by Bret Baier
On another postpresidency visit to Gdańsk, at the site where Lech Wałęsa heroically started a union revolution that eventually brought down communism in Poland, thirty thousand people stood in the pouring rain to see Reagan. They waited while he met with Wałęsa, and when he walked outside, they burst into song. He tried to speak, but they kept singing. Puzzled, Reagan asked Wałęsa what they were singing. He replied, “May you live 100 years.”
“Ronald Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot,” Margaret Thatcher declared in 1991. People have argued about that ever since, particularly asking the question, Is it Reagan or Gorbachev who should get the credit? It is easy to imagine both men laughing at the question and recognizing it as a simplification, if not a fantasy. Theirs was a rare and surprising partnership. Just think what might have been had Chernenko lived another three or four years as the Soviet leader, dooming Gorbachev’s perestroika; or if Reagan had died in the assassination attempt; or if Mondale had defeated Reagan in 1984. Any one of those circumstances could have changed the course of Cold War history, in the wrong direction. It is more accurate to say that their partnership, bolstered by the cries for freedom from across Eastern Europe and around the world, won the Cold War. People can argue that the Soviet system was failing anyway, but thanks to the enduring faith of Reagan, and the determination of Gorbachev, it was a peaceful transition.
Yet only one of those men truly believed in freedom from the bottom of his heart. Reagan’s calculation that Gorbachev was a different kind of Soviet leader allowed him to make some bold moves, but always in the context of achieving a noble goal. He never compromised on democracy, always operated by the light of that guiding star. He succeeded with a combination of grit, temperament, flexibility, and shrewdness. He came into office railing against the Soviet Union, the Evil Empire. For his entire first term, he refused to meet with Soviet leaders. But then, with Gorbachev, his instincts finely tuned for an opening, he had the courage to change the conversation. As James Baker summed up his philosophy of governance: “Pragmatism without principles is cynicism. But principles without pragmatism are often powerless.”
It’s hard to overestimate the significance of the change. The conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union seemed embedded in decades of thought and rhetoric. It wasn’t easy to shake loose, to present another vision. Scowcroft reflected the common view when he said, “Generally speaking, the U.S.-Soviet confrontation—or the East/West confrontation, whatever—was a fixture of the scene as much as the fact that there was a France, Germany, United States, Soviet Union, and that it was to be managed and manipulated, not to be changed.”
Reagan believed that the Soviet system was doomed, but the question of how that would come about and what would be left in its wake filled his thoughts. War was out of the question. Peaceful coexistence was out of the question. He had the tenacity to sit through countless hours of conversation and bursts of brutal conflict with Gorbachev to work out a third option. His genuine interest, in turn, allowed a friendship to develop that speeded up the progress of perestroika. The abiding friendship between Reagan and Gorbachev is one of the big stories of the Cold War’s end. Reagan might have repeated “Trust but verify” too often for Gorbachev’s liking, but in the end the emphasis was on trust.
In that way, Reagan demonstrated that one can be strong without being confrontational. One can be a catalyst for change without being mired in the mud. “He learned that you can find ways, even when you’re adversaries, to work things out if you just get to the table and do it,” Peter Hannaford said. “I believe that always stayed with him. The way it played out means I think he should get a very large degree of the credit for it. His predecessors worked for it, and they all contributed to some degree. Most of the big events happened in George Bush’s term, but they were things that were all set in motion before him, as I think he would be the first to agree. So, I think that’s the most important thing Reagan did.”
Reagan gets little credit for being a grand strategist, but ultimately, the clever way he used SDI might have been the most significant weapon in his arsenal. “Star Wars” never came to pass; it was widely mocked at home and abroad and was barely mentioned after Reagan left office. But later, analysts in both Russia and the United States agreed that more than any other strategy, Reagan’s insistence on a strategic defense initiative put the Soviets on the run. Aware of their economic problems and their weakening hand in the world, they knew they could not compete. SDI was like a ghost, invoking terror, even though it was only an idea, a wisp of smoke.
Through it all, Reagan’s belief in a better tomorrow seduced the Soviet people, making them more responsive to Gorbachev’s reforms. His speech at Moscow State University was a decisive moment in that quest. It was an invitation that young people in particular were ready to accept. He might have used the speech to oratorically dismantle the socialist belief system and issue a call to action, as he did in the speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Instead, he captivated the audience with stories of their potential, just over the horizon. He employed their own cultural images and poetry to show them what they could now become.
“He painted in primary colors, but when he governed he also used pastels,” Duberstein said. “He wanted to bring people together, and he listened to allies as well as adversaries: ‘Focus on what you can accomplish, and push the ball down the field. You can’t just do Hail Mary passes, you need three yards and a cloud of dust’—I think that was Vince Lombardi. He was somebody who looked for solutions, not just for problems.”
Reagan was humble about his achievements. Dismissing the label “the Great Communicator,” he said, “I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: it was the content. I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things.”
ONLY THE LUCKY AMONG us see their childhood dreams come true. Reagan was one of them. But luck is not a free pass from suffering or indignity. Life is never fair, though we want it to be. And so Alzheimer’s disease, which had killed his beloved mother, came for Reagan, too, placing him in the shadows for a decade before his death in 2004.
One of his last public appearances was a large eighty-third birthday party in Washington, DC, in February 1994—what he quaintly called “the forty-fourth anniversary of my thirty-ninth birthday.” It also served as a fund-raiser for the Republican National Committee. The hall was packed—2,200 of his old friends and aides and supporters, spanning the decades, including former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, for whom he reserved his fondest words of affection.
He still looked like himself, straight-backed, dark-haired, and ruddy-cheeked, joking about his age: “As most of you know, I’m not one for looking back. I figure there will be plenty of time for that when I get old.”
His remarks that night were bait for the Republican audience: jokes about President Bill Clinton and the Democrats, recollections of his achievements. His voice cracked a little at the end as he expressed his deepest gratitude to those gathered: “Thank you for being there, and for being here. And thank you for making this evening a memory I will cherish forever. Until we meet again, God bless you, my friends.”
But for the most part, they would not meet again. Before the year was out, the terms of Reagan’s final time on earth had been set. At the Reagan Museum, a video plays, on a continuous loop, a reading of Reagan’s letter to the American people on November 5, announcing that he had Alzheimer’s. “I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life,” he wrote. “I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.” His letter to the American people and the world was a final act of courage and humility—the public reckoning of a truth teller refusing to be shamed by life’s cruel fate. Visitors entering that room stand stock-still, watching the video, surprised to find tears in their eyes after all this time. Teachers whisper to their classes about the meaning of Alzheimer’s as the children solemnly watch and listen. But then, shaking themselves loose of the sadness,
visitors enter the final room, where Reagan’s warm smile and sparkling voice, restored again on a giant screen, beckon them to believe. And when they walk out into the sun, they are smiling, just as he would have wanted.
“The last enemy that will be abolished is death,” the scriptures say. And those who treasure Reagan’s legacy can easily apply that belief to him. He had always been larger than life, and now he was larger than death, a man whose impact on the world would outlast him, no matter how unsettled the future became.
He died on November 5, 2004, and his two great political friends traveled to Washington for his state funeral. Margaret Thatcher revealed that when Reagan had been planning his funeral while still in office (something presidents are required to do), he had asked her to speak at his service. However, she was herself ill by that point, so she had taped her eulogy before Reagan’s death, and it would be played at the service, which she attended.
Mourning his friend, Gorbachev was emotional, saying that Reagan was a man who had been fated to be by his side in the most important endeavor of the last years of the twentieth century. Gorbachev’s sorrow was tempered by the knowledge of what they had done together. In a New York Times op-ed entitled “A President Who Listened,” Gorbachev wrote poignantly of the main lesson of their work together:
I think that the main lesson of those years is the need for dialogue, which must not be broken off whatever the challenges and complications we have to face. Meeting with Ronald Reagan in subsequent years I saw that this was how he understood our legacy to the new generation of political leaders.
The personal rapport that emerged between us over the years helped me to appreciate Ronald Reagan’s human qualities. A true leader, a man of his word and an optimist, he traveled the journey of his life with dignity and faced courageously the cruel disease that darkened his final years. He has earned a place in history and in people’s hearts.
Visitors to the Reagan Library can pause in contemplation at the outdoor granite memorial site where Reagan and Nancy are buried. The epitaph is pure Reagan:
I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.
Upward of 2 million people every year read those words and stroll the lush grounds, amid the blooming flowers, peering over the cliff at the valley below. On a clear day, they can see the ocean and the world beyond.
The Last Word
2018
February 20, 2018
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room (named for President Reagan’s first press secretary wounded in the assassination attempt on Reagan)
Reporters were ready to pounce when White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders walked confidently to the briefing room podium. After a short statement about the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which had stunned the nation six days earlier, Sanders opened it up for questions. It was the first time reporters would have a shot at asking them since Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team indicted a host of Russians a few days earlier for various illegal activities tied to the 2016 election.
MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson was prepped and ready when Sanders gave her the nod.
“Does the President now acknowledge what the Special Counsel indictments made clear, which is that Russians not only tried to meddle, but interfere and influence the 2016 election?” Jackson asked.
Without missing a beat, the White House Press Secretary answered and then pushed back on the underlying premise.
“Absolutely. And the president has acknowledged that multiple times before. He acknowledged it during the transition, he acknowledged it during a press conference in Poland, and he acknowledged it for a third time at a press event in Poland. He has stated several times,” she said, adding quickly, “it’s very clear that Russia meddled in the election. It’s also very clear that it didn’t have an impact on the election. And it’s also very clear that the Trump campaign didn’t collude with the Russians in any way for this process to take place.”
But it was the next rhetorical defense that Sanders had obviously spent some time preparing beforehand. She said, “What I can tell you is that the president has been extremely tough on Russia. He helped push through $700 billion to rebuild our military. I can assure you Russia is not excited about that. He has helped export energy to Eastern Europe. I can assure you, Russia is not excited about that. He has put and upheld sanctions that the Obama administration put in place. He has upheld those. He has closed three diplomatic properties that were Russia’s, here in the United States. He has taken a number of actions against Russia and put pressure on them. He has helped arm the Ukrainians.” In a strong defense, Sanders argued that President Trump had actually been more decisive than previous administrations.
As of this writing, Special Counsel Mueller has not concluded his investigation into alleged Russian collusion with the 2016 Trump campaign. The President has repeatedly called the collusion allegation a “hoax” and the nonstop focus and media coverage of the issue “fake news.” At this moment, we don’t know what we don’t know, but the Trump administration has been working hard to show how tough it has been on Russia even as all of this has been going on—with some success. Going forward, he faces the challenge of figuring out, as presidents before him have tried to do, how to maximize a relationship with a nation that remains a frequent foe and an untrustworthy partner.
The Cold War officially ended more than a quarter century ago, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many people thought that Russia and the former Soviet-aligned nations would not only become immediately democratized, but would also be seamlessly integrated into the larger family of nations under NATO. But bedrock Soviet principles were not just ideologically driven; they were culturally driven. And it wasn’t so easy to abandon history and culture for uncertain alliances. The ensuing decades saw a hardening of mutual distrust between the United States and Russia.
There was a common belief that once the Cold War was won, the prospect of an arms race would evaporate and the world would be safe for democracy. Reagan had always known better. His wisdom was reflected in his insistence on pressing for SDI. When Gorbachev scoffed, Reagan reminded him that they could not know what might happen with other bad actors in the world. Reagan looked at the future and knew true peace was not as simple as defeating just one foe.
In Reagan’s time, the nuclear threat was a faceoff between two powers. Today, nine nations have nuclear programs—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. Iran threatens, and it is naïve to think a nuclear Iran is impossible. For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, people have experienced a real fear of nuclear disaster, this time from North Korea. As the sirens blared and the messages shot out in Hawaii on January 13, 2018—“BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII, SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL”—families huddled in bathtubs and hotel ballrooms, saying goodbye to their loved ones, thinking they were all just moments away from nuclear incineration. Hawaii’s false alarm was just the latest moment to bring the North Korean nuclear threat home. It is a threat that is real and urgent.
Reagan’s SDI was essentially the grandfather to the modern-day Missile Defense System, which the US military is working hard to perfect in order to provide a shield against North Korean nuclear aggression. The system took a lot longer than Gorbachev thought the 1980s SDI would take to build and test, but missile defense is now a crucial part of the US defense of the homeland.
When Vladimir Putin was first in office as president of Russia between 2000 and 2008, many in the George W. Bush administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney, were suspicious of him, fearing that “once a KGB officer, always a KGB officer.” Even so, Bush attempted a “reset” in relations, famously saying, “I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” He imagined that he and Putin could reach a common framework. It never came to be.
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sp; In the Obama administration, people were still talking about a reset. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went so far as to deliver a plastic “RESET” button to the Russian Foreign Minister (with the wrong Russian word for “reset” printed on top). That didn’t work so well either. By the time Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, after four years out of office, relations had begun to deteriorate once more. President Obama was ineffective in reaching out to Putin, and was toothless in his criticism of Russian aggression in the Ukraine.
In Russia, Mikhail Gorbachev, now in his mid-eighties, has been an outspoken critic of the flaws in the Russian system, and of Putin himself. Asked by the BBC in late 2016 whether Putin ever asked his advice, he replied, “He knows everything already.”
Gorbachev is deeply concerned about the current threat of nuclear war. When Trump took office in 2017, Gorbachev publicly urged him and Putin to work together to halt what he called “the new arms race.” And Trump seemed intent on engineering another “reset” with Putin, especially a joint effort to fight terrorism. But Trump’s interest in working with Putin has been complicated by the ongoing Mueller investigation and the necessity of confronting Russian aggression. The question is: Will an emboldened Russia feel less inclined to pursue a destructive agenda after the latest US moves?
The answer is unclear. On March 1, 2018, Putin, running for reelection, gave a provocative state-of-the-nation speech, highlighting the development of new strategic nuclear weapons. Although the weapons are not yet operational, Putin was bullish in his challenge, stating, “I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last fifteen years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country’s development: all what you wanted to impede with your policies have already happened. . . . You have failed to contain Russia.”
