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Speaker 1: On this episode of News World. Every President. Prior to

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Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, I viewed the Cold War as a great

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Speaker 1: power conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union.

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Speaker 1: Reagan saw it differently. To him, the conflict was a

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Speaker 1: battle of ideas along with the great power competition. As

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Speaker 1: tensions with Russia rise again over the war with Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: and as the US faces competition with China ruled by

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Speaker 1: the Communist Party, there's a lot we can learn from

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Speaker 1: how Reagan successfully handled the Soviet system and its leadership.

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Speaker 1: Here to talk about his new book, The Peacemaker Ronald Reagan,

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Speaker 1: The Cold War and the World and the Brink. I'm

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Speaker 1: really pleased to welcome my guest, William Mbowden. He is

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Speaker 1: executive director and William Power's Junior Chair at the Clements

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Speaker 1: Center for National Security and Associate Professor of Public Policy

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Speaker 1: and History at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, both

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Speaker 1: at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to that,

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Speaker 1: he worked in senior positions with the State Department and

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Speaker 1: the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration.

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Speaker 1: Well welcome and thank you for joining me on News World.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, mister speaker. It's a pleasure to be with you.

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Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about your background that set

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Speaker 1: the stage for you to write this. Sure. So, I

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Speaker 1: grew up in Tucson, Arizona, in the nineteen seventies and eighties.

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Speaker 1: Really considered myself a child of the Cold War. Tucson

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Speaker 1: as a major Air Force base at the time, was

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Speaker 1: the mountain surrounding Tucson were filled with Titan missile silos,

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Speaker 1: and so even as a kid and then a high schooler,

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Speaker 1: was very aware of the Cold War, the Soviet threat.

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Speaker 1: You know, Tucson was very high on the Kremlin's targeting list.

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Speaker 1: And I appreciated President Reagan from seeing him on the

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Speaker 1: evening news and things like that, but he was a

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Speaker 1: very very distant figure. So then by the time I

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Speaker 1: started my policy career and then my academic career in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties and early two thousands, we had seen

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Speaker 1: the peaceful end of the Cold War. We had the

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Speaker 1: new challenges the course of the War on terrorism. A

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Speaker 1: real theme from my career all along was trying to

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Speaker 1: draw on the lessons of history for current national security challenges.

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Speaker 1: That's what I worked on in government, in strategic planning

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Speaker 1: on the national Security Council staff. That's one of the

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Speaker 1: themes of my teaching now at the University of Texas,

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Speaker 1: And so when I started this book, it seemed like

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Speaker 1: enough time had passed that we could take a fresh

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Speaker 1: look at the Reagan record. You know, you, as a

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Speaker 1: fellow historian, appreciate the importance of archives, and so many

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Speaker 1: archival documents had been released, but there were still a

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Speaker 1: number of people who had worked for Reagan who are

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Speaker 1: alive for interviews, and I think a lot of the

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Speaker 1: partisan passions of the day had cooled somewhat, so we

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Speaker 1: could do a more fresh, balanced assessment. So that's how

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Speaker 1: my policy and academic background led into doing this book.

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Speaker 1: You went from Tucson to Stanford and then on to

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Speaker 1: get a PhD from you. I'm just curious what was

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Speaker 1: your dissertation. My dissertation was on early American Cold War policy,

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Speaker 1: and particularly the religious influences on Truman and Eisenhower. So

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Speaker 1: they developed what I call a theology of containment because

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Speaker 1: the Cold War, of course, was not just between rival

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Speaker 1: political or economic systems, but the official atheism of the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union of Communism and then a belief in Judeo

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Speaker 1: Christian values in the West. So, in origin Foreign Affairs

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Speaker 1: article entitled the Fight for the Future of Republican Foreign Policy,

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Speaker 1: you wrote that in the run up to twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 1: the GOP should look to Reagan. What did you mean

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Speaker 1: by that? I think that President Reagan was our last

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Speaker 1: unambiguously successful two term Republican president. I say that, of

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Speaker 1: course as a proud of lum of the George W.

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Speaker 1: Bush administration. I think we got many things right there,

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Speaker 1: but also a number of things wrong. And so, first,

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Speaker 1: just as a matter of political and policy success, I

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Speaker 1: think President Reagan has a tremendous record that we can

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Speaker 1: learn from. But also when you look at our current

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Speaker 1: geopolitical challenges, especially with Russia and particularly the threat from China,

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Speaker 1: we should look to the last time we had a

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Speaker 1: president who successfully waged at one a great power petition

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Speaker 1: against a nuclear armed communist superpower in Eurasia. It was

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Speaker 1: a Soviet Union then in its China now of course

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Speaker 1: with its partner Russia. So there's some I think pretty

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Speaker 1: direct continuities and parallels between Reagan's day and our own.

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Speaker 1: The assertion in your article that the China challenge points

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Speaker 1: to other factors that offer hope for Republican internationalism, and

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Speaker 1: that the challenge of the Chinese Communist Party virtually guarantees

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Speaker 1: that Republicans will remain committed to the international activity, which

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Speaker 1: I agree with. In fact, as you may know, Speaker

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Speaker 1: designated McCarthy has already indicated very clearly that there will

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Speaker 1: be a select Committee on China looking at the totality

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Speaker 1: of the Chinese challenge at every level. But Reagan inherited

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Speaker 1: what had grown up over a very long period of

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Speaker 1: time as sort of an elaborate bureaucracy of dealing with

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Speaker 1: the Cold War on a global basis, and yet he

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Speaker 1: very decisively changed its focus in its direction, which I

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Speaker 1: think was kind of amazing he did. It was really remarkable.

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Speaker 1: He had inherited the detante framework, of course, that Nixon

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Speaker 1: and Ford and Henry Kissinger had developed, and then frankly

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Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter had largely continued, and then around that there

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Speaker 1: was that entire bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy was focused on

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Speaker 1: managing the Cold War and managing relations with the Soviet Union,

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Speaker 1: and Reagan wanted to win it. That was I think

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Speaker 1: the decisive strategic difference there, and so that's why he

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Speaker 1: even his team, I think did a pretty effective job

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Speaker 1: of re orienting American strategy, saying that they taunt had

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Speaker 1: been designed for temporary time to lower tensions between the

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Speaker 1: US and Soviet Union, but it instead it had turned

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Speaker 1: into this permanent framework of losing as slowly as possible,

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Speaker 1: and that of course is still losing. And so for Reagan,

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Speaker 1: he envisioned a world beyond the Cold War. He envisioned

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Speaker 1: a world beyond Soviet communism, and pretty effectively turned the

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Speaker 1: Great Ship of State, the mass of the bureaucracy in

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Speaker 1: that direction, not without of course, a lot of friction

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Speaker 1: and resistance. I was in Congress for those eight years,

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Speaker 1: so I had some activity, in some involvement with the

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Speaker 1: key players when I was researching the book. Is fun

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Speaker 1: to find a number of letters from a junior Congressman

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Speaker 1: Gangridge to Ronald Reagan, again urging a strong line against

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Speaker 1: the Soviets, urging more support for the Contras, urging support

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Speaker 1: for Taiwan. So Yes, having studied earlier letters and in

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Speaker 1: correspondents with them, I can attest to that the research

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Speaker 1: you did. You're at a point where a lot of

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Speaker 1: documents are being released, and yet also at a point

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Speaker 1: where many of the original players are still alive. And

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Speaker 1: I noticed that before I passed away, that you had

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Speaker 1: a chance to talk with George Schultz, for example, who's

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Speaker 1: a remarkable source on Reagan. Yeah, he really was, and

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Speaker 1: it was sadly and this is obviously just the state

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Speaker 1: of the human condition. Seven of the people I interviewed

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Speaker 1: have since died, and this was just in the last

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Speaker 1: few years, so Schultz, Bud McFarlane, Frank Carlucci, Colin Powell, others.

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Speaker 1: But it was very special to be able to interview

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Speaker 1: so many old Reagan hands and hear their stories and

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Speaker 1: their insights, especially with the passage of time. When you

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Speaker 1: looked at all those things, Were there things in the

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Speaker 1: archives and in the interviews that changed your opinion? Guess

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Speaker 1: there were? And I started the project with a pretty

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Speaker 1: favorable assessment of Reagan and his record, So you know,

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Speaker 1: I certainly want to make that bias clear. Obviously all

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Speaker 1: of us have a biases. But still I was not

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Speaker 1: deeply versed in it. And one of the ways that

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Speaker 1: my mind was changed as I went into the project

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Speaker 1: with an impression of Reagan having set a strategic vision

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Speaker 1: but not been very involved on the details of his

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Speaker 1: Cold War policies, and in some areas lesser priority issues,

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Speaker 1: he wasn't very involved in the details, that's true, But

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Speaker 1: what I saw is that when it came to relations

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Speaker 1: with the Soviets and the Cold War, Reagan was deeply

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Speaker 1: involved in the details. I mean, he would write a

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Speaker 1: lot of his own talking points. He was very involved

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Speaker 1: in the writing of his speeches. Before every summit meeting

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Speaker 1: with Gorbachev, he would spend weeks reading thousands of pages

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Speaker 1: of reefing books, writing detailed notes on them. He liked

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Speaker 1: to maintain a public image of being a little more

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Speaker 1: detached from things, and I think there was strategic misdirection,

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Speaker 1: cultivating the art of wanting people to underestimate him. But

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Speaker 1: in fact, he knew the brief very well, especially when

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Speaker 1: it came to his strategy towards the Soviet Union, because

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Speaker 1: he cared so much about it, and you know, as

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Speaker 1: a chief executive, he was setting priorities and that was

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Speaker 1: one of his big priorities. So that was one area

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Speaker 1: where my mind was changed. Were just appreciating how much

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Speaker 1: more attentive to detail Reagan was of the really important issues.

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Speaker 1: But I was always very struck the people misunderstood that

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Speaker 1: Reagan had an ability to select what mattered, and if

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Speaker 1: it didn't matter, he delegated it, and he was quite cheerful.

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Speaker 1: He figured any outcome was acceptable. You know my favorite example,

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Speaker 1: which I'm sure Schultz talked to you about that Reagan

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Speaker 1: decided he wanted to say mister Gorbuchof teared down that wall,

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Speaker 1: and that he thought it was a strategic comment that

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Speaker 1: would have profound effect. And the State Department editor took

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Speaker 1: it out, and Reagan hand wrote it back in and

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Speaker 1: sent it over, and he took it out a second

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Speaker 1: time and Reagan, according to Schultz, Reagan called Schultzen said, Georgie,

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Speaker 1: you need to tell him I am the president. He

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Speaker 1: is not. It stays in and as late as the

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Speaker 1: ride to the speech site, his chief of staff was

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Speaker 1: trying to talk him out of using the line. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the entire senior bureaucracy was opposed to saying mister Gorbuschov

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Speaker 1: tear down the wall. But Reagan thought it would have

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Speaker 1: a dramatic psychological impact, and of course he was right.

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Speaker 1: Now one of the things which surprised me and I

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Speaker 1: thought I knew a fair amount about this. You on

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Speaker 1: earth the degree to which Reagan learned from Dwight Eisenhower.

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Speaker 1: As you describe it, Eisenhower had a substantial impact on Reagan.

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Speaker 1: It's a really remarkable story, and as you said, one

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Speaker 1: that had not been told much before, and it's certainly

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Speaker 1: a surprise and find in my own research. I do

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Speaker 1: want to give credit to two people who clue me

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Speaker 1: into this. The first is Tom Reid, who had helped

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Speaker 1: manage Reagan's first nineteen sixty six cubinitorial campaign and later

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Speaker 1: served on his NSC staff. And the other is Gene Copelsen,

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Speaker 1: an author in the Northeast too, had also done a

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Speaker 1: lot of work. So very briefly. Eisenhower, of course leaves

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Speaker 1: office in nineteen sixty one, it is now ex president

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Speaker 1: and he retires to Palm Springs there in southern California.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty four, when Reagan gives his iconic A

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Speaker 1: Time for Choosing speech supporting the Goldwater candidacy, Eisenhower watches

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Speaker 1: on TV and thinks, this guy is a remarkable political talent,

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Speaker 1: and he's in my new state of California for Eisenhower.

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Speaker 1: So Eisenhower reaches out to Reagan says, hey, listen, come

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Speaker 1: meet with me. At my place here in Pump Springs.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk. And Eisenhower encourages Reagan to run for governor

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Speaker 1: of California, which of course he does successfully in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty six, and then in a way becomes Reagan's first

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Speaker 1: foreign policy mentor, if you will. And for Eisenhower, some

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Speaker 1: key themes that he imprinted in Reagan, which Reagan really imbibed,

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Speaker 1: were first the importance of maintaining a strong economy, a

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Speaker 1: vibrant economy, as a source of national strength, and especially

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Speaker 1: of course to fund the defense budget. And then an

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Speaker 1: appreciation for the relationship between military force and diplomacy and

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Speaker 1: the strategic outcomes that you want. And Eisenhower's course is

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Speaker 1: very critical of lbj's mismanagement of the Vietnam War and

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Speaker 1: the gradual escalation that was not enough to but enough

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Speaker 1: to way too many Americans killed. It's over Reagan's first

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Speaker 1: few years as governor, he would meet regularly with Eisenhower.

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Speaker 1: They'd go golfing together, they'd have long three or four

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Speaker 1: hour lunches talking about foreign policy. And so I can

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Speaker 1: see a lot of Eisenhower's worldview in Reagan. And of course,

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Speaker 1: when Reagan then does become presidents. He puts a bust

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Speaker 1: of Eisenhower in the Oval Office, he puts a portrait

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Speaker 1: of him in the Roosevelt Room. And if you look

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Speaker 1: at Reagan's speeches, and I read almost all of them,

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Speaker 1: Eisenhower is easily the former president that Reagan cites the

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Speaker 1: most often, more than George Washington, more than VR, more

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Speaker 1: than others you might have thought of. And so there's

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Speaker 1: a very direct, immediate and substantial influence between the two.

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Speaker 1: Now you draw a pretty sharp comparison between he and Nixon,

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Speaker 1: which I think is very very interesting. Would you talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about how you see the almost competitive

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Speaker 1: parallel in how they viewed the world and how they

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Speaker 1: tried to operate. Yeah. Sure, And it's again, the Reagan

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Speaker 1: Nixon relationship is a fascinating one because at times their

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Speaker 1: fierce rivals with very different worldviews, but then other times,

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Speaker 1: especially once Reagan becomes president, they forged a certain mutual

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Speaker 1: respect and even friendship, but still never overcome those differences.

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Speaker 1: For Republicans, you know, speak as one myself here, we

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Speaker 1: need to appreciate that Reagan and Nixon together dominated Republican

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Speaker 1: presidential politics for about forty years from nineteen fifty two

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Speaker 1: on up through nineteen eighty eight, at least one of

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Speaker 1: them was playing a major role, was either on the

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Speaker 1: ballot or playing a major role in shaping the ballot.

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Speaker 1: And you know, they have common background. They are both

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Speaker 1: children of underprivileged families in the Midwest who then migrate

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Speaker 1: out to California for new opportunity. Both have problematic relations

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Speaker 1: with their dads and then very pious in loving and

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Speaker 1: nurturing mothers, and of course find their careers in their

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Speaker 1: voice in California. But when it comes to foreign policy,

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Speaker 1: they have differences. Nixon, of course a master at foreign policy,

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Speaker 1: but still had more of a status quo view of

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Speaker 1: the Cold War, saw relations with the Soviet Union as

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Speaker 1: something to be managed. He certainly did not envision the

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Speaker 1: possibility of defeating the Soviet Union. He was indifferent to values, questions,

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Speaker 1: to things like human rights. For Nixon, it's all about

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Speaker 1: managing the power relations. And of course, as we've talked,

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Speaker 1: Reagan had a much more transformative view of seeing the

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Speaker 1: Cold War as a battle of ideas and Soviet Communism

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Speaker 1: as an idea to be defeated. They also had differences

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Speaker 1: over Asia. You know, both were very focused on Asia.

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Speaker 1: But when Nixon looked to Asia, he was very much

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Speaker 1: pursuing a China first policy. He saw China as the

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Speaker 1: key to US policy in Asia, whereas Reagan looks to

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Speaker 1: Asia and sees Japan first, and sees our alliance with

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Speaker 1: Japan as a fellow democracy, as you know, one of

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Speaker 1: the world's leading economies, as the key to Asia. So

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Speaker 1: once Reagan becomes president, having run against the Nixon view

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Speaker 1: of foreign policy for the previous decade, and of course

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Speaker 1: Nixon is in disgrace in New York after having left

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Speaker 1: office resigned because of the Watergate scandal, Nixon starts reaching

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Speaker 1: out to Reagan, starts writing in regular letters, given him

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Speaker 1: political advice, policy advice, and Reagan is a pretty magnanimous person.

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Speaker 1: He sets aside his previous differences with Nickson, says, all right,

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Speaker 1: I want to take advice from this guy. I'll take

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Speaker 1: advice from meeting one who can give it. I'll make

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Speaker 1: up my own mind and what I believe. And so

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Speaker 1: Nixon does play a role in help and encourage Reagan

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Speaker 1: towards eventually doing those summit meetings with Gorbachev, as he does,

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Speaker 1: but then they have another big break over the I

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Speaker 1: n f Treaty, where Reagan has this vision for defeating

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Speaker 1: the Civiet Union and eliminating nuclear weapons, and Nixon, being

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Speaker 1: much more status quo, does not want to give up

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Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, and so they have a final big drift

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Speaker 1: over that in Reagan's last couple of years in office. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: it's a fascinating relationship, if I remember correctly. Even though

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Speaker 1: they disagreed a great deal about foreign policy, Reagan refused

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Speaker 1: to break with Nixon over a Watergate. He simply wouldn't

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Speaker 1: abandon Nixon. That sort of his instinct about how you

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Speaker 1: deal with allies. Yeah, exactly. Reagan is very loyal, and

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Speaker 1: of course he was very loyal to his friends, also

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Speaker 1: very low to the Republican Party, and he really was

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Speaker 1: a party man, you know. That's why, of course we

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Speaker 1: have Reagan's famous eleventh commandment of shalt not speak ill

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Speaker 1: of a fellow Republican. The meeting at Rekovik, where Gormachov

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Speaker 1: comes in and has been told basically that our technological

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Speaker 1: advantage is exactly as NSC sixty eight had projected back

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Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty, that are engineering and science and technological

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Speaker 1: adventages were now beginning to outstrip the Soviets to such

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Speaker 1: a degree that they literally could not tell Gorbachev whether

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Speaker 1: or not they could cope with things because they knew

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Speaker 1: they didn't understand them. And so Gormachev comes in and

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Speaker 1: basically offer us to give up virtually everything if Reagan

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Speaker 1: will give up the Strategic Defense Initiative or Star Wars,

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Speaker 1: and in the end, Reagan just says no. And it's

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Speaker 1: clear also by then that Reagan is now dominant. What

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Speaker 1: was your take on that event. I think you're absolutely right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, all of Reagan and Gorbachev's summit meetings are

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Speaker 1: iconic and important, but Rekivik is the truly pivotal one.

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Speaker 1: And that's where I think we can really say the

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Speaker 1: Cold War began to end, the Soviet Union began to

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Speaker 1: breathe it's dying gas, because exactly as you say, that

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Speaker 1: is when Gorbachev realized he could not win. The Soviet

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Speaker 1: economy was falling apart, they couldn't sustain their defense spending.

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Speaker 1: But this is where, again, as you pointed out, very

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Speaker 1: important part of Reagan's strategy on the defense modernization and

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Speaker 1: build up, it was not just about outspending the Soviets.

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Speaker 1: It was about outsmarting them. And Reagan, of course, is

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Speaker 1: a Californian, you know, Silicon Valley had been a part

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Speaker 1: of his constituency when he was a governor. He had

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Speaker 1: innate belief in American innovation, in America's technological superiority, and

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Speaker 1: so he had presided over this next generation of weapons

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Speaker 1: platforms across the full spectrum of American force projection, quieter submarines,

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Speaker 1: better radar evading aircraft, the B one, the B two,

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Speaker 1: better tanks, better tank killing aircraft, so much so that

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Speaker 1: no matter how many more tanks or planes or missiles

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Speaker 1: the Soviets built, they couldn't keep pace with American technology.

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Speaker 1: And so that's why it was much more than just

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Speaker 1: economic race. And Gorbachev realized that. And the apex of

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Speaker 1: this is, as you mentioned, the Strategic Events Initiative, the

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Speaker 1: Reagan's really visionary hope for a ballistic missile shield. You know.

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Speaker 1: Critics said, oh, this is technologically impossible and it will

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Speaker 1: never happen, but that didn't really matter, because Gorbachev feared

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Speaker 1: that it could happen. Gorbachev so respected America's innovation capacity

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Speaker 1: that he thought SDI could happen. And he knew then

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Speaker 1: that the entire game game would be up. And so

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Speaker 1: even though critics at the time reviled the Rekivic summit

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Speaker 1: and said it was a failure. You know, Sam Donaldson

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Speaker 1: was of ABC News was particularly vicious towards Reagan and

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Speaker 1: saying he'd been disgraced there. It may have looked like

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Speaker 1: a short term loss because they didn't come to an agreement,

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Speaker 1: but that is when Gorbachev realized the game was up,

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Speaker 1: and that's why he Gorbchev came back to Reagan a

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Speaker 1: few months later and said, Okay, I agree, let's do

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Speaker 1: the I n F treaty. We will give up all

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Speaker 1: of our SS twenty intermediate range missiles which the Soviets

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Speaker 1: were targeting all the European capitals with at the time.

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Speaker 1: Did you have a similar sense that Reagan's skills as

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Speaker 1: a negotiator were dramatically underestimated. Absolutely, And this is where

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Speaker 1: you rightly point out an important part of his background

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Speaker 1: was decades earlier, when he had been leading the Screen

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Speaker 1: Actors Guild and was a lead labor negotiator in Hollywood.

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Speaker 1: He had realized he has a real knack for negotiating.

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Speaker 1: He had a very intuitive understanding of other people. He

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Speaker 1: just wanted to get in the room with them. He

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Speaker 1: had a great belief, rightly so, in his own power

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Speaker 1: to persuade. From the day he was sworn in as

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Speaker 1: president in Jaure of nineteen eighty one, he'd been wanting

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Speaker 1: to meet with a Soviet leader, but as you pointed out,

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Speaker 1: they kept dying on him, three in a row in

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Speaker 1: just three years. And there's another really important part of

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Speaker 1: Reagan's strategy which relates to his relation with Gorbachev from

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Speaker 1: the get go, from when Reagan first became president, part

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Speaker 1: of his strategy of pressuring the Soviet Union wasn't just

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Speaker 1: to weaken it and collapse it. It was to pressure

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Speaker 1: the Soviet system to produce a reformist leader that he

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Speaker 1: could negotiate with. So, you know, there's debates amongst scholars

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Speaker 1: but who deserves more credit for the peaceful under the

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Speaker 1: Cold War, Reagan or Gorbachev. You know, they're both very important,

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Speaker 1: But I think we have to give the edge to

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Speaker 1: Reagan because for four years he was pressuring the Soviet

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Speaker 1: system to produce a reformist leader, and eventually the pullet

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Speaker 1: row does just that in selecting Gorbachev in March of

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, and that's why Reagan was so eager

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Speaker 1: to meet with Gorbachev. I titled that chapter in my

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Speaker 1: book Waiting for Gorbachev, because he had been waiting for

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Speaker 1: four years for a Soviet leader he could negotiate with.

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Speaker 1: And that's why Reagan recognized earlier than most others that

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Speaker 1: Gorbachev was a genuine reformer. Finally, this ties back to

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Speaker 1: an important comment you made earlier about Reagan insisting on

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Speaker 1: putting it in mister Gorbachev tear down this wall in

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Speaker 1: the speech, which again is another titanic moment in the

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Speaker 1: Cold War, but one of the reasons that the State

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Speaker 1: Department and NSC staff kept opposing it, as they thought,

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Speaker 1: you're going to push Gorbachev too far. Gorbachev was already

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Speaker 1: weak and embattled. You know, we shouldn't put him on

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Speaker 1: the spot like this, We shouldn't humiliate him like this.

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Speaker 1: What they didn't appreciate is the person in the American

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Speaker 1: government who had spent more time personally with Mikhail Gorbachev

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Speaker 1: than anyone else was Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan knew Gorbachev

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Speaker 1: better than anyone else in the American government, and Reagan

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Speaker 1: had a very good sense of just how far he

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Speaker 1: could push Gorbachev and that he could, mister Garberschev tear

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Speaker 1: down this squall, and he could throw down that gauntlet

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Speaker 1: to him, and he was right. What is it both

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Speaker 1: that the Republicans in Congress and then second that the

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Speaker 1: Republican presidential candidates should take from your research and from

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Speaker 1: your understanding. The first is a real commitment to principles

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Speaker 1: and values. This is I think the key to understanding

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Speaker 1: and appreciating Reagan why he was able to be such

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Speaker 1: a transformative president. As I've put it elsewhere, good leaders,

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Speaker 1: good presidents will manage a situation they're given. Great leaders,

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Speaker 1: great presidents will transform a situation and will envision a

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Speaker 1: better future. And he really did, and it's because he

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Speaker 1: held fast to a number of principles. He believed very

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Speaker 1: much in American leadership. And that's not just a cliche.

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Speaker 1: Remember he's a child of the nineteen thirties and forties,

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Speaker 1: so to formative experiences for him in his younger years

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Speaker 1: had been the Great Depression and then World War Two,

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Speaker 1: of course caused by protectionism and isolationism, which he was

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Speaker 1: very opposed to. And so he believed that the hard

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Speaker 1: lessons of history where America is a better place and

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Speaker 1: a more secure place if America is leading the free world. Second,

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Speaker 1: he really believed in allies again. You know, this was key,

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Speaker 1: of course to our victory in World War Two, but

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Speaker 1: especially key to our victory in the Cold War. He

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Speaker 1: knew that allies could be a pain, he knew that

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Speaker 1: they could engage in free riding, but he also saw

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Speaker 1: them as a key source of American strength. And in

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Speaker 1: contrast with the Soviet Union, which didn't have any real allies,

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Speaker 1: it had its coerced vassal states in the Warsaw Pact,

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Speaker 1: whereas our allies and NATO and in Asia had chosen

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Speaker 1: to be with us. And in distant example of how

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Speaker 1: Reagan was able to work with allies when he became president.

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Speaker 1: Of course, we had big trade tensions with Japan, but

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Speaker 1: we also had the problem of Japan free riding on

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Speaker 1: our security umbrella and not doing enough to fund its

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Speaker 1: own defense. And Reagan didn't come out to public humiliate

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Speaker 1: Japan or threatened to withdrawal American troops. Instead, he'd built

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Speaker 1: a close friendship with prime ministers Japanese leader, and he said, listen,

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Speaker 1: we are committed to you in the Alliance, and we

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Speaker 1: need you to do your part for us. And over

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Speaker 1: the next eight years, Japan tripled its defense spending tripled

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Speaker 1: it phenomenal increase because not CASONI believed in the United

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Speaker 1: States and the Alliance. Another part on the values is

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Speaker 1: Reagan very much believed in the value of freedom. And

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Speaker 1: again this is not just a cheap talking point. He

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Speaker 1: was fervent in supporting political and religious dissidence behind the

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Speaker 1: Iron Curtain. This is why he forges a close friendship

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Speaker 1: with Pope John Paul the Second. The Jewish refused Nicks

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Speaker 1: who are in the Gulag in the Soviet Union just

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Speaker 1: merely because they wanted to emigrate to Israel. Christian pastors

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00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:41,719
Speaker 1: and priests no one had a more fierce advocate than

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Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan because he believed in human dignity, He believed

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Speaker 1: in freedom, and he also believes that this is a

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Speaker 1: key vulnerability the Soviet Union. Any country or society Soviet Union,

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Speaker 1: then Communist China, Putin's Russia now that has to torment

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Speaker 1: and persecute its own people and won't allow them to

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Speaker 1: freely emigrate or freely speak. That shows a week and

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Speaker 1: a vulnerability there and Reagan really believed that, and I

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Speaker 1: think that's another principle we should recapture as well. I

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Speaker 1: think you have done a very important contribution to the

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Speaker 1: development of an emerging national security policy for the United States,

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Speaker 1: which has to be I think profoundly rethought in the

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Speaker 1: modern period. And I think Republicans have to offer a

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Speaker 1: coherent and clear vision of what our role in the

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Speaker 1: world is and how we can both be safe but

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Speaker 1: also help lead the planet to a future that's more

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Speaker 1: inclusive and more democratic and more open. And I want

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Speaker 1: to thank you for joining me. I think President Reagan

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Speaker 1: had a remarkable impact on how we look at our adversaries,

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Speaker 1: at our foreign policy. I think it's very cool that

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Speaker 1: you did this research and you put it all together

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Speaker 1: as somebody who actually lived through it. I think this

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00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 1: book is a major contribution, and I think for people

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Speaker 1: trying to understand what we have to do in the

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Speaker 1: current situation, studying Reagan as a remarkably good starting point.

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Speaker 1: We're going to have a link to your book, The

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Speaker 1: Peacemaker Ronald Reagan, The Cold War and the World on

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Speaker 1: the Brink on our showpage at Newtsworld dot com. And

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Speaker 1: I want to thank you for joining us and sharing

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Speaker 1: your ideas and your insights. Well, thank you so much,

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Speaker 1: mister speaker, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you to

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Speaker 1: my guest William and Bowden. You can link to his

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Speaker 1: new book The Peacemaker Ronald Reagan, The Cold War and

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Speaker 1: the World on the Brink on our showpage at newtsworld

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Speaker 1: dot com. NEWT World is produced by Gingwich Street sixty

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00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:30,200
Speaker 1: and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Garnsey Sloan, our producer

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00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: is Rebecca Howell, and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The

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Speaker 1: artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special

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Speaker 1: thanks to the team at Gingwich three sixty. If you've

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00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast

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00:24:44,320 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: and both rate us with five stars and give us

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00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:49,679
Speaker 1: a review so others can learn what it's all about.

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Speaker 1: Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my

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Speaker 1: three free weekly columns at Gingwich three sixty dot com

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Speaker 1: slash newsletter. I'm newt Gingri. This is news work