|
An American Life
''An American Life'' is the 1990 autobiography of former American President Ronald Reagan. Released almost two years after Reagan left office, the book reached number eight on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list. The book was largely ghostwritten by journalist Robert Lindsey. Content The book is composed of 748 pages, describing Reagan's life from his birth in Tampico, Illinois, to his acting career, marriages, entrance into politics, years as Governor of California, loss in the 1976 Republican primary, and finally his years as President of the United States. Reviewer John O'Sullivan says of Reagan, " shows a tendency, where other people's feelings are concerned, to gloss over unpleasantness in a way which ... detracts ... from his value as a historian." He told his side of events that led to his 1976 presidential candidacy, as well as his relationships with members of Congress and his views on the world and the Cold War. Personal life Reagan was married twice: the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Lindsey (journalist)
Robert Lindsey (born January 4, 1935) is a journalist and author of several true crime books, including '' The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage'' (1979) and '' A Gathering of Saints: A True Story of Money, Murder and Deceit'' (1988). Background Lindsey was born in Glendale, California, in 1935 and raised in Inglewood. In the 1950s, Lindsey attended San Jose State College with the dream of majoring in Journalism. He eventually received a Bachelor's Degree in History from San Jose State College in 1956. Upon graduation he began working at the ''San Jose Mercury-News'' as a reporter. In the 1970s, Lindsey relocated to Los Angeles and became the Los Angeles bureau chief for ''The New York Times''. Writing ''The Falcon and the Snowman'' In 1977, Lindsey began chronicling the story of Christopher John Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee, who were both convicted of selling information to the Soviets. ''The Falcon and the Snowman'' was eventually published in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Bork
Robert Heron Bork (March 1, 1927 – December 19, 2012) was an American legal scholar who served as solicitor general of the United States from 1973 until 1977. A professor by training, he was acting United States Attorney General and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1982 to 1988. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate rejected his nomination after a contentious and highly publicized confirmation hearing. Bork was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and received both his undergraduate and legal education at the University of Chicago. After working at the law firms of Kirkland & Ellis and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, he served as a professor at Yale Law School. He became a prominent advocate of originalism, calling for judges to adhere to the original understanding of the United States Constitution, and an influential antitrust scholar, arguing that consumers often benefited from corporate mergers an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speaker Of The United States House Of Representatives
The speaker of the United States House of Representatives, commonly known as the speaker of the House or House speaker, is the Speaker (politics), presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the United States Congress. The office was established in 1789 by Article One of the United States Constitution#Section 2: House of Representatives, Article I, Section II, of the U.S. Constitution. By custom and House rules, the speaker is the political and parliamentary leader of the House and is simultaneously its presiding officer, ''de facto'' Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives, leader of the body's majority party, and the institution's administrative head. Speakers also perform various other administrative and procedural functions. Given these many roles and responsibilities, the speaker usually does not personally preside over debatesthat duty is instead delegated to members of the House from the majority partynor regul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Buck Stops Here
Buck passing, or passing the buck, or sometimes (playing) the blame game, is the act of attributing to another person or group one's own responsibility. It is often used to refer to a strategy in power politics whereby a state tries to get another state to deter or fight an aggressor state while it remains on the sidelines. Etymology The expression is said to have originated from poker in which a marker or counter (such as a knife with a buckhorn handle during the American Frontier era) was used to indicate the person whose turn it was to deal. If the player did not wish to deal, the responsibility could be passed by the passing of the "buck", as the counter came to be called, to the next player. In international relations Passing the buck in international relations theory involves the tendency of nation-states to refuse to confront a growing threat in the hopes that another state will. According to John Mearsheimer, Thomas Christensen and Jack Snyder, buck passing is particula ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North (born October 7, 1943) is an American political commentator, television host, military historian, author, and retired United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. A veteran of the Vietnam War, North was a National Security Council staff member during the Iran–Contra affair, a political scandal of the late 1980s. It involved the illegal sale of weapons to the Khomeini regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran to encourage the release of American hostages then held in Lebanon. North formulated the second part of the plan, which was to divert proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel groups in Nicaragua, official funding for which had been specifically prohibited under the Boland Amendment. North was granted limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before Congress about the scheme. He was initially convicted on three felony charges, but the convictions were vacated and reversed and all charges against him dismissed i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William J
William is a masculine given name of Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will or Wil, Wills, Willy, Willie, Bill, Billie, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie). Female forms include Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the German given name ''Wilhelm''. Both ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic ''*Wiljahelmaz'', with a direct cognate also in the Old Norse name ''Vilhjalmr'' and a West Germanic borrowing into Medieval Latin ''Willelmus''. The Proto-Germanic name is a compound of *''wiljô'' "will, wish, desire" and *''helmaz'' "helm, helmet".Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Poindexter
John Marlan Poindexter (born August 12, 1936) is a retired United States naval officer and Department of Defense official. He was Deputy National Security Advisor and National Security Advisor during the Reagan administration. He was convicted in April 1990 of multiple felonies as a result of his actions in the Iran–Contra affair, but his convictions were reversed on appeal in 1991. During the George W. Bush administration, he served a brief stint as the director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office. He is the father of NASA astronaut and U.S. Navy Captain Alan G. Poindexter. Early life and career Poindexter was born in Odon, Indiana, the son of Marlan G. and Ellen (Sommers) Poindexter. He received his undergraduate degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1958, where he graduated first in a class of 899. His fellow graduates included astronaut Bruce McCandless II (who graduated second) and Senator John McCain; previous National Security Advisor Robert McFarla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert McFarlane (American Politician)
Robert Carl "Bud" McFarlane (July 12, 1937 – May 12, 2022) was an American Marine Corps officer who served as National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1983 to 1985. Within the Reagan administration, McFarlane was a leading architect of the Strategic Defense Initiative, a project intended to defend the US from Soviet ballistic missile attacks. He resigned as National Security Adviser in late 1985 because of disagreements with other administration figures but remained involved in negotiations with Iran and with Hezbollah. McFarlane was a central figure in the Iran–Contra affair, an operation in which the Reagan administration funneled weapons to Iran and diverted the profits to illegally fund right-wing rebels in Nicaragua. When the scheme came to light, administration officials implemented a plan to insulate Reagan and senior officials by focusing blame on McFarlane. He ultimately pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts and admitted that he had hidden inf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicaragua
Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America after Guatemala and Honduras. Nicaragua is bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean and shares maritime borders with El Salvador to the west and Colombia to the east. The country's largest city and national capital is Managua, the List of largest cities in Central America#Largest cities proper, fourth-largest city in Central America, with a population of 1,055,247 as of 2020. Nicaragua is known as "the breadbasket of Central America" due to having the most fertile soil and arable land in all of Central America. Nicaragua's multiethnic population includes people of mestizo, indigenous, European, and African heritage. The country's most spoken language is Spanish language, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contras
In the history of Nicaragua, the Contras (Spanish: ''La contrarrevolución'', the counter-revolution) were the right-wing militias who waged anti-communist guerilla warfare (1979–1990) against the Marxist governments of the Sandinista National Liberation Front and the Junta of National Reconstruction, which came to power after the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979. Months after the political dynasty (1936–1979) of the Somoza family lost the Nicaraguan Revolution to the Sandinistas, the US government sponsored the remaining national-guard soldiers and Somocista politicians of the losing side as ''la Contra'', the right-wing counter-revolution. The American military assistance and financial aid granted the Contras a measure of political credibility and military utility as anti-communist militias useful to U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. In 1986, consequent to complaints of the Contras' regular violation of the human rights of Nicaraguan civilians, the Boland Ame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the east, Pakistan to the southeast, and the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. With a Ethnicities in Iran, multi-ethnic population of over 92 million in an area of , Iran ranks 17th globally in both List of countries and dependencies by area, geographic size and List of countries and dependencies by population, population. It is the List of Asian countries by area, sixth-largest country entirely in Asia and one of the world's List of mountains in Iran, most mountainous countries. Officially an Islamic republic, Iran is divided into Regions of Iran, five regions with Provinces of Iran, 31 provinces. Tehran is the nation's Capital city, capital, List of cities in Iran by province, largest city and financial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iran–Contra Affair
The Iran–Contra affair (; ), also referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the Iran Initiative, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that centered on arms trafficking to Iran between 1981 and 1986, facilitated by senior officials of the Ronald Reagan administration. As Iran was subject to an arms embargo at the time of the scandal, the sale of arms was deemed illegal. The administration hoped to use the proceeds of the arms sale to fund the Contras, an anti- Sandinista rebel group in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, passed by Congress in a 411-0 vote and signed into law by Reagan, further funding of the Contras by legislative appropriations was prohibited by Congress, but the Reagan administration continued funding them secretively using non-appropriated funds. The administration's justification for the arms shipments was that they were part of an attempt to free seven U.S. hostages being held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, an Islamist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
