[acid-jazz] Former President Ronald Reagan Dies at 93

From: Bob Davis (earthjuice_at_prodigy.net)
Date: 2004-06-05 23:32:35

  • Next message: matthew jee: "Re: [acid-jazz] Former President Ronald Reagan Dies at 93"

    Well now he is dead.
    He was perhaps the biggest influence on the retardation of Black culture during the 1980's and
    beyond...

    http://www.soul-patrol.com/funk/lee_at.htm
    <a href="http://www.soul-patrol.com/funk/lee_at.htm"> Lee Atwater & The destruction Of Black
    Music </a>

    (of course he had LOTS of help from Black people...)

    -------------------------------------------
    By ROBERT JABLON, AP

    WASHINGTON (June 5) - Ronald Reagan, the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to
    winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was
    ''morning again in America,'' died Saturday after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer's
    disease. He was 93.

    He died at his home in California, according to a family friend, who initially disclosed the
    death on condition of anonymity. The friend said the family has turned to making funeral
    arrangements. A formal statement from the family was expected later.

    In Paris, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said President Bush was notified of Reagan's
    death in Paris at about 4:10 p.m., EDT, by White House chief of staff Andy Card.

    Card learned of the death from Fred Ryan, Reagan's former California chief of staff, Buchan
    said.

    The White House was told his health had taken a turn for the worse in the last several days.

    Five years after leaving office, the nation's 40th president told the world in November 1994
    that he had been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's, an incurable illness that
    destroys brain cells. He said he had begun ''the journey that will lead me into the sunset of
    my life.''

    Reagan's body was expected to be taken to his presidential library and museum in Simi Valley,
    Calif., and then flown to Washington to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. His funeral was
    expected to be at the National Cathedral, an event likely to draw world leaders. The body was
    to be returned to California for a sunset burial at his library.

    Reagan lived longer than any U.S. president, spending his last decade in the shrouded
    seclusion wrought by his disease, tended by his wife, Nancy, whom he called Mommy, and the
    select few closest to him. Now, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton
    are the surviving ex-presidents.

    Although fiercely protective of Reagan's privacy, the former first lady let people know his
    mental condition had deteriorated terribly. Last month, she said: ''Ronnie's long journey has
    finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him.''

     Memories of Reagan?

    Reagan's oldest daughter, Maureen, from his first marriage, died in August 2001 at age 60 from
    cancer. Three other children survive: Michael, from his first marriage, and Patti Davis and
    Ron from his second.

    Over two terms, from 1981 to 1989, Reagan reshaped the Republican Party in his conservative
    image, fixed his eye on the demise of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism and
    tripled the national debt to $3 trillion in his singleminded competition with the other
    superpower.

    Taking office at age 69, Reagan had already lived a career outside Washington, one that
    spanned work as a radio sports announcer, an actor, a television performer, a spokesman for
    the General Electric Co., and a two-term governor of California.

    At the time of his retirement, his very name suggested a populist brand of conservative
    politics that still inspires the Republican Party.

    He declared at the outset, ''Government is not the solution, it's the problem,'' although
    reducing that government proved harder to do in reality than in his rhetoric.

    Even so, he challenged the status quo on welfare and other programs that had put government on
    a growth spurt ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal strengthened the federal presence
    in the lives of average Americans.

    In foreign affairs, he built the arsenals of war while seeking and achieving arms control
    agreements with the Soviet Union.

    In his second term, Reagan was dogged by revelations that he authorized secret arms sales to
    Iran while seeking Iranian aid to gain release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Some of
    the money was used to aid rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua.

    Despite the ensuing investigations, he left office in 1989 with the highest popularity rating
    of any retiring president in the history of modern-day public opinion polls.

    That reflected, in part, his uncommon ability as a communicator and his way of connecting with
    ordinary Americans, even as his policies infuriated the left and as his simple verities made
    him the butt of jokes. ''Morning again in America'' became his re-election campaign mantra in
    1984, but typified his appeal to patriotrism through both terms.

    At 69, Reagan was the oldest man ever elected president when he was chosen on Nov. 4, 1980, by
    an unexpectedly large margin over incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter.

    Near-tragedy struck on his 70th day as president. On March 30, 1981, Reagan was leaving a
    Washington hotel after addressing labor leaders when a young drifter, John Hinckley, fired six
    shots at him. A bullet lodged an inch from Reagan's heart, but he recovered.

    Four years later he was re-elected by an even greater margin, carrying 49 of the 50 states in
    defeating Democrat Walter F. Mondale, Carter's vice president.

    06/05/04 17:08 EDT

    Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not
    be

    http://www.soul-patrol.com/funk/lee_at.htm
    <a href="http://www.soul-patrol.com/funk/lee_at.htm"> Lee Atwater & The destruction Of Black
    Music </a>

     _________
    Bob Davis
    earthjuice_at_prodigy.net
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