Existing comment:
Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004 (Nelson Shanks portrait):
This portrait, taken from life and signed by the artist on May 4, 1989, was made when Ronald Reagan had been out of office a little more than three months. Nelson Shanks's image is that of an aging man, strikingly older than the adjacent photograph from Time's 1984 cover. Second terms for presidents have been notoriously hard, and Reagan's was marred by the Iran/Contra episode. On the other hand, he achieved a considerable triumph in his arms-control negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in the treaty signed in the 1987 Washington Summit that eliminated medium-range missiles in Europe and the Soviet Union. It was also during these years that the American economy came roaring back from the "stagflation" of the 1970s.
Nelson Shanks, 1989 |