by Bret Baier
The public criticism was swift and fierce, especially from Democrats.
Senator Ted Kennedy was said to have coined the term “Star Wars,” a mockery of the program that stuck. The characterization infuriated Reagan, for good reason. It was a trivialization of his proposal that made him look foolish and impulsive. The Star Wars comparison was also inaccurate. Reagan wasn’t talking about futuristic weapons systems zooming through outer space, obliterating enemy attackers. Nor was he describing an Obi-Wan Kenobi–style mystical shield, which scientists affirmed was in the realm of science fiction. But “Star Wars” caught on, and once the public imagination was captured, the media did little to dispel the notion. Reagan often complained about how much he hated the term Star Wars. He repeatedly demanded that the press call the program by its proper name, the Strategic Defense Initiative. But his pleas went unheeded. Star Wars it was and remains to this day. And if American politicians and press were calling the program Star Wars, Moscow was happy to join in.
For those who thought Reagan was a lightweight thinker whose ideas came more from movie scripts than from reality, SDI was so much pie in the sky. Reagan was angry that the program was misunderstood and misrepresented, and he resented the press’s refusal to tell the truth about it.
Once again, the practical realities of nuclear warfare were often ignored. The pro-freeze crowd had an unrealistic idea that everyone could just lay down their arms and go home. The pro–arms race crowd thought more was better—an idea that had long ago been shown as folly by no lesser men than Dwight D. Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev. Did it matter, Ike had wondered, whether a nation was able to destroy the world once over or a dozen times? Khrushchev had seemed to agree that the arms race was pointless, telling Eisenhower that in the event of a nuclear encounter, “We get your dust, you get our dust, the winds blow around the world and nobody’s safe.” But if anything, weapons expenditures were greater than ever, and the futile arms race was robbing weak economies—a factor that was especially urgent for the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
What was needed was ways of shaking loose the inertia. Everyone knew intellectually that a nuclear attack would be an incalculable disaster. But for most Americans the threat seemed abstract. To make the reality more visceral to Americans sitting at home in their living rooms, ABC aired a film on November 20, 1983, called The Day After, which was watched by 100 million people. It was about as real as it comes, focusing on the lives of the people of Lawrence, Kansas, after a nuclear attack obliterates their small college town. When Reagan viewed a copy of the movie before its airing, he wrote in his diary, “it left me greatly depressed. . . . My own reaction was one of our having to do all we can to have a deterrent & to see there is never a nuclear war.”
The Friday before the film aired, he once again expressed his heartache and frustration, writing “I feel the Soviets are so defense-minded, so paranoid about being attacked that without being in any way soft on them we ought to tell them no one here has any intention of doing anything like that. What the h—l have they got that anyone would want.” But he added, “We know it’s ‘anti-nuke’ propaganda but we’re going to take it over & say it shows why we must keep on doing what we’re doing.”
Chapter 6
Ron and Mikhail
A large grizzly bear lumbered through the woods as a sober announcer’s voice intoned, “There is a bear in the woods. For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don’t see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it’s vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who’s right, isn’t it smart to be as strong as the bear? If there is a bear.”
The 1984 campaign was in full swing, and the Soviet Union was in Reagan’s sights. “Through this whole period of time, the only thing that was really on Reagan’s mind was the Russian situation, the cold war, nuclear holocaust,” campaign advisor Stuart Spencer said. Reagan’s opponent, Walter Mondale, who had been vice president under Carter, represented, in Reagan’s view, the ineffectual leadership of the past. Reagan understood that if he lost to Mondale, it would be a repudiation of all he believed and lead to a dangerous weakening of the United States’ position in the world.
The year 1984 dawned with a standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States, captured in Time magazine’s “Men of the Year” cover on January 2, which showed a somber—even angry—illustration of Reagan and Andropov facing away from each other. “In the beginning were the words,” the cover story began, describing the growing antagonism between the men. “At the top, verbal missiles fired in magisterial wrath: Ronald Reagan denouncing the Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire’ that had committed ‘a crime against humanity’ when its fighters shot down a Korean jetliner; Yuri Andropov responding that the Reagan Administration had ‘finally dispelled’ all ‘illusions’ that it could be dealt with. At a baser level, crude vilification: American caricatures of Andropov as a ‘mutant from outer space.’ ”
In Washington, Reagan wasn’t buying into the dismay. Instead, he was laying the groundwork for the centerpiece of his campaign, doing what he could to inspire and reassure Americans who feared that he was bent on war. In a live address to the nation from the East Room on January 16, he offered an olive branch to the Soviets—the first of his presidency—stating, “I believe that 1984 finds the United States in the strongest position in years to establish a constructive and realistic working relationship with the Soviet Union. We’ve come a long way since the decade of the seventies, years when the United States seemed filled with self-doubt and neglected its defenses, while the Soviet Union increased its military might and sought to expand its influence by armed forces and threat.” But he cautioned that it wasn’t enough for the two sides to whittle away at their differences. And with the Soviet Union breaking off negotiations on intermediate-range missiles, even the small signs of progress were not in evidence. Yet in calling for new initiatives, he struck a conciliatory tone reminiscent of the one Eisenhower had employed early in his presidency, following the death of Stalin. “We can’t predict how the Soviet leaders will respond to our challenge,” Reagan said, his voice softening for effect. “But the people of our two countries share with all mankind the dream of eliminating the risk of nuclear war. It’s not an impossible dream, because eliminating these risks are so clearly a vital interest for all of us. Our two countries have never fought each other. There’s no reason why we ever should. Indeed, we fought common enemies in World War II. Today our common enemies are poverty, disease, and above all, war.”
Summoning an image of common humanity, he asked people to consider a scenario:
Just suppose with me for a moment that an Ivan and an Anya could find themselves, oh, say, in a waiting room, or sharing a shelter from the rain or a storm with a Jim and Sally, and there was no language barrier to keep them from getting acquainted. Would they then debate the differences between their respective governments? Or would they find themselves comparing notes about their children and what each other did for a living?
Before they parted company, they would probably have touched on ambitions and hobbies and what they wanted for their children and problems of making ends meet. And as they went their separate ways, maybe Anya would be saying to Ivan, “Wasn’t she nice? She also teaches music.” Or Jim would be telling Sally what Ivan did or didn’t like about his boss. They might even have decided they were all going to get together for dinner some evening soon. Above all, they would have proven that people don’t make wars.
Reagan’s storytelling was aimed not only at Americans but at the Soviet people. He wanted them to know that the United States meant them no harm, despite what their leaders might have been telling them. But within weeks, the scene would change again with the death of Andropov on February 10. Once more Reagan refused to attend the funeral, telling NSC advisor and Soviet expert Jack Matlock, “I don’t want to honor that prick.” He sent Bush and Shultz, and they delivered a personal letter to the new Soviet leader, Konstantin Chernenko, expressing
a hope that they could work together to establish a “stable and constructive” relationship. Chernenko was an aging Soviet functionary who was in such poor health that he struggled to read the eulogy at Andropov’s funeral. But he set the tone for his regime by announcing a Soviet boycott of the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles that year—a peevish gesture that undoubtedly caused more pain in the Soviet Union than in America and was likely payback for Jimmy Carter’s decision to do the same thing with the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
Even though Mondale tried to shake up the presidential race by choosing Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to join a major party ticket, as his running mate, his campaign was plagued by inertia and indifference as the initial exhilaration about having a woman on the ticket was dashed by a scandal involving Ferraro’s husband, John Zaccaro. Democrats, who might have preferred a new face, even the flawed Gary Hart or Jesse Jackson, the two other contenders for the nomination, never felt inspired by Mondale, an old-school Hubert Humphrey acolyte who reminded them too much of the malaise they were trying to escape. Meanwhile, Reagan benefited from improvements in the economy and a forceful foreign policy—not to mention the raw appeal of his persona. After the political conventions, the contest was never even close, although Mondale got a slight boost from a lackluster Reagan performance in their first debate.
By the second debate Reagan rebounded, and more. The climax came when the debate moderator, Hank Trewhitt of the Baltimore Sun, raised the issue of his age. “You already are the oldest president in history, and some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale,” Trewhitt said to Reagan. “I recall, yes, that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuba missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?”
“Not at all, Mr. Trewhitt,” Reagan replied with a confident smile. “And I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
Looking impressed by the way Reagan had turned the question around, Trewhitt joked, “Mr. President, I’d like to head for the fence and try to catch that one before it goes over.”
Later, reflecting back on the campaign, Mondale made this admission: “If TV can tell the truth . . . you’ll see that I was smiling. But I think if you come in close, you’ll see some tears coming down because I knew he had gotten me there. That was really the end of my campaign that night, I think.”
The question of Reagan’s age and stamina, frequently raised, was often deftly shut down by the man himself. Sure, he might have dozed off on occasion during long meetings, but he was hardly alone in that; younger heads had nodded at the endless drone of economic figures or national security details. More impactful were his presence of mind, his calm demeanor, and his near serenity, even in crises. Peter Robinson, a young speechwriter during Reagan’s second term, recalled such a moment, which others would say was typical. A last-minute flurry of rewrites had been made for a State of the Union address, and an hour before Reagan was set to speak, the final speech had not been delivered. Robinson imagined that if he were in Reagan’s shoes, “I’d have been having a panic attack—sweaty palms, dry mouth, heart palpitations. By the time I received the text, I’d have been in no condition to deliver it.” But, he said, Reagan was calm as he reviewed the text during the limo ride to the Hill, and he delivered the speech flawlessly. “The next morning he arrived at the Oval Office looking just the way he always did, which is to say as fresh and at ease as if he had just put in a couple of hours at a health club.”
To be sure, Reagan had his share of age-related health problems, but when the American people saw him, it was his erect posture and youthful optimism they noticed. “He was a Californian,” Weinberger quipped. “Our constitution requires us to be optimistic.” When Reagan’s critics argued that his appearance was just an actor’s pose, it didn’t seem credible. Some things you just can’t fake.
He had a sense of humor about it. Kathleen Osborne, his personal secretary, recalled that occasionally reporters would call saying they’d heard rumors that Reagan had suffered a heart attack. Her take was that some troublemaker had started the rumors in order to affect the stock market. She devised a strategy that would put any doubts to rest: “I’d lay my phone on the desk, prop open the door, if the president was in there alone, and I’d say, ‘Mr. President, have you had a heart attack today?’ And he’d say, ‘No.’ I’d say, ‘Okay, thank you.’ I’d go back to the phone, and of course they had him on speakerphone in the press office, so they heard the president’s voice, they knew.”
In the months leading up to the election, Nancy continued to press Reagan to soften his tone with the Soviets, and at her urging he agreed to schedule a meeting with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko when he was in the United States for the UN General Assembly in September. Encountering Nancy at a reception there, Gromyko said, “Whisper peace in your husband’s ear every night.” She responded tartly, “I will, and I’ll also whisper it in your ear.”
Soon after, in a three-and-a-half-hour conversation at the White House, Reagan repeatedly suggested ways of opening up a new dialogue between the nations, but Gromyko maintained a posture of distrust. His verdict on the meeting, in a statement released by the Soviet news agency TASS, was damning: “There were no visible signs of the United States being ready to take realistic positions on the substance of acute problems of war and peace.” His rigid stance frustrated Reagan and seemed to justify his rhetoric about the Soviets. He didn’t expect to accomplish much with the current regime.
If “Bear in the Woods” was Reagan’s dramatic reminder of the Soviet threat, the end-of-campaign ad “Morning in America” was his appeal to the better angels of the nation. That was the Reagan people responded to most viscerally: the positive visionary who reached out with a message of strength, prosperity, and even happiness. It worked. On Election Day, Reagan scored an overwhelming victory over Mondale, winning forty-nine states and 525 electoral votes. Standing before a large crowd of supporters on election night, Reagan promised them, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
In the months before the inauguration, Reagan’s focus was on the Soviets. On December 22, he welcomed Margaret Thatcher for lunch at Camp David. He was eager to hear about Thatcher’s meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet second in command, who was considered the heir apparent to Chernenko, a significant position given Chernenko’s poor health. He met Thatcher’s helicopter in his Camp David golf cart, dubbed “Golf Cart One”—the preferred means of transport on the ground—and drove her along the winding paths to Aspen, the president’s cabin. Over lunch, Thatcher related that Gorbachev was surprisingly charming but added that she’d always found that the more charming the adversary, the more dangerous. (The truth of that notion was not lost on Reagan, who had crushed his own political opposition with a charm offensive directed at the American people.) But she cautiously liked Gorbachev, whose personality lacked the “wooden ventriloquism of the average Soviet apparatchik.”
Thatcher told Reagan she had assured Gorbachev that Reagan was an honorable man. She reminded him that Reagan had sent a personal handwritten letter to Brezhnev shortly after taking office, while he was recovering from the assassination attempt, and she had been surprised that Gorbachev knew nothing of the letter. The president, she told him reproachfully, had poured his heart and soul into that message and received only the barest acknowledgment from Brezhnev. In other words, Reagan had tried to reach out but had been rebuffed. As for the Soviet fears that the warmonger president would consider a first strike, she reminded Gorbachev that the United States, a nation of great power, had used that power sparingly and was more interested in achieving political goals.
Once again, Reagan felt heartened by Thatcher’s collaboration and willingness to speak firmly to the Soviets about the West’s shared aims. After lunch, as the two leaders took a walk
along the bucolic pathways of Camp David, they spoke, as old friends do, about the issues that united and sometimes divided them. Thatcher had her own reservations about SDI, which she vigorously debated with the president. She believed that the strongest deterrent to the use of nuclear weapons was the very standoff—mutually assured destruction—that Reagan despised. But in the main, she emphasized the warmth and endurance of their friendship.
Reagan’s second inaugural was barely an event, as if nature itself were impatient to keep powering forward. For one thing, January 20, 1985, fell on a Sunday, so there was a private ceremony in the Grand Foyer of the White House, with the oath being given by Chief Justice Warren Burger, to fulfill the constitutional mandate. The public inaugural was scheduled for Monday, but nature intervened.
Reagan rose on Monday morning prepared for a traditional inaugural and parade, only to be told by his medical advisors that with temperatures hovering near 4 degrees Fahrenheit and a wind chill factor of 30 degrees below zero, it would be dangerous for anyone to be outside for more than a few minutes, especially a seventy-three-year-old president. (Perhaps they were recalling the fate of William Henry Harrison, who had caught a cold at his bitterly frigid 1841 inauguration and died of pneumonia a month later.)
The anticipated crowd of 350,000 was left to find TV sets or sit in their hotel rooms, where they could watch the oath-taking—a second time—in the Capitol Rotunda, the large circular hall beneath the Capitol dome. There, below Apotheosis of Washington, a fresco depicting George Washington sitting among heavenly beings, Reagan took the oath on his mother’s Bible.
