Reagan & the Cold War with Stephen Knott | BRI Scholar Talks: Cold War & the Presidency Series #5

0:00 i do give reagan a substantial amount of credit for contributing to the end of the cold war to the collapse of the soviet union and i’m not alone in feeling that way a lot of soviet dissidents will say the same thing that reagan gave them encouragement and somebody like lex valensa the first democratically elected president of poland

0:20 said the same thing as well margaret thatcher once said that ronald reagan won the cold war without firing a shot uh i think there’s quite a bit to support that state [Music] this is tony williams a senior fellow at bri and we are pleased to bring you the fifth and final episode of the cold war

0:40 and the presidency series with steve knott on reagan on in the cold war in this series our main question will really be on on how individual presidents have shaped executive powers during the cold war and by way of introduction stephen f knott is a professor of national security affairs at the naval war college he co-chaired

1:01 the presidential oral history program and directed the reagan oral history project at the uva miller center and he’s written extensively on the presidency including washington and hamilton the alliance that forged america we actually wrote that one together steve uh the reagan years uh also at reagan’s

1:22 side and his most recent book the lost soul of the american presidency which was actually a subject of a very popular uh two-part scholar talk that we did back in january and his website is www.stephenf9

1:42 steve thanks again for joining us really well thanks for having me tony it’s always a pleasure to reconnect with you my favorite co-author of all time you and i were like the lenin and mccartney of the uh publishing world that’s right have you co-authored the books with anyone else no no no one other but i’m the favorite

2:04 okay you’re number one well very good well i i couldn’t uh think of a better scholar to talk about ronald reagan with you’ve done a tremendous amount of work with him uh a lot of scholarships so uh let’s dive right in here um so for several decades reagan really had an understanding of soviet communism

2:26 as an immoral system as as a system that was destined for us he put it the ash heap of history while president he called it an evil empire you know can you understand can you explain rather uh you know why reagan had this view and this this understanding this moral vision

2:47 of communism and and how it shapes his approach to the cold war yeah terrific question tony i think uh some of the foundation for reagan’s uh understanding of communism can be found in his deep religious faith i know there was a tendency while he was president since he wasn’t

3:07 a regular churchgoer since he was our first divorced president since he wasn’t necessarily known perhaps as a uh you know a devoted family man when it came to relationships with his own children there was a kind of skepticism at the time about reagan’s spirituality about his religious beliefs

3:28 but in fact this was a deeply spiritual or deeply religious man who had inherited strong religious beliefs from his mother nell wilson reagan who was a very active member of a protestant church in iowa called the disciples of christ and um i’m convinced that ronald reagan

3:52 sort of absorbed a lot of that strong religious faith from his mother and the fact that the soviet union was upfront about its atheistic nature was one of the major reasons why reagan i think was hostile to soviet communism and i would just add one other point as well

4:12 reagan was a firm believer in american exceptionalism uh the notion that the united states was a providentially uh destined nation or at least the inhabitants of this nation were destined to inhabit it and um you know that american exceptionalism

4:32 that fierce patriotism that reagan possessed coupled with strong religious beliefs again led him to a rejection of marxism leninism in particular on atheistic grounds but also just the tendency to to suppress individual liberty right great and and so and he really

4:52 thought dayton in in the 1970s was sort of a even a naive and self-defeating idea that that allowed the soviet union to engage in this massive arms build up in in in the 70s uh and and also you know sort of on this expansionary kind of adventurism around

5:13 the world really around the whole globe i’m thinking here latin america and asia africa you know certainly in afghanistan uh their invasion there um you know what was reagan’s alternative uh when he became president to what he saw as a failed policy of dayton yeah so reagan’s alternative policy was

5:35 as he put it to one of his national security advisers we win we win the cold war and that was fairly radical thinking as you mentioned tony in the 1970s both republican and democratic administrations under nixon ford and carter had pursued this policy of dayton which was a policy of

5:56 engagement on the trade front on cultural exchanges space exploration but also the pursuit of various arms control agreements reagan believed that nixon and secretary of state henry kissinger along with presidents ford and carter had perhaps given away too much to the soviet union and that the soviets

6:17 had used this era of daetant to mention as you mentioned to expand abroad throughout the third world what we’d call then the third world and so again he took a more assertive stance and came to believe that the united states could defeat the soviet union not in a in any sort of

6:38 war uh the the notion that reagan was a warmonger i think was very much off the mark but he did believe that our economy the western capitalist system could leave the communist system on the ash heap of history as he said in his speech to the british parliament 1982 so he was determined to win the cold war

7:01 to boil it down i would say he was determined to spend the soviet union into the ground uh he was firmly convinced that if we got into something of an arms race with the soviets in the 1980s we would win and they would lose now again these policies were very controversial but i would argue there’s at least some

7:22 evidence to support the contention that those policies contributed to the collapse of the soviet union and and that’s a great segment segway for my next question uh relating to even his broader uh critique of containment itself which goes all the way back to to the truman administration and and the

7:42 beginning of the cold war uh that you know he seems like he he’s not settling for just the status quo that he really sought policies that purposefully if you want to call it roll back uh soviet communism or or as you put it quoting him uh you know we

8:03 win uh and so what policies did he pursue that to really apply that that severe pressure uh to the soviet union well the key policy at least in reagan’s mind was uh the largest defense buildup in the history of the united states i’ve even read it was the largest defense buildup in the history of the world um

8:24 you know i don’t know how they measure such things but i’ve read that somewhere but it was enormous uh basically anything the military wanted the navy wanted to bring out some battleships that had been mothballed since the second world war that was done they were equipped with cruise missiles reagan um gave the air force the b-1 bomber

8:45 that president carter had uh rejected um the army was given all sorts of new tanks and and new weaponry it was just an incredible build-up of american military force in addition to uh some nuclear weapons as well the mx missile based in the united states and various ground launch cruise

9:06 missiles based in western europe both of those two last decisions that i mentioned were extremely controversial and led to the formation of a nuclear freeze movement this is perhaps a good time as entities to say reagan’s hatred of communism interestingly enough was equaled by his hatred of nuclear

9:27 weapons and he believed by bringing the soviets to the negotiating table by showing them that they were not going to be able to outspend us on defense equipment he could make incredible progress towards limiting nuclear weapons and fulfilling his ultimate dream which was the elimination of all nuclear weapons

9:47 right and and again another great segue into my next question many people don’t know that about reagan now that he really hated nuclear weapons uh was sort of horrified at the prospect of a nuclear war as the most reasonable people were uh and uh you know really saw it as sort of a

10:08 not just an existential threat to mankind humankind but but really a practical threat as well um and and so uh you know how does reagan specifically work to achieve this goal you know i’m thinking of some some summits and some work especially later on with gorbachev uh and and how is that related very interestingly to

10:28 uh the strategic defense initiative sdi or what its detractors called star wars yeah great question tony and i should have been cl i should have included sdi or star wars in my litany of of uh defense projects that president reagan supported and secured funding for from congress that one in particular was

10:49 critical the soviets were very afraid of the technological prowess of the west and of the united states and i think came perhaps to believe that we we would be able to create some sort of missile missile shield or missile defense system that would render their

11:09 ability to strike the united states with these nuclear missiles would render that moot so that scared them it bothered them again their economy was strapped and to have to invest in all sorts of high-tech equipment to sort of get around this potential missile defense was an issue of concern for them

11:30 uh i should also mention tony that reagan’s um evil empire speech which i think you alluded to earlier includes this proposal for sdi and makes a defense of his other military expenditures it’s also a speech where he warns it was

11:50 to a group called the national association of evangelicals he warns members of the religious community not to view the united states and the soviet union through the same lens he really does make a distinction between the american system and the soviet system but interestingly enough in this speech to a group of relatively

12:12 conservative evangelicals where reagan condemns the soviet union as an evil empire he also makes the point of noting that the united states had its own history of evil and it’s a reference to the american system of slavery and its after effects in terms of impacting equal justice for all it’s

12:34 interesting to note that that aspect of the evil empire speech to this day never gets the attention i believe it deserves he was saying that both systems had a legacy of evil ours we were attempting to overcome the soviet union he believed wasn’t even making the attempt right very very interesting yeah uh

12:55 so uh final question you know reagan thinking about reagan and the presidency here uh you know it seems to me that he had a very strong moral vision as as we’ve talked about uh and and some in you know incredible uh rhetorical skills um that seemed a really important approach to his uh an important part of his approach to

13:17 the cold war and that he also seemed to restore let’s say some strength and and dignity to the office after some of the reverses of vietnam certainly watergate um and and other problems around the 70s as an expert on the reagan presidency um what impact do you think reagan’s

13:38 approach to the cold war had on the executive office on on the presidency yeah it’s a great question again and reagan comes into office in january 1981 uh was it i think five of his immediate predecessors had left office under duress kennedy had been

13:58 assassinated johnson chose not to run nixon forced to resign ford defeated carter defeated there was lots of talk in 1980 that the american presidency no longer worked and that perhaps america itself was in decline not only the presidency but the entire american system i think by the time

14:21 reagan leaves office most of that talk is in the rearview mirror so to speak reagan i think breeds some renewed life into the american presidency partly due to i think in a very important understanding on reagan’s part that the president serves as a head of state and reagan loved that role of delivering

14:43 those moving speeches that you alluded to earlier in which he appealed i would say to the better angels of our nature so he breathes life into the american presidency that was that needed it i think and also in terms of our standing around the globe and vis-a-vis the cold war by the time

15:03 reagan leaves office the soviet union is starting to crumble and i think it’s just a matter of uh a year or two after reagan’s departure from office that the collapse is complete uh that’s a pretty impressive record now i have some criticisms of reagan on certain domestic issues but

15:24 that’s not the focus of our talk today i do give reagan a substantial amount of credit for contributing to the end of the cold war to the collapse of the soviet union and i’m not alone in feeling that way a lot of soviet dissidents will say the same thing that reagan gave them encouragement and somebody like lec valencia the first

15:45 democratically elected president poland said the same thing as well margaret thatcher once said that ronald reagan won the cold war without firing a shot uh i think there’s quite a bit to support that statement great steve uh thank you for a very very interesting conversation uh the lost soul of the american

16:05 presidency is your latest book uh and we we thank you for sharing your expertise today thank you tony enjoyed every minute of it and thank you for joining us for our mini curriculum video series on the cold war and the presidency check out our other episodes on fdr truman kennedy and nixon and kissinger

16:26 with interviews with lead several leading historians on this very important topic thank you you