Donald Regan
Encyclopedia
Donald Thomas Reganwas the 66th United States Secretary of the Treasury
, from 1981 to 1985, and Chief of Staff
from 1985 to 1987 in the Ronald Reagan Administration, where he advocated "Reaganomics
" and tax cuts to create jobs and stimulate production.
, the son of Kathleen (Ahearn) and William
Francis Regan, he was of Irish Catholic
origins. Regan earned his bachelor's degree
in English from Harvard University
in 1940 and attended Harvard Law School
before dropping out to join the United States Marine Corps
at the outset of World War II. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel
while serving in the Pacific theater, and was involved in five major campaigns including Guadalcanal
and Okinawa.
Regan was one of the original directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation
and was vice chairman of the New York Stock Exchange
from 1973 to 1975. Regan was a major proponent of brokerage firms going public, which he viewed as an important step in the modernization of Wall Street; under his supervision, Merrill Lynch had its IPO on June 23, 1971, becoming only the second Wall Street firm to go public, after Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette
.
During his tenure in these two positions, Regan also pushed hard for an end to minimum fixed commissions for brokers, which were fees that brokerage companies had to charge clients for every transaction they made on the clients' behalf; Regan saw them as a cartel
-like restriction. In large part thanks to his lobbying, fixed commissions were abolished in 1975.
". He helped engineer changes in the tax code, reduce income tax rates and decrease taxes for corporations. Regan unexpectedly swapped jobs with then White House Chief of Staff
James Baker
in 1985. As Chief of Staff, Regan was closely involved in the day to day management of White House policy, which led Howard Baker
, Regan's successor as Chief of Staff, to give a rebuke that Regan was becoming a "Prime Minister
" inside an increasingly complex Imperial Presidency
. Regan resigned from his post in 1987 due to his involvement with the Iran-Contra Affair
, and frequent clashes with the President's wife, First Lady
Nancy Reagan
. Regan was seen as the fall guy
for the affair, and the tongue-in-cheek
saying "Reagan had Regan" echoed throughout Washington
.
Regan's book, For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington (ISBN 0-15-163966-3), exposes his disagreements with First Lady Nancy Reagan, including claims that Nancy's personal astrologer
, Joan Quigley
, helped steer the President's speaking decisions.
"Speed it up" is a widely infamous phrase which Regan, somewhat indiscreetly, said to Ronald Reagan during one of the latter's speeches.
Michael Moore
gives brief focus to this in his documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story
, which insinuates that Reagan was merely chosen a frontman (or "sheriff") for the real power behind the throne
, among them Regan, who at the time was the Chairman of Merrill Lynch and who Reagan appointed as Treasury Secretary and then Chief of Staff.
with Ann Buchanan Regan, his wife of over sixty years. Late in life, he spent nearly ten hours a day in his art studio painting landscapes, some of which sold for thousands of dollars and still hang in museums. Regan had four children and nine grandchildren.
Mr. Regan was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1981, and renounced the title, claiming in part that "Reagan deserves this, not me."
Regan died of heart failure at the age of 84 in a hospital near his home in Williamsburg, Virginia
.
United States Secretary of the Treasury
The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, which is concerned with financial and monetary matters, and, until 2003, also with some issues of national security and defense. This position in the Federal Government of the United...
, from 1981 to 1985, and Chief of Staff
Chief of Staff
The title, chief of staff, identifies the leader of a complex organization, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a Principal Staff Officer , who is the coordinator of the supporting staff or a primary aide to an important individual, such as a president.In general, a chief of...
from 1985 to 1987 in the Ronald Reagan Administration, where he advocated "Reaganomics
Reaganomics
Reaganomics refers to the economic policies promoted by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s, also known as supply-side economics and called trickle-down economics, particularly by critics...
" and tax cuts to create jobs and stimulate production.
Early life
Born in Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, the son of Kathleen (Ahearn) and William
Francis Regan, he was of Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...
origins. Regan earned his bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in English from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1940 and attended Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
before dropping out to join the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
at the outset of World War II. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
while serving in the Pacific theater, and was involved in five major campaigns including Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal is a tropical island in the South-Western Pacific. The largest island in the Solomons, it was discovered by the Spanish expedition of Alvaro de Mendaña in 1568...
and Okinawa.
Wall Street
After the War, he joined Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. in 1946, as an account executive trainee, working up through the ranks, eventually taking over as Merrill Lynch's chairman and CEO in 1971, the year the company went public. He held those positions until 1980.Regan was one of the original directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation
Securities Investor Protection Corporation
The Securities Investor Protection Corporation is a federally mandated, non-profit, member-funded, corporation in the United States. It protects investors in certain securities from financial harm if a broker-dealer fails...
and was vice chairman of the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
from 1973 to 1975. Regan was a major proponent of brokerage firms going public, which he viewed as an important step in the modernization of Wall Street; under his supervision, Merrill Lynch had its IPO on June 23, 1971, becoming only the second Wall Street firm to go public, after Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette
Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette
Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette or DLJ is a defunct U.S. investment bank founded by William H. Donaldson, Richard Jenrette and Dan Lufkin in 1959. Its businesses included securities underwriting; sales and trading; investment and merchant banking; financial advisory services; investment research;...
.
During his tenure in these two positions, Regan also pushed hard for an end to minimum fixed commissions for brokers, which were fees that brokerage companies had to charge clients for every transaction they made on the clients' behalf; Regan saw them as a cartel
Cartel
A cartel is a formal agreement among competing firms. It is a formal organization of producers and manufacturers that agree to fix prices, marketing, and production. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products...
-like restriction. In large part thanks to his lobbying, fixed commissions were abolished in 1975.
Reagan administration
President Ronald Reagan selected Regan in 1981 to serve as Treasury Secretary, marking him as a spokesman for his economic policies, dubbed "ReaganomicsReaganomics
Reaganomics refers to the economic policies promoted by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s, also known as supply-side economics and called trickle-down economics, particularly by critics...
". He helped engineer changes in the tax code, reduce income tax rates and decrease taxes for corporations. Regan unexpectedly swapped jobs with then White House Chief of Staff
White House Chief of Staff
The White House Chief of Staff is the highest ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President.The current White House Chief of Staff is Bill Daley.-History:...
James Baker
James Baker
James Addison Baker, III is an American attorney, politician and political advisor.Baker served as the Chief of Staff in President Ronald Reagan's first administration and in the final year of the administration of President George H. W. Bush...
in 1985. As Chief of Staff, Regan was closely involved in the day to day management of White House policy, which led Howard Baker
Howard Baker
Howard Henry Baker, Jr. is a former Senate Majority Leader, Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee, White House Chief of Staff, and a former United States Ambassador to Japan.Known in Washington, D.C...
, Regan's successor as Chief of Staff, to give a rebuke that Regan was becoming a "Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
" inside an increasingly complex Imperial Presidency
Imperial Presidency
Imperial Presidency is a term that became popular in the 1960s and that served as the title of a 1973 volume by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. to describe the modern presidency of the United States...
. Regan resigned from his post in 1987 due to his involvement with the Iran-Contra Affair
Iran-Contra Affair
The Iran–Contra affair , also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or Iran-Contra-Gate, was a political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, senior Reagan administration officials and President Reagan secretly facilitated the sale of...
, and frequent clashes with the President's wife, First Lady
First Lady
First Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Reagan
Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....
. Regan was seen as the fall guy
Fall guy
A fall guy is a person used as a scapegoat to take the blame for someone else's actions, or someone at the butt of jokes. One placed in the position of fall guy is often referred to as "taking the fall". In the film industry, a fall guy is a form of stock character.-Origin:The origin of "fall guy"...
for the affair, and the tongue-in-cheek
Tongue-in-cheek
Tongue-in-cheek is a phrase used as a figure of speech to imply that a statement or other production is humorously intended and it should not be taken at face value. The facial expression typically indicates that one is joking or making a mental effort. In the past, it may also have indicated...
saying "Reagan had Regan" echoed throughout Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
.
Regan's book, For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington (ISBN 0-15-163966-3), exposes his disagreements with First Lady Nancy Reagan, including claims that Nancy's personal astrologer
Astrologer
An astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an...
, Joan Quigley
Joan Quigley
Joan Quigley , of San Francisco, is an astrologer best known for her astrological advice to the Reagan White House in the 1980s...
, helped steer the President's speaking decisions.
Sayings
"And the horse you rode in on." This was a favorite of Regan. He learned it from a poker buddy in Texas who said "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on." Regan adopted the latter part of the phrase. In the portrait of Regan that hangs on the third floor of the treasury, the title of a book in the background reads "And the Horse You Rode In On.""Speed it up" is a widely infamous phrase which Regan, somewhat indiscreetly, said to Ronald Reagan during one of the latter's speeches.
Michael Moore
Michael Moore
Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...
gives brief focus to this in his documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story
Capitalism: A Love Story
Capitalism: A Love Story is a 2009 American documentary film directed, written by and starring Michael Moore. The film centers on the late-2000s financial crisis and the recovery stimulus, while putting forward an indictment of the current economic order in the United States and capitalism in general...
, which insinuates that Reagan was merely chosen a frontman (or "sheriff") for the real power behind the throne
Power behind the throne
The phrase power behind the throne refers to a person or group that informally exercises the real power of an office. In politics, it most commonly refers to a spouse, aide, or advisor of a political leader who serves as de facto leader, setting policy through influence or manipulation.The...
, among them Regan, who at the time was the Chairman of Merrill Lynch and who Reagan appointed as Treasury Secretary and then Chief of Staff.
Retirement
Regan retired quietly in VirginiaVirginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
with Ann Buchanan Regan, his wife of over sixty years. Late in life, he spent nearly ten hours a day in his art studio painting landscapes, some of which sold for thousands of dollars and still hang in museums. Regan had four children and nine grandchildren.
Mr. Regan was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1981, and renounced the title, claiming in part that "Reagan deserves this, not me."
Regan died of heart failure at the age of 84 in a hospital near his home in Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg is an independent city located on the Virginia Peninsula in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia, USA. As of the 2010 Census, the city had an estimated population of 14,068. It is bordered by James City County and York County, and is an independent city...
.