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From what I can tell, Reagan's accent/pattern of speech sounds vaguely Midwestern, perhaps slightly Upper Midwestern (which would make sense, seeing as he was born and raised in Northern Illinois), but we have to remember that Reagan was a radio announcer and actor over three decades in a time when radio announcers, actors, and other media figures were expected to have a "proper" sort of speech (with more than a hint of the kind of speech that the American upper class tended to use). That training definitely influenced Reagan's speech patterns.
Also, some of Reagan's Midwestern speech patterns probably were somewhat diluted by the time he became a political figure by having lived in California for several decades. And I strongly suspect that the Upper Midwestern dialect was rather different back then from what it is today.
Those are my thoughts. What about others on this forum? Curious to read your thoughts!
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