Ronald Wilson Reagan

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Ronald Wilson Reagan : biography

06 February 1911 – 05 June 2004

President Reagan openly ignored the scandal. He appointed two republicans and one democrat in the commission, which was called “Tower’s commission”, to investigate this case. The commission didn’t find direct proves of the fact, that Reagan had known about this program, but criticized him for the lack of attention to management of his staff, which had caused a possibility of diversions with funds. A Congress report concluded, that “Even if the president didn’t know what his national security counsellors were doing, he should have known”. During a week Reagan’s popularity decreased from 67 to 46 percent, that was the biggest and the fastest decrese of popularity of USA president. The scandal caused accusation of 14 members of president’s staff and 11 censures.

At the beginning of 1980-s USSR made a military armory and the army, which excelled USA forces. Before USA relied on the quality superior of its armor to considerably threaten the Soviet Union, but its lead decreased. After Reagan’s military building the Soviet Union didn’t make large-scale military building. Military charges with ineffective planning were difficult burden of Soviet economics. Reagan’s administration prompted Saudi Arabia to increase oil extraction, and it caused decrease of oil prices in 1985-1986. Oil was the main source of export for USSR. This factors caused USSR economics’ stagnation.

Reagan admitted the change of Soviet course and changed diplomacy direction to make a Soviet leader come to strong agreements about armor. Reagan’s private aim was reaching of “peace without nuclear weapon”, he considered nuclear weapon “irrational, absolutely inhuman, fit for anything except murder, possibly destructive for life on the Earth and civilization”. Reagan managed to start negotiations about nuclear disbarment with the general secretary Gorbachov. Between 1985 and 1986 Reagan and Gorbachov made four conferences. Reagan supposed, that if he managed to make the Soviet Union to allow more democracy and freedom of speech, it would cause reforms and the end of communism.

Before the visit to Washington, where the third negotiations were going to be held, a Soviet leader announced his intention to gain a considerable agreement about armor. The term of announcement led diplomats to statements, that Gorbachov would make big concessions to USA on the level of armed forces, nuclear armor and politics in East Europe. Reagan and Gorbachov signed an agreement about elimination of missiles of middle and little distance, which eliminated the whole class of armor. Leaders of two countries made a basis for agreement about limitation of strategic offensive armory. Reagan insisted on the change of agreement’s name.

When Reagan visited Moscow in 1988 to take part in the forth negotiations, he seemed to be famous in USSR. When a journalist asked him if he still continued to consider USSR the empire of evil, he said: “No. I was talking about another time, another era”. At Gorbachov’s request Reagan made a speech about free markets in the Moscow State University. In his autobiography “An American life” Reagan expressed optimism about the new direction they aimed and about his warm feeling to Gorbachov. In November of 1989 the Berlin wall was demolished. The Cold War ended officially on the 3d of December in 1989 on the meeting on Malta, two years later the Soviet Union broke up.

State of health

At the beginning of Reagan’s presidency he started to use a technologically advanced otophone, which had been made to order, first in the right ear, then in the left. His decision to appear in public with this otophone increased the wave of its selling.

On the 13th of July in 1985 Regan went through the operation on moving off polypus from his rectum in a navy hospital in Bethesda. For eight hours he passed his presidential authority to the vice-president. The operation lasted for three hours and went successfully. At that day Reagan took his authority back. In August of that year he went through the operation on moving off cancer neoplasms from his nose. In October new neoplasms were found in his nose and were moved after the next operation.