0:04

On this episode of News World. Every

0:07

President. Prior to Ronald Reagan, I viewed

0:09

the Cold War as a great power

0:11

conflict between the United States and the Soviet

0:13

Union. Reagan saw it differently.

0:16

To him, the conflict was a battle of ideas

0:18

along with the great power competition. As

0:21

tensions with Russia rise again over the

0:23

war with Ukraine, and as the US

0:25

faces competition with China ruled by

0:27

the Communist Party, there's a lot

0:29

we can learn from how Reagan successfully

0:32

handled the Soviet system and its

0:34

leadership. Here to talk about his

0:36

new book, The Peacemaker Ronald

0:39

Reagan, The Cold War and the World and the Brink.

0:42

I'm really pleased to welcome my guest,

0:44

William Mbowden. He is executive

0:46

director and William Power's Junior Chair at

0:49

the Clements Center for National Security

0:51

and Associate Professor of Public Policy

0:53

and History at the LBJ School

0:56

of Public Affairs, both at the University

0:58

of Texas at Austin. Prior to that,

1:00

he worked in senior positions with the State

1:02

Department and the National Security

1:05

Council in the George W. Bush administration.

1:16

Well welcome and thank you for joining

1:18

me on News World. Thank you, mister speaker.

1:20

It's a pleasure to be with you. Tell us a little

1:22

bit about your background that set the stage for

1:24

you to write this. Sure. So,

1:26

I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, in the nineteen

1:28

seventies and eighties. Really considered myself a

1:30

child of the Cold War. Tucson as a

1:33

major Air Force base at the time, was the

1:35

mountain surrounding Tucson were filled

1:37

with Titan missile silos, and so even

1:39

as a kid and then a high schooler, was very

1:41

aware of the Cold War, the Soviet

1:44

threat. You know, Tucson was very high

1:46

on the Kremlin's targeting list. And I

1:48

appreciated President Reagan from seeing

1:50

him on the evening news and things like that, but he was

1:53

a very very distant figure. So

1:55

then by the time I started my policy

1:57

career and then my academic career in the nineteen

1:59

nineties and early two thousands, we had seen

2:01

the peaceful end of the Cold War. We had

2:03

the new challenges the course of the War on terrorism.

2:06

A real theme from my career all along was

2:08

trying to draw on the lessons of history

2:10

for current national security challenges. That's

2:12

what I worked on in government, in strategic

2:14

planning on the national Security Council staff. That's

2:17

one of the themes of my teaching now at the University of Texas,

2:19

And so when I started this book, it seemed

2:21

like enough time had passed that we

2:23

could take a fresh look at the Reagan record.

2:26

You know, you, as a fellow historian, appreciate the importance

2:28

of archives, and so many archival documents

2:30

had been released, but there were still a number

2:32

of people who had worked for Reagan who are alive for interviews,

2:35

and I think a lot of the partisan passions of the

2:37

day had cooled somewhat, so we could do a more fresh,

2:39

balanced assessment. So that's how my

2:42

policy and academic background led into

2:44

doing this book. You went from Tucson

2:46

to Stanford and then on to get a PhD

2:48

from you. I'm just curious what was your dissertation.

2:51

My dissertation was on early American

2:53

Cold War policy, and particularly the religious

2:56

influences on Truman and Eisenhower.

2:58

So they developed what I call a theology

3:00

of containment because the Cold War, of course, was

3:03

not just between rival political or economic

3:05

systems, but the official atheism

3:08

of the Soviet Union of Communism

3:10

and then a belief in Judeo Christian

3:12

values in the West. So, in origin

3:15

Foreign Affairs article entitled the

3:17

Fight for the Future of Republican Foreign Policy,

3:20

you wrote that in the run up to twenty twenty

3:22

four, the GOP should look to Reagan.

3:25

What did you mean by that? I think

3:27

that President Reagan was our last

3:30

unambiguously successful two term

3:32

Republican president. I say that, of course as a

3:34

proud of lum of the George W. Bush administration.

3:36

I think we got many things right there, but also a

3:38

number of things wrong. And so, first, just

3:41

as a matter of political and policy success,

3:43

I think President Reagan has a tremendous

3:45

record that we can learn from. But also

3:47

when you look at our current geopolitical

3:50

challenges, especially with Russia

3:52

and particularly the threat from China, we

3:54

should look to the last time we had a president

3:56

who successfully waged at one

3:58

a great power petition against

4:01

a nuclear armed communist superpower

4:03

in Eurasia. It was a Soviet Union then in its

4:05

China now of course with its partner Russia.

4:07

So there's some I think pretty direct continuities

4:10

and parallels between Reagan's day and our own.

4:12

The assertion in your article that

4:15

the China challenge points to other factors

4:17

that offer hope for Republican internationalism,

4:20

and that the challenge of the Chinese

4:22

Communist Party virtually guarantees

4:24

that Republicans will remain committed

4:26

to the international activity, which

4:29

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

4:31

designated McCarthy has already

4:33

indicated very clearly that there will be

4:36

a select Committee on China looking

4:38

at the totality of the Chinese

4:41

challenge at every level. But

4:44

Reagan inherited what had grown

4:46

up over a very long period of time as

4:48

sort of an elaborate bureaucracy of dealing

4:50

with the Cold War on a global

4:52

basis, and yet he very

4:55

decisively changed its focus in its

4:57

direction, which I think was kind of

4:59

amazing he did. It was really remarkable.

5:01

He had inherited the detante framework,

5:03

of course, that Nixon and Ford and Henry

5:05

Kissinger had developed, and then frankly Jimmy

5:08

Carter had largely continued, and

5:10

then around that there was that entire bureaucracy,

5:12

and the bureaucracy was focused on managing

5:15

the Cold War and managing relations

5:17

with the Soviet Union, and Reagan wanted to

5:19

win it. That was I think the decisive strategic

5:21

difference there, and so that's why he

5:23

even his team, I think did a pretty effective

5:26

job of re orienting American strategy,

5:29

saying that they taunt had been designed

5:31

for temporary time to lower tensions

5:33

between the US and Soviet Union, but it instead it had

5:35

turned into this permanent framework

5:38

of losing as slowly as possible, and

5:40

that of course is still losing. And so for Reagan,

5:42

he envisioned a world beyond the Cold War. He envisioned

5:44

a world beyond Soviet communism, and

5:47

pretty effectively turned the Great

5:49

Ship of State, the mass of the bureaucracy in that

5:51

direction, not without of course, a lot of friction and resistance.

5:54

I was in Congress for those eight

5:57

years, so I had some activity,

5:59

in some involvement with the key players

6:02

when I was researching the book. Is fun to find a number

6:04

of letters from a junior Congressman Gangridge

6:06

to Ronald Reagan, again urging a strong

6:09

line against the Soviets, urging more support

6:11

for the Contras, urging support for Taiwan.

6:13

So Yes, having studied earlier letters

6:15

and in correspondents with them, I can attest to that the

6:18

research you did. You're at a point where

6:20

a lot of documents are being released, and yet also

6:23

at a point where many of the original players are

6:25

still alive. And I noticed that before

6:27

I passed away, that you had a chance to talk with George Schultz,

6:29

for example, who's a remarkable source

6:32

on Reagan. Yeah, he really was, and

6:34

it was sadly and this is obviously just the state

6:36

of the human condition. Seven of the people

6:38

I interviewed have since died, and this was

6:40

just in the last few years, so Schultz, Bud

6:43

McFarlane, Frank Carlucci, Colin

6:45

Powell, others. But it was very special

6:47

to be able to interview so many old Reagan hands

6:50

and hear their stories and their insights, especially

6:52

with the passage of time. When you looked at

6:54

all those things, Were there things in

6:56

the archives and in the interviews that changed

6:58

your opinion? Guess there were? And I

7:01

started the project with a pretty favorable

7:03

assessment of Reagan and his record, So

7:05

you know, I certainly want to make that bias clear.

7:07

Obviously all of us have a biases. But still

7:09

I was not deeply versed in it. And one

7:12

of the ways that my mind was changed

7:14

as I went into the project with

7:16

an impression of Reagan having set

7:18

a strategic vision but not been very

7:21

involved on the details of his Cold

7:23

War policies, and in some

7:25

areas lesser priority issues, he wasn't very

7:27

involved in the details, that's true, But what I saw

7:30

is that when it came to relations with the Soviets

7:32

and the Cold War, Reagan was deeply involved in the

7:34

details. I mean, he would write a lot of his own

7:36

talking points. He was very involved in the writing

7:38

of his speeches. Before every summit

7:41

meeting with Gorbachev, he would spend weeks

7:44

reading thousands of pages of reefing books,

7:46

writing detailed notes on them. He

7:48

liked to maintain a public image of being

7:50

a little more detached from things, and I think there was

7:53

strategic misdirection, cultivating the art of wanting

7:55

people to underestimate him. But

7:57

in fact, he knew the brief very well,

8:00

especially when it came to his strategy towards

8:02

the Soviet Union, because he cared so much

8:04

about it, and you know, as a chief executive, he

8:06

was setting priorities and that was one of his big priorities.

8:08

So that was one area where my mind was changed.

8:10

Were just appreciating how much more attentive

8:13

to detail Reagan was of the really

8:15

important issues. But I was always very struck the people

8:17

misunderstood that Reagan

8:19

had an ability to select what mattered,

8:22

and if it didn't matter, he delegated it,

8:25

and he was quite cheerful. He figured any outcome

8:28

was acceptable. You know my favorite example,

8:30

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

8:32

decided he wanted to say mister

8:35

Gorbuchof teared down that wall, and that

8:37

he thought it was a strategic comment that

8:39

would have profound effect. And

8:41

the State Department editor took it out,

8:44

and Reagan hand wrote it back in and sent

8:46

it over, and he took it out a second time and

8:49

Reagan, according to Schultz, Reagan called Schultzen

8:52

said, Georgie, you need to tell

8:54

him I am the president. He is

8:56

not. It stays in and as late

8:58

as the ride to the

9:02

speech site, his chief

9:04

of staff was trying to talk him out of

9:06

using the line. I mean, the entire

9:08

senior bureaucracy was opposed

9:10

to saying mister Gorbuschov tear down the wall.

9:13

But Reagan thought it would have a

9:15

dramatic psychological impact, and

9:17

of course he was right. Now one of the things which

9:19

surprised me and I thought I knew a fair amount about

9:21

this. You on earth the degree

9:24

to which Reagan learned from Dwight Eisenhower.

9:26

As you describe it, Eisenhower had a substantial

9:29

impact on Reagan. It's a really remarkable

9:31

story, and as you said, one that had not been told much

9:33

before, and it's certainly a surprise and find in my

9:35

own research. I do want to give credit to

9:37

two people who clue me into this. The first is

9:40

Tom Reid, who had helped manage

9:42

Reagan's first nineteen sixty six cubinitorial

9:44

campaign and later served on his NSC staff.

9:47

And the other is Gene Copelsen, an author in

9:49

the Northeast too, had also done a lot of work. So

9:51

very briefly. Eisenhower, of course leaves

9:53

office in nineteen sixty one, it is now ex

9:56

president and he retires to Palm Springs

9:58

there in southern California. In nineteen

10:00

sixty four, when Reagan gives his iconic

10:02

A Time for Choosing speech supporting the Goldwater

10:05

candidacy, Eisenhower watches on

10:07

TV and thinks, this guy is a remarkable

10:09

political talent, and he's in my

10:11

new state of California for Eisenhower. So Eisenhower

10:14

reaches out to Reagan says, hey, listen, come meet with

10:16

me. At my place here in Pump Springs. Let's talk.

10:18

And Eisenhower encourages Reagan

10:21

to run for governor of California, which of

10:23

course he does successfully in nineteen sixty six,

10:25

and then in a way becomes Reagan's

10:27

first foreign policy mentor, if

10:29

you will. And for Eisenhower,

10:32

some key themes that he imprinted in Reagan, which

10:34

Reagan really imbibed, were first

10:36

the importance of maintaining a

10:38

strong economy, a vibrant economy,

10:41

as a source of national strength, and especially

10:43

of course to fund the defense budget. And

10:45

then an appreciation for the relationship

10:47

between military force and diplomacy

10:50

and the strategic outcomes that you want. And

10:52

Eisenhower's course is very critical of lbj's

10:55

mismanagement of the Vietnam War and the gradual

10:57

escalation that was not enough to

11:00

but enough to way too many Americans killed.

11:02

It's over Reagan's first few years as governor,

11:05

he would meet regularly with Eisenhower. They'd

11:07

go golfing together, they'd have long three

11:09

or four hour lunches talking about foreign policy.

11:11

And so I can see a lot of Eisenhower's

11:13

worldview in Reagan. And of course, when Reagan then

11:15

does become presidents. He puts

11:18

a bust of Eisenhower in the Oval Office, he

11:20

puts a portrait of him in the Roosevelt Room.

11:22

And if you look at Reagan's speeches, and I read almost

11:24

all of them, Eisenhower is easily the

11:26

former president that Reagan cites the most

11:28

often, more than George Washington, more than VR,

11:31

more than others you might have thought of. And so there's

11:33

a very direct, immediate and substantial

11:36

influence between the two. Now

11:52

you draw a pretty sharp comparison

11:55

between he and Nixon, which I think is very

11:57

very interesting. Would you talk a little bit about

12:00

how you see the almost

12:02

competitive parallel in how

12:04

they viewed the world and how they tried to operate.

12:06

Yeah. Sure, And it's again, the Reagan Nixon

12:08

relationship is a fascinating one because

12:11

at times their fierce rivals with very

12:13

different worldviews, but then other

12:15

times, especially once Reagan becomes president,

12:17

they forged a certain mutual respect

12:19

and even friendship, but still never overcome

12:22

those differences. For Republicans,

12:24

you know, speak as one myself here, we need

12:26

to appreciate that Reagan and Nixon

12:28

together dominated Republican

12:31

presidential politics for about forty years

12:33

from nineteen fifty two on up through nineteen

12:35

eighty eight, at least one of them was

12:38

playing a major role, was either on the ballot or

12:40

playing a major role in shaping the ballot. And

12:42

you know, they have common background. They are

12:44

both children of underprivileged

12:47

families in the Midwest who then migrate

12:49

out to California for new opportunity. Both

12:52

have problematic relations with their dads

12:54

and then very pious in loving and nurturing

12:56

mothers, and of course find their careers

12:58

in their voice in California. But

13:00

when it comes to foreign policy, they have differences.

13:03

Nixon, of course a master at foreign policy,

13:05

but still had more of a status quo view of

13:07

the Cold War, saw relations with the

13:09

Soviet Union as something to be managed.

13:11

He certainly did not envision the possibility

13:14

of defeating the Soviet Union. He was indifferent

13:17

to values, questions, to things like human

13:19

rights. For Nixon, it's all about managing the power

13:21

relations. And of course, as we've talked, Reagan

13:23

had a much more transformative view of seeing

13:25

the Cold War as a battle of ideas and Soviet

13:28

Communism as an idea to be defeated. They

13:30

also had differences over Asia. You know, both were

13:32

very focused on Asia. But when Nixon looked

13:34

to Asia, he was very much pursuing a China

13:37

first policy. He saw China as the

13:39

key to US policy in Asia, whereas

13:41

Reagan looks to Asia and sees Japan

13:44

first, and sees our alliance with Japan as

13:46

a fellow democracy, as you know, one of the world's

13:48

leading economies, as the key to Asia.

13:50

So once Reagan becomes president,

13:53

having run against the Nixon

13:55

view of foreign policy for the previous decade,

13:58

and of course Nixon is in disgrace

14:00

in New York after having left office resigned

14:03

because of the Watergate scandal, Nixon starts

14:05

reaching out to Reagan, starts writing in regular letters,

14:07

given him political advice, policy advice, and

14:10

Reagan is a pretty magnanimous person.

14:12

He sets aside his previous differences

14:14

with Nickson, says, all right, I want to take advice from this

14:16

guy. I'll take advice from meeting one who can give it. I'll

14:18

make up my own mind and what I believe. And

14:20

so Nixon does play a role in help and encourage

14:22

Reagan towards eventually doing those summit meetings

14:25

with Gorbachev, as he does, but then

14:27

they have another big break over the I n f Treaty,

14:29

where Reagan has this vision for defeating

14:31

the Civiet Union and eliminating nuclear

14:33

weapons, and Nixon, being much more status

14:36

quo, does not want to give up nuclear weapons, and

14:38

so they have a final big drift over

14:40

that in Reagan's last couple of years in office. Anyway,

14:42

it's a fascinating relationship, if I remember correctly.

14:44

Even though they disagreed a great deal about foreign

14:46

policy, Reagan refused to break

14:49

with Nixon over a Watergate. He simply

14:51

wouldn't abandon Nixon. That sort of his

14:53

instinct about how you deal with allies. Yeah,

14:56

exactly. Reagan is very loyal, and of

14:58

course he was very loyal to his friends, also

15:00

very low to the Republican Party, and he really was

15:02

a party man, you know. That's why, of course we have Reagan's

15:04

famous eleventh commandment of shalt not

15:06

speak ill of a fellow Republican. The meeting

15:08

at Rekovik, where Gormachov

15:11

comes in and has been told basically that

15:13

our technological advantage is exactly

15:16

as NSC sixty eight had

15:18

projected back in nineteen fifty,

15:20

that are engineering and science and technological

15:23

adventages were now beginning to outstrip the Soviets

15:25

to such a degree that they literally

15:27

could not tell Gorbachev whether

15:30

or not they could cope with things because they knew they

15:32

didn't understand them. And so

15:35

Gormachev comes in and basically offer us to

15:37

give up virtually everything if Reagan

15:40

will give up the Strategic Defense Initiative

15:42

or Star Wars, and in the end, Reagan

15:44

just says no. And it's clear also by

15:46

then that Reagan is now dominant. What was

15:49

your take on that event. I think you're

15:51

absolutely right. I mean, all of Reagan

15:53

and Gorbachev's summit meetings are iconic

15:55

and important, but Rekivik is the truly

15:57

pivotal one. And that's where I think we can

15:59

really say the Cold War began to end,

16:01

the Soviet Union began to breathe

16:04

it's dying gas, because exactly

16:06

as you say, that is when Gorbachev realized

16:09

he could not win. The Soviet economy

16:11

was falling apart, they couldn't sustain their defense

16:13

spending. But this is where, again, as

16:15

you pointed out, very important part of Reagan's

16:17

strategy on the defense modernization

16:20

and build up, it was not just about outspending

16:23

the Soviets. It was about outsmarting them.

16:25

And Reagan, of course, is a Californian,

16:28

you know, Silicon Valley had been a part of his constituency

16:30

when he was a governor. He had innate

16:32

belief in American innovation, in

16:34

America's technological superiority, and

16:37

so he had presided over this next

16:39

generation of weapons platforms across

16:41

the full spectrum of American force projection,

16:44

quieter submarines, better radar evading

16:46

aircraft, the B one, the B two, better

16:49

tanks, better tank killing aircraft, so

16:51

much so that no matter how many more tanks

16:53

or planes or missiles the Soviets built, they

16:56

couldn't keep pace with American technology.

16:58

And so that's why it was much more than just economic

17:00

race. And Gorbachev realized that. And

17:03

the apex of this is, as you mentioned, the

17:05

Strategic Events Initiative, the Reagan's

17:07

really visionary hope for a ballistic

17:09

missile shield. You know. Critics said, oh,

17:11

this is technologically impossible and it will

17:13

never happen, but that didn't really matter, because

17:16

Gorbachev feared that it could happen. Gorbachev

17:18

so respected America's innovation capacity

17:21

that he thought SDI could happen. And he knew

17:23

then that the entire game game would be up. And

17:26

so even though critics at the time reviled the

17:28

Rekivic summit and said it was a failure. You

17:30

know, Sam Donaldson was of ABC

17:32

News was particularly vicious towards Reagan and saying

17:35

he'd been disgraced there. It may have

17:37

looked like a short term loss because they didn't

17:39

come to an agreement, but that is when Gorbachev

17:41

realized the game was up, and that's why he Gorbchev

17:43

came back to Reagan a few months later and said, Okay,

17:46

I agree, let's do the I n F treaty. We will give

17:48

up all of our SS twenty intermediate range

17:50

missiles which the Soviets were targeting all the

17:52

European capitals with at the time. Did

17:54

you have a similar sense that Reagan's skills

17:56

as a negotiator were dramatically underestimated.

18:00

Absolutely, And this is where you rightly point out an

18:02

important part of his background was decades

18:04

earlier, when he had been leading the Screen Actors

18:06

Guild and was a lead labor negotiator in Hollywood.

18:09

He had realized he has a real knack for negotiating.

18:11

He had a very intuitive understanding of other people.

18:14

He just wanted to get in the room with them. He had a great

18:16

belief, rightly so, in his own power to persuade.

18:19

From the day he was sworn in as president in Jaure

18:21

of nineteen eighty one, he'd been wanting to meet with a Soviet

18:24

leader, but as you pointed out, they kept

18:26

dying on him, three in a row in just three years. And

18:28

there's another really important part of Reagan's strategy

18:30

which relates to his relation with Gorbachev

18:33

from the get go, from when Reagan first became president,

18:36

part of his strategy of pressuring the Soviet Union

18:38

wasn't just to weaken it and collapse it.

18:40

It was to pressure the Soviet system

18:42

to produce a reformist leader that he could

18:44

negotiate with. So, you know, there's debates

18:46

amongst scholars but who deserves more credit for

18:48

the peaceful under the Cold War, Reagan or Gorbachev.

18:51

You know, they're both very important, But I think we

18:53

have to give the edge to Reagan because

18:55

for four years he was pressuring the Soviet

18:57

system to produce a reformist leader,

19:00

and eventually the pullet row does just that in selecting

19:02

Gorbachev in March of nineteen eighty five, and

19:05

that's why Reagan was so eager to meet with

19:07

Gorbachev. I titled that chapter in my book

19:09

Waiting for Gorbachev, because he had been waiting

19:11

for four years for a Soviet leader he could

19:14

negotiate with. And that's why Reagan recognized

19:16

earlier than most others that Gorbachev

19:19

was a genuine reformer. Finally, this

19:21

ties back to an important comment you made earlier about

19:23

Reagan insisting on putting it in mister

19:25

Gorbachev tear down this wall in the speech,

19:27

which again is another titanic moment

19:29

in the Cold War, but one of the reasons that

19:31

the State Department and NSC staff kept

19:33

opposing it, as they thought, you're going to push

19:36

Gorbachev too far. Gorbachev was already

19:38

weak and embattled. You know, we shouldn't put him on the spot

19:40

like this, We shouldn't humiliate him like this.

19:43

What they didn't appreciate is the person

19:45

in the American government who had spent more

19:47

time personally with Mikhail Gorbachev than anyone

19:50

else was Ronald Reagan. Ronald

19:52

Reagan knew Gorbachev better than anyone else

19:54

in the American government, and Reagan had a very

19:56

good sense of just how far he could push

19:58

Gorbachev and that he could, mister Garberschev

20:01

tear down this squall, and he could throw down that gauntlet

20:03

to him, and he was right. What

20:19

is it both that the Republicans in Congress

20:21

and then second that the Republican presidential

20:23

candidates should take from your research

20:26

and from your understanding. The first

20:28

is a real commitment to principles

20:31

and values. This is I think the key

20:33

to understanding and appreciating Reagan why

20:35

he was able to be such a transformative president.

20:38

As I've put it elsewhere, good leaders,

20:40

good presidents will manage a situation

20:42

they're given. Great leaders, great

20:44

presidents will transform

20:46

a situation and will envision a better future.

20:48

And he really did, and it's because he held

20:51

fast to a number of principles. He believed very much

20:53

in American leadership. And that's

20:55

not just a cliche. Remember he's a child of the nineteen

20:57

thirties and forties, so to formative

21:00

experiences for him in his younger years had been the

21:02

Great Depression and then World War Two,

21:04

of course caused by protectionism and isolationism,

21:06

which he was very opposed to. And so

21:08

he believed that the hard lessons of history

21:11

where America is a better place and

21:13

a more secure place if America is leading

21:15

the free world. Second, he really believed

21:17

in allies again. You know, this was key, of course

21:19

to our victory in World War Two, but especially key

21:21

to our victory in the Cold War. He knew that allies

21:24

could be a pain, he knew that they could engage in

21:26

free riding, but he also saw them as

21:28

a key source of American strength. And

21:30

in contrast with the Soviet Union, which didn't have any

21:32

real allies, it had its coerced vassal

21:35

states in the Warsaw Pact, whereas our

21:37

allies and NATO and in Asia had chosen

21:39

to be with us. And in distant example

21:41

of how Reagan was able to work with allies when

21:43

he became president. Of course, we had big trade tensions

21:45

with Japan, but we also had the problem of Japan

21:48

free riding on our security umbrella

21:50

and not doing enough to fund its own defense. And

21:52

Reagan didn't come out to public humiliate

21:55

Japan or threatened to withdrawal American troops.

21:57

Instead, he'd built a close friendship with prime ministers

22:00

Japanese leader, and he said,

22:03

listen, we are committed to you in the Alliance, and we

22:05

need you to do your part for us. And over

22:07

the next eight years, Japan tripled

22:09

its defense spending tripled it

22:11

phenomenal increase because not CASONI

22:13

believed in the United States and the Alliance. Another

22:16

part on the values is Reagan very much believed

22:18

in the value of freedom. And again this is not just

22:20

a cheap talking point. He was fervent

22:23

in supporting political and religious

22:25

dissidence behind the Iron Curtain. This is why he forges

22:27

a close friendship with Pope John Paul the Second.

22:30

The Jewish refused Nicks who are in the Gulag

22:32

in the Soviet Union just merely because they

22:34

wanted to emigrate to Israel. Christian

22:37

pastors and priests no

22:39

one had a more fierce advocate

22:41

than Ronald Reagan because he believed in human

22:43

dignity, He believed in freedom, and he also

22:45

believes that this is a key vulnerability the Soviet

22:48

Union. Any country or society Soviet

22:50

Union, then Communist China, Putin's Russia

22:52

now that has to torment and

22:55

persecute its own people and won't allow

22:57

them to freely emigrate or freely speak. That

22:59

shows a week and a vulnerability there and Reagan

23:01

really believed that, and I think that's another principle we

23:03

should recapture as well. I think you have

23:05

done a very important contribution

23:08

to the development of an emerging

23:11

national security policy for the United States,

23:13

which has to be I think profoundly

23:15

rethought in the modern period.

23:18

And I think Republicans have to offer

23:20

a coherent and clear vision of

23:22

what our role in the world is and how we can both

23:24

be safe but also help lead the

23:27

planet to a future that's more inclusive

23:29

and more democratic and more open. And

23:31

I want to thank you for joining me. I think President

23:34

Reagan had a remarkable impact

23:36

on how we look at our adversaries, at our foreign

23:38

policy. I think it's very cool that you

23:41

did this research and you put it all together as

23:43

somebody who actually lived through it. I think

23:45

this book is a major contribution, and I

23:47

think for people trying to understand what

23:49

we have to do in the current situation, studying

23:52

Reagan as a remarkably good

23:54

starting point. We're going to have a link to your

23:56

book, The Peacemaker Ronald Reagan,

23:58

The Cold War and the World on the Brink on

24:01

our showpage at Newtsworld dot com.

24:03

And I want to thank you for joining us and sharing

24:05

your ideas and your insights. Well, thank you

24:07

so much, mister speaker, it's been a real pleasure. Thank

24:13

you to my guest William and Bowden. You can

24:15

link to his new book The Peacemaker Ronald

24:17

Reagan, The Cold War and the World on the Brink

24:20

on our showpage at newtsworld dot com.

24:22

NEWT World is produced by Gingwich Street sixty

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researcher is Rachel Peterson. The

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artwork for the show was created by

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