Meanwhile, members of his administration, with at least his tacit approval, pursued secret and illegal arms-for-hostages deals with Iran, an enemy of the United States. The Reagan administration faced a crisis when these arrangements were revealed. After his vice president and anointed successor, George Bush, was elected in 1988, Reagan departed office still immensely popular, leaving the future to determine the value of his legacy.

In 1994, Reagan revealed that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease; his condition has deteriorated to the point that he very rarely makes public appearances. He and his first wife, the actress Jane Wyman, divorced in 1948; they had two children, Maureen and Michael. In 1952, Reagan married another actress, Nancy Davis; their children are Patricia and Ronald Prescott, who goes by Ron.

Nancy Reagan runs the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides funding for the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California (north of Los Angeles), which opened in 1991. In 1999, Random House published Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, an official biography of Reagan, written by Edmund Morris.

Reagan's daughter, Maureen, died in August 2001 at the age of 60, after a long battle with malignant melanoma. .