In the summer of 1981, the union of federal air traffic controllers went on strike. They broke a federal law that does not allow government unions from striking. Reagan said that if the air traffic controllers "do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated". They did not return and on August 5, Reagan fired 11,359 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order, and used supervisors and military controllers to handle the nation's commercial air traffic until new controllers could be hired and trained.
The Reagan administration largely ignored the AIDS crisis in the United States in 1981. AIDS research was underfunded during Reagan's administration. There were requests for more funding by doctors at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), but they were routinely denied. By the end of the first 12 months of the epidemic, more than 1,000 people had died of AIDS in the United States.
By the time President Reagan gave his first speech on the epidemic in 1987, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died of it. By the end of 1989, the year Reagan left office, 115,786 people had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, and more than 70,000 of them had died of it.
On August 20, 1981, Reagan was the honorable guest of Captain Dennis Brooks, commanding officer of the USS "Constellation" (CV-64). President Reagan arrived on the USS "Constellation" (CV-64) by helicopter. He spoke to the ship's crew, ate lunch with them and watched a United States Navy tactical display at sea.
President Reagan then re-enlisted some US Navy personnel. He then was introduced to Special Agent Craig Goodwin of the Naval Investigative Service (NIS). He was the Special Agent who was assigned aboard the USS "Constellation" (CV-64). Special Agent Goodwin was later awarded one of the highest civilian medals for his intelligence work, the Meritorious Civilian Service Medal.
Reagan's "Evil empire" speech was delivered to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida on March 8, 1983. It is his first recorded use of the phrase. Speaking about the nuclear arms race he said that the Soviet Union as evil.
Audio and text of this speech is available here .
In 1983, Reagan sent forces to Lebanon to stop the threat of the Lebanese Civil War. On October 23, 1983, a group of American forces in Beirut were attacked. The Beirut barracks bombing killed 241 American servicemen and wounded more than 60 others by a suicide truck bomber. Reagan withdrew all the Marines from Lebanon.
In September 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by the Soviet Union. It killed one politician and many more Americans. Reagan was angry at the Soviets. Reagan addressed the nation. As a result, Reagan proposed that the American military's GPS would be allowed for civilian use. In his address, Reagan said,
On October 25, 1983, Reagan ordered U.S. forces to invade Grenada, code named Operation Urgent Fury. Reagan said that there was a "regional threat posed by a Soviet-Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean" in Grenada.
"Operation Urgent Fury" was the first major military operation done by U.S. forces since the Vietnam War. Some days of fighting started, but it resulted in a U.S. victory. In mid-December, U.S. forces withdrew from Grenada after a new form of government was created there.
Reagan originally did not support making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday, because of cost concerns. But on November 2, 1983, Reagan signed a bill to create a federal holiday honoring King. The bill had passed the Senate by a count of 78 to 22 and the House of Representatives by 338 to 90. The holiday was observed for the first time on January 20, 1986. It is observed on the third Monday of January.
Reagan was once again nominated for president at the 1984 Republican National Convention. His Democratic opponent, was former Vice President Walter Mondale of Minnesota.
During the first presidential debate, many said Reagan lost the debate and there were rumors about Reagan's health citing his confusion on stage. Many thought Reagan was showing the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. In the second debate, Reagan improved his performance and when asked about questions of his age, he said:
Reagan's statement made the entire audience laugh including from moderators and Mondale himself. Reagan also repeated his 1980 debate phrase: "There you go again".
Reagan was re-elected in 1984 in a landslide victory. Reagan won 49 out of the 50 states. He carried more electoral votes than any other president in American history.
Reagan was sworn in as president once again on January 20, 1985 at the White House this time due to cold weather. In the coming weeks, he changed his staff by moving White House Chief of Staff James Baker to Secretary of the Treasury and naming Treasury Secretary Donald Regan to Chief of Staff.
Reagan became friends with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher. Both of them held meetings about the Soviet Union's threat and how to end the Cold War. Reagan became the first American president to ever address the British Parliament.
In foreign policy, Reagan ended detente (the policy of being friendly to the Soviet Union) by ordering the largest peacetime military buildup in American history. The U.S. government had to borrow a lot of money to pay for it. He had many new weapons built. Soon, the U.S. began to research on a missile defense system which would destroy missiles. It was to prevent a nuclear war from happening. The program was called Strategic Defense Initiative. It was nicked named "Star Wars".
He directed money to anti-communist movements all over the world that wanted to overthrow their communist government. He ordered multiple military operations including the invasion of Grenada and the Libya bombing.
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the new leader of the Soviet Union (which was in bad shape and soon to collapse). Reagan had many talks with him. Their first meeting together was at the Reykjavík Summit in Iceland. They became good friends.
In May 1985, Reagan and Chancellor Helmut Kohl were scheduled to visit a military cemetery in Bitburg, Germany to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II. The visit caused controversy as the cemetery had members of the Waffen-SS buried there and Reagan did not schedule a visit to a concentration camp. As a result, a trip to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was added to Reagan's schedule where he made a few remarks about the Holocaust and the end of the war. Reagan responded about the controversy,
Reagan announced a War on Drugs in 1982, because of concerns about the increasing number of people using crack. Even though Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs during the 1970s, Reagan used more militant policies.
In 1986, Reagan signed a drug enforcement bill that budgeted $1.7 billion to fund the War on Drugs. It created a mandatory minimum penalty for drug offenses. The bill was criticized for created racial inequalities and mass imprisonment of African-Americans. As a result, First Lady Nancy Reagan created her "Just Say No" campaign to promote anti-drug usage to children.
During the Reagan presidency, relations between Libya and the United States were mixed. In early April 1986, relations were escalated when a bomb exploded in a Berlin discothèque. It resulted in the injury of 63 American military personnel and death of one serviceman. In the late evening of April 15, 1986, the United States launched many attacks in Libya.