Ronald Reagan

noun

40th President of the United States (1911-2004)

• Syn: ↑Reagan, ↑Ronald Wilson Reagan, ↑President Reagan

• Instance Hypernyms: ↑President of the United States, ↑United States President, ↑President, ↑Chief Executive

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Ronald Reagan [Ronald Reagan]

(1911–2004) a US film actor and later Republican politician who became the 40th US ↑President (1981–9). He was also ↑governor of ↑California (1966–74). He was a popular president, especially because of his ability to explain the government’s plans and problems in a simple way to ordinary people. He reduced taxes and increased government spending on defence. He was strongly opposed to Communism and famously described the Soviet Union as ‘the evil empire’ but reached agreements with it to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the two countries. In 1981 Reagan was shot and wounded by a person who was mentally ill. In his last years in power, he was criticized for the ↑Iran-Contra affair. Some people also said that his wife Nancy had too much power. He was diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease in 1992.

See also ↑INF Treaty, See also ↑Reaganomics You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jelly beans. Ronald Reagan