Ronald Reagan was a president.
On March 30 , 1981 , a shooting occurred at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington D.C. , which targeted Ronald Reagan , the 40th President of the United States . Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty . Signed in Washington , D.C. by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on 8 December 1987 , the treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on 27 May 1988 and came into force on 1 June 1988 . Reaganomics ( [ reɪgəˈnɒmɪks ] a portmanteau of [ Ronald ] Reagan and economics attributed to Paul Harvey ) refers to the economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s . Ronald Wilson Reagan ( [ ˈrɒnəld_ˈwɪlsən_ˈreɪɡən ] ) ( February 6 , 1911 -- June 5 , 2004 ) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989 . Leaving office in 1989 , Reagan held an approval rating of sixty-eight percent , matching those of Franklin D. Roosevelt , and later Bill Clinton , as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era .