Ronald Reagan Fact # 19

In 1985, the Reagan administration's support for anti-communist forces in the Third World had gained such prominence and permanency that it became known colloquially as the Reagan Doctrine.

The Reagan Doctrine espoused providing assistance to groups fighting governments that had aligned themselves with the Soviet Union.

The Reagan Doctrine meant that there were several anti-communist movements across three continents that were to receive both covert and overt American economic and military assistance and political encouragement in the fight against communism.

The congressional prohibition on aid to rebel forces in Angola was also formally rescinded in this legislation.

Ronald Reagan Fact #18

The day after being shot, Ronald Reagan signed a bill from the hospital that canceled price support for dairy farmers. The signature was so shaky that the press questioned it's validity.

The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, ran the signature across a full page with the headline,

"President Reagan's Pen is Mightier Than the Bullet."

Ronald Reagan Fact #17

Ronald Reagan was shot at 2:25 p.m. on March 30, 1981 as he was leaving the Washington Hilton after addressing a conference of the AFL-CIO's Building Construction Trades Department.

In the limo, after being pushed by Secret Service agent, Ray Shaddick, Reagan coughed up blood and said,
"I think I've cut my mouth."

At 2:35 p.m., the limo reached George Washington University hospital and Reagan was in pain and had trouble breathing. But he was able to stand and tell an agent, "I'll walk in."

Ronald Reagan walked 40 feet into the hospital doors and then sagged to the floor.

Nurses rushed him to the ER and scrambled to cut off the president's clothes. Reagan's mouth and feet were covered in blood as he gasped, "I can't breathe," and then went unconscious.

His systolic blood pressure was at 78 and his normal reading was 140--the tube inserted by doctors to help him breathe caused the president to pass out.

Doctor's identified a collapsed left lung because Reagan had coughed up frothy, red blood, and inserted a catheter to drain the blood that was flooding his lung.

The president came to while a nurse, Marisa Mize, was holding his hand.

"Who's holding my hand?" he asked.
"Does Nancy know about us?"

Nancy Reagan had been having lunch at the White House and arrived at the hospital in ten minutes.

"Honey," he said, "I forgot to duck."


President Ronald Reagan almost bled to death because he was shot from behind and under the left arm pit--the back of his heart-- by a 25-year-old gunman, John Hinckley, Jr.

The bullet had ricocheted off the bulletproof Presidential limo and then hit one of Reagan's ribs and then was redirected. The bullet was meant to explode in his body, but fate had changed the bullet into a flattened dime like object that landed one inch from his heart.

Ronald Reagan had lost almost half of his blood and was dying in GW's emergency room and as Senior surgeon Benjamin Aaron, chief of thoracic surgery, drew the bullet out of his chest,
the president said, "I hope you're a Republican."

Joseph Giordano, chief of GW's trauma unit, was not. He said,

"Mr. President, we're all Republicans today."

Ronald Reagan Fact #16

Ronald Reagan attended William Casey's funeral service in 1987.