Ronald Reagan born 100 years ago
Date of issue: 7 April 2011
Ronald Wilson Reagan (6 Feb 1911 – 5 June 2004),
actor and politician, governor of California, the 40th president of the
United States of America. He exploited his exceptionally good performing
skills as a radio sports reporter in Chicago, and then from 1937 as an
actor in Hollywood. The good-looking actor featured in several dozen
films made at the Warner Bros. Studios. In the 1950s, however, he
received fewer and fewer film roles and his attention gradually turned
towards politics.
Although he supported the Democrats as a young
man, he joined the Republican Party in 1962. His reputation and
popularity greatly assisted him and he was elected governor of
California in 1966 and 1970. After that he concentrated all his energy
on becoming a presidential nominee. He became his party’s number one
candidate in 1980, and defeated the incumbent Jimmy Carter at the
presidential elections. He remained highly popular and was reelected in a
landslide in 1984. During his presidency he pursued a neo-conservative
economic policy inspired by the economist Milton Friedman, dubbed
Reaganomics. He tried to reduce the state’s role in the economy and
social affairs, and made large cuts in income tax and significantly
increased arms expenditure. Thanks to his rhetorical skills, he was able
to make political capital out of any situation. Both his speech made in
connection with the Challenger disaster and that made in West Berlin
about the need to demolish the Wall had a great impact on his audience.
In the USA it is widely thought that he played a key role in toppling
the Soviet Union. After he retired, he worked for a few years in the
editorial committee of the conservative magazine National Review. In
1992 he was made an honorary citizen of Berlin to promote German
reunification. In 1994 he announced that he was suffering from
Alzheimer’s disease. He died of pneumonia on 5 June 2004. (Source:
hu.wikipedia.org)
The commemorative cover
shows lines in English and Hungarian from Ronald Reagan’s speech made in
front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in 1987, which have since
become famous around the world. On the cover a commemorative postmark of
Ronald Reagan’s portrait accompanies the stamp entitled “Demolished
Iron Curtain” issued in 1989.
SO
Order code: 2011999060012
Date of issue: 7 April 2011
Selling price: HUF 200
Number of copies: dependent on demand.
Initial quantity: 1,750 covers
Printed by Con-X Nyomda
Designed by Imre Benedek
