Regan, Donald Thomas 1918-
US politician

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of an Irish Catholic railway guard, he studied English and economics at Harvard, where he was a contemporary of John F Kennedy. He switched allegiance from the Democrats to the Republicans in 1940, and during World War II distinguished himself by becoming the youngest ever US Marine line-major. After the war he joined Merrill Lynch as a sales trainee and rose to become its president in 1968, building the company into the USA's largest securities brokerage corporation. Attracted by his strong belief in supply-side free-market economics, President Ronald Reagan appointed him the Secretary of the Treasury in 1981. He proceeded to push through radical tax-cutting legislation, but left a growing budget deficit. He became White House Chief of Staff in January 1985, but was forced to resign two years later as a result of criticisms of his role in the 1985-86 Iran-Contra Affair. He published his controversial memoirs, For the Record, in 1988.