Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) was the 40th President of the United States. He had a career in Hollywood before entering politics. As President, he met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev several times during an era of dramatic change in the USSR, including the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Reagan survived an assassination attempt in 1981. His presidency saw the introduction of glasnost by Gorbachev in 1988, which gave new freedoms to the Soviet people.