turned out, as Ronald Reagan wrote in his biography, 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 war, Reagan began to devote more time to union activity, almost without acting in films. He managed to restore order in the union, tried to harmoniously ensure the interests of employers and actors and to 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 did not become a movie superstar, he decided to become a politician.
Victory over the left in Hollywood
Reagan was elected five times as president of the film actors' union from 1947 to 1952. Over the years, he managed to reorganize the Guild of Actors and cleanse it of people of left-wing beliefs. During the war years, many people appeared among actors and directors who sympathized with the ideas of Marxism to varying degrees. Reagan, as a man of right-wing views, was disturbed by this strengthening of left-wing sentiments. He willingly began working with the Commission to Investigate Anti-American Activities, to which he was summoned in 1947. The commission, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, was engaged in the struggle against the Communists. Speaking at a Senate hearing, Reagan said the Communists were going to take over the film industry with the goal of creating a worldwide propaganda base. Around the same time, in the biography of Ronald Reagan, information appeared that he had become one of the authors of the famous black list. It included all the leaders of 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 married a second time. By this time he was single for two years, Reagan divorced in 1949. In 1951, he was asked to help Nancy Davis, who was mistakenly included in the lists of the left. In March 1952, Nancy and Reagan got married, she became his assistant and adviser for the rest of her life. During the five years of his presidency, he managed to ensure national unity within a separate trade union. It was Ronald Reagan's first big success in a biography of a politician.
Coming into politics
The first and only time he participated in the Democratic Party's election campaign in support of Hollywood actress Helen Douglas in the US Senate. When the Republican Party nominated the famous war hero General Dwight Eisenhower as his candidate, he voted for him by 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 a smooth transition from a democratic party to a republican one.
In 1954, he changed his profession, becoming the host of the television program General Electric Theater. Every week, Reagan brought a theater, movie and pop star to one of 139 factories where they performed, talked with workers about American values. In one of these programs, Reagan announced that he was joining the Republican Party, after which he was offered to leave the company.
In 1964, Reagan took part in the Goldwater election campaign as head of the California branch of the Citizens for Goldwater-Miller committee. At a republican party conference, he delivered a speech entitled "Time to Choose" in front of a multimillion-dollar television audience. So he received nationwide fame and support from the functionaries of the Republican Party.
California Reaganomics
In 1966, Ronald Reagan became the Republican candidate for governor of California. His vibrant pre-election speeches attracted and shocked voters. He was an ardent anti-communist and a staunch supporter of a free market economy, low taxes and minimal social policies. Having gained a landslide victory with an advantage of 1 million votes, Reagan began reforms that became the basis of the famous Reaganomics.
The conservative policies of the new governor met with fierce resistance from the left-liberal democrats. Nevertheless, he managed to slightly reduce the number of staff in 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 put things in order at the University of Berkeley, in which many supporters of leftist and antiwar views studied. To suppress student unrest, Reagan sent the National Guard.
In 1970, he was re-elected Governor of the richest and most industrialized state of the United States. As noted by Ronald Reagan in a brief biography, then his main political and economic priorities finally developed.
Campaign in Washington
The first attempt to be nominated by the Republican Party candidate for US President 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 a governor for only two years and has not yet become a politician of national scale.
In 1976, he was already an authoritative politician supported by many Republican conservatives, but he still lost the right to become a Republican candidate to President Gerald Ford, who replaced Nixon, forced to resign due to the Watergate scandal. There are such periods of relative stagnation in many biographies of famous people, Reagan Ronald has this time - a period of doubt and reflection. He is already 65 years old, and he admitted to his son that he regrets most of all that he will not be able to say no to the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. As a politician, the personality of Ronald Reagan has historically been finalized by this time. He already had nationwide recognition, successful experience in managing a thriving staff, which was also his great merit.
