Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, passed away 22 years ago on June 5th, 2004, at 93 years of age. When it comes to Reagan’s legacy in the political establishment, he is lauded as perhaps one of the best presidents in American history. Upon his death much of the nation was brought to a veritable standstill, as his funeral acted as an unofficial national day of mourning.
As Reagan’s casket was brought out of the Capitol rotunda, cannons fired in his honor, the reading of his funeral rites broadcast in New York’s Times Square as well as on televisions around the world. Over 100,000 people attended his funeral to pay their respects, including multiple former presidents, government officials, and diplomats from around the world. In a CBS News broadcast the day of his death, Reagan’s personal biographer Edmund Morris described him as “looking and acting presidential, a man with dignity”.
Morris describes Reagan’s “largest mission in life” as “the moral leadership of the United States”. In Morris’s words Reagan saw himself as a savior sent to tame the government and get it off the backs of the American people. But beyond the aggrandizement and grandstanding, when one takes a more critical look at the legacy left behind, what is revealed is a much darker history than American political revisionists like to admit. One fraught with systemic corruption and the exploitation of the American people.
In this article, we will take a look at Ronald Reagan’s true legacy, and while not exhaustive, highlight several policy decisions that still impact the lives of American citizens today.
Naturally, we shall start with foreign policy, as it is arguably the most impactful and extensive. In this area Reagan is typically hailed as a hero more than most in the annals of American exceptionalist revisionist history. He started off his presidency in January of 1981 being credited with bringing an end to the Iran hostage crisis, as Iran would agree to release 52 Americans after 444 days in captivity shortly after Reagan was sworn into office.
This immediately did wonders for Reagan’s image as a diplomatic tough guy that Americans could look up to. But the reality is much more sinister. Acclaimed investigative journalist and founder of Consortium News Robert Parry (1948 – 2018) spent decades amassing evidence ignored by the DC political beltway proving that, in truth, members of the Reagan campaign, particularly campaign manager and future CIA director William Casey, undertook efforts to sabotage attempts by the Carter administration to free the American hostages for political gain. Casey and others would covertly meet with Iranian officials in Madrid during the summer of 1980 and strike a secret deal insuring that Iran would agree to only release the hostages on the day of Reagan’s inauguration in exchange for arms shipments.
With this act of political subterfuge, Reagan’s presidency began with a borderline act of treason, treating American lives as bargaining chips.
Of course, this was only the beginning. As secret dealings with Iran would scandalize the entire Reagan presidency. The Iran Contra affair, beginning in 1985, would go on to leave a lasting and disastrous blight both inside and outside of the United States.
During the height of the Cold War, the staunchly anti-communist Reagan administration would go to any lengths no matter how deplorable to exert American imperialist dominance across the globe. When the leftist Sandinista government came to power in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration sought to oust them with a coup. When Congress denied funding for this operation, Reagan would once again turn to his pal William Casey, now director of the CIA, and their Iranian allies, as well as the cartel.
The CIA would begin making covert arms shipments to Iran via Israel, despite an embargo in place at the time, using the revenue to fund an insurgency by the Contras, a right wing militant terrorist group fighting to oust the Sandinista government. At the same time, the CIA would put itself in business with the Contras cartel allies in a plot to help bolster the Contras funding, a scandal later exposed by journalist Gary Webb whom revealed the CIA helped to facilitate cocaine trafficking into the United States, resulting in the disastrous crack epidemic of the 80s and 90s which unceremoniously claimed thousands of lives.
These undertakings initiated by Reagan have left lasting scars on American society and politics. In the decades since, Nicaragua has continued to be a prime target for imperialist regime change efforts, particularly following the 2006 election of Daniel Ortega which brought the Sandinistas back to power and lead to a series of coup attempts against his government by both the Bush jr and Obama administrations, as well as a deadly relaunching of Reagan-era destabilization efforts against Nicaragua as recently as 2023 under the Biden administration.
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