Reagan Administration

In 1980, troubled by a unstable economy at home, a hostage crisis overseas, and the end of prior administrations that were not trusted, America elected Ronald Reagan by a landslide margin of victory. At sixty-nine years old, he was the oldest President to be elected. He was born in a small town in Illinois and served two terms as California governor starting in 1966. Reagan's track record proved to be very strong and included welfare cuts, decreasing the number of state employees, and halting radical student protesters. Like other GOP members, Reagan came into office promising to limit the power of government and to strengthen American military power overseas. "In this present crisis," Reagan said in his inaugural address, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."(Reganfoundation).

The new president wasted little time in institutionalizing the new conservative creed. In 1981, after surviving an assassination attempt, Reagan pushed his agenda of lower taxes (a measure that proved most beneficial to the rich) and steep budget cuts through a hesitant Congress. Furthermore, Reagan cut spending on social security, weakened organized labor groups, and lived up to his campaign promises by reducing government regulations that had prevented mergers while supervising the banking industry. At the same time, he appointed conservatives who would carry out his vision of smaller government to agencies like the EPA, his cabinet, and the courts.

Anti-Communism was the cornerstone of the Reagan administration's foreign policy. The Reagan Doctrine had a turbulent relationship with the Soviet Union and Central America, more so than with other nations. President Reagan pushed for a space-based missile system to help keep America on the offensive. He also pushed for a "Caribbean Basin Initiative" in hopes of stimulation of economic growth in the United States. Many critics saw Reagan's military tactics as illegitimate. They disagreed with the amount of funding relegated to military efforts in Central America. These funds were used to intervene in Grenada and El Salvador, and helped wage a covert war against the revolutionary government of Nicaragua.(prenhall.com) As expected from a hesitant liberal Congress, funding for the Nicaraguan war was blocked. Nonetheless, the National Security Council raised the money to finance the intervention.

Reagan saw the Soviets at the heart of every international dispute, from revolution in Central America to international terrorism in the Middle East. To thwart the Soviets, Reagan called for the largest and most expensive peacetime military buildup in American history (reaganfoundation).

With his telegenic features and extensive experience in front of a camera from his career in Hollywood, Reagan was ideally suited for politics in a growing media age. Though intellectually unambitious and often disengaged in his leadership style, he brilliantly articulated themes of patriotism, individualism, and limited government that resonated with millions of Americans. The President worked tirelessly in effort to propel his campaign for a second term. Reagan's victory in the 1984 presidential election underscored his political popularity. Through his speeches he reiterated his anti-Communist rhetoric, that Soviets and Communism, as a whole, would fail.

Reagan's second term witnessed a drastic change in U.S.-Soviet relations. Concerned about a possible backfire against his policies, Reagan called for a "constructive working relationship" with the Kremlin. At the same time, a new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, came into power determined to change Soviet society by instituting a series of political and economic reforms. In an effort to avoid an expensive arms race and allow economic growth to take place, Gorbachev declared a moratorium, or delay, on deployment of medium range missiles in Europe and asked the United States to do the same. The result of these developments was a series of four Reagan-Gorbachev summits which culminated in the first U.S.- Soviet treaty to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. Treaties were then worked out and caused destruction of some missiles and allowed onsite inspections to occur.

The Soviet Union no longer posing the type of threat it once did, Reagan and his anti-communist mentality still did not let up. With a goal of greater involvement in the third world, the military's attention was soon thereafter shared with the Middle East and its terrorism. Previous administrations had not been completely honest with the public as to what exactly their foreign policies entailed. For this reason, great attention was turned toward President Reagan's handling of foreign policy in 1986. That year, there was speculation of the United States trading weapons with Iran in exchange for the return of American hostages being held in Tehran. In 1986, despite a Congressional ban, Reagan authorized the sale of arms to Iran. This complicated arrangement's aim was to covertly fund Nicaraguan insurgents' efforts to overthrow the oppressive Sandinista government, effectively preventing the spread of Communism. All this was done in an effort to send a strong message to the Soviets that further Marxist activity would not be tolerated. Despite these victories over communism, Reagan's authority was diminished in his second term by this scandal.