Donald Regan

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Donald Regan

Donald Thomas Regan (December 21, 1918 – June 10, 2003) was the 66th United States Secretary of the Treasury, from 1981 to 1985, and Chief of Staff from 1985 to 1987 in the Reagan administration, where he advocated supply-side economics and tax cuts to create jobs and stimulate production. Regan was criticized for his prime-ministerial style of service and for his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair.

1 Early life
2 Wall Street
3 Reagan administration
4 Retirement
5 External links

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Early life

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts of Irish Catholic extraction, Don Regan earned his bachelor's degree in English from Harvard University in 1940 and then joined the United States Marine Corps at the outset of World War II reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. He served in the Pacific theater and was involved in five major campaigns including Guadalcanal and Okinawa.

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Wall Street

After the War, he joined Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. in 1946, as an account executive trainee, working up through the ranks, eventually taking over as Merrill Lynch's chairman and CEO in 1971, the year the company went public. He held those positions until 1980.

Regan was one of the original directors of the Securities Investment Protection Corporation and was vice chairman of the New York Stock Exchange from 1973 to 1975.

Regan was a major proponent of brokerage firms going public, which he viewed as an important step in the modernization of Wall Street; under his supervision, Merrill Lynch had their IPO on June 23, 1971, becoming only the second Wall Street firm to go public, after Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.

During his tenure in these two positions, Regan also pushed hard for an end to minimum fixed commissions for brokers, which were fees that brokerage companies had to charge clients for every transaction they made on the clients' behalf; Regan saw them as a cartel-like restriction. In a large part thanks to his lobbying, fixed commissions were abolished in 1975.

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Reagan administration

Regan's signature, as used on American currency

President Ronald Reagan selected Regan in 1981 to serve as Treasury secretary, marking him as a spokesman for supply-side economics (also called Reaganomics). He helped engineer tax reform, reduce income tax rates and ease tax burdens on corporations. Regan unexpectedly switched jobs with then White House Chief of Staff James Baker in 1985, a position he kept until 1987, when he was pressured to resign for his involvement with the Iran-Contra affair (he was also clashing with First Lady Nancy Reagan). Regan was seen as the fall guy for the affair, and the tongue-in-cheek saying "Reagan had Regan" echoed throughout Washington. As Chief of Staff, Regan was very involved in the day to day management of White House policy, which led Howard Baker, Regan's replacement as Chief of Staff, to give a stinging rebuke that Regan was becoming a "Prime Minister" inside an increasingly complex Imperial Presidency.

Regan's book, For the Record: From Wall Street to Washington (ISBN 0151639663), exposes his disagreements with First Lady Nancy Reagan including claims that Nancy's personal astrologer, Joan Quigley, helped steer the President's speaking decisions.

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Retirement

Regan retired quietly in Virginia with Ann Buchanan Regan, his wife of over sixty years. Late in life, he spent nearly ten hours a day in his art studio painting landscapes, some of which sold for thousands of dollars and still hang in museums. Regan had four children and nine grandchildren.

Regan died of cancer at the age of 84 in a hospital near his home in Williamsburg, Virginia.

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External links

Biography as Secretary of the Treasury

Preceded by: G. William Miller	United States Secretary of the Treasury 1981–1985	Succeeded by: James Baker
Preceded by: James Baker	White House Chief of Staff 1985–1987	Succeeded by: Howard Baker

United States Secretaries of the Treasury

Seal of the United States Department of the Treasury

White House Chiefs of Staff
Steelman \| Adams \| Persons \| Haldeman \| Haig \| Rumsfeld \| Cheney \| Jordan \| Watson \| J Baker \| Regan \| H Baker \| Duberstein \| Sununu \| Skinner \| J Baker \| McLarty \| Panetta \| Bowles \| Podesta \| Card