Originally a film actor, Ronald Reagan appeared in many B-movies during the Forties, often as the good guy enforcing the law or righting wrongs. Many critics said that he was to adopt this simplistic approachwhen he took office
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Even as an actor Reagan was involved in politics, initially as a Democrat. He shifted to the Republican right, and was a successful state governor between 1966 and 1974 and this helped him win the Republican presidential nomination in 1980
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In 1980 Reagan captured the White House from incumbent Jimmy Carter. Reagan promised an attack on government spending and a tougher line against the Soviet Union
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Reagan slashed government spending and encouraged the private sector to aid those on welfare. This initiative was not always successful, and during the Reagan years the poor became poorer
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Reagan managed to balance the state budget when he was Governor of California. But he could not repeat this achievement in Washington: the tax-cutting policy of "Reagonomics" of cutting left the USA with the biggest budget deficit in its history
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Reagan's second term in office (he was re-elected in 1984) was marred by revelations of arms sales to Iran to fund right-wing guerrillas in Nicaragua. Although Reagan convincingly denied knowledge of the deals, the scandal symbolised his hands-off approach which gave licence to aides to act illegally or corruptly
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The main player in the Iran-Contra scandal was Colonel Oliver North, a Reagan aide said to have organised a covert operation to illegally fund right-wing Nicaraguan guerillas. Although he was sent to prison, North was a hero to many Americans convinced a belligerent attitude to left-wing regimes was correct
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Reagan was prone to crass political blunders. This flippant remark, made during a soundcheck in 1984 caused genuine alarm in the Soviet Union, where - joke or no joke - it was thought to betray a lack of genuine commitment to the disarmament process
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Reagan found a political soulmate in the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Their relationship was based on genuine mutual respect and friendship, and Anglo-American relations were better than they had been for years
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Reagan saw himself as the scourge of communism. For him, the significance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall was that it opened the way for Eastern Europe to join the consumer paradise of the western market economies
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The greatest stumbling block to improved US-Soviet relations was "star wars". This was a satellite system which the Americans claimed was for knocking-out incoming nuclear missiles; but the Russians thought it had more aggressive implications
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One of the greatest achievements of Reagan's presidency was the 1987 agreement with the Soviet Union to eliminate all ground-based intermediate-range nuclear weapons. It was critical to ending the cold war
