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Ronald Reagan, President of the United States from 1981-1989.

Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, oversaw the United States response to the emergence of the HIV/AIDS crisis during the 1980s. His actions, or lack thereof, have long been a source of controversy, and have been widely criticized by LGBT and AIDS advocacy organizations.

AIDS was first medically recognized in 1981, in New York and California, and the term AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) was created in 1982 to describe the disease. Reagan would not publicly acknowledge AIDS until 1985. Several reports, notably those of C. Everett Koop and James D. Watkins were provided to the Reagan administration, and provided information about AIDS and policy suggestions on how to limit its spread, but the administration largely disregarded their recommendations. Towards the end of his Presidency in 1988 and 1989, Reagan took steps to provision federal funding to stop the spread and fund treatment research for AIDS, though these actions have been criticized as not wide enough in their scope, and too late in the crisis to prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans.[1]

As LGBT people (homosexual men and transgender women in particular) were disproportionately afflicted with AIDS, some critics have suggested that Reagan's lack of action was motivated by homophobia. A belief among Christian conservatives at the time, including those in the White House and activists close to it, held that AIDS was a "gay plague", and any response to it should emphasize homosexuality as a moral failing, though it is unclear to what extent Reagan himself took to these views.

Background[edit]

HIV/AIDS[edit]

Main article: HIV/AIDS

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease characterized by a greatly weakened or destroyed immune system, caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, which attacks the body's components of the human immune system. It was first identified in mid-1981, as doctors in Los Angeles and New York City noticed a series of clusters of unusual infections, specifically Kaposi’s sarcoma and Pneumocystis pneumonia, in sexually active gay men, diseases which are normally only found in immunocompromised patients.[2] The disease was initially known as GRID (gay-related immune deficiency), and for a short period as the "4H disease" for "Homosexuals, Heroin addicts, Hemophiliacs and Haitians" as the predominately affected groups. However, as HIV has the ability to infect any person, AIDS had taken over as the term of choice by mid 1982.[3] The AIDS pandemic disproportionately affects members of the LGBT community, with gay men and transgender women being the most at risk.[4]

Ronald Reagan[edit]

Pre-presidential views on homosexuality[edit]

Ronald Reagan was a successful actor in the 1940s and 50s, and entered politics in 1966 to run for the seat of Governor of California, a position which he won and subsequently served in from 2 January 1967 to 6 January 1975. In 1967, while Reagan was in his first year in office as Governor, two close advisors of Reagan, Richard Quinn and Phil Battaglia (his chief of staff), were outed as gay in an article by Jack Anderson. Reagan chose to fire them rather than face political backlash for having two gay men in his inner circle.[1][5] However, Reagan was reportedly privately outraged that the sex lives of private citizens was considered to be newsworthy material.[1] In 1978, three years after leaving the governorship, Reagan publicly opposed the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gay men and lesbian women from teaching in California public schools; his opposition was key to the defeat of the initiative.[1] The Reagans, Nancy in particular, were also close with a number of openly gay men, as well as men whose homosexuality was an open secret, such as Roy Cohn, Jerry Zipkin, Truman Capote, and Ted Graber, whom the Reagans even invited to spend a night at the White House along with his partner.[2]

1980 Presidential election[edit]

See also: 1980 United States Presidential election

Ronald Reagan was elected as President of the United States on 4 November 1980, and took office on 20 January 1981. The evangelical group Christians for Reagan, organized by Christian Voice, paid for a barrage of ads in Southern states during the final weeks of the election, which attacked Reagan's opponent Jimmy Carter for his supposedly gay-friendly views.[6] The conservative Christian movement Moral Majority, led by Jerry Falwell, also backed Reagan, running television ads, fundraising and registration drives on his behalf.[7] In the end, Reagan won two-thirds of the white evangelical vote[8] (a voting block Carter had won in the 1976 Presidential election)[9] and swept every Southern state save for Carter's home state of Georgia, with religious fundamentalists greatly favoring Reagan even in comparison to conservative congressional candidates.[7]

Reagan administration response[edit]

Emergence of AIDS[edit]

First mention by the White House[edit]

On 15 October 1982, the White House made its first statement about the AIDS crisis.[5] At a regular White House Press Briefing, reporter Lester Kinsolving asked a question about AIDS, leading to the following exchange with White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes:

Kinsolving: Does the president have any reaction to the announcement by the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta that A-I-D-S is now an epidemic in 600- over 600 cases?

Speakes: [Mumbling under his breath] A-I-D-S. [Unintelligible]

Kinsolving: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague".

[Scattered laughter from the press pool.]

Kinsolving: No, it is. I mean, it's a pretty serious thing. One in every three people that get this have died. And I wonder if the president was aware of this.

Speakes: I don't have it. Are you-

[More scattered laughter.]

Speakes: Do you?

Kinsolving: You don't have it? Well, I'm relieved to hear that, Larry!

[Press pool laughter.]

Speakes: Do you?

Kinsolving: I'm delighted. No, I don't.

Speakes: You didn't answer my question. How do you know?

Kinsolving: Does the President- in other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?

Speakes: No, I don't know anything about it Lester.

Kinsolving: Does the President? Does anybody in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?

Speakes: I don't think so, I don't think there's been any-

Kinsolving: Nobody knows.

Speakes: There's been no personal experience here, Lester.

Kinsolving: No I mean, I thought you [unintelligable]

Speakes: Doctor- I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he's had no, uh,

[Press pool laughter.]

Speakes: No patients suffered from A-I-D-S or whatever it is.

Kinsolving, despite being personally against homosexuality, would continue to press Speakes on the AIDS issue over the following years. On 12 June 1983, a second exchange occurred between Kinsolving and Speakes, in which Speakes said that the President was "briefed on the AIDS situation a number of months ago," the first public indication that Reagan was aware of the AIDS epidemic.[5] As part of that same exchange, Speakes also jokingly insinuated that Kinsolving was gay himself, saying at a mention of fairy tales that "Lester's ears perked up when you said fairy."[5]

1983 meetings[edit]

On 21 June 1983, Reagan held a meeting with the National Gay Task Force alongside members of his own administration, including staff from the Department of Health and Human Services. This marked the first time the Reagan administration had met with representatives of the LGBT community.[10] The meeting discussed concerns about the AIDS epidemic and basic solutions to it, such as encouraging condom usage to mitigate spread.

However, Reagan was dissatisfied with his meeting with the task force, and in August of that year scheduled another meeting on the AIDS epidemic, this time without any representatives of the LGBT community, instead choosing to meet with conservative activists.[10] Attendees of this meeting included Director of the Office of Public Liaison Faith Whittlesey, National Director of the Conservative Caucus Howard Phillips and representative of the Moral Majority Ron Goodwin.[10] Goodwin advocated for closing gay bathhouses and requiring blood donors to provide sexual histories. Phillips campaigned for a position of only discussing the AIDS pandemic in the context of homosexuality as a moral failing, effectively putting the blame for AIDS on its victims for their homosexual nature.[10] Many conservatives of the era echoed similar sentiments.[2] Pat Buchanan, who would become the White House Communications Director for Reagan in 1985, wrote acerbically in a column on 23 June 1983: "The poor homosexuals. They have declared war on nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution."[11][12]

According to historian Jennifer Brier, these meetings and the attitudes prevailing in them deeply complicated epidemiologists' efforts. While public health leaders in the CDC and NIH attempted to gain control of the epidemic, they also had to contend with Reagan's conservative advisors and aides, who "wanted to bend what they called 'AIDS education' to fit the model of social and religious conservatism that posited gay men as sick and dangerous. Staff members were flooded with material with vitriolic attacks on homosexuality."[13]

Reagan acknowledges AIDS[edit]

Koop Report[edit]

C. Everett Koop, the Reagan administration's Surgeon General from 1982-1989.

On 6 February 1986, Reagan began his administration's first significant initiative against AIDS when he declared finding a cure for AIDS to be "one of our highest public health priorities" and ordered Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to prepare a "major report" on AIDS.[14][2] Henry Waxman, then the chair of the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Health and an AIDS advocate, criticized the Reagan administration's request of the report, accusing them of playing a "shell game" with federal funding as he noted that on the same day, the Reagan administration had also proposed a budget which included a $51 million cut to AIDS funding for the following fiscal year.[14]

Koop enlisted the help of Anthony Fauci, his personal physician and the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to learn more about HIV and AIDS, undertaking a "full scale effort to discover everything that could be known about AIDS."[2] Believing the Reagan administration would water down the report if given the chance, Koop chose not to submit it for an internal review with Reagan's policymakers.[2] The 36 page report was released on 22 October 1986, and was an immediate bombshell.[2] The report projected that by 1991, 270,000 Americans would contract HIV/AIDS, and 179,000 would die of it. The report was unsparing in its language, describing how AIDS was transmitted through "semen and vaginal fluids" during "oral, anal and vaginal intercourse."[2] While Koop acknowledged that abstinence was the only way to guarantee AIDS prevention, he also suggested teaching the use of protection to prevent its spread.[2]

Reactions to the report were mixed, especially among conservatives. Phyllis Schlafly was said to have been incensed by the report, saying it "looks and reads like it was edited by the Gay Task Force". She further accused Koop of advocating for teaching third graders "safe sodomy".[15] Reagan was described as "uncomfortable" with the report's implications, saying of its recommendation for comprehensive sex education over abstinence-only sex education that, "I would think that sex education should begin with the moral ramifications, that it is not just a physical activity that doesn’t have any moral connotation."[2]

A version of the report was ultimately turned into a brochure called Understanding AIDS. On 5 May 1988, it was announced that a copy of the brochure would be mailed to every household in America, numbering 107,000 copies, making it the largest mass-mailing in US history.[16] The decision to mail the brochure was made by Koop, not Reagan, under a mandate from Congress.[17]

Speech at the American Foundation for AIDS Research[edit]

Reagan delivers a speech at a fundraising dinner for the American Foundation for AIDS Research on 31 May 1987.

Watkins Commission[edit]

Main article: President's Commission on the HIV Epidemic
Ronald Reagan shaking hands with Penny Pullen during visit to the NIH on 23 July 1987 in Bethesda, Maryland for the launch of the President's Commission on the HIV Epidemic.

Personal views of Reagan[edit]

In the spring of 1987, Reagan discussed the AIDS epidemic with his biographer, Edmund Morris, in which he speculated "maybe the Lord brought down this plague" because "illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments."[2]

Advocacy by Nancy and Ron Reagan[edit]

Timeline of the Reagan administration's AIDS response[edit]

No highlight Notable AIDS related event
Green highlight Actions by the Reagan administration
Yellow highlight AIDS policies put into place by the Reagan administration
Red highlight AIDS policies put into place outside of the Reagan administration's control
Date Event
4 November 1980 Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as President of the United States.
Mid-1981 Doctors in New York and Los Angeles first identify the disease which will come to be known as AIDS. At the time, the only known patients are gay men.[2]
15 October 1982 White House Press Secretary Larry Speakes fields a question about HIV/AIDS, the first time anybody from the Reagan administration had acknowledged the disease, though Speakes' answer is unserious and dismissive.
31 December 1982 A total of 618 Americans are estimated to have died from AIDS complications.[18]
13 June 1983 Larry Speakes says in a press conference that the President was "briefed on the AIDS situation a number of months ago".[5]
21 June 1983 Reagan and staff from the Department of Health and Human Services meet with activists from the National Gay Task Force to discuss concerns about the AIDS epidemic, however, the meeting goes poorly, and Reagan does not meet with the activists again.[10]
August 1983 Reagan meets with a number of religious conservative activists, who suggest framing AIDS as a consequence of the "moral failings" of homosexuality.[10]
31 December 1983 A total of 2,118 Americans are estimated to have died from AIDS complications.[18]
23 April 1984 United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler announces at a press conference that an American scientist, Robert Gallo, has discovered the probable cause of AIDS, a retrovirus which will come to be know as HIV.
31 December 1984 A total of 5,596 Americans are estimated to have died from AIDS complications.[18]
17 September 1985 President Reagan publicly acknowledges AIDS for the first time in his response to a reporter's question.[19]
2 October 1985 Rock Hudson, a prominent movie star and acquaintance of the Reagans, dies from AIDS complications.[2]
31 December 1985 A total of 15,527 Americans are estimated to have died from AIDS complications.[18]
6 February 1986 Reagan declares a cure for AIDS to be a "top health priority" and orders C. Everett Koop to prepare a major report on the subject.[14]
2 October 1986 Congress approves a budget of $190 million for AIDS research, nearly three times the $70 million requested by the Reagan administration.[20]
22 October 1986 The Koop report is released, outlining the causes of AIDS and advocating for sex education which teaches both abstinence and condom usage to prevent its spread.
31 December 1986 A total of 24,559 Americans are estimated to have died from AIDS complications.[18]
31 May 1987 Reagan gives a speech at an event for the American Foundation for AIDS Research and is booed by the attending crowd.[2]
24 June 1987 President Reagan forms the President's Commission on the HIV Epidemic to investigate the AIDS pandemic.
31 December 1987 A total of 40,849 Americans are estimated to have died from AIDS complications.[18]
26 May 1988 Deliveries of Understanding AIDS, a brochure derived from the Koop report, begin to every household in the United States.[16]
24 June 1988 The President's Commission on the HIV Epidemic releases its final report, which is critical of the Reagan administration's response to the AIDS crisis and suggests a number of policy changes, including comprehensive sex education and public education on AIDS.
31 December 1988 A total of 61,816 Americans are estimated to have died from AIDS complications.[18]
20 January 1989 Ronald Reagan leaves office.

Legacy[edit]

Henry Waxman, the chair of the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Health during the 1980s, later said of the government's AIDS response:

There is no doubt in my mind that if the same disease had appeared among Americans of Norwegian descent, or among tennis players, rather than among gay males, the responses of the government and the medical community would have been different.[21]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Ambinder 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Tumulty 2021b.
  3. ^ Pasteur Institute 2023.
  4. ^ HRC 2017.
  5. ^ a b c d e Evans 2018.
  6. ^ Djupe & Olson 2003, p. 99.
  7. ^ a b Miller & Wattenberg 1984.
  8. ^ Graham 1997.
  9. ^ Williams 2020, p. x.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Petro 2015, p. 67.
  11. ^ Washington Post 1987.
  12. ^ Tumulty 2021a, p. 418.
  13. ^ Brier 2009, p. 84.
  14. ^ a b c Weinraub 1986.
  15. ^ Petro 2015, p. 72.
  16. ^ a b The New York Times 1988.
  17. ^ Profiles in Science 2019.
  18. ^ a b c d e f g amfAR Snapshots of an Epidemic.
  19. ^ King 2020.
  20. ^ Bennington-Castro 2023.
  21. ^ Fauci 2012.

Works cited[edit]

Books[edit]

  • Tumulty, Karen (13 April 2021a). The Triumph of Nancy Reagan. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781501165207.
  • Djupe, Paul A.; Olson, Laura R. (1 May 2003). Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics. Facts on File, Inc. ISBN 978-0816045822. Retrieved 29 October 2013.
  • Williams, Daniel K. (2020). The Election of the Evangelical. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700629121.
  • Petro, Anthony Michael (2015). After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American Religion. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199391288.
  • Brier, Jennifer (2009). Infectious Ideas: U.S. Political Responses to the AIDS Crisis. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807833148.

Journals[edit]

Other[edit]

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