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QUOTE: Reagan had faced the dilemma [of a governor's role in capital punishment] while serving as governor of California, Reagan recalled the demonstrators who regularly paraded in front of the governor's mansion. With a slight chuckle, the president mentioned how some Christian ministers began tolling their bells in anticipation of the execution. "I told them, 'If you toll your bells every time somebody is murdered, I won't mind if you do it every time the state executes a killer."[Focus on murder victims while considering capital punishment (Source: Lessons From a Father to His Son, by John Ashcroft p.138-139 , May 5, 1998)]
AUTHOR: Ronald Wilson
Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United
States (1981–1989), the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975), and prior to
that, a radio, film and television actor. Reagan was born in Tampico in
Whiteside County, Illinois, reared in Dixon in Lee County, Illinois, and
educated at Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois, with a Bachelor of Arts degree
in economics and sociology. Upon his graduation, Reagan first moved to Iowa to
work as a radio broadcaster and then in 1937 to Los Angeles, California. He
began a career as an actor, first in films and later television, appearing in
over 50 movie productions and earning enough success to become a famous,
publicly recognized figure. Some of his most notable roles are in Knute Rockne,
All American and Kings Row. Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors
Guild, and later spokesman for General Electric; his start in politics occurred
during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, he
switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After delivering a rousing speech in
support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded
to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970.
He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968
as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and election, defeating incumbent
Jimmy Carter in 1980. As president, Reagan implemented sweeping new political
and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics",
advocated reducing tax rates to spur economic growth, controlling the money
supply to reduce inflation, deregulation of the economy, and reducing
government spending. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt,
took a hard line against labor unions, and ordered an invasion of Grenada. He
was reelected in a landslide in 1984, proclaiming that it was "Morning in
America". His second term was primarily marked by foreign matters, such as
the ending of the Cold War, the 1986 bombing of Libya, and the revelation of
the Iran-Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an "evil
empire", he supported anti-communist movements worldwide and spent his
first term forgoing the strategy of détente by ordering a massive military
buildup in an arms race with the USSR. Reagan negotiated with General Secretary
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in
the INF Treaty and the decrease of both countries' nuclear arsenals. Reagan
left office in 1989. In 1994, the former president disclosed that he had been
diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier in the year; he died ten years later
at the age of 93. Although a polarizing figure to some on the American left, he
often ranks highly in public opinion polls of U.S. Presidents. Moreover, as a
popular conservative icon, he is credited for generating an ideological
renaissance on the American political right.
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