“

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

Speech at the Brandenburg Gate, 1987

”

A Presidency That Nearly Ended in Its First Year

In March 1981, just over two months into his presidency, Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. outside a Washington hotel, surviving a wound that came close to killing him. His visible composure and humor while recovering — including a widely reported quip to surgeons before an operation — became a defining early moment of his public image.

"Reaganomics" and Tax Policy

Reagan's economic agenda centered on large tax cuts, reduced federal regulation, and increased defense spending — an approach his administration and supporters called supply-side economics, and critics labeled "trickle-down economics." The actual economic effects of these policies — on growth, income inequality, and the federal deficit, which grew substantially during his presidency despite his stated small-government goals — remain genuinely, actively debated among economists and historians across the political spectrum, not a settled historical question.

The Cold War's Final Act

Reagan pursued an assertive Cold War posture, significantly increasing defense spending and publicly challenging Soviet leadership — most famously in his 1987 Berlin speech urging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." He also pursued substantive arms-control negotiations with Gorbachev later in his term. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, months after Reagan left office, and the Soviet Union itself dissolved in 1991 — historians continue to debate how much credit Reagan's specific policies deserve for that outcome versus broader, longer-running structural pressures already building within the Soviet system.

Iran-Contra

Reagan's second term was significantly damaged by the Iran-Contra affair, in which administration officials secretly sold arms to Iran (subject to an arms embargo at the time) and illegally diverted proceeds to fund Nicaraguan Contra rebels, despite an explicit congressional ban on doing so. Reagan denied personal knowledge of the diversion, and formal investigations found no definitive evidence he authorized it directly, though the scandal badly damaged his administration's credibility regardless.