"Ronald Wilson Reagan (6 Feb 1911 – 5 June 2004), actor and politician, governor of California, the 40th president of the United States of America. He exploited his exceptionally good performing skills as a radio sports re-porter in Chicago, and then from 1937 as an actor in Hollywood. The good-looking actor featured in several dozen films made at the Warner Bros. Studios. In the 1950s, however, he received fewer and fewer film roles and his attention gradually turned towards politics. Although he supported the Democrats as a young man, he joined the Republican Party in 1962. His reputation and popularity greatly assisted him and he was elected gover-nor of California in 1966 and 1970. After that he concentrated all his energy on becoming a presidential nominee. He became his party’s number one candidate in 1980, and defeated the incumbent Jimmy Carter at the presidential elections. He remained highly popular and was re-elected in a landslide in 1984. During his presidency he pursued a neo-conservative economic policy inspired by the economist Milton Friedman, dubbed Reaganomics. He tried to reduce the state’s role in the economy and social affairs, and made large cuts in income tax and significantly increased arms expenditure. Thanks to his rhetorical skills, he was able to make political capital out of any situation. Both his speech made in connection with the Challenger disaster and that made in West Berlin about the need to demolish the Wall had a great impact on his audience. In the USA it is widely thought that he played a key role in toppling the Soviet Union. After he retired, he worked for a few years in the editorial committee of the conservative magazine National Review. In 1992 he was made an honorary citizen of Berlin to promote German reunification. In 1994 he announced that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He died of pneumonia on 5 June 2004. (Source: hu.wikipedia.org) The commemorative cover shows lines in English and Hungarian from Ronald Reagan’s speech made in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in 1987, which have since become famous around the world. On the cover a commemorative postmark of Ronald Reagan’s portrait accompanies the stamp entitled “Demolished Iron Curtain” issued in 1989."