Reagan

For me, President Reagan is just a figure from history. How do you feel about the president’s term in office, his career as an actor, the way the world has changed through his influence?

Ronald Wilson Reagan, a former film star who became America's 40th president, the oldest to enter the White House but imbued with a youthful optimism rooted in the traditional virtues of a bygone era, died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 93. To a nation hungry for a hero, a nation battered by Vietnam, damaged by Watergate and humiliated by the taking of hostages in Iran, Ronald Reagan held out the promise of a return to greatness, the promise that America would "stand tall" again. Mr. Reagan lived longer than any United States president, spending his final years in seclusion as he coped with the mental debilitation of Alzheimer's disease. In 1994, he touched the hearts of Americans when, in a handwritten letter, he let it be known he was suffering from the illness. "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life," Mr. Reagan wrote. "I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead." He died with his wife, Nancy, and his three children by his side.