At once he faced double-digit inflation, unhappy citizens tired of a shrinking dollar and the loss of national prestige abroad. The world was already in the tight grip of the Cold War, but it was getting even more dangerous by the day. And to top it off, the former movie actor and two-term California governor was assuming the duties of an office that had suffered many human problems.

Consider the five presidencies preceding him: Popular President John F. Kennedy was assassinated while in office; Vice President Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency and inherited the Vietnam conflict, an increasingly unpopular war as containment without victory demoralized troops abroad and Americans at home. His personal agenda to create the "Great Society" tanked. Recognizing his untenable circumstances, he opted not to run for a second full term.

Richard Nixon, President Eisenhower's vice president who lost his bid for the 1960 presidential election, stepped up to the plate in 1968 and handily captured the presidency. But his presidency was doomed by personal paranoia and abuse of power. Risking impeachment, Mr. Nixon resigned the presidency and appointed Gerald Ford to replace him.

Mr. Ford completed Nixon's second term, but was defeated by a religious Southerner, Jimmy Carter of Georgia. An intelligent and well-meaning president, he wasn't up to the demands of national and international affairs. He signed away eventual control of the Panama Canal, a key U.S. asset for the safety of the Western Hemisphere, failed to curb runaway inflation and seemed unable to perceive the complexities of geopolitics.

To be sure, all of these presidents had good characteristics and redeeming qualities and each one strove to improve the American way of life, at home and abroad.

President Reagan was not considered to be the smartest president by those who opposed his conservative leanings. Indeed, Mr. Reagan said of his "C" grade point average at tiny Eureka College that he simply intended to keep at least a C average so he could remain on the football team. Some who worked with Mr. Reagan remarked that he was always popular and mostly right (The New York Times, June 7, p. A18).

Despite the scorn toward his intellect, his greatest critics appeared to forget that Mr. Reagan had once been one of them: he was a Roosevelt democrat until the mid-20th century, believing that big government could solve state, regional and local problems. What his greatest detractors missed was the power in communicative simplicity. President Reagan was not a shouter. When he appeared on television, he came into your living room like a friend sitting with you on the couch.

Only in recent times has history given President Ronald Reagan credit for ending the Cold War. Today, we take it for granted that President Reagan, despite weaknesses that are common to all human beings, may well have been the single greatest human reason as to why the United States is no longer fighting the morale-eroding Cold War.

Since God sets up leaders of nations and can also remove them (Daniel 4:17, 34-37), and since God honors those who try to honor Him as Mr. Reagan did through his unusual moral and gracious leadership as a U.S. president, one positive scripture comes to mind: "Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel?" (2 Samuel 3:38). (Source: The New York Times.)