net127

Marie Horrigan, UPI Deputy Americas Editor, (via Google News) reports:

WASHINGTON, June 5 (UPI) — Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th president of the United States, died of pneumonia Saturday at his home California. He was 93.

Born Feb. 6, 1911, Reagan started his career as an actor and moved into politics to become governor of California and a popular two-term president whose tenure oversaw an economic boom, the declining years of the Cold War and the Iran-Contra scandal.

White House flags were at half-staff within an hour of news of Reagan’s death about 1 p.m., as President Bush traveled in France Saturday where he met with French President Jacques Chirac, before heading to Normandy to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.

With many world leaders headed to the United States next week for the G8 summit, funeral arrangements were expected to include many of those leaders. CNN reported that a state funeral would include a time in which Reagan’s body would lie in state in the U.S. Capitol before services at the National Cathedral.

Bush offered “prayers and condolences” to the Reagan family.

Bush said: “Ronald Reagan won America’s respect with his greatness, and won its love with his goodness. He had the confidence that comes with conviction, the strength that comes with character, the grace that comes with humility and the humor that comes with wisdom. He leaves behind a nation he restored and a world he helped save.”

Former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speaking to the Press Association in the United Kingdom, said Reagan was “one of my closest political and dearest personal friends.”

She added, “He will be missed not only by those who knew him and not only by the nation that he served so proudly and loved so deeply, but also by millions of men and women who live in freedom today because of the policies he pursued.”

Reagan had retired from public life in 1994 when he stunned the nation by announcing he was battling Alzheimer’s disease in a hand-written letter to “My fellow Americans.”

In the letter Reagan said he intended to “live the remainder of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done. I will continue to share life’s journey with my beloved Nancy and my family.”

Both the Republican National Committee and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., the likely Democratic Party nominee for the 2004 presidential election, lauded Reagan’s contribution to the country in separate statements Saturday.

“Ronald Reagan was a president of great historic impact who led the United States with strength and conviction, and the positive impact of his policies is still felt today here and around the world,” RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie said in a statement.

“More than two decades after he was first elected president, the Republican Party still bears his imprint. Because Ronald Reagan lived, people across the globe live in greater freedom and prosperity.”

Kerry’s campaign also thanked Reagan for his contributions, and used its statement as an opportunity to take aim at its opponent, Bush.

“Ronald Reagan’s love of country was infectious. Even when he was breaking Democrats hearts, he did so with a smile and in the spirit of honest and open debate. Despite the disagreements, he lived by that noble ideal that at 5 p.m. we weren’t Democrats or Republicans, we were Americans and friends. …

“Because of the way President Reagan led, he taught us that there is a big difference between strong beliefs and bitter partisanship.”

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he met Reagan shortly after his return from Vietnam, where the senator had been a prisoner of war. He issued a statement Saturday that said, in part, “(Reagan’s) accomplishments in office were historic, and will be long remembered as will the humility, grace and decency with which he achieved them.”

“His patriotism, which he expressed eloquently and often in his public remarks, was never affected,” McCain said. “He believed every word.”

Reagan took office at the age of 69 after defeating incumbent President Jimmy Carter and survived an assassination attempt in 1981, after only 69 days in office. He left office in 1989 at the age of 77, the oldest ever president.

Reagan was a staunch anti-communist whose policies contributed to the downfall of communism throughout Europe, including the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, two years after he left office.

The former president was a fiscal conservative who oversaw a period of major expansion in the U.S. economy, but also a historically large $3 trillion deficit as a result of his massive arms programs. These programs, however, eventually bankrupted the Soviet Union and led to their fall.

Despite his foreign policy success, however, Reagan spent much of his second term tangled in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair, which involved the secret sale of weapons to Iran and the diversion of the revenues to rebels in Nicaragua.

At Hollywood Park in Los Angeles, about five miles from Reagan’s home in Bel-Air, there was a movement of silence when the former president’s death was announced. The track trumpeter played “Amazing Grace” and the opening few pars of “Hail to the Chief.”

Reagan is survived by his wife, Nancy, and three children: Michael, from his first marriage, and Patti Davis and Ron from his second. His oldest daughter, Maureen, died in 2001 from cancer.

-0-

Ronald Reagan, 40th U.S. president, dies

Archived Entry