The reagan manifesto “a time for choosing” and its influence

Two years after he delivered the “A Time for Choosing” speech in 1964, Ronald Reagan took offi ce as Governor of California... But it is the younger voices that I found to be most compel

THE

REAGAN

MANIFESTO

“A TIME FOR CHOOSING” AND ITS INFLUENCE

Edited by Eric D Patterson and Jeffry H Morrison

Editors

The Reagan Manifesto

“A Time for Choosing” and its Infl uence

ISBN 978-3-319-39986-7 ISBN 978-3-319-39987-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39987-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953751

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

This work is subject to copyright All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information

in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

pub-Cover illustration: © Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland

Virginia Beach , Virginia , USA

REAGAN’S MESSAGE AND YOUNG AMERICANS”

There are many experts on Ronald Reagan I am one voice whose life has been impacted—personally and professionally—by life, leadership, and legacy of the 40th President of the United States I believe his legacy will continue to invigorate the next generations because of the man he was, how he lived, how he led, and how he communicated “A Time for Choosing” is a perfect example

Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980 at the age of 69 I was in college as he campaigned, was elected, inaugurated, and began his presidency During the primaries and general election of

1980, it was his message and the way he communicated that message that captured my interest in him and his candidacy And it was at that time that

I fi rst learned of his 1964 “A Time for Choosing” speech

Fast forward four years to the re-election campaign of 1984 I was a young member of that campaign staff in Washington, DC, working with a large number of my twenty something peers to re-elect what would be the oldest serving president in our Nation’s history The morning after that historic election, my boss at the campaign huddled with our young staff team and told us to stop and savor the moment Never again would we have the privilege of working for a man like Ronald Reagan and experience such a landslide victory in a presidential election She was prophetic Two years after he delivered the “A Time for Choosing” speech in 1964, Ronald Reagan took offi ce as Governor of California He was 55 years old

At an age when most Americans seem to be interested in reinforcing plans toward retirement, Ronald Reagan was just getting started in what would become the pinnacle two decades of his career And in 1966, when he took offi ce as governor, many who would vote to re-elect him as president

in 1984 were in diapers

The springboard of the “A Time for Choosing” speech led to a

twenty-fi ve- year career in public service that signitwenty-fi cantly impacted America in the twentieth century and, I believe, inspired a next generation of leaders who will lead our nation and the world well into the twenty-fi rst century

In recent, and even current campaigns, Ronald Reagan’s name seems to be invoked as much as the candidates who are currently running He emerged

on the national political stage in 1964 through the speech we focus on today, and he remains a signifi cant infl uence in political and ideological debate Throughout 2011, I was privileged and honored to lead the team orchestrating the Centennial Celebration of Ronald Reagan for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Given Ronald Reagan’s impact on me as

I began my career, it was important to me during the Centennial ning to engage the next generation of young Americans in the Centennial programs and events

This yearlong Centennial celebration across the country and around the world was not just a trip down memory lane, or a time for sentimental older Americans to pour a scotch or coffee and reminisce about the good old days of Ronald Reagan It was a time to celebrate, to be sure, but more importantly to involve young people, who did not know him as a living candidate or president, in a way that they could understand and be inspired by this man—this president—as I had been a generation before when I was their age

In 6,896 high schools and on 193 college campuses and through course materials and programs, and with a national youth leadership committee,

we were very successful to involve tens of thousands of 18–25 year olds

in the Reagan Centennial An example of this is the invitation extended

to the governor of every state to nominate two high school students from their state for a weeklong partnership with the Close Up Foundation for

a program in Washington, DC, on “Civil Discourse,” a concept that none

of the attendees were familiar with when they arrived Using examples

of the presidential leadership of Ronald Reagan, we opened their eyes to

a new concept (to them) in working with others, that one can disagree with someone without them being an enemy Throughout 2011, I was continually inspired by the words of these young people on what Ronald

Reagan means to them And it is those words of current young Americans that I refl ect on as we discuss this historic speech

In preparation for these remarks today, I went back to many of those young people from the Centennial and also engaged others through col-leagues and other organizations I interviewed dozens of young people from California to Massachusetts and Alabama to Idaho, asking them

to watch the “A Time for Choosing” speech with fresh, young eyes and give me their thoughts and feedback These young people were not all Republicans or even conservatives In fact, knowing in advance their polit-ical affi liation was not a consideration in asking them to watch, listen, and respond to the interview questions I posed

I also surveyed a group of my peers, from all over the country and with differing political experiences and affi liations Many, like me, were politically active in the Reagan presidential years But it is the younger voices that I found to be most compelling because it is in their words that I hear the echoes of my own thoughts and feelings over 30 years ago, and what I believe young people heard in October 1964 when Ronald Reagan fi rst delivered the challenge “You and I have a rendez-vous with destiny.”

It would take me the rest of the afternoon to share in full all of their responses so what I will do today is to share nine observations that were most representative of what they all had to say I was actually surprised that most shared similar thoughts and feelings and only a few were impacted negatively I will share some of that fl avor as well

While this was in no means a scientifi c study, it did give me insights into how this speech, given 50 years ago this year, still resonates And that the man who gave this speech—Ronald Reagan—still has an impact From a West Point cadet:

I wish that the leaders of today had the same direct dialogue, wit and uncompromising optimism that Reagan displays here and throughout his presidency many in my generation do not want to hear a call to action

To me, there could be no better time for one America needs someone

to call them together and get them moving in the right direction It was amazing to hear Reagan call America earth’s last best hope People simply don’t talk this way anymore I think college has made me extra sensitive towards considering all points of view and acknowledging other cultures are important But the reality is, nowhere in the world is quite like America President Reagan seemed to have that idea instilled in his soul so pro- foundly that he could not help but talk about it It really is invigorating

and exciting to listen to Reagan is inspirational, declarative, intelligent and forward-thinking… not once does he sound defensive or guarded Few people are willing to call America out for what it is, while still encouraging the nation to respond, and do better I think (if he were running today) Reagan would challenge and direct more than simply agree He might not

be liked today, but he almost certainly would be listened to He had the integrity and personal courage to call things as they were—something today’s elected offi cials largely lack

From a self-defi ned liberal recent Georgetown University graduate:

The wit and insight are timeless Update the numbers and it works less of when delivered… his ideas only go so far with me, there is not enough stress on pragmatism and the merits of opposing viewpoints… He was a thinker…

From another recent Georgetown University graduate now in law school

at the Ohio State University:

People my age want ideas People my age want to help people People my age don’t want the government telling them what to do Ronald Reagan’s ideas were not about “beating” the other side, but about doing what he felt best for the American people… to me, the words of 1964 ring truer today than they did then Reagan seems to have an encouraging tone and dispo- sition While he is talking about extremely important things and issues, and doing so with sophisticated ideas, he never once in this speech talks down

to people… He comes off as encouraging people to see the issues before the country and that there are actually remedies to those situations Unlike Reagan, today’s politicians do not seem to believe in the people they ask to vote for them

And comments by a recent Yale University graduate now living in Europe:

I was shocked at how apropos Reagan’s words are for the problems that are facing our country today I love the sincerity with which Reagan spoke… I think my generation is yearning for this kind of strong leadership and for frankness Politicians these days are more concerned about staying in offi ce and dodging the uncomfortable topics than they are about talking sincerely about issues…

From a University of North Carolina undergraduate and recent University

of Alabama Law graduate:

The tone shifted through the speech from instructional to inspirational Reagan jumps right into content and the speech is front loaded with facts and anecdotes, specifi c examples of liberal ideology falling short of its stated goals

The observation of a twenty-four-year-old Hillsdale College graduate:

Speaking about how the speech would be received today, he said “Sadly, many my age would not make it through due to our short attention spans.” His illustrative language that builds on itself likely would not work well in the minimalistic Twitter world of social media Regarding the rendezvous with destiny phrase, he said “It appeals to our humanity and is a call to action It is akin to JFK’s statement about serving in government, but is richer, it magnifi es our mission and also relates to the individual Appeals to the heart and soul—the American Dream We are special We are called We must act… Sometimes we are too focused on winning that we forget what is

at stake in the fi ght and why we are running in the fi rst place That is one of the reasons why Reagan is so refreshing He never forgot this.”

From a high school student in Pasadena:

He makes you trust and believe in him You don’t feel like he is trying to lie to sell you a point of view… He is so convincing in everything he says You want to believe him and that what he wants is best for you and the nation The light of America is fading, but there is still a chance to save it

if the right leaders step up and lead us I am cautiously optimistic that our generation will once again experience the former greatness of America as Ronald Reagan spoke of it

A recent University of North Carolina graduate and young professional:

I’m not sure modern attention spans could take so many facts and fi gures in

a speech, but I think this speech would still fi nd an audience Partly because Reagan is such a strong speaker and partly because he’d be talking about simplifying government to a generation that has seen two administrations

it would know best (George W Bush and Barack Obama) be secretive and

anything but simple I think technology plays a big role as well My tion expects simple and that’s a big part of what he’s talking about so I think

genera-it would resonate, even to people who don’t agree wgenera-ith him polgenera-itically What really resonated was he was a politician that had good comedic timing and knew how to use it He seemed actually funny as opposed to just funny for a politician What I really liked about this speech is that it was tough and it was

a transparent toughness free from bravado Transparency and tough talk are things I think my generation values I never once during watching this speech, which was for the fi rst time, wondered when it would end It was captivating

And fi nally from a University of Virginia fi rst year student:

I fi nd Reagan’s speech inspiring and effective; however, I believe that the American political culture of the past ten years has hardened me to this type

of inspirational rhetoric Regardless of the party it is hard for me to hear a speech without questioning the veracity or motivation behind the words

I believe this is in large part due to the media’s constant public castigation

of politicians on both sides Because I have Ronald Reagan’s track record

to keep in mind while listening to this speech, I can see how his presidency refl ected many of the points in this speech However, I wonder what my reaction would be if I heard it from a politician today the political climate

in America has reached a point of cynical skepticism where my generation has a hard time believing anything a politician says, no matter how inspira- tional it sounds Reagan’s words speak to something more substantial than tweeting #Murica and having USA themed parties His speech calls for both parties to recognize that America can be “the last best hope of man on earth” But the political culture in America, especially among young adults and teenagers, must shift dramatically

These anecdotal samplings are just a few from the dozens of young Americans I asked to participate And as they were intrigued and inspired

by Ronald Reagan, I was inspired by each of them and how they dusted off this 50-year-old speech and connected it to their own thinking about themselves, our country and our leaders, and the challenges that must be addressed in their lifetime

Ronald Reagan had a renaissance quality to his life At his core he was

a revolutionary From his days as a student challenging the status quo at Eureka College, to calling on Gorbachev to tear down the wall From taking on the moguls as head of the Screen Actors Guild to challenging the elites in his party and in Washington Ronald Reagan was an agent of change and always advocating and believing in a better future

I believe it was this quality in Ronald Reagan that he demonstrated

in “A Time for Choosing” that appealed to young people throughout his political life Young people tend to be anti-establishment, testers of authority, and challengers of conventional wisdom And that is exactly what Ronald Reagan did in that nationally televised speech in 1964 Throughout his political career, Ronald Reagan gave many of his most important political and policy speeches on college campuses: Notre Dame; Eureka; Moscow University; Georgetown; George Washington, USC; Pepperdine; UNC; Alabama; and many more And he was always talk-

ing to those young audiences about their future He also waged some

very tough political battles as Governor of California on college campus and about university communities I believe Ronald Reagan saw the great American universities as the incubators of ideas and leaders for the future, and that is why he so often took his message directly to students So in honoring his lifelong engagement of university communities, during the Reagan Centennial in 2011, we engaged successful partnerships with great universities including USC, Notre Dame, Georgetown, the US Naval Academy, Pepperdine, and the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, all successfully engaging students in the life, leadership, and legacy of Ronald Reagan

Beyond the specifi c context of the 1964 speech, we know Ronald Reagan appealed to young people and that only got stronger as he grew older In 1980, both Reagan and Carter received 43% of the under 30 vote Over the next four years, Ronald Reagan—the oldest elected presi-dent in our history—restored in young people a belief in their future, and

in 1984 he was re-elected with 64.5% of the under 30 vote Numbers

to be envied by a candidate of any age When he left offi ce in January

1989, at the age of 78, Ronald Reagan enjoyed an 85% approval rating by Americans under 30 years old

At the close of the Reagan Centennial year in 2011, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation surveyed young people nationally and found that 69% of those surveyed had a favorable impression of Ronald Reagan

Perhaps the voices I quoted of the young people I interviewed put words to the results of that national survey What these young people heard in Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” speech of 1964 was boldness of leadership, clarity of conviction, and an ability to articulate and convey a message directly and not be so poll driven that it washes out the meaning

We all know that when Ronald Reagan delivered this speech, the tent was not new to him He had given these points and themes scores of times at GE events and other talks all over the country He didn’t dial it up

con-or scale it back based on what some overnight tracking poll told him, con-or just because he was delivering it on national television He spoke his mind and heart in that speech and I believe that is what resonated with young viewers and listeners then and resonates with them now

Even the students I spoke with who had differences with Ronald Reagan on some ideology or policy all said he spoke sincerely and boldly about his convictions and he made a case; he did not speak with rhetorical spin His personality, self-deprecation, and sense of humor were powerful attributes And it was those qualities they admired in him

After talking with all of these young people about Ronald Reagan’s

“A Time for Choosing” speech, my hope is that perhaps he has infl enced and inspired a young man or young woman I interviewed—or a stu-dent somewhere in our country watching this Regent University Reagan Symposium on C-SPAN, or perhaps even a Regent University student

u-in this auditorium—to take up the challenge he gave 50 years ago and choose to embrace their own rendezvous with destiny… to stand on Ronald Reagan’s shoulders and take our country through the signifi cant challenges we know their generation will face And may they, like Ronald Reagan, inspire freedom and change the world

Stewart   D   McLaurin

Ronald Wilson Reagan has been an inspirational fi gure to freedom-loving people across the political spectrum and around the world, including the contributors to this work It is the product of Regent University’s ninth annual Ronald Reagan Symposium, a series of events originally led by distinguished professor and presidential scholar Charles W. Dunn These symposia, now recorded in a series of edited volumes like this one and available for viewing on the C-SPAN website, brought together an out-standing cast of policy and academic professionals for critical analyses of the enduring impact of the life and career of the fortieth president We appreciate the continuing support of these past contributors, many of whom have provided counsel about the next generation of Reagan schol-ars and symposium participants We are also grateful to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library for making available a video of The Speech for our event

The Reagan Symposium would not have been possible without the signifi cant investment of human and fi nancial resources from Regent University and its Robertson School of Government, named for US Senator A. Willis Robertson of Virginia Many people worked behind the scenes on this venture, but in particular we are grateful to: Vice President Ann Leblanc and her team in University Advancement; Diane Hess- Hernandez; the event and production team including Laura Thomas, Rick Hall, and their colleagues; and Vice President Sherri Miller and her marketing team (in particular photographer and artist Patrick Wright)

Research Assistant Linda Waits-Kamau provided invaluable and expert assistance tracking down references, sorting out the bibliography, and proofreading texts Additional research assistance was provided by Jacob Stephen, who handled the diffi cult task of indexing with aplomb, and Kayla McElroy Finally, we are grateful to Palgrave-Macmillan for making this volume available to you

1 Introduction: The Reagan Manifesto—

Reflections on “A Time for Choosing” at 50 1

Jeffry H Morrison and Eric D Patterson

2 The Intellectual Roots of Reagan’s Foreign Policy 13

Ionut C Popescu

3 When Maggie Chose Ronnie—and When

She Didn’t: An Exploration of “Thatcherite”

and “Reaganite” Foreign Policies 29

Claire Berlinski

4 “The Speech”: Reagan, the Russians, and the Bomb 47

Stephen F Knott

5 Preserving America’s Written Constitution:

Federal Courts and President Reagan’s Defense

Darren Patrick Guerra

6 American Exceptionalism and the Reagan Doctrine:

The Belief That Won the Cold War 77

Joseph Loconte

7 A New Time for Choosing on Life, Liberty,

and the Pursuit of Happiness: Today’s

Challenges to the Principles of Ronald Reagan’s

Conservative Manifesto 97

Ryan T Anderson

8 Ideas That Travel: Coolidge, Reagan,

and Conservative Economic Policy 109

Amity Shlaes

9 Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing”:

A Christian Realist Reading 115

Ryan   T   Anderson is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in American

Principles and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation and the founder and

edi-tor of Public Discourse , the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of

Princeton, New Jersey He is the author of Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage

and Religious Freedom and the co-author of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman:

A Defense Dr Anderson’s research has been cited by two US Supreme Court

justices, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, in two US Supreme Court cases Anderson earned degrees from Princeton University and the University of Notre Dame, and he has appeared on ABC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC,

and Fox News His work has appeared in the New York Times , the Washington Post ,

the Wall Street Journal , the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy , the

Harvard Health Policy Review , First Things , the Weekly Standard , National Review , and the Claremont Review of Books

Claire   Berlinski is a City Journal contributing editor, a freelance investigative

journalist, travel writer, biographer, and novelist She is the author of Menace in

Europe: Why the Continent’s Crisis is America’s, Too , and There is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters Her journalism has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The American, Asia Times, The Globe and Mail, The New  York Sun, The Weekly Standard, National Review, Policy Review, Radio Free Europe, World Affairs Journal, Azure, and

Traveler’s Tales She received her doctorate in International Relations from Balliol

College at Oxford University

Darren   Patrick   Guerra is an associate professor of political science at Biola

University in La Mirada, California He specializes in Constitutional Law and

American Politics He is the author of Perfecting the Constitution: The Case for the

Article V Amendment Process from Lexington Books His articles have been

featured in First Things, The Federalist, and Christianity Toda y He served in the

California state government as a member of the California Student Aid Commission and the Post- Secondary Education Commission As a public speaker, he has dis- cussed topics including civil discourse, elections, and current public policy issues

He earned both his M.A in Public Policy and Ph.D in Political Science at Claremont Graduate University

Stephen   F   Knott is a professor of national security affairs at the US Naval War

College Prior to accepting his position, Knott co-chaired the Presidential Oral History Program at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia

He also served for seven years as an associate professor in the Political Science

Department at the US Air Force Academy His books include: The Reagan Years;

Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth; Secret and Sanctioned: Covert Operations and the American Presidency; At Reagan’s Side: Insiders’ Recollections from Sacramento to the White House; Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics; and Washington and Hamilton: The Alliance That Forged America

Joseph   Loconte is an associate professor of history at The King’s College in

New York City He previously served as a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC, and as a distinguished visiting professor at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University Loconte contributes regularly to

leading media outlets, including: The New York Times, The Times of London, The

Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The Huffi ngton Post, and Books and Culture His media appearances include National Public Radio,

the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News Loconte is the author of several books,

including God, Locke, and Liberty: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in the West

(forthcoming); The Searchers: A Quest for Faith in the Valley of Doubt; and The End

of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm He earned his

M.A in Christian History and Theology at Wheaton College and his Ph.D in History at King’s College, University of London

Stewart   McLaurin is President of the White House Historical Association He

previously served as the Executive Director of the award-winning Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Past posi- tions also include Chief of Staff to President John J.  DeGioia at Georgetown University, Executive Vice President of Education for the Motion Picture Association of America, and Chief of Staff to American Red Cross President Elizabeth Dole

Jeffry   Morrison is Professor of Government and Director of Academics at the

federal government’s James Madison Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia Dr Morrison has also taught at Georgetown University, the US Air Force Academy, and at Princeton University He graduated with distinction from Boston College

and from Georgetown, where he received his Ph.D. He is author or co-editor of

four books on American constitutionalism, including The Political Philosophy of

George Washington (Johns Hopkins, 2009), and chapters, articles, and reviews in

publications such as American Political Thought , Journal of American History , Journal of Church and State , National Review , and Virginia Magazine of History

and Biography He has lectured at colleges and historic sites throughout the

United States and in England (Hertford College, Oxford) and made media ances on radio, in journalism, and on television (C-Span and the BBC) He lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, where his home sits on a Revolutionary War battlefi eld

Eric   D   Patterson is Dean and Professor at the Robertson School of Government

at Regent University and Research Fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, where he previously worked full- time His government experience includes service as an Air National Guard offi cer, the White House Fellowship, and time as a William C.  Foster Fellow working at the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs He is the author or editor of

a dozen books, including Ending Wars Well, Ethics Beyond War’s End, and Politics in

a Religious World His popular writing has appeared in venues such as The Washington Post and The Washington Times , and his academic articles have appeared in Public Integrity, Journal of Military Ethics, Survival, International Studies Perspectives, Journal of Human Security, International Journal of Applied Philosophy , International Politics, Foreign Policy Journal, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Journal of Political Science , Security Studies , and elsewhere

Ionut   Popescu has taught at Regent University and Old Dominion University His

research focuses on US foreign policy, national security strategy, and international relations Popescu earned a Ph.D in international relations from Duke University, where he also worked as the Duke American Grand Strategy Program Fellow He

graduated summa cum laude from Occidental College with a B.A in Diplomacy

and World Affairs, and he worked for the Center for Strategic and International

Studies in Washington, DC.  His articles have appeared in Orbis, Armed Forces

Journal, Joint Force Quarterly, and Contemporary Security Policy

Amity   Shlaes is a syndicated columnist for Forbes, chairman of the board of the

Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, directs the 4% Growth Project at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, and teaches at New York University’s Stern

School of Business in the MBA program Shlaes is the author of three New York

Times bestsellers: The Forgotten Man, The Greedy Hand, and Coolidge She has

written for Bloomberg , Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal , where she was

an editorial board member, as well as for The New  Yorker, Fortune, National Review, The New Republic, and Foreign Affairs She is a frequent guest on national

television, contributes to Public Radio International’s Marketplace , and appears on

Bloomberg radio Shlaes graduated from Yale University magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in English

© The Author(s) 2016

E.D Patterson, J.H Morrison (eds.), The Reagan Manifesto,

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-39987-4_1

Jeffry H   Morrison and  Eric D   Patterson

In October of 1964, Ronald Reagan delivered a political address that servatives now refer to as “The Speech.” Better known today as “A Time for Choosing,” it was an endorsement of Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson in that presidential election year Filmed motion picture style before a live audience of supporters, for thirty minutes Reagan the actor stepped into the national political spotlight For the next forty years, he never really left it

Reagan was fi fty-three that year and had acquired the gravity of dle age Television viewers expecting the glib leading man of light com-edies like “Bedtime for Bonzo” saw a different character altogether This Reagan could be somber and serious—and passionate about politics It was an earnest time for choosing, and the choice mattered for Reagan, and it mattered for America The man at the microphone was, so he said, the Real Reagan speaking his mind, not an actor reading lines He claimed that “unlike most television programs, the performer hasn’t been provided

Introduction: The Reagan

Manifesto—Refl ections on “A Time

for Choosing” at 50

J H Morrison ( ) • E D Patterson

Robertson School of Government , 1000 Regent University Drive ,

Virginia Beach , VA 23464 , USA

with a script As a matter of fact, I have been permitted to choose my own words and discuss my own ideas regarding the choice that we face.” The issue of that election, Reagan said, was “whether we believe in our capac-ity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.” Half a century on, the country—and perhaps the world—is different for the electoral choice

it made

Today it is nearly impossible to refl ect on Ronald Reagan without seeing him as governor, president, “freedom fi ghter” (a favorite phrase from his presidency), and winner of the Cold War But the context of this book is 1964, two years before Reagan’s unlikely election as gover-nor of California, and just a week before Lyndon Johnson buried Barry Goldwater in the presidential election, winning ninety percent of the Electoral College and sixty-one percent of the electorate It is worth paus-ing momentarily and connecting the man and context to “The Speech” before moving on to the content of this volume

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, in 1911 Not only did he live through both World Wars but also the Great Depression and the fi rst, worst years of the Cold War His life during this era was undistin-guished and typically American His youth and inner compass were rooted

in small-town America, with a loving mother active in church activities and a troubled, traveling salesman father Reagan attended high school in

a neighboring town, lifeguarded, then worked his way through a small, Midwestern liberal arts college An economics major at Eureka College, Reagan performed in theater, played football, studied, and worked to pay the bills After a stint as a radio sports announcer, he made it to Hollywood

in 1937 following a successful screen test Although never quite the box- offi ce draw that contemporary leading men like Spencer Tracy or Cary Grant were, Reagan acted in over fi fty fi lms and earned the respect and trust of his associates; they elected him president of the Screen Actors Guild seven times, and he was on the board of the Guild or its president for nearly all of the years 1946–1960 In this role, he led negotiations with management and strikes over fair pay for non-celebrity actors He also became a trusted face on American television—in an era of just three

networks—as host of General Electric Theater for the eight years between

1954 and 1962

Thus, by 1964 Ronald Reagan was an aging media personality and had only served in one elected position: as president of a labor union He had

been a great supporter of Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal, and past Democratic Party candidates He was a vocal “Democrat for Eisenhower”

in the 1950s Some would argue that Reagan changed stripes by 1964 if

he was supporting a small government conservative like Barry Goldwater However, the themes that Reagan cared about in the 1940s and 1950s were consistent with those he sounded in “A Time for Choosing.” He believed that the purpose of many of FDR’s programs was to protect the average American and, more generally, that the role of Washington should

be to protect people’s liberties against Communists abroad or aggressors

at home Reagan valued action that aided the individual, whether by clubs, unions, or political parties He hated bullying, whether by studio execu-tives or America’s enemies

By the early 1960s, Reagan had come to believe that the biggest bully

at home was government bureaucracy An unintended legacy of the New Deal and post-war federal programs was a growing federal bureaucracy that was not only unelected and unaccountable but was actively persecut-ing business people, farmers, and tax payers Reagan came to this aware-ness while leading the Screen Actors Guild and traveling across the country meeting common people on behalf of GE during an era of government expansion In sum, he was always a consistent champion of individual rights over any form of exploitation or faceless bureaucratic meddling That was the Reagan of “The Speech”: a middle-aged, lifelong Democrat who had recently become a Republican In many ways, the themes of his speech were a product of the times In 1964 it had been

fi ve years since the Soviet Union apparently gained the strategic upper hand by launching Sputnik, and around the world the old Western colo-nial infl uences had fallen (India, Indochina, North Africa, the Levant) and vibrant Communist insurgencies suggested that the new countries, like dominoes, were falling Indeed, although many of today’s academics mock the “domino theory,” at the time, it seemed clear that the evidence

in the Far East corroborated the domino theory: China, North Korea, and later Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia would all fall to Communism Communists had taken Cuba and were attempting to export revolution throughout Latin America and Africa Reagan’s audience was all too famil-iar with Soviet cruelty across Eastern and Central Europe, and they were deeply concerned about their own future in a nuclear world

At home, the seeming prosperity of the 1950s was in question after the recession of 1960–1961 The economy was growing, but there was

a sense in many quarters that the average citizen had few rights before

faceless yet powerful government bureaucracies: federal highways and municipalities were asserting eminent domain; taxes rose, then dipped, and then rose again; the activist Warren Court seemed to be remaking the law; and government agencies seemed to be treading on citizens through central planning, quotas, and fi nes

So by 1964 Reagan could look back on the America of his youth and contrast it to a bureaucratized, impersonal American government that no longer protected the rights of citizens Politically, socially, culturally, eco-nomically, and strategically it was “a time for choosing.” Many of the themes sounded by Ronald Reagan in that speech would carry into his multiple terms as governor of California and president of the USA. The then-novel address turned out to be vintage Reagan Balanced budgets, tax relief, personal responsibility, American exceptionalism, limited gov-

ernment at home, peace through strength abroad, and above all freedom —

those were the driving ideas of Reagan’s political program for decades

It also turned out that Reagan was on the right side of history regarding another of those themes, anti-Communism He said: “We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it’s been said if we lose that war, and

in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least

to prevent its happening Well I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.” But what of those other Reaganesque ideas and policies? Are they still relevant today? Eight public intellectuals (and Reagan, too—on fi lm provided by the Reagan Foundation) convened in Regent University’s Theatre in 2014 for the university’s annual Reagan Symposium to discuss

a variety of topics, all related to assessing “A Time for Choosing” in its

fi ftieth anniversary year Their edited remarks, summarized below, make

up the core chapters of this volume

Amity Shlaes is chairman and CEO of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, a syndicated columnist for Forbes and a professor in the MBA program at New  York University’s Stern School of Business In “Ideas That Travel: Coolidge, Reagan, and Conservative Economic Policy,” she provides initial refl ections on Ronald Reagan’s presidency and provocative comparisons between the 40th president and Calvin Coolidge, the 30th While Coolidge was, perhaps, a greater president than Reagan—the federal government was actually smaller when he left offi ce than when he entered it—Shlaes sees the two presidents as augmenting one another, at least in

economic terms, and it is a fact that Reagan admired Coolidge Both men came to a realization of American exceptionalism, both moved from some-what progressive and interventionist economic theories to economic con-servatism, and both had defi ning encounters with public sector unions Each had his own political time for choosing: Coolidge’s came in the nine-teen teens, when he moved from the progressive wing to the conservative wing of the Republican Party; Reagan’s came in the late 1950s, when he left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party (or, as he liked to say,

“I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me”) The

“catalyst” for Coolidge’s choice was a strike by Boston policemen while he was governor; though sympathetic toward their situation, Coolidge fi red them, declaring “There is no right to strike against the public safety, by anyone, anywhere, anytime.” President Reagan was to take a similar tack when he fi red striking PATCO (air traffi c control) workers in 1981 Other similarities (and differences) are charted by Shlaes

Darren Patrick Guerra is Associate Professor of Political Science

at Biola University; his doctorate was earned at Claremont Graduate

University, and he is the author of Perfecting the Constitution: The Case for the Article V Amendment Process His chapter, “Preserving America’s

Written Constitution: Federal Courts and President Reagan’s Defense

of Ordered Liberty,” describes President Reagan’s understanding of the Constitution as a vital safeguard of American liberties—if properly inter-preted and applied—and his efforts to promote that view and restore what Guerra sees as a “proper” role for courts in the political process In his

“A Time for Choosing” speech, Reagan quoted Sen William J. Fulbright

of Arkansas (who would later serve as a mentor to the future president William J. Clinton) as saying that the US Constitution has become “out-moded” and is an “antiquated document” that impedes progressive policies Accordingly, Progressives favor active federal courts capable of adapting the Constitution to modern developments Reagan, according

to Guerra, wholeheartedly rejected these views and “fought in word and deed” as president to return courts (and the Court) to a less active and willful place in America’s constitutional order He mounted an “aggres-sive defense of written constitutionalism” through his rhetoric, his choice

of Attorneys General, and his nominations to the federal bench The Supreme Court in particular had strayed from its role as “the custodian

of our Constitution,” as Reagan said during his notoriously controversial nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Court There was a dearth in the federal courts of judges who would (in a now-familiar refrain among

Conservatives) “interpret law, not make it.” Even after Bork’s highly icized defeat (an episode which created a new verb in our political lexicon,

polit-“to Bork”), the president vowed to nominate another judge who shared his belief in “judicial restraint.” Reagan’s Attorneys General, especially William French Smith and Edwin Meese, were nominated because they too shared this view of the courts and the Constitution

Ryan T.  Anderson is the William E.  Simon Fellow at The Heritage

Foundation and the editor of Public Discourse , the online journal of the

Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey; he holds a doctorate from the University of Notre Dame In “A New Time for Choosing on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Today’s Challenges to the Principles of Ronald Reagan’s Conservative Manifesto,” Anderson asserts (one would think un-problematically) that “America exists to defend the unalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence,” rights that have been challenged in ways that Reagan scarcely imagined in 1964 or,

we might add, could even have imagined in 1989 when he left offi ce Anderson is struck by the contemporary relevance of Reagan’s earlier con-cerns that government taxes too much, spends too much, owes too much (especially to foreign interests), is transforming into a welfare state that unwittingly traps the poor, and is threatened by “enemies abroad who reject the moral foundations of our political order.” But for all these famil-iar concerns, Anderson focuses on the necessary cultural underpinnings

“if our experiment in self-government is to be successful”—concerns that Reagan did not explicitly address in 1964 That is why, he says, “we must decide to stand for the culture that makes freedom possible.” What sort

of culture is that? To begin with, according to Anderson, one that tects the natural rights to life and liberty—especially religious liberty—and (more controversially) by extension one that protects marriage from

pro-“marriage penalties” in the tax code and against too easy divorce practices Marriage needs protecting because it is “the fundamental institution of civil society” and “the best protector of the rights of children to pursue happiness.” Government overreach on matters religious and sexual, says Anderson, is the result of “the rejection of the American Founding and an embrace of progressivism,” and evidently a return to the natural law politi-cal principles of the founders (and their great admirer Reagan) is in order

Claire Berlinski is a City Journal contributing editor, a freelance

journal-ist, biographer, and novelist; she holds a doctorate in international relations

from Oxford University and is the author of There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters Her whimsically titled ‘A Time for Choosing:

“When Maggie Chose Ronnie—and When She Didn’t: An Exploration of

‘Thatcherite’ and ‘Reaganite’ Foreign Policies” provides a sympathetic, yet critical, evaluation of Margaret Thatcher’s career as Prime Minister and the complex Thatcher-Reagan relationship during the last years of the Cold War Despite their similar political philosophies, and contrary to the popular per-ception of their relationship, the Iron Lady and the Great Communicator sometimes clashed behind the scenes The clashes were seldom or never over differences of political principle Both leaders placed a high premium on lib-erty and individual responsibility Drawing on Thatcher’s speeches, and her own interviews with Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, Berlinski concludes: “In the society Thatcher sought to restore, individual adults, not the state, would make these [myriad moral] choices and individ-ual adults would assume their consequences, this to their own moral benefi t Reagan clearly shared precisely this view.” Indeed, Lady Thatcher wrote in her memoir that on meeting Reagan for the fi rst time, “I knew that I was talking to someone who instinctively felt and thought as I did,” on politics, and even “a philosophy of government, a view of human nature, all the high ideals that lie—or ought to lie—beneath any politician’s ambition to lead his country.” Yet they disagreed, sometimes “vehemently.” Those disagreements, Berlinski shows, often stemmed, not from differences in political philosophy but from their views of their respective nations’ roles on the world stage Thatcher led a nation that once ruled a world empire (for good, according

to Winston Churchill) but was, by the 1980s, on the geopolitical downslope Reagan, on the other hand, saw the USA (and himself) as a world leader—particularly in the global fi ght against Communism—and tried to position the USA accordingly This necessarily meant that Reagan “chose to prioritize

fi ghting the Cold War—and his role as global leader—over sound fi nancial housekeeping.” For this Reagan was chastised by his friend Thatcher She wrote him in 1987 that, for all his accomplishments, one of the most impor-tant having been “to restore the US economy to health,” she was troubled about US debt and Reagan’s apparently cavalier attitude toward it On other occasions, too (e.g., in Poland), Thatcher disagreed with Reagan over

the means he sought to use, not merely to contain but to defeat the Soviet

Union Reagan’s “Star Wars” proposal, for example, initially left Thatcher

“truly aghast.” Her disagreements “vexed” Reagan repeatedly and revealed that in some respects Prime Minister Thatcher was the “conservative” (at times a dissenting and alarmed one) and President Reagan the “radical” (all Berlinski’s words) Other illuminating incidents from the Thatcher-Reagan dance are related, and conclusions drawn, by Berlinski

Stephen F.  Knott is Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College and directed the Ronald Reagan Oral History Project

at the University of Virginia; he received his Ph.D in political science from

Boston College and is the author of The Reagan Years and At Reagan’s Side: Insiders’ Recollections from Sacramento to the White House In “‘The

Speech’: Reagan, the Russians, and the Bomb,” Knott, like Berlinski, treats Reagan’s Cold War strategy—in this case, specifi cally regard-ing nuclear weapons, and he does so from a deeply informed position

on presidential history, and with wit Rather than the gunslinging war monger whom some of the press corps loved to hate, Knott uncovers the

“visceral anti-nuclear animus” that came to animate Reagan’s presidency and asks when that animus developed (It was, after all, an unusual and even unpredictable stance to take—one that prompted a Reagan advisor

to label his boss an “anti-nuclear hawk” and author Paul Lettow to call him “an original and wildly unorthodox thinker.”) The answer, it turns out, is that Reagan was already an anti-nuclear hawk when he delivered “A Time for Choosing” in 1964—though few knew it at the time There are hints in The Speech, as Knott uncovers, but Reagan had political reasons for keeping his stronger anti-nuclear opinions quiet He had, after all, been invited by Goldwater’s handlers to make the address, and Goldwater was on record proposing that NATO be given unilateral authority to use nuclear weapons in Europe if necessary and that perhaps “low-yield atomic weapons” could be used to defoliate Vietnam Statements like those got Goldwater in hot water with some in the media and the psychiatric com-munity The fact that Goldwater had been a Major General in the Air Force Reserves only added to perceptions that he was trigger-happy And

as Knott recounts, the Johnson campaign spun Goldwater’s slogan “In your heart, you know he’s right” into “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.” Thus, any concerns about nuclear weapons expressed by Reagan would have undermined Goldwater’s campaign So it was prudent of Reagan to steer clear of the nuclear issue (with one oblique exception, a reference

to “the threat of the bomb”), and his own preferred tactic of economic pressure against the Soviets, during his campaign speech in 1964 As pres-ident, however, Reagan repeatedly supported a strong military buildup while at the same time criticizing the madness of MAD (mutually assured destruction) and expressing his hope for a world without nukes As he wrote in his memoir (1990), “for the eight years I was president I never let

my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind.” Though his dream was not realized, Reagan’s unlikely rise from “deeply spiritual, politically

engaged B-list actor” opposed to nuclear weapons, to two-term president

of the USA, by the end of which he had negotiated the elimination of a whole class of nuclear weapons (over the objections of all the “experts”) is the stuff, says Knott, of Hollywood It is also a script written by a “radical visionary” Reagan still unknown to many of his fellow citizens

Ionut C. Popescu teaches political science at Old Dominion University;

he holds a doctorate in international relations from Duke University His

“The Disputed Sources of Reagan’s Grand Strategy” examines the

con-fl icting assessments of Reagan’s foreign policy toward the Soviet Union, including the criticism that Reagan did not even have a coherent “grand strategy,” in the parlance of contemporary international relations Following

on from Knott’s and other chapters, Popescu portrays President Reagan

as farsighted on the international relations front and certainly possessed

of a grand strategy His chapter then clarifi es the sources of that strategy and seeks to draw “lessons from it for our current era.” Popescu does so

by uncovering the values and ideas undergirding Reagan’s grand strategy, rehearsing the formal strategic plans Reagan outlined early in his presi-dency, and analyzing how successful the 40th president was in making his subsequent policy decisions match his early theory Finally, Popescu seeks

to answer the question of how much of Reagan’s foreign policy success was due to planning and how much to learning and adaptation throughout his presidency Reagan entered offi ce already convinced that America should hold a leading place in world affairs and that the USA was, as he said back

in 1964, “in a war [with Communism] that must be won.” This in sharp

contrast to the strategy of détente adopted successively by Henry Kissinger,

Richard Nixon, and Jimmy Carter Such a strategy was mere ment” (a pejorative ever since the days of Neville Chamberlain) Reagan proposed, instead, “peace through strength,” and confrontation when nec-essary The Soviets needed to learn that “there is a point beyond which they must not advance.” Thus, the early Reagan shared the containment strat-egy of President Truman and his Secretary of State Dean Acheson Reagan carried this strategy into his own presidency, quoting Truman, for example,

“appease-in a State of the Union address from his second term “Harry Truman once said that ultimately our security and the world’s hopes for peace and human progress ‘lie not in measures of defense or in the control of weapons but in the growth and expansion of freedom and self-government,’” Reagan said

in 1985, not only hearkening back to the containment theory of the 1940s and 1950s but also anticipating the “democratic peace theory” popular with academics in the decades following the end of the Cold War

Joseph Loconte is Associate Professor of History at The King’s College

in New  York City; he earned his Ph.D in History at the University

of London and is the author of The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm In “American Exceptionalism and the

Reagan Doctrine: Recovering the Bedrock Belief that Won the Cold War,” Loconte begins with a revealing anecdote about Reagan and the late V.I. Lenin during the early days of the Solidarity movement in Poland He proceeds to suggest three things, around which his chapter builds First, Reagan’s version of American exceptionalism was itself unexceptional (i.e., squarely in the mainstream of American political thought) Second, that although American exceptionalism is “fraught with risks,” it was the

“motive force” behind Reagan’s foreign policy successes, as it has been of many such in American history And third, Loconte argues for a renewed and healthy sense of American exceptionalism as a defense against today’s threats—one that “rejects the cynicism of the left and the triumphalism of the far right.” He takes readers on a tour of the foreign policy diffi culties

of the Carter presidency, including the Iran hostage crisis, and recounts Carter’s congratulatory assertion in 1977 that Americans were fi nally

“free of that inordinate fear of Communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in our fear.” Leading historians and economists echoed Carter, one of whom insisted that the Soviet Union was no more

“on the ropes” economically than the USA.  To Loconte, statements of this sort at the highest levels implied a kind of moral equivalency between communism and capitalism that made President Reagan’s abrupt reversal

in rhetoric and policy all the more startling In direct contrast to Carter and the scholars, Reagan confi dently asserted that in the coming years, the “West won’t contain Communism, it will transcend Communism We will not bother to denounce it, we’ll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter

in human history whose last pages are even now being written.” What was viewed in many quarters as unrealistic and even dangerous rhetoric from Reagan turned out to be prophetic Loconte suggests that the USA (and the West) would do well to reinvigorate the sense of confi dence and exceptionalism that Reagan inspired

Stewart McLaurin is President of the White House Historical Association and was the Executive Director of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration; he was also Vice President of Mount Vernon for the National Library for the Study of George Washington and has held senior positions

at Georgetown University and the Motion Picture Association of America (another tie to Reagan) His refl ections on “‘A Time for Choosing’ Then

and Now: Ronald Reagan’s Message and Young Americans” comprise the Foreword to this volume Drawing on his own knowledge of presiden-tial history, and his involvement in the Reagan election campaigns and centennial celebration, McLaurin focuses on Reagan’s unlikely impact on American youth When he was elected in 1980, Ronald Reagan was 69, the oldest man ever elected president Yet the Reagan campaign mobi-lized young voters to capture the White House and, according to anec-dotal evidence gathered by McLaurin during and after the Centennial of Reagan’s birth, still can affect young Americans across the political spec-trum Younger generations evidently continue to appreciate Reagan’s wit and principled leadership style that never descended to the rancorous par-tisanship that they see as a mark of contemporary politics

These are just some of the thoughts provoked by Ronald Reagan’s

“Time for Choosing” speech that are contained in this volume We invite you to delve into the following chapters, be reminded of a crucial moment in political history, and refl ect on the vast changes that have taken place since 1964—and continue to occur in our post-Cold War, but ever dangerous, world

on the isolationist end both claim to follow the grand strategic ideas of Reagan 1 This widespread admiration from political leaders aside, there is some level of confusion in what different experts really mean when they talk about Reagan’s “grand strategy.” The competing views surrounding Reagan’s strategy recently led some historians to claim that Reagan’s for-eign policy toward the Soviet Union was in fact self-contradictory and did not add up to a grand strategy after all 2

In order to clarify the sources of Reagan’s grand strategy and draw some lessons from it for our current era, this chapter examines the historical

The Intellectual Roots of Reagan’s

Foreign Policy

Ionut C   Popescu

I C Popescu ( )

Postdoctoral Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security

at the University of Texas at Austin, 5409 Etheridge Ct,

Virginia Beach , VA 23464 , USA

record in three steps First, I will distinguish what were the enduring ues and ideas guiding Reagan’s strategy Second, I will present the formal strategic plans he laid out early in his tenure And third, I will analyze how the policy decisions made over the remainder of his time in offi ce fi t with his initial strategic ideas and plans The fi nal question is how much of Reagan’s success is due to an a priori planned strategy, as opposed to his adaptation and emergent learning while in offi ce Answering this question

val-in the last part of the chapter will provide us with key val-insights about the kind of strategy-making process that is going to help today’s generation of grand strategists address our contemporary national security challenges

REAGAN’S IDEAS AND VISION FOR AMERICA’S ROLE

IN THE WORLD President Reagan came into offi ce with very strong beliefs about America’s role in the world and about the nature of the confl ict with the Soviet

Union As he put it as early as 1964  in his famous speech A Time for Choosing , “We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever

faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.” 3 Therefore, for Reagan, the goal was clear: “we're in a war that must be won.” This

view was in contrast to the strategy of détente fi rst adopted by Kissinger

and Nixon and then continued by Jimmy Carter Foreshadowing his harsh critique of détente in future years, Reagan contended that “peace without victory” and “accommodation” are mere “utopian solutions.” The advo-cates of these policies naively believe that “if we'll only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he'll forget his evil ways and learn to love us.” On the contrary, Reagan warned, “history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fi ght or surrender.” 4

In order to avoid having to make that choice, Reagan called for a policy

of “peace through strength,” of making it clear to the Soviets that “there is a price we will not pay” and that “there is a point beyond which they must not advance.” Moreover, he also highlighted the moral and strategic dimensions

of promoting freedom around the world and rejected the supposed trade-off between standing up for America’s values and defending the national interest:

“We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, ‘Give up your dreams of freedom because

to save our own skins, we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters.’”

At the end of his 1964 speech, he emphatically told the American people that

“you and I have a rendezvous with destiny.” The daunting choice for the future of American grand strategy was clear in his mind: “We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them

to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.” 5

Ronald Reagan’s early rhetoric fi ts squarely in the Trumanesque, idealist vision of the USA as leader of the liberal forces engaged in a global strug-gle against the repressive forces of communism represented by the Soviets and their proxies This shows the continuity between Reagan’s views and those of Harry Truman and his Secretary of State Dean Acheson, the early architects of a global containment strategy Unlike what détente advocates favored, the grand strategic vision of both Truman and Reagan focused on

a global fi ght against communism wherever it may appear and embraced America’s special leadership role in this fi ght as the prime defender of the forces of freedom In fact, Reagan often invoked Truman in his speeches:

“Harry Truman once said that ultimately our security and the world’s hopes for peace and human progress ‘lie not in measures of defense or in the control of weapons but in the growth and expansion of freedom and self-government.’ And tonight, we declare anew to our fellow citizens

of the world: freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few; it is the universal right of all God’s children… Our mission is to nourish and defend freedom and democracy and to communicate these ideas every-where we can.” 6

Reagan’s view of the international system resembled the tenets of the

“democratic peace theory” that rose to prominence in academic cal science circles in the two decades following the end of the Cold War:

politi-“True peace rests on the principles of individual freedom, human rights, national self-determination, and respect for the rule of law… Freedom and democracy are the best guarantors of peace… The rights of the indi-vidual and the rule of law are as fundamental to peace as arms control

A government which does not respect its citizens’ rights and its national commitments to protect those rights is not likely to respect its international undertakings.” 7 Even though he was not often criticized for being overly “academic” in his thinking, it is important to recognize that in his own distinctive way Reagan’s theoretical understanding of the

inter-international system was a coherent one that had considerable academic support in later years, and one that buttressed American grand strategy

in the early post-Cold War era as well The goals, vision and theoretical worldviews espoused by Reagan thus were very much part of a coherent grand strategy This strategy, like Truman’s early Cold War strategy, had

as its overarching goal the promotion and defense of a liberal world order based on American political and economic ideals of democracy and free trade against the threat of Soviet communism

Reagan’s Christianity also played a key part in the president’s vision for America’s role in the world: others “must look to America for its eman-cipation from the most heartless spiritual despotism ever… This is our special mission in the world as a nation and a people, and for this purpose the Ruler of nations has raised us up and made the wonder and admiration

of the world.” 8 The Soviet Union, in one of Reagan’s immortal phrases, represented an “evil empire” that the USA needed to oppose “with all our might.” 9 His image of America was that of the leader of the free world; he truly believed American to be an exceptional nation with a special mission, not just another great power Reagan talked about a “sense of responsibil-ity, a new sense of confi dence in America and the universal principles and ideals on which our free system is based It is not an arrogant demand that others adopt our ways It’s a realistic belief in the relative and proven suc-cess of the American experiment.” 10 The president was an ardent believer

in universal values and in the US role to support the spread of those values around the world, therefore, for both strategic and moral reasons

THE GRAND STRATEGY PLANS: NSDD-32 AND NSDD-75

Ronald Reagan’s initial grand strategy design is captured in two National Security Decision Directives (NSDD) adopted in May 1982 and January

1983, respectively: NSDD-32, “US National Security Strategy,” and NSDD-75, “US Relations with the USSR.” These two documents were later described by Reagan scholar Paul Lettow as “the fundamental, authoritative statements of U.S national security policy during the Reagan administration.” 11 Adopted midway through the fi rst term of his presi-dency, these strategic plans offered a comprehensive account of the admin-istration’s planned grand strategy NSDD-32 was specifi cally designed to establish “a defi nitive strategic rationale and agenda to guide all aspects of national security policy,” 12 while NSDD-75 was a follow- up that focused

on the USSR, the main target of Reagan’s global grand strategy

In unambiguous language, NSDD-32 lists as a global objective of US national security policy to “contain and reverse the expansion of Soviet control and military presence throughout the world.” 13 Moreover, the administration would also move to destabilize the communist system both

in USSR and around the globe NSDD-32 sought to “weaken the Soviet alliance system by forcing the USSR to bear the brunt of its economic shortcomings, and to encourage long-term liberalizing and nationalist tendencies within the Soviet Union and allied countries.” 14 In order to achieve these goals, NSDD-32 called on the US government to use all instruments of a grand strategy by integrating “a set of strategies includ-ing diplomatic, informational, economic/political and military compo-nents.” 15 Shortly after the adoption of this secret directive, Reagan offered the public a glimpse of this ambitious, idealist strategy when he declared

in his famous speech before the British Parliament that the West should capitalize on the manifest political and economic failures of the Soviet/communist system and wage a “campaign for democracy.” In the long term, he said, the “march of freedom and democracy will leave Marxism- Leninism on the ash-heap of history.” 16 Thus, Reagan talked forcefully about reaching American preeminence in the international arena, not just settling for a bipolar order with the Soviets as the other superpower in a

“balance of power” arrangement 17 More so than many of his sors, his grand strategy refl ected a vision for the USA’s unique role and responsibility as the “last, best hope of man on earth.” 18

One of the key architects of that speech was the NSC Director for Soviet Affairs, Richard Pipes, a Harvard historian who was a powerful critic of détente and a proponent of a much tougher anti-communist strategy Later that year, Pipes was also tasked with drafting NSDD-75,

a follow-up paper to NSDD-32, which would further detail the Reagan Administration’s grand strategy with respect to the Soviet Union In his memoirs, Pipes writes about the differences between what he perceived to

be Reagan’s views and those held by many State Department offi cials at the time Pipes argued that “the policy of containment, which remained one of the foundation stones of US-Soviet policy, had long been overtaken

by events.” 19 The Soviets found ways to expand their infl uence via itary means all around the world (Ethiopia, Angola, North Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua), and the West had been unable to counter these moves; moreover, when the USA tried to use military force to stanch communist expansion in Vietnam, it proved very costly and impossible to

nonmil-do Pipe’s conclusion was that “it was a hopeless undertaking to try to

prevent its further spread at the periphery: one had to strike at the very heart of Soviet imperialism, its system.” The foundations of détente and

of George Kennan’s version of containment were based on the notion that

the USA should attempt to infl uence Soviet behavior On the contrary,

Pipes explained, “Following what I sense to be the president’s belief, I,

by contrast, argue that behavior is a consequence of the system and that

our policies aim at modifying the system as a prerequisite for changed behavior.” 20

NSDD-75 states three main objectives of US Cold War grand strategy:

• To contain and over time reverse Soviet expansionism by competing effectively on a sustained basis with the Soviet Union in all interna-tional arenas—particularly in the overall military balance and in geo-graphical regions of priority concern to the USA. This will remain the primary focus of US policy toward the USSR

• To promote, within the narrow limits available to us, the process of change in the Soviet Union toward a more pluralistic political and economic system in which the power of the privileged ruling elite

is gradually reduced The USA recognizes that Soviet ness has deep roots in the internal system and that relations with the USSR should therefore take into account whether or not they help

aggressive-to strengthen this system and its capacity aggressive-to engage in aggression

• To engage the Soviet Union in negotiations to attempt to reach agreements which protect and enhance US interests and which are consistent with the principle of strict reciprocity and mutual interest This is important when the Soviet Union is in the midst of a process

of political succession

The key grand strategic issue, Pipes recollects, revolved around the ond paragraph, which noted that the Soviet internal system needed to be changed, not merely Soviet behavior The qualifi er “within the narrow limits” was added at the insistence of the State Department, despite his objections, but nevertheless he regarded this whole paragraph as a “great victory over State and the conventional wisdom of the Sovietological community.” 21 The fi rst element of the strategy, containing and revers- ing Soviet gains by competing in all international arenas, was reinforc-

sec-ing the rollback grand strategic idea present in NSDD-32 Even though Truman and Eisenhower discussed such a policy in strategy reviews such as NSC-68 and Project Solarium, they ultimately dismissed it Now, Reagan

adopted it for the fi rst time as offi cial policy and further confi rmed it later on in what pundits called the Reagan Doctrine—the assistance of anti- Communist insurgents around the world in their fi ght against pro- Soviet governments Hence, Reagan’s designed grand strategy not only abandoned détente but, rather than simply returning to containment, it also stipulated “rollback” and the pressuring of the Soviet system itself as core objectives According to a memo written by the National Security Adviser William Clark, “[this third objective] represents a new objec-tive of U.S policy The basic premise behind this new approach is that

it makes little sense to seek to stop Soviet imperialism externally while helping to strengthen the regime internally.” 22 This planned move would mark a departure from the earlier containment grand strategy, as the USA would now seek more than merely containing the expansion of commu-nism, looking instead to also reverse its previous gains including ultimately attacking it at its source in Moscow

THE DISPUTED ROLE OF THE GRAND STRATEGIC PLANS

DURING REAGAN’S TENURE

So far, this chapter showed that Reagan had an overarching vision for America’s grand strategic role in the world and that his administration laid out a couple of wide-ranging strategic plans early in his tenure However, the actual impact of NSDD-32 and NSDD-75 on the administration’s foreign policy is a matter of intense scholarly controversy One of the most debated questions in the recent historiography on Reagan is how much of the administration’s subsequent decision-making on key policies actually represented a purposeful implantation of the initial strategic designs, and how much of it represented improvisation in the face of a rapidly chang-ing international environment and even a so-called Reagan reversal 23 in the second term

One school of thought argues that Reagan followed through on the initial plans he laid out early in his presidency and that he successfully implemented the grand strategy outlined in these documents throughout his tenure As Tom Mahnken pithily states this position, “Reagan and

a handful of his close advisors formulated a coherent strategy towards the Soviet Union between 1981 and 1983 and implemented that strat-egy consistently throughout the remainder of his eight years in offi ce.” 24

Reagan’s approach, another proponent of this view contends, was a “fundamentally different American grand strategy” than the containment