VOA慢速英语2012 THE MAKING OF A NATION - American History: The “Reagan Revolution”

 

 

THE MAKING OF A NATION - American History: The “Reagan Revolution”

STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember.

This week in our series, we look at the presidential campaign of nineteen eighty and the election of Ronald Reagan.

(MUSIC)

The months before Election Day in November of nineteen eighty were difficult for President Jimmy Carter. Many Americans blamed the Democrat¹ for the nation's economic problems, including high inflation and high unemployment. Many also blamed him for not gaining the release of fifty-two American hostages in Iran.

About a year earlier, Muslim extremists had seized the United States embassy in Tehran and taken the Americans as prisoners. President Carter urged all Americans to support his administration during the crisis.

As the months went by, however, he made no progress in bringing the hostages home. The Iranians rejected negotiations³ for their release, and an attempt to rescue them failed. The president appeared powerless.

Carter's political weakness led another Democrat, Ted² Kennedy, to compete against him for the party's nomination⁴. Kennedy was a powerful senator from Massachusetts and brother of former President John Kennedy.

But at their national convention the Democrats⁵ nominated Carter for a second term, along with his vice⁶ president, Walter Mondale.

Kennedy chose not to support them very strongly, so the Democratic Party was divided for the general election.

(MUSIC)

The Republican Party, however, was united behind a strong candidate -- Ronald Reagan, a former actor and former governor of California. Reagan's running mate for vice president was George H. W. Bush. Bush had served in Congress and as head of the Central Intelligence Agency. He had also represented the United States as ambassador to China and to the United Nations.

The inability of the Carter administration to solve the hostage crisis and other problems made many Americans feel that their country was weak. Reagan promised to give them confidence once more in the nation's strength.

Carter and Reagan debated each other several weeks before the election. To some people, Carter seemed angry and defensive⁷ while Reagan seemed calm and thoughtful.

RONALD REAGAN: "Next Tuesday is Election Day. Next Tuesday, all of you will go to the polls and make a decision. I think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself: Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more, or less, unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was?

"And if you answer all of those questions 'yes,' why then, I think your choice is very obvious as to who you'll vote for. If you don't agree -- if you don't think that this course we've been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four -- then, I could suggest another choice that you have."

(MUSIC)

On Election Day, voters gave Reagan a huge victory. It became known as the "Reagan Revolution."

Inauguration⁸ Day was January twentieth, nineteen eighty-one. Ronald Reagan became the nation's fortieth president and, at sixty-nine, the oldest ever elected.

In his inaugural⁹ speech, the new president talked about the goals of his administration. A major goal was to reduce the size of the federal government. Reagan and other conservatives believed that the nation's economy was suffering because of high taxes and unnecessary laws.

Government, he said, was not the solution to the problem. Government was the problem.

He urged Americans to join him in what he called a "new beginning."

RONALD REAGAN: "The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months. But they will go away. They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now -- as we have had in the past -- to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom."

(MUSIC)

Ronald Reagan was born in nineteen eleven in the small community of Tampico, Illinois. He was a good student and a good athlete. During summers, he worked as a lifeguard at a river and saved a number of swimmers. He studied economics and sociology and was on the swim team at Eureka College, a small school in Illinois.

While in college, he became interested in acting¹⁰. But he did not have enough money to go to New York or Hollywood to study to become an actor. Instead, he tried out for a job as a sports announcer on radio.

To show his abilities, he made a recording¹¹ of a football game in which he announced all the plays. But the game was imaginary. He invented all the action. A radio station in Davenport, Iowa, liked his creativity and gave him the job.

Later, "Dutch" Reagan, as he was called, worked at a radio station in Des Moines, Iowa. And then he moved to the big city -- Chicago, where he worked as an announcer for the Chicago Cubs¹² baseball team.

In March of nineteen thirty-seven, the Cubs were in California for spring training. Reagan went along, and while he was there he took a screen test with Warner Brothers. The movie studio liked the friendly, handsome young man and offered him a job. In fact, in his first movie, he played a radio announcer.

Before long, Ronald Reagan was a Hollywood star. He appeared in many movies – some good, some ordinary, but most very popular with the public.

In the nineteen-forty film "Knute Rockne -- All American," Reagan played Notre Dame¹³ University college football player George Gipp. His deathbed speech contained a line that would often be associated with the Reagan presidency¹⁴.

GEORGE GIPP (RONALD REAGAN): "Ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper. I don't know where I'll be then, but I'll know about it, and I'll be happy."

(MUSIC: "Kings Row")

In "Kings Row," Reagan played a double amputee who had lost both legs.

DRAKE (RONALD REAGAN): "Randy! Randy! Randy! Where's the rest of me? Randy … "

RANDY (ANN SHERIDAN): "Yes, Drake!"

DRAKE: "It was an accident."

RANDY: "Yes, dear. But don't talk about it yet."

He remembered "Kings Row" as the film that made him a star.

(MUSIC)

During World War Two Reagan joined what was then the Army Air Corps¹⁵ and made training films.

Reagan became deeply interested in politics during his years in Hollywood. He started out a liberal, but his political views became increasingly conservative. He served six times as president of the Screen Actors Guild¹⁶, a union of movie actors. He was noted¹⁷ for his opposition¹⁸ to anyone in the movie industry who supported communism.

Later, during his presidency, the public learned that he had also been a secret informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation¹⁹. This was during a campaign against suspected communist sympathizers in Hollywood.

After the war, Reagan guided the Screen Actors Guild through a frightening time for actors and others in the entertainment industry. It was the time of the powerful House Un-American Activities Committee. Its hearings resulted in the feared "blacklist." The blacklist was responsible for hurting -- even ending --the careers of many in the film and television industries if they were thought to be communists or to have communist sympathies.

(MUSIC)

It was through the blacklist scare that Reagan met his second wife, Nancy Davis. Her name had mistakenly been confused with that of another actress, causing it to appear on a blacklist, and she sought Reagan's help in correcting the mistake.

They fell in love, and would marry in nineteen fifty-two.

HELEN BLAIR (NANCY DAVIS): "Must be a big push this time, Case."

CASEY ABBOTT (RONALD REAGAN): "The admiral told me not to tell."

Reagan and Nancy Davis appeared together in the World War Two drama "Hellcats of the Navy," in which he played a naval²⁰ officer and she a navy nurse who loved him.

HELEN BLAIR: "The admiral should have told me not to worry."

CASEY ABBOTT: "I thought we'd settled all that. About you and me."

HELEN BLAIR: "It won't stay settled, Case. Not until you tell me you've stopped caring."

By the early nineteen fifties, Reagan stopped appearing in movies and turned instead to a new medium -- television.

RONALD REAGAN: "And every Sunday night, General Electric brings you the finest motion picture stars on TV. The great names in comedy, in mystery, in romance. Every week, a star, all summer long, on the General Electric Theater."

(MUSIC)

For many years, Ronald Reagan was the commercial spokesman for General Electric and host of a series of dramatic shows.

For much of his life Ronald Reagan was a Democrat. But, by nineteen sixty, however, he was making speeches for conservative Republican candidates. In nineteen sixty-six, he became a candidate himself. He ran as a Republican for governor of California. Democrats did not take him seriously. They made fun of some of his movie roles, as in "Bedtime for Bonzo," a comedy where his co-star was a chimp²¹.

But Reagan had the last laugh. He won the election by almost a million votes.

As governor, Reagan was praised for reducing the state's debt but criticized for raising taxes. Some people also thought he reacted too strongly against student unrest on college campuses. But he won reelection in nineteen seventy.

In nineteen seventy-six Reagan ran for the Republican presidential nomination. He came close to winning that nomination away from President Gerald Ford²². Ford recognized that there was strong support for Reagan among the convention delegates. After accepting the nomination, Ford asked Reagan to share the stage with him. The strong welcome that Reagan received was a clear sign of his future in the party.

(MUSIC)

That future would come just four years later, when Reagan won the presidency. On Reagan's Inauguration Day, Iran finally released the hostages it had been holding for four hundred forty-four days. Walter Cronkite paused in his CBS television coverage²³ of the inauguration for this breaking news report from Dan Rather.

DAN RATHER: "Walter, according to our CBS News sources at Tehran airport, one of the two Algerian jetliners is taxiing, or was just a few moments ago. And the drama on the runway of the Tehran airport continues, as the long agony for the brave fifty-two has continued throughout this morning.

"Now, as best as we can make it out, here is where the situation with the American hostages stands at this moment. They remain in Tehran, at least they were just a few moments ago at the airport, apparently²⁴ moments away from their flight to freedom, a few moments after spending four hundred and forty-four days in captivity²⁵.

"And can you imagine what it must have been like inside that airliner²⁶ for the hostages this morning?"

As president, Ronald Reagan quickly began work to get Congress to reduce taxes. He also began a weekly series of radio broadcasts.

Each Saturday he would comment on developments in American life and politics. The broadcasts were similar to the "fireside chats" of President Franklin Roosevelt during the nineteen thirties.

Reagan's ability to relate to people earned him the nickname "the Great Communicator."

(MUSIC)

Two months after he took office, Ronald Reagan was shot while leaving an event at a hotel in Washington.

(SOUND)

In the first moments, no one realized that he had been hit. But there was a bullet in his left lung, close to his heart. At the hospital, Reagan jokingly told the doctors: "I hope you're all Republicans." They were able to remove the bullet and he made a full recovery.

But the shooting left his press secretary, James Brady, permanently²⁷ disabled from a head wound. A Secret Service agent was also seriously wounded. The gunman, twenty-five year old John Hinckley Junior, was sent to a mental hospital. His explanation for the attack was that he was trying to impress the actress Jodie Foster.

(MUSIC)

We'll continue the story of the Reagan presidency next week.

You can find our series online with transcripts²⁸, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at www.voanews.cn. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I'm Steve Ember, inviting²⁹ you to join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.

___

Contributing: Jerilyn Watson

 

1 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

2 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

3 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

4 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

5 democrats   

n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Democrats held a pep rally on Capitol Hill yesterday. 民主党昨天在国会山召开了竞选誓师大会。
• The democrats organize a filibuster in the senate. 民主党党员组织了阻挠议事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

7 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

8 inauguration   

n.开幕、就职典礼

参考例句：

• The inauguration of a President of the United States takes place on January 20.美国总统的就职典礼于一月二十日举行。
• Three celebrated tenors sang at the president's inauguration.3位著名的男高音歌手在总统就职仪式上演唱。

9 inaugural   

adj.就职的；n.就职典礼

参考例句：

• We listened to the President's inaugural speech on the radio yesterday.昨天我们通过无线电听了总统的就职演说。
• Professor Pearson gave the inaugural lecture in the new lecture theatre.皮尔逊教授在新的阶梯讲堂发表了启用演说。

10 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

11 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

12 cubs   

n.幼小的兽，不懂规矩的年轻人( cub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a lioness guarding her cubs 守护幼崽的母狮
• Lion cubs depend on their mother to feed them. 狮子的幼仔依靠母狮喂养。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 dame   

n.女士

参考例句：

• The dame tell of her experience as a wife and mother.这位年长妇女讲了她作妻子和母亲的经验。
• If you stick around,you'll have to marry that dame.如果再逗留多一会，你就要跟那个夫人结婚。

14 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。

15 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

16 guild   

n.行会，同业公会，协会

参考例句：

• He used to be a member of the Writers' Guild of America.他曾是美国作家协会的一员。
• You had better incorporate the firm into your guild.你最好把这个公司并入你的行业协会。

17 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

18 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

19 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

20 naval   

adj.海军的，军舰的，船的

参考例句：

• He took part in a great naval battle.他参加了一次大海战。
• The harbour is an important naval base.该港是一个重要的海军基地。

21 chimp   

n.黑猩猩

参考例句：

• In fact,the color of gorilla and chimp are light-color.其实大猩猩和黑猩猩的肤色是较为浅的。
• The chimp is the champ.猩猩是冠军。

22 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

23 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

24 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

25 captivity   

n.囚禁；被俘；束缚

参考例句：

• A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
• He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。

26 airliner   

n.客机，班机

参考例句：

• The pilot landed the airliner safely.驾驶员使客机安全着陆。
• The passengers were shepherded across the tarmac to the airliner.旅客们被引导走过跑道去上飞机。

27 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

28 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句

29 inviting   

adj.诱人的，引人注目的

参考例句：

• An inviting smell of coffee wafted into the room.一股诱人的咖啡香味飘进了房间。
• The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and blessedly familiar.这间厨房的味道温暖诱人，使人感到亲切温馨。