page_title: Ronald Reagan
section_title: Cold War and Soviet relations
hierarchical_section_title: Ronald Reagan / Presidency, 1981–89 / Second term, 1985-89 / Cold War and Soviet relations
caption_attribution_description: English: Trip to Iceland Reykjavik Summit Arrival of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at Hofdi House, 10/11/1986
context_page_description: Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American actor and politician. He was the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975. Reagan was the 9th and 13th President of the Screen Actors Guild, from 1947 to 1952 and again from 1959 to 1960. Reagan was a movie, television and radio actor before he began his career in politics.
  Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. Reagan had a successful career in Hollywood. He was in fifty-three movies. He married actress Jane Wyman in 1940. The couple divorced in 1949. They had three children. Reagan then married Nancy Davis in 1952. They had two children. Their marriage lasted until Reagan's death in 2004.
  Before winning his presidental election in 1980, Reagan ran for president two times in 1968 and in 1976. At 73 years old when re-elected in 1984, he is the oldest person elected president of the United States. He is known as the "Great Communicator" because he was a good public speaker. Reagan was also known as the "Teflon president" because any criticism or scandals against him never stuck or affected his popularity.
context_section_description: 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.
caption: Reagan with Mikhail Gorbachev at the Reykjavík Summit, October 1986
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