Policy Lessons from the Past: Dr. Will Inboden on the Reagan presidency and the role the United States played in ending the Cold War

This podcast represents the views of the hosts and not the University of Texas at Austin.

This is Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. At Austin, we take you behind the scenes of policy with people who are shaping and have helped shape it. For more, visit lbj.utex.edu/podcast. I’m Bill Sch, executive Director of the LBJ Washington Center, and I’m your host for this series as we hear from four Texas-based policy experts and historians who will frame today’s political environment with the help of lessons learned in the past.

Our final episode features a conversation with Dr. Will m Bowden, who’s the executive director of the William P. Clements Junior Center for National Security at the LBJ School. Today. Will and I will be discussing his latest book, the Peacemaker. Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink.

Thanks for joining me here. Will. Thank you, bill. It’s great to be with you. You know, I really enjoyed our conversation the other day at the Washington Center. Before we turn to that, I have a question for you about the man, president Reagan. He was known widely as the great Communicator. Mm-hmm. over the course of his eight years, what would you say was his most impactful speech?

I think it would be his June of 1982 Westminster address. Uh, of course there’s many great speeches to pick from. You know, he, uh, uh, delivered so many I iconic addresses and we could do a whole series of, uh, podcast episodes just, just on those. But, um, uh, I start my book with his Westminster address, uh, because, uh, there a nu number of notable aspects of it that I’d like to highlight.

The first is, When considered in the context of the time, it’s remarkably visionary. You know, you asked about his most impactful and endurance speech. I really, I really think it captures that because so much of the theme of that speech is the coming wave of democratization, the expansion of human freedom on, you know, every continent around the world.

And we now know in hindsight that Reagan was correct about that, even somewhat pro prophetic, but it didn’t fully seem so at the time, at the time, it still seemed like authoritarianism was the dominant mode that, that communism was, uh, winning or at least gaining an edge in the Cold War. And that the only real models of government outside of Western Europe and North America were either left-wing authoritarianism of the communist variety or right-wing authoritarianism of the, uh, you know, more, you know, military milit, military dictatorships as we saw in so many Asian countries and Latin American countries.

And in that speech, Reagan really. Highlights, uh, this, the, this coming, you know, third way of democracy, of self-government, of, of market economies, uh, and, and, uh, and people being able to choose their own leaders living under rule of law rather than rule of the fist or rule of the rule of the dictator. And he doesn’t just predict this will be happening, but he makes it a very deliberate American policy to support and sustain this.

It’s very clear that it’s not to be imposed at gunpoint. That was the problem with the authoritarian regimes as they are imposed at gunpoint. He’s got their very famous line of the speech regimes planted by bayonets do not take root, uh, but rather this is about empowering citizens, uh, supporting activists and dissidents who want more voice in their government, who want more civil liberties.

We want more human rights grounded in, in human dignity. Uh, and he gives a speech, of course, in the context of the Cold War, and he is got some, you know, fierce denunciations of Soviet communism in there. But really, the more enduring parts of this speech, like I said, are that, uh, prediction of the coming wave of freedom.

And he puts the United States squarely on its side. And outta that speech comes the national, the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, and a number of its affiliated organizations such as the National Democratic Institute, uh, the International Republican Institute. So, uh, you know, we’ve just passed the 40th anniversary of that speech, and I think it stands, it, it stands the test of time.

Very well. Great choice. I, I enjoyed that section of the book a lot. What it was, a speech I wasn’t that familiar with

before joining LBJ will spent a number of years working State Department and on the National Security Council and Bush administration. Seems like a great background to talk about this book. Welcome Will. Well, thank you. Great to be with you. You know, I’ve truly enjoyed this. Read it. It’s a fascinating look at a man who, you know, for those of us of a certain generation who got first, got the chance to vote during this period and then lived in the moment of these eight years, it was wonderful to come into this book to deal with some conceptions.

Mm-hmm. that had coming in. In fact, yeah. Your book unveils a lot of, uh, an image of the man that most people don’t share. I would venture to say mm-hmm. , a lot of people may not share these days, but you talk about a man with a strong sense of purpose and a surprising amount of modest humility if you looked at his diaries.

Mm-hmm. with so much written and said about the man over the years. Was there one document or piece of information that really surprised. Hmm, boy. Uh, do I have to distill it down to just one? So, no, it’s a, it’s a great, it’s a great question. Uh, there were, there were a few, and I’ll, I’ll mention, uh, some of the surprises and the documents in a second.

But, uh, to step back, one reason why I do think it. Is was a good time to write a book on Reagan’s foreign policy. Uh, is I think we’re in a unique moment. Uh, there were several different, uh, strains come together. Um, the first is just speaking as a historian and referencing the documents. Um, we work with archives, historians work with the written records of, of the past.

That’s our primarily. Means of excavating the past and trying to recreate it. And even though Reagan left office over 30 years ago in January of 1989, it’s only been the last 10 years or so that some of the most interesting, important documents from his administration have been declassified, uh, especially for people working on national security policy, like, like me.

Uh, and so I was one of the first scholars able to, you know, read a lot of these, you know, things like transcripts of his meetings with foreign heads of state. Mm-hmm. , um, uh, transcripts of National Security Council meetings, um, some of Reagan’s, uh, some of the internal NSC staff memos to Reagan, where he’s then writing, writing his responses and, and, and his thoughts.

Uh, so that’s one reason why it’s just a really good time, I think, to take up a book like this is because the, the new availability of documents, but we’re also recent enough, uh, that quite a few people who worked for him are still alive and able to be interviewed. So if I was writing a book on. A Blinken or Teddy Roosevelt, it would’ve been a different process.

You know? None. No, no. You know, none their cabinet secretaries are, are, are still alive. Uh, and so I supplemented the documentary research with interviewing, you know, 30 or 40, you know, the names are all listed in the, in the appendix. Uh, people who’d, who’d worked for President Reagan, uh, and was able to get some great stories from them, but also a number of other insights that, you know, supplemented what I was finding in, in the documents.

And then the final part about the framing, and I’ll come back to your question on the surprises in a second, but I wanted to give the context here is we are now, uh, far enough removed from the Reagan years, uh, in the 1980s that we, we know how the story ends and we can, uh, make our judgments on foreign policy during that time.

And its consequences was a little bit more critical distance, uh, I won’t say pure objectivity. None of us have pure, pure objectivity. We all have our biases we bring to something. But, um, uh, we’re somewhat, somewhat removed from the partisan passions of the day. And as I tried to point out, you know, in the 1980s where there were a lot of partisan passions, you know, he, uh, some of those feelings have dissipated with the, with, uh, the passing of time.

But, uh, there were big divisions, uh, uh, within the Republican. You know, similar today between Republicans and Democrats within the Democratic Party, within the American, within the American people. He was a very controversial figure. He was a very bold figure trying to do some new, you know, things and some very new things.

Um, and, uh, and so I wanted, uh, but enough time has passed that a lot of those passions have cooled. Not all of them. People still feel very strongly about these things, but, um, it seemed time for a fairly fresh assessment. Um, so as to if I could interject. Okay. Yeah. Do you feel like people feel differently?

That from the, when you look at it, his domestic policies versus his foreign policies? Yeah, it’s a good question, bill. I can’t speak to that as much, only because this book is only about his foreign policy. Right. Which had, which was controversial enough. Right. You know, I mean 8, 8, 8 aid to the Contras, a more confrontational posture towards the Soviet, Soviet Union, uh, him trying to promote free trade in an era of fierce protectionism.

I mean, all those things were, yeah. So, uh, so I just, you know, the book doesn’t get into domestic policies. That said, um, those, you know, those domestic policies at the time were also, were also controversial. Um, but I. In my, you know, the lingering partisan passions that are there that I’ve encountered are usually among an older generation who remember those firsthand and feel strongly one way or the other.

I found that the younger generation who came of age after the Reagan years, uh, you know, they have varying assessments of what they know about him, but they, they don’t hold those as strongly as people who lived through it. Um, makes sense. So, yeah. Um, but then, sorry, not dodging your question on the surprises.

I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll mention a couple. Well, I mean, so many. I could go, one is. Reagan’s very strong and sincere Christian faith. Uh, this is not something I was expecting to find. You know, he didn’t really go to church much. Uh, he, uh, he was, um, you know, somewhat eclectic in his, uh, in his religious beliefs, but really comes out in his diaries, in his personal letters, uh, even his private meetings with his staff.

Uh, very genuine, like I said, Christian faith, um, you know, praying for Soviet leaders, uh, trying to persuade Gorbachev to believe in God. One powerful moment is after Reagan is almost assassinated, uh, in March of 1981, coming outta the Washington, uh, the Washington Hilton here, you know, just up, uh, Connecticut Avenue as he’s lying on the operating table at George Washington Hospital.

Um, very near death. He prays, uh, that God will forgive John Hinckley, the confused young man in Reagan’s words who tried, tried to assassinate him. You’ll, you’ll remember that from the book, right? Uh, and, and so, so the sincerity of his Christian faith is one. Uh, then another document that was, was surprising, um, Is about, uh, US Taiwan, China policy, right?

So 1982, Reagan spent a lot of time on Asia policy. Uh, he sees it as part of the broader Cold War framework. This has been less appreciated about his record. Uh, in 1982, uh, he was negotiating with the Chinese over, uh, uh, whether and how much the United States would continue selling arms to Taiwan, uh, and big divisions within his administration as there had been in previous ones over.

Should we deepen our relationship with mainland China as a counter to the Soviet Union, or should we continue our partnership with Taiwan? Um, and Reagan worried that rightly, that his Secretary of State Al Hagg was, uh, giving too many concessions to, uh, communist China and leaving Taiwan in the lurch and gonna cut off American arm sales.

And so Reagan, Personally edits kind of, you know, rewrites about a 20 page, uh, densely worded, uh, agreement with China over how many, how many arms the United States will continue selling to Taiwan. He does this personally. Um, and again, this is, it’s a, uh, a different picture than the caricature of him as being inattentive to details, right.

Only doing what his staff told him, so on and so forth. So seeing his personal intention on that was, was one of the surprises. Yeah, that’s a great transition because so many of his foreign policy and national security initiatives tend to prestage and still resonate. Mm-hmm. and many aspects with global issues that we’re dealing with today.

Mm-hmm. , um, from the unwinding of the Cold War mm-hmm. to the relations between the US and Eastern Asia. Mm-hmm. and the really Middle East struggles. Mm-hmm. , right? Yeah. I’d like to take each of those three. Mm-hmm. apart for a sec. Why was it unique? The Ray Reagan flipped the dialogue on mutual assured destruction, and what was that impact?

So yeah, this is a, uh, profoundly important part of his, uh, his policy towards, towards the Soviet Union and to, you know, give everyone the background, uh, throughout the Cold War. Uh, from the very beginning, once the Soviets, uh, acquired their first nuclear, uh, nuclear weapon, and of course, the United States had had ours, uh, in arms race between the United States and Soviet Union had had taken off where both sides were building more and bigger and better nuclear weapons, uh, nuclear missiles in our continental ballistic missiles, uh, nuclear bombs to be flown on our aircraft, uh, uh, missiles to be launched from, from submarines, tackle, uh, technical, tactical nuclear devices on so forth.

any of the, you know, these weapons together, even a small fraction of them could have destroyed, still could destroy the entire planet, right? I mean, so the stakes are just momentous. And the over time a belief had developed, uh, in Moscow and in Washington among the, you know, the, uh, strategic, uh, thinkers on both sides, that what will keep the peace and stability in the Cold War is mutual assured destruction.

The acronym is mad, m a d because they’re quite literally mad. And it’s essentially, uh, both sides having the equivalent of nuclear guns pointed at each other’s head. So it’s like, you know, I’ve got a pistol pointed at Bill’s head, he’s got a pistol pointed at my head. Uh, and what keeps him from pulling the trigger at me is a notion that if I see him start to pull the trigger, I will pull the trigger.

Um, Now that’s just a, a silly picture of the two of us sitting here. But imagine that with the Soviets having 40,000 nuclear warheads, the United States having about 30,000, you know, these are r rougher approximations. Uh, and the threat that if we, uh, even detect that they’re going to launch against us, we launch a, we launch against them.

Now that, uh, had worked for a few decades in the perverse sense that the other side had attacked each other, right? So, um, but when you think about it, that is a terribly reckless and risky thing to base stability and peace on. Uh, you know, first of all, it is, uh, you know, to, to make an official doctrine that we will, you know, incinerate 200 million Soviet citizens and, you know, anyone else living is, it’s just ghastly, right?

And it’s a violation of all the laws of war, of, of not tar, directly targeting civilians. Uh, but second of all, it relies on both sides to be. Cool rational to have, uh, clear information and knowing what the other’s intentions are. Well, what if you misunderstand something? What if you, um, think the other side is about to launch at you cuz your radar is going off, but it just turns out to be a flock of Canadian geese flying over the Arctic circle.

Uh, or, or a 7 47 or a 7 47 when you think it said a military plane or even Sun Ray bouncing off, uh, uh, uh, you know, uh, ice caps at, at the North Pole setting off radar. All those things we just mentioned are not hypotheticals. Those really happened multiple times during the Cold War of American or Soviet alarms being set off thinking, oh wow, they’re about to, they’ve just launched against us.

We need to launch against them. And the last second, people realizing, oh, that was a mistake. It, it was a misperception. And so Reagan inherits this framework and he thinks this is just madness. You know, it’s quite literally madness. This mutual assured destruction. And so he tries to break out of that, uh, most notably in March of 1983 with his famous speech, Colin, for that, what becomes the Strategic Defense Initiative.

And he said, you know what? If we base our policies, uh, on trying to save lives instead of trying to kill them, Um, and so what he envisions is a, a missile shield, uh, yeah, a mis elaborate missile defense that the United States would build that could, you know, shoot down or stop any incoming. So Soviet, Soviet missiles and defend the United States and defend, defend our allies.

Uh, now for him, it’s just a, a visionary notion. He knows that it will take decades actually be coming to Bean if it, if it ever does. Uh, a lot of his critics say he’s been delusional. Senator Ted Kennedy famously derives it as Star Wars, and that was not meant as a compliment . Um, so, uh, but the, uh, but the key factor is that Mihail Gorbachev and the Soviets worried that this could actually work.

They were very, um, uh, fascinated by America’s technological edge and our, uh, our repeated patterns of, of Inno Inno innovation. And using ingenuity for, you know, next generation advances in, in our weapon systems and say that if the Americans can get this, the game will be over. That will neutralize the Soviet’s edge and missiles.

But Reagan kept on trying to tell the Soviets, look, if we can develop this, we will share this with you. You know, we do not want to attack you and have a first strike advantage. We just want to make nuclear weapons obsolete. And he was very committed to abolishing all, all, all nuclear weapons. Um, and that’s something he and Gch have worked on and came, came pretty close to doing.

So for him, it wasn’t just about tinkering at the edges with the, uh, the strategic balance or arms control agreements. It was about transforming the entire strategic balance of the Cold War, uh, by moving beyond that nuclear standoff of the balance of terror as it was called. So his interest was basically throwing out the old playbook on Daytona.

Exactly. Yeah. It’s interesting you brought up SDI because I did want to ask you a little bit about that. You’ve, you’ve talked about how we shouldn’t easily dismiss it mm-hmm. for those reasons and others you just stated mm-hmm. . But what it was interesting to me was how often. , either the critics or the opponents would try to use both sides of an argument.

Mm-hmm. , tell us about that. Yeah, so when Reagan announces s uh, SDI I, strategic Defense Initiative again in March of 1983, um, it is just, you know, lands with a thunder clap, um, including on his own government, right? So, uh, I paint the book a picture in the book of Reagan as a strategic visionary overall, and I think that’s, I think the evidence warrants that.

But he was not a good manager. He was a pretty terrible manager. Uh, and this is why his administration, even more than most other white houses and I’ve worked in a White House, was, you know, riven with feuds and backstabbing and leaking and acrimony and fierce policy differences. And knowing that number of his.

Uh, top team would not like the SDI idea. Reagan kind of develops it in secret. So he works with a couple members of the Joint Chiefs of staff and his National Security advisor, but he doesn’t tell a few other people, uh, that he’s thinking about this, like, say his Secretary of Defense, KAF Weinberger, or his Secretary of State, George Schultz.

So they don’t even find out that he’s putting together this speech in this big proposal until like 24 hours before he’s gonna, he’s gonna, he’s gonna announce it. Um, and, uh, You know, as I say in the book, you know, don’t, don’t try this at home. Right? This is not necessarily the way you wanna wanna run a government of surprising your own government with this big, big new proposal.

But he knew partly why he had not shared it with them is he was very determined to come out with it. And he knew that they were not gonna like it. And he also knew that a lot of the rest of the, um, arms control community was not gonna like it. But as, as Bill points out, uh, some of the criticisms were rather in inconsistent.

So most, uh, uh, scientists, um, were very opposed to this because they thought it was a waste of money and it wouldn’t work. Um, uh, the Federation of American Scientists, uh, of atomic scientists, you know, came out strong strongly against it. This thing is delusional, it’s not gonna work. We’d rather spend that billions of dollars on, on something else.

Most arms control experts strongly oppose it because they thought it would work. So for just the opposite reason, okay, we think this thing will will work and we don’t like it because we’ve lived with this balance of terror, this strategic stability that we think from having both sides afraid of the other one being able to launch an attack and they’re thinking went.

If and when the United States develops this missile shield, then that will make the United States impervious protected from a Soviet attack, which means the United States would then be able to launch our own preemptive strike in the Soviet Union and incinerate them and kind of win the Cold War by destroying the Soviet Union.

And that’s very destabilizing, uh, known that the Soviets could not launch a a counterstrike against us cuz we would shoot, shoot down their weapons. Um, now within internally each of those criticisms, uh, tho those are serious people with serious concerns, right? I don’t mean to be too, too derisive of them, um, but collectively, uh, it amounted to just a lot of noise for Reagan.

Cuz you know, like I said, some people say, oh, we can’t do this cuz it’ll never work. They’re saying you can’t do this precisely cuz it will, cuz it will work. Um, and for him, uh, even though his critics paint into him as, uh, you know, diluted, uh, on all this, uh, He knew that the concept itself was very notional, that it would take decades, uh, to come into operation if it ever actually would.

Now look, looking back, you know, we’re, we’re a few months away from the 40 year anniversary of him announcing this, you know, March of 2023 will be that. Uh, and if you look at Ukraine now, shooting down 80% of the Russian missiles launched at it. If you look at Israel with Iron Dome and David Sling and everything shooting down like 99% of the Hezbollah and Ahmass rockets against them, those technologies are, are, uh, derived very directly from Reagan’s SDI vision.

So in that sense, he actually did get a lot of it right. It’s still not, you know, did, did not fully come, come into being the way that he, he had, he had hoped. Um, but in the 1980s, this was, was still very, uh, Like I said, uh, a aspirational, but the key factor for it, which Reagan always knew, wasn’t so much, will this work or not?

Will it come to operation, but do the Soviet sync? It’ll work. And Gorbachev thought it would work, and Gorbachev was terrified of it. And we know this because if you read all the transcripts of every summit meeting Reagan had with Gorbachev, Gorbachev is just obsessed with sdi. He keeps springing it up with Reagan said, you can’t have that.

Don’t do that. I don’t want you to have that initial, you know, we’re gonna smash your missiles. Right. You know, and Reagan is a pretty, you know, savvy negotiator. Realized all if, if the guy sitting across the table from me is terrified that this thing will work some ways, doesn’t matter if it actually will or not, all it matters is he thinks it will.

And that, that’s why it became a tremendous, uh, point of strategic leverage. That’s a great answer. shifting a little bit, what was his motivation behind wanting to improve relations with Japan, Joe? Yeah, so, uh, thank you for asking this one Bill, because I, one of the parts of the book that was most revelatory for me and most enjoyable to write about, which I just hadn’t seen much in many other treatments of, of Reagan’s foreign policy, is his overall Asia policy, especially the transformation that he leads in the US Japan relationship.

Um, and to set the scene, uh, a little bit. , some of you have a certain vintage, may Remember some of this, you know, I was in junior high and high school at the time. Others, you know, this is ancient history. But, uh, throughout the 1970s as the Japanese economy boomed, uh, the US Japan relationship, even though Japan was on paper, a treaty ally of the United States, you know, we’re not, you know, gonna get in a shooting war with them.

We’d already done that. In World War ii, most Americans saw Japan as an economic rival, uh, and a very predatory one at that. So, uh, a lot of American manufacturing jobs were being lost to Jaap Japan. You know, Japan was flooding the American market with consumer electronics, and then these new Dotson and Toyota vehicles, uh, that were, uh, more fuel efficient and ran a lot better than most American jobs did.

But it meant that, you know, Ford and GM and Chrysler are all losing man manufacturing jobs in the, in the, the, the Rust Belt states. Um, and so most Americans, you know, when they look to Asia, they just see Japan as this predatory economic rival and not a real friend of the United States. Um, meanwhile, uh, Reagan also inherited a new, uh, framework, uh, from on US China relations that Nixon and Kissinger and Ford and Carter had all developed, which is making China more of a strategic partner to help us counter the Soviet Union.

Okay, so, so this is what Reagan inherits, and he wants to completely reverse this. He wants to transform the US Japan relationship from economic rivalry into strategic partnership. And he wants to rebalance US China relations, where the us uh, uh, uh, reaffirms our commitment to Taiwan, which, you know, the pre the previous three presidents were wanting to jettison Taiwan, and yet we’re ch China is still a partner encountering the Soviets, but also one where he wants to nudge China towards economic and political reform.

He even starts trying to encourage them to democratize all the things. So back to u US Japan. Um, when Reagan comes into office, uh, he says very clearly the US Japan relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. Think about that for a second. Uh, Margaret Thatcher doesn’t like that.

You know, she’s our most important ally in the UK said, Hey, what, what about us? And he likes Thatcher. He likes the British, but he thinks Japan’s more important. Um, he’s also saying that US Japan relations in some ways are even more important than US Soviet relations, which is a rivalry of course. And, um, uh, but, uh, but because Japan was the second largest economy in the world at the time, uh, because they were the only democracy.

in the Asia Pacific, um, at, at the time. Uh, we’re certainly in Asia. You know, Austral and Japan are off on the corner, I suppose, uh, actually Australian New Zealand, of course, at gal. But, um, but in, in, in all, in all of Asia. Um, and so, uh, Reagan invests very deeply in the US Japan relations. He meets with more Japanese officials throughout his presidency than the officials from any other country, you know, than more than more British officials, than more more Soviet officials.

Um, and he. He wa he’s very committed to maintaining an open trading order. So even while he’s pressuring Japan to open up its markets more and not be as protectionist, he’s resisting strong pressures from US Congress, Democrats and Republicans to get into a real trade war in Japan, to sanction Japan to more, uh, tariffs on them.

He doesn’t think that’s good for the American economy or for the Japanese economy. And here’s the really important part. He wants Japan to start funding its own defense a lot more. Uh, they are free riding on the American defense umbrella. Uh, you know, as a treaty ally of ours, we were, uh, obligated by law and policy to come to their defense if there was a war.

And so Japan was devoting, you know, just pennies or a very few yen, uh, poultry amount of yen to its defense budget and reliant, and like I said, uh, relying very much in the United States to all, to do all the, all the burden sharing there. And so rather than humiliate in Japan, or threatening to sanction them or anything like that, Reagan hugs them.

He embraces them, uh, the entire country, especially their prime Minister, Yasi Nakasone, who becomes his second closest friend in office next to Margaret Thatcher. So this is not just a, uh, a diplomatic partnership. It becomes a very close friendship. And over eight years, Reagan persuades Japan to triple its defense spending.

triplet. I mean, this is an almost unprecedented increase during, during peacetime. And he, and they do well also for a society. There’s very leery of building, very leery of building military. Yeah. Actually because of, because of, uh, post World War ii. So Naka Sony does this over tremendous domestic, uh, op opposition.

But Reagan very deeply committed allies. Uh, he knows that you can get more out of from allies with. With, you know, honey rather than vinegar to use the, use the old expression. Uh, and so he coaxes them. Uh, he encourages them. Like I said, he’s not threatening, uh, uh, or trying, trying to humiliate them. And as Japan triples its defense spinning, they, they also commit to, uh, their own, extend their own nautical defense perimeter out a thousand miles, which means the American seventh fleet doesn’t have to do so much to protect Japan anymore.

And so now can do a lot more to count, counter the Soviets. And so it has a, a tremendous series of, uh, of benefits there. Uh, Japan also becomes a real partner in encouraging other Asian countries to democratize, such as South Korea, which transitions to democracy in 1987, or the Philippines, which does in 1986 or Taiwan, which actually undergoes its own transition from military dictatorship to democracy with strong encouragement from Reagan, but also strong encouragement from Japan saying, we don’t want to be the only democracy in Asia anymore.

We want more democracies here. We want to show that democracy is not inimical to Asian, Asian values. Um, So it’s a very important part of his legacy, this transformation in the US Japan relationship, getting Japan to carry its own, uh, do, do it to carry its own weight as our ally getting. And it terrifies the Soviets too, right?

They now see the world’s second largest economy, helping counter them in, uh, in the, the, the, so Soviet, Soviet far east. Um, and so it really expands the Cold War, uh, chess, chess board too. So I obviously, I, I could go on about this, but it, it’s, uh, it’s a, it’s one of the, his most consequential legacies and one that’s just not been fully appreciated.

It was that it was a fascinating section of the book, and it really, it threads throughout the entire book, because you’re right, there was such a change in the protectionist policies of the previous administrations, but I certainly promoted the Japanese economy in many ways. Mm-hmm. that. happening to us in the eighties and nineties.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah. But Reagan is as a, as a matter of conviction, very, uh, very devoted to, and a strong believer in free markets, in an open trading order. And he showed real political courage with this. I mean, you know, if he wanted to cater to the political head, you know, uh, when wins at home, he would’ve been much more of a protectionist.

But he didn’t think it was right for the American economy or for the world economy. He thought it’d be damaging to our, our alliance with Japan. Um, and so he repeatedly tried to make the case to the American people. Here’s why free trade is good for our country, and good, and good, good, good for the world.

Um, even when all the polls showed that this, this was a loser and he won sum and he lost some when it came down to the different Congressional, congressional votes. But, um, it’s, it’s an important case study in presidential leadership rather than presidential followership and catering to, uh, you know, the, the fickle whims of public opinion.

Well, Turning to the third leg in that legacy stool I mentioned at the start, you talk about Reagan having a certain precedence mm-hmm. about the growing thread of Islamic revolutionary ideology. Mm-hmm. after Anwar Sadad is assassinated. Mm-hmm. , looking back nearly 40 years for 40 years, um, what’s the significance of the moment in time that the Beirut bombings happened?

Mm-hmm. . Yeah, boy, a lot there. Uh, and this is where a, an important point to bring out, looking at Riggins Middle East policies overall and some of the antecedents in the 1980s to the what becomes the nine 11 era, um, and, uh, and America’s continuing challenges in the Middle East. Um, you’ve, you know, certainly picked up by now that this book is overall a very favorable assessment of the Reagan record.

And I, again, I stand by it, but. Tried to be fair and balanced and be critical where I think it’s warranted and his Middle East policy overall is not a success. Uh, and there’s some, you know, catastrophic failures there. I tried to have some historical sympathy as far as what were the available options that he had, and none of ’em were good.

Um, you know, they range from bad to awful, right? Um, but still he gets a number, number of things wrong there. Uh, so he inherits a difficult hand. Uh, so 1979 is the Iranian revolution. Uh, the toppling of the, of the shot and the replacement of it with the, the revolutionary regime led by Ito Khomeini. Uh, 1979 is also, uh, the dawn of Sunni radicalism.

Uh, The seizure of the Grand Mosque in, uh, in Saudi Arabia, in Saudi Arabia, in, in Mecca by senior radicals. Um, and it’s the, the dawn of, you know, what becomes the era of, uh, of Islamic terrorism. You know, Hezbollah is, is first founded, I wanna say in 1982. It’s kind of a slow, slow evolution there. And so Reagan’s primary foreign policy concern, of course, is the Cold War in Soviet communism.

But he’s also happened to manage this strange new, uh, challenge, which is, uh, of, of Islamic radicalism, which is being very destabilizing in, in the Middle East. Uh, and so, uh, and so when he, uh, when Israel, when the Lebanese Civil War breaks out, and then a few years later, Israel invades Lebanon in 1982 to address the p o and Palestinian terrorism Against, against Israel, it just sets the entire region, region of flame.

And Reagan is trying to figure out, what, what do I do about this? He doesn’t want there to be any further Soviet inroads in the, in the Middle East. Um, he had inherited some policy successes from Nixon and Kissinger and then Carter with Camp David as far as, um, reducing Soviet influence in the Middle East and the, the peace treaty between, uh, Egypt and Israel.

But every American, uh, you know, leader at the time, Democrats, Republicans still worried about the Soviets returning to the Middle East eastern force. So he’s got, he’s, he’s worried about that. But also there’s just a lot of, you know, internal challenges and rifts and feuds within the Middle East that don’t have anything to do with the Cold War.

It’s just, uh, you know, part of, uh, some of the troubles of the region. So when he deploys US Marines on a peacekeeping mission to, uh, to be root, um, In 1982 and continuing into 1983, the hope is that they can preserve a fragile peace settlement of stopping, uh, the Syrians from fueling the Lebanese Civil War and then get the Israelis to with withdraw.

So it’s a, you know, complicated chess board that he’s, that he’s inheriting there. Um, but, uh, meanwhile, Hezbollah and radicalism supported by Iran, this new regime in Iran wants to further destabilize Lebanon wants to treat it as an Iranian proxy, uh, proxy state and wants to get the, wants to get the Marines out.

And so, uh, in October of 1983, um, uh, Hezbollah terrorists launch a suicide truck bombing on the Marine barracks there and kill 241 American Marines and then another 60 or so French, French peacekeepers. It’s the Marine’s single worst loss of, uh, worst loss of life in a single day since Iwa Jimma in World War ii, and it’s certainly the, uh, worst loss of life overall for the United States since, since the Vietnam War.

Absolutely. Uh, traumatic, um, Uh, and, uh, Reagan is, is horrified at this. His administration is horrified at this, but they’re not sure what to do. They’re very divided on should we retaliate or not. And some of them, such as Secretary of Defense, Weinberger, say, look, we gotta keep our eyes on the main goal here, which is countering the Soviets.

We don’t want to get sucked into, I know, the Middle East War. Cause if we retaliate, it’ll start this retaliatory strike, uh, cycle. And we’re not even sure if we can identify who do we retaliate against, you know? Right. The, the suicide bomber didn’t leave a, a return address. Um, oh, there is, such as Secretary of State, George Schultz say, no, we need to, we, we should retaliate.

National Security Advisor. Bud McFarland also says we should, uh, Reagan is confused and, and waffles on this. Uh, there’s still disputes about did he even want to retaliate or not. But ultimately, ultimately he doesn’t. Um, and, uh, and interesting. Fast forwarding 15 years later when Osama Bin Laden, uh, issues his first fatwa against the United States.

Uh, I think in 1996, uh, he walks through about how the United States is a, is a weak power. Um, they’re not respected in Middle East because, and he lists a series of things shown American weakness. And one of those, when we killed their Marines in 1983, they did nothing about it. They didn’t retaliate. So it, uh, it, it certainly is a, is a real blow to American credibility, is of course a horrific loss of life.

Yeah. No doubt about that. Yeah. It’s not just his Middle East struggles that you’re honest about in the book. Let’s talk about what’s widely viewed. It’s the biggest scandal mm-hmm. of the Reagan years. Yeah. Tell us first about the approach that he and the administration. In Nicaragua and what they might have done differently with the Sandinistas.

Mm-hmm. . Okay. Um, so we wanna talk Iran Contra itself there, we’re just gonna talk Central America first. Yeah. So, uh, Reagan’s Central America policies overall, especially Nicaragua and El Salvador, are some of the most controversial parts of parts of his record. Um, and the ones that still inspire very heated passions today.

Uh, just to give some, uh, some context, when he comes into office in January of 1980, . Um, it seems that the only two real options for governments in Central and South America are either right wing military dictatorships as you had in Argentina and Brazil and, and, and Chile, um, or left-wing revolutionary governments as you had in Cuba, and then more recently in Grenada and then Nicaragua with the San Anisa Revolution in 1979.

And so he inherits a challenging hand there of, all right, what’s the United States gonna do? We don’t want any further communist inroads in the, in the region. Uh, you know, people continue to debate about how likely further communist inroads were. I think it was pretty likely, uh, uh, it’s, it’s clear now. Uh, you know, with the end of the Cold War and the openings of a number of, uh, uh, archival records from the Soviet former Soviet Union and, and Eastern Block that Soviets support for communism in the Western Hemisphere was, uh, a lot more robust than, uh, many people appreciate it at the time.

Um, some of these again are indigenous ag. Four movements. I mean, some of it is that some of it is just civil wars, but certainly some of it is sponsored by the, the Kremlin and then, uh, Havana, the, the Cuban Cuban regime as well. And so Reagan does not want to see, and his team don’t want to see any further communist in roads in the region, nor, by the way, had the, had the Carter administration.

Right. Um, and so he in some ways sees him in inheriting, uh, the, the Nicaragua Revolution had been a real shock to the Carter administration. The communist insurgency in El Salvador had been a real threat, uh, had perceived by the Carter administration as a real, real threat as well. And so, Reagan inherits from Carter.

Alright, you’re gonna have some tough decisions here. How much do we support anti-communist forces in, in the region? Initially, Reagan’s impulse is, well, let’s just support the right wing military governments, because at least they’re not communists. They’re, they’re, they’re thugs, but they’re not as bad as, uh, as, as com communist governments would, would be.

But then over the next couple years, especially by ni, even by 1982, he starts to realize that it is tarnishing America’s moral capital if we’re only supporting these right-wing military dictatorships. Um, and, uh, he, he wants to build a more positive alternative of democ of market democracies. He doesn’t wanna be trapped in this paradigm of right-wing military dictatorship, or left-wing com communi.

Communist dictatorship. And he sees an initial opening there in El Salvador, actually with the Christian Democrats who are trying to chart a third way between the right wing, uh, death squads and militias, and then the com, the communist insurgency. But the Christian Democrats in El Salvador have a real challenge, which is that the communists that they are trying to fight against are being supported by the San Anisa regime in Nicaragua.

So this is why I know your question about the, the conscious here, but you need to understand all the context of how Reagan gets there. And Reagan realize is, all right, so this San Anisa regime is being supported by the Kremlin. Uh, uh, some years the Kremlin’s given a billion dollars a year to the San Anisa regime.

Finally, a lot of that through Cuba. Yeah. And funneling a lot of that through Cuba. And it’s one thing if this is just a communist government in Nicarag, But they are in turn trying to support communist insurgencies in Honduras and in Guatemala, and especially in, in El Salvador. And so it looks very much like they’re trying to spread communism through the hemisphere.

And so he says, all right, well, what can we do? Well, there are these Contras who are fighting against the Sandinistas, and so let’s go ahead and support, support them. And so he starts, uh, providing some initial support to them first as a covert action by, by cia. But then of course, you need Congress to authorize and appropriate.

and Congress is just very divided. Um, uh, uh, it’s divided not just on partisan lines. There’s a number of more hawkish conservative democrats who wanna support the Contras than other Democrats who don’t. And there’s more liberal, moderate Republicans who don’t wanna support the Contras too. So it’s a, it’s a not, uh, it’s a big division congressman, not just on, on partisan lines.

And, and Congress keeps going back and forth. It will provide contra funding and then it’ll have another VO vote that restricts it or cut or cut, cuts it off. Uh, and it’s an illustration of how, how and why the founding fathers put pri uh, primary responsibility for foreign policy with the president. Uh, cuz you really need one person at a time making these decisions.

Foreign policy can’t be done by a committee of 535. So wherever you come down to some like contra aid, no one will say, well, this is a good idea to have 535 members of Congress who keep changing their mind. Changing the changing, changing the policy too. Uh, so it’s out of some, uh, frustrations over Congress cutting off and restoring, cutting off and restoring the contra aid that, um, The Reagan administration starts doing a couple things.

One, they start asking other governments to support it. So the Saudis, they go to the Israelis, they go to Taiwan saying, Hey, you know, you guys don’t have quite the problems with the Congress that we do. Can you be providing some funding for these Contras? Um, and then a, a couple of freelancers and the Reagan administration, especially, uh, John Poindexter, the National Security Advisor, and they’d rather infamous only North on the NSC staff, said, all right, well, since Congress isn’t given us the money, meanwhile we’ve been doing this side deal to sell arms to the Iranians to get hostages freed, and we’re getting a lot of money from the Iranians, so let’s just divert, uh, we, uh, that, that money to support the conscious instead.

Uh, and so that’s where the, the Iran Contra scandal scandal comes from. It was literally the first scandal and oversight process that we were exposed to when we came to Washington. Mm-hmm. . So it was a very vivid memory of, of, yeah, those. What is the lesson for following presidents? Hmm. Oh boy. Um, there, there are a lot of ’em.

Um, and I, in the book I try to, uh, provide the context and explanation and background for the scandal. But you know, as Bill knows from having read it, I’m still very critical of Reagan and his, his team on this, um, because I think they, they do break the law and they make ’em just a hollowly bad, bad decisions.

Uh, and I’ll give a little more con context for that and then talk about what the, what, what the lessons are. Um, the first context is, I will say, as a, as awful as it was, and he comes very close to getting impeached. Uh, the presidency almost breaks it humiliates the United States in the eyes of the world.

This is the only major presidential scandal I have come across in history. All the main actors are doing it out of pure motives. Okay. By which it’s not a sex scandal, you know? No, no doing that. None of them are getting rich. It’s not a financial scandal. It’s not a political scandal along the lines of, say, Watergate, where you, you break into your rivals, uh, campaign headquarters and you’re doing all things like that.

You break off of that. The, it is driven by two motives. One is let’s get a Ro, American hostages freed again, you know, whatever you may come down on what’s actually done. And there’s, they do bad things here. I think we all agree it’s a better thing to get American hostages freed. Um, and the other motive is supporting people in Nicaragua who are fighting against an oppressive communist government that is destabilized the region.

Again. You know, one can, you know, obviously debate the merits of the policy itself, but that is, that is the policy motive is supporting anti-communism in, in, in, in Nicaragua. But the means that they go about this are, uh, stupid and illegal, you know? Um, so by just trying to sell arms. To the Iranians. Uh, it’s just incentivizing more hostage taking.

It doesn’t actually produce many hostage releases, and it goes against American law and American policy, which was don’t sell arms to terrorist regimes, especially to Iran . Um, and, you know, while we were pressuring our, our allies around the world don’t sell any arms to Iran, we were actually doing it, doing it ourselves.

Um, and so it, it, uh, and it’s very clear Reagan knew about that and author and authorized it. The contra part, uh, I’m pretty convinced Reagan didn’t know about it. Um, he is still culpable as far as when you’re a president, you’re responsible for whatever happens on your watch. And he had set an environment of not paying attention to all the details on things and allowing a few of these rogue staff to, to, to run, to run free.

But, um, the, I looked into this extensively, you know, one can never really know for sure, but I just found absolutely no evidence that Reagan knew about that they were actually diverting funds. They’re diverting these funds to the contra. Um, again, it’s, that’s a, a damned indictment of him for not knowing what your own government’s doing when you’re the commander in chief.

Um, but it’s a different, uh, culpability than if he had actually known about it or, or, or author authorized it. So, um, but anyway, so the takeaways are, First of all, presidents need to be very careful about the staff you hire and hold them accountable. If Jim Bakker had still been chief of staff in the second term, Iran Concho would not have happened.

Bakker was a very effective chief of staff who ran a very orderly ship, who was very mindful of, of follow following the law. So, you know, be careful who, who you, who you hire, you’re responsible for the overall command environment that you create. And even if Congress is being very difficult to work with and being stupid and changing the law left and right, you still have to follow it.

You still have to work with them rather than just trying to defy them because you get, you get fed up with them so well, I have one more question and then we’d like to invite questions from the audience, if you would. Yes, of course. All right. My final question for you. Yes. It was just announced that the federal budget deficit is now 249 billion, up from just a year ago, $191 billion.

Now, each of the major parties has had a hand in that over the years, but, did Reagan set the modern standard of a Republican party intent on rolling back spending while willing to live with such a debt burden? Mm-hmm. ? Yeah. Reagan bears some, uh, certainly some responsib, some responsibility for this. Um, I’ll, I’ll try to give a little more context to the answer.

And of course, the caveat that even though I mentioned a few times in the book, the, the deficit and then the growing national debt, you know, it’s not a domestic policy book, it’s not an economic policy book. It’s, it’s a foreign policy one. Right. But, um, when he comes into office, he is very committed to increasing American defense spending.

Um, you know, he thought, I think rightly that it, it had become way too depleted, uh, in the 1970s under, you know, the Democratic Congress and then under, uh, Nixon and Ford and, and Carter. Um, but he also, um, wants to, uh, restore American economic growth. He wants to cut taxes, which had, you know, the top tax rate.

He gone up to like 70% at this point. Um, , uh, and Annie wants to reign in gov gov government spending. Um, and, uh, there’s a certain. Constitutional coherence to those as far as him seeing the responsibilities, the first constitutional responsibility provide for the common defense. You know, so there’s a case to be made for a robust defense, uh, budget, but then reducing spending in a number of other areas, especially the, you know, the entitlement state, uh, and, you know, minimizing the tax, tax burden on the American people.

But, uh, he then, He, even though he has a Republican senate, he has a Democratic house. Uh, and of course, Congress has the primary power, power of the purse. Um, and so his hand is gonna be somewhat constrained. He cannot unilaterally dictate economic policy. So he has to pick and choose where is he gonna spend his political capital, how he’s gonna rack and stack his priorities, even if he’s not getting everything he wants.

And he even says, I say in, um, a meeting in 1981 after he’s just been in office a couple months, he meets with the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Casaro, and he says something like, you know, I’ve got a couple allergies. I’m, I’m allergic to Soviet communism, but I’m also allergic to runaway American government spending.

And I’m having to decide how much do I, um, devote to increasing the American defense budget, even if it means that I’m, uh, you know, gonna have to live with higher, higher, uh, higher, higher deficits in a growing national debt. So he’s, he’s mindful of that. And he also finds that when he submits his first domestic policy budget in 1981, that it’s dead on arrival on the hill.

Uh, the, the, you know, the, uh, the Democratic leadership in the house, you know, speaker Tip O’Neill says, listen, we’re not gonna cut spending. This is off. You know, this is draconian, this is awful. We’re just not gonna do it. Um, and so Reagan has a choice. Alright. Does he do a, you know, national barnstorming and congressional lobbying campaign to, to bring more spending discipline, or does he devote his political capital to getting the defense budget increases through and the tax cuts through, and, and he makes those choices to focus on the tax cuts and, and the defense spending.

So he doesn’t like the deficits, but he, but he, he learn, he learns to live with it. Great. Yeah. And yeah, that is a part of his legacy, which we’re, we’re still dealing with today. Although, um, I don’t think we can blame all that on him, even though by the standards of the day, they become pretty high by our standards.

Now they’re tiny compared to what we’re now, so, yeah. Agree. Yeah. Uh, if you would like to ask a question, we ask for you to please wait for the microphone so that we can all hear. There were, uh, stories, um, in Reagan’s later years that with neurological problems, and I think Alzheimer, I’m not sure mm-hmm.

that, uh, Nancy Reagan actually had a role. I don’t, you know, in, I don’t know, foreign policy or something. And I just wondered if you came across that. And secondly, since you mentioned his faith in Christianity, one of the strongest proponents of atheism is his son Ron Reagan, Jr. Mm-hmm. , who still is doing these ads on TV saying atheism is, you know, religion is bad.

Atheist. So that’s really interesting that you brought that up. Mm-hmm. and kind of related to that was, um, you know, his daughter, I think his, her name was Patty or something. Patty Davis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That she did this very provocative Playboy nude thing that almost seemed to want to embarrass Reagan and certainly did, I think on Nancy.

So I just wondered if. , you came across any of that during you? Yeah. Uh, okay. Lot, lot, lot of things in there. I’ll try to, try to take, take them in sequence. Uh, first on, um, Reagan’s uh, mental faculty suspicion in this last couple years in office, uh, and then his later, uh, Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Um, I went in, I, I did my first research trip on this book 10 years ago.

Okay. So this was a, uh, was not full-time project for 10 years, but I’ve been working on or living with this book for 10 years. And throughout the, the entire process, one of my open questions had been, uh, are there any signs of manifestation of Alzheimer’s as last couple years in, in office? Um, because he announced his diagnosis, I wanna say in 1994.

So, you know about, you know, five, six years after, after the, after the presidency ends. Um, first on that, uh, I’ll give a pretty emphatic no, I did not see any evidence of Alzheimer’s or dementia even early, any early onset in, in the course of my research. Um, uh, and part of the evidence for that is, You know, when it really mattered, like, you know, reading the transcripts of his means of the Gorbachev in 87, in, in 88, um, uh, he was still very much in command of the details.

Uh, had a almost photographic memory, you know, for, uh, uh, whether it is, you know, his talking points or his speeches or the details he wanted to remember with Gorbachev. But you do see, uh, the last two or three years in office, a number of lapses where you know, he’ll, he’ll, uh, he’ll be in a meeting and he’ll get flustered or he’ll be, you know, kind of reading, reading off his, reading off his cue cards, or he’ll fall asleep in cabinet meetings.

Um, and what accounts for that? I think it’s very simple. It’s almost like, you know, the answers, fairness and plain sight. He was the oldest president in history at the time. He was six or seven years into the hardest job in the world. He was 77 years old. I mean, um, I think it was just sheer exhaustion, uh, and, and understand, understandably so.

Um, and, uh, his, uh, he went through exhaustive and very detailed medical exams in 19 90, 91, 92 as post president. Um, uh, a lot of these records are, are there at the Reagan, Reagan library too. Uh, and the doctors gave him absolutely clean bill Bills of Health. They, they, they would’ve in that mo I think those moments detected.

Okay. Wow. He’s been having, you know, Alzheimer’s for two or three years. That’s why you really don’t start to see the manifestations of it till late 92, early 93. Uh, and then of course he announces it in 94. Uh, that’s interesting. You talk about Biden. Mm-hmm. , and I wonder if there are any comparisons. Uh, yeah, potentially.

So, so, you know, Biden obviously has had his chair of senior moments also, and I don’t think any, in the case of Alzheimer’s there, I think it’s just a fact of being an old man in the hardest job in the world. Right. I mean, um, I just turned 50 and I’m tired all the time. , you know, I’m like, and I’m forgetting things.

Right. So what’s your name again? Alright. Okay. So, so I, I have, I have a decent amount of, uh, simply sometimes the answers just a much, much simpler one. Nancy’s role. Um, she was his, and this is a way to get into the question about his kids also. She was his closest friend in life by far. He did not have many close friends at all.

He’s a child of an alcoholic father, uh, grows up in a very dysfunctional home. Uh, uh, part of that accounts for, even though he has a warm and engaging person. When it came to actually building deep personal relationships, uh, he did not do much of that over the course of his entire life. Um, and then one exception being Nancy, she’s the one person I think that he allows into his interior world, which is mysterious for any, any of his biographers.

Uh, she was fiercely loyal to him. She was very devoted to his public image and his legacy. Um, and she would certainly have her opinions on things like staff, on personnel, right? If, if you got crosswise with Nancy, you were not going to last long in your, in your job. But she rarely talked to him about policy issues.

And when she did, he would pretty much say, you know, you know, in his little more definite way kind of reminder, I’m the American people elected me president. Not, not you. Um, and. . She was excited when he started doing the summits with Gorbachev cuz she knows that this was good for his public image, but she’s not the one who actually got him to start doing those.

Those were decisions that he made and that were part of the, the broader Cold War context. Uh, uh, so his kids, um, uh, by most accounts he just was a pretty neglectful father, uh, outside of abuse or anything like that. But he had bad relationship with his kids cuz he just had not been very personally close to them.

Uh, that in turn, I think is partly a product of himself having grown up without a good relationship with, with his own father. Um, he was very personally grieved that his son Ron was an atheist. And this is where, uh, the transcripts of Reagan’s meetings with Gorbachev and Moscow in 1988 are fascinating because Reagan is trying to persuade Gorbachev to believe in God.

Uh, he’s also very sadly, Gorbachev is an atheist and Reagan becomes very personal with Gorbachev. And he says, my son Ron, Is an atheist, and it makes me very sad. You know, I worry about his soul. I worry that he’s missing out on an important part of fulfillment and meaning in life. He even gives us corny, uh, you know, anecdote, he says to Gorbachev, what I’ve always wanted to do for my son is have a gourmet chef, uh, uh, prepare a wonderfully delicious meal for him, and then have him eat the meal and appreciate the wonder of this creat, this, this, this artisan, uh, cuisine.

And then say to him, so Ron, you’re telling me you don’t believe that there was. Um, and use that as illustration of don’t, why can’t you believe in God? And, and Gorbachev is kind of flummox to this. Well, I, I suppose the answer is there is a cook, right? Um, but, but the white being, it’s, you don’t find this in the most, the Annals of American diplomacy of one American president sitting down with the head of another superpower, uh, and trying to persuade that person to believe in God and sharing very personally about your sadness that your son is, is an atheist.

And so it’s, it’s a just, it’s a, it’s very, like I said, I keep coming back to the word word unique. It’s a really interesting revelation into who Reagan was, what made him tick, the liabilities of his own, uh, complicated and not very healthy personal family life, but also how his faith animated, his approach to the Soviet Union and his friendship with Go Chip.

So, hi. Um, I’m curious if you could speak to, one of the many things that were fascinating in the book I found was the relationship between Nixon and Reagan. Mm-hmm. And to the extent that the public was aware of that relationship. And then if you could also maybe, um, , I don’t know if this would’ve come up in your research as well, but maybe the relationships between the secretaries of state, so Kissinger.

Mm-hmm. , and then Reagan, secretaries of state, Dollis and, um, and Schultz. Yeah. Or, uh, Hagan Schultz, yes. Sorry. Yes. And then aside from that, if you could speak to Suzanne Macy, and then maybe any other trinkets of information about her, um, and the influence she had on, on Reagan’s understanding of the Soviet people.

Yeah. Okay. There’s a lot there, Maria. Okay. I’ll try to do these, uh, do these briefly. And I wanna actually start with the last one first. Cause in some ways it pivots off your question about Nancy Reagan. So, uh, you know, this being the 1980s, you know, what, you know, 44 decades ago, the Reagan administration, like the Carter administration, uh, you know, before it was very masculine, right.

You know, there’s, it’s, it’s essentially a bun, bunch of men, but there are four women who are profoundly important in Reagan’s life and, and his foreign policy. Um, The first lady being one, as I mentioned, not too much shaping the policy, but still, uh, you can’t understand his presidency without, without Nancy Reagan.

The second one is Gene Kirkpatrick, uh, his ambassador to the United Nations. The first woman to hold that post, uh, first, uh, UN ambassador to be able to, to cabinet rank as well, particularly in the first term. She’s very influential on him helping develop the Reagan doctrine of supporting these anti-communist forces, uh, going toe-to-toe with the Soviets, uh, in the UN Security Council after they shoot down Korean Airlines play oh oh seven on and so forth.

Um, so Kirkpatrick is also very important. The third, of course, is Margaret Thatcher, who is his closest friend among foreign leaders, uh, nacho. So being his second closest friend and the four, and, and all of you would’ve presumably heard of those people. Those are all household names. Margaret Thatcher, Jean Kirkpatrick, uh, Nancy Reagan.

The fourth one is much less so Suzanne Massey. Most of you, unless you read the book, probably hadn’t come across here. And she becomes one of Reagan’s most important advisors on the Soviet Union, even though she’s never working for him. She is a, an author and amateur historian who, um, Had written a book called The Land of the Firebird, a history of Russia in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

And, um, bud McFarland comes across her and introduces her to Reagan and he, he invites her into the Oval Office, uh, to sit down and, you know, tell me your insights cuz Reagan hated Soviet communism. , but he was fascinated by and had no hostility to the Russian people. He drew a very clear distinction between the historic country and civilization of Russia and this alien appendage precedent of Soviet communism.

Um, and so she, Suzanne Massey was his insight, his window into what the Russian people actually think. And because of her own work on Russian history, she was regularly welcome to visit the Soviet Union. Meet with artists and writers and historians and students and scholars, even occasionally with Kremlin officials.

And so she becomes this back channel emissary for Reagan between the Soviet, Soviet, uh, Soviet officials, uh, and, and, and him and also, you know, meets with him, I mean, maybe a dozen times over the course of his presidency. And they also have lengthy exchanges of letters. And so, so, so she becomes a really interesting advisor for him and he’s always asking her, uh, again, going back to the religion question, tell me about the spiritual hunger of the Russian people.

You know, do they want to be going to church even though they’re not allowed to? Do they want to believe in God even though they’re not allowed to? What do they think of the United States? What do they think of their own government? How do they see what the Soviet uh, system has done to their historic and great civilization?

Um, now this drives a lot of his National Security Council staff nuts cuz she’s not officially working for him. She’s this outside advisor. She’s got a direct line to the Oval Office. Again, it’s not great for interagency organization and the smooth workings of government, but when you’re the president of the United States, you are looking for insight and ideas from anywhere you can get.

You, you can get them and she becomes really important to him. Uh, then the, the, the Nixon question, um, again, an entire book could be written on the Reagan Nixon relationship. I try to weave it through here and there. A again, it is absolutely fascinating. It goes in three phases. Um, the first is, uh, for in the sixties and seventies, they’re big rivals.

Um, and, and it’s especially interesting cuz they’re so similar. They are both, uh, born into poverty in the rural Midwest, uh, with, you know, abusive fathers and Pius nurturing mothers. Uh, they both, um, make their way as, uh, relatively young to California for a new beginning, a fresh start, the land of opportunity, uh, land of upward, upward mobility.

They dominate Republican presidential politics for decades. So, see me later for the details in this, but shorthand. Every single presidential election from 1952 to 1988 either has a Nixon or Reagan running, or is very strongly shaped by a Nixon or Reagan. All right, so for four decades, they are the dominant figures in Republican presidential politics.

Both as, both as Californians. Interestingly, um, And they’re both, you know, hawkish cold warriors, so on and so forth. But they also are very, very, very different. And they are real political rivals in the sixties and seventies. Reagan challenges Nixon for the Republican nomination in 68. This is often forgotten.

Uh, he then runs against Nixon in challenging Ford in 1976. He thinks Nixon has been too soft on the Soviet Union. Uh, you know, Reagan wants a more confrontational approach. He thinks Nixon is too, is too accommodating. Reagan represents the conservative insurgency. Goldwater wing of the party. Nixon represents the more, uh, establishment.

Uh, Rockefeller, Nixon, uh, wing of the party on Asia. They’re very different. Uh, they as Californians, they both have, have a very Pacific mindedness, right? So they, they look west across the Pacific. But when Nixon looked west across the Pacific, he sees the key to Asia is. When Reagan looks west across the Pacific, he sees the key to Asia is Japan.

Uh, and you know, I, I talked, talked about that more earlier. Uh, so the real rivals second phase, once Reagan actually wins the presidency. Nixon is living in disgrace in an apartment in New York. Uh, after, after, after Watergates kind of exiled up there. Um, and Nixon starts this really interesting outreach.

He starts writing these all, you know, regular letters to Nick, to Reagan, and to Reagan’s senior team. He’s given political advice, he’s given policy advice, he’s given advice on personnel. And Reagan starts really taking this seriously, even though he’s very different from re uh, from Nixon. He has high regard for Nixon’s intellect.

And here’s a key thing. Nixon at the time is one of only three people on planet earth. Who is alive and knows what it means to be the president of the United States. The other two are Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Uh, and so Reagan, even if he’s gonna disagree with next things, he’s gonna take him seriously cuz he’s one of the only three people that knows what it means to be, to have the responsibilities that Reagan has now.

And so this starts real reconciliation between the two. Um, Nixon starts doing some back channel diplomacy for Reagan with China and even with Gorbachev. And the, and the Soviet Union, uh, helps pave the way for a couple of their main, their main summit meetings. Um, uh, he gives Nick Reagan some bad personnel advice when he tells him, hire Al Hagg.

Its your Secretary of State. Reagan comes to regret that, but he gives some good advice too. And he says, Kap Weinberger to be a good Secretary of Defense. Uh, and some, and some, some others there. The third phase though, is this reconciliation kind of culminates, uh, I can’t remember the exact date, but it’s late 86, early 87.

I think it’s early 87 when Reagan invites Nixon to the, uh, to the White House. This is Nixon’s first time setting foot back in the White House in 13 years after being exiled and disgraced from, uh, resigning, uh, from, from Watergate, um, and. and they have a, they, they, they’re talking about, uh, you know, all sorts of things.

Uh, Nixon kept a careful transcript of the median, but especially, uh, arms control and Reagan’s burgeoning partnership with Gorbachev. And this is where they, they, they then have a rift. They have a falling out because Reagan wants to do the intermediate nuclear forces treaty, banning an entire class of nuclear weapons, all intermediate range nuclear missiles.

Uh, Gorbachev is coming along in this Nixon for some complicated arm control reasons, opposes the treaty. And it’s one thing for Nixon to privately oppose to say, you know, Mr. President Ron, I don’t think you should do this, but Nixon comes out publicly against it. He starts lobbying the Senate not to ratify it, he and Kissinger write like a 4,000 word article in Newsweek magazine saying, this is a bad idea, we shouldn’t do it.

And Reagan just feels very undercut and personally betrayed. Uh, and Reagan had this kind of strong sense of decorum that ex-presidents should not undermine current presidents. Jimmy Carter incidentally was doing some of the same stuff with Reagan. STR drove him crazy as well. Uh, and so, uh, that caused us a new rift, the third phase of the relationship where Reagan, uh, is, is very mad at Nixon, feels really undercut by him.

Um, so, and with that, thank you for being here and thank you Will. It’s been an enjoyable conversation. Well, thank you, bill. It’s been a great discussion. Enjoyed it. Thank you.

You know, while he was a remarkable evangelist for a better world, you mentioned that his management style was often challenged. Uh, I think in the book you stated that the Reagan doctrine of confronting Soviet expansion inable countries was supported by all of his top principles, even while they bickered officially over the details.

Tell us more about the struggles his administration faced due to internal staff conflicts. Yeah. Yes, and this is one of the paradoxes for anyone studying the Reagan administration as well as, you know, those who worked in it and lived through it, which is, I think, uh, we can point to a number of strategic and policy successes from the administration, but at the same time, uh, there was quite a bit of organizational dysfunction and, uh, it’s not normally what you would see in a, uh, public management textbook, right?

You know, usually our presumptions are, if you have good management organization that’ll be more likely to lead to good policy outcomes. In this case, you get some good policy outcomes, but without, uh, you know, with, without that, uh, smooth functioning management and, and organization, some of it comes from, um, Reagan picked a number of very capable, hard charging, uh, self-confident, uh, people for, uh, uh, the key cabinet positions and advisory positions in his administration.

Certainly on the national security side, which I’m, I’m most familiar with. Uh, but, you know, with capable, strong, hard charging, opinionated, uh, people, you’re also gonna get, uh, real, real differences. You know, each of them, you know, wanted to have his way. Usually these were men, although some notable exceptions, such as Gene Kirkpatrick, uh, the first woman to be ambassador to the United Nation.

So that right there is the beginning of a, a recipe for some volatility. Indifference. Uh, then added to that is Reagan, for all of his strategic vision, uh, just was, uh, not very interested or attentive to the details of, of management. Um, he was rather conflict averse. And so if, you know, his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense were feuding as they often were, that was almost the constant state of things.

Uh, he would not step in and crack heads and, you know, force them both, force them both to get in line. He would let those things fester. He wanted to keep his own good relations with, with, with each of them. Uh, Now at times, uh, uh, he was able to delegate the management. So, for example, his first term, uh, Jim Baker was his chief of staff, still widely regarded as the most, uh, successful and accomplished, uh, white House chief of staff in history.

And so having a strong manager like Baker as a surrogate, uh, helped ameliorate some of Reagan’s, uh, management deficiencies. But in his second term, when he had less capable chiefs of staff such as Don Don Regan, that’s partly why you get some pretty big problems, uh, uh, with even more interagency feuding and bina than a scandal like the, like the Iran Ron Contra scandal.

But it also bears noting that, uh, on the really big picture, uh, important issues of top priority to Reagan, such as his management of, uh, US policy towards the Soviet Union. When it mattered, he would step in and make the decisions. He was the commander-in-chief. Uh, he would take sides. Uh, we see this, especially in his second term when he really empowers George Schultz, his Secretary of State, uh, for their two-pronged approach of pressure, uh, on the Soviets, uh, Soviet system and outreach and diplomacy with, with Soviet leaders.

Uh, so that was one way that he was able to comp, compensate for some of these deficiencies well put. And finally, his second inaugural speech proclaimed his hope that one day, his time in office would be remembered as a time when America courageously supported the struggle for individual liberty, self-government, and free enterprise throughout the world, and turn the tide of history away from totalitarian darkness and into the warm sunlight of human freedom.

And we lived up. Yeah, well, I think President Reagan certainly did. Uh, you know, I’ll just say that obviously that’s very lofty, ambitious rhetoric there. But, you know, the results speak for themselves, uh, from the time that he takes office to, you know, 10 years later, a year or two after he leaves office, the, the number of electoral democracies in the world almost doubles.

And these are all, all entirely peaceful transitions, right? This is not through a series of violent wars. Uh, so you’ve got South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, transitioning to democracy in Asia. You’ve got Chile, Argentina, Brazil. The Latin American countries transitioning the course shortly after he leaves office, uh, the Iron Curtain comes down peacefully.

The Warsaw Pack collapses. The Berlin Wall is, is torn down by the people of, of Berlin, and you’ve got, you know, the tremendous wave of, uh, you know, free, free governments, free societies emerging in Central and East and Eastern Europe. Um, and along, uh, along with that, you have, you know, the growing embrace of free market reforms, of an open, an open trading order.

You know, Reagan is the first president to envision the North American Free trade, uh, agreement, NAF nafta. Um, And, uh, he also laced, you know, quite a bit of the foundation for the growth of economic liberty and open trade in Asia, Latin America, Latin America, and Europe. Uh, so, uh, so yeah, I, I do think that, at least in terms of his own legacy, um, he, he, he kept as part of the bargain there is, there’s president.

Uh, and, you know, since then, uh, I think there’s been something of a regression. Uh, you know, over the last 15 years, um, democracy has continued to be backsliding around the world. We’ve also seen, uh, upsurge is in, in protectionism, um, still the resilience of some, uh, socialist, uh, economies, you know, Cuba and Venezuela in our, and now Nicaragua again in our own, our own hemisphere.

Uh, of course the resilience of the Chinese Communist Party. Um, so. It’s nott, a utopian dream where all those, uh, ills have been, ills have been vanquished, but by and large, uh, judging a president just by what was the state of the world and the state of the country when he took office. And then what’s the state of the world and the state of the country when he leaves office.

And in the, you know, the immediate months and years afterwards. I think it’s a pretty favorable record. Uh, will, it’s been a pleasure to chat with you and I enjoyed our talk at the Washington Center recently. Again, the book is The Peacemaker, Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World, and the Brink. And thank you for joining us.

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