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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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