James Mann - The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan

There was inescapable irony in the fact that the criticism of Reagan’s conciliatory stance toward Gorbachev came from many of the same former officials who had, during the 1970s, been the proponents of détente with the Soviet Union.

To an extent, their reactions may have reflected their sense of alienation from the Reagan administration’s diplomacy. For years, Nixon and Kissinger had been at the center of all conversations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Now they were on the outside. Not only were they not responsible for the proposed new arms agreement, but they had no public identification with it of any kind. Indeed, they were in position to gain considerably more public attention as opponents of the Reagan administration’s diplomacy than as supporters of it.

During his talk with Reagan, Nixon privately acknowledged that Kissinger’s motivations, in particular, might be suspect. The former president said he had heard that Shultz “was climbing the wall because he felt that Kissinger and I were attempting to sabotage his agreement.” Nixon conceded it might have appeared that “if the agreement had been made by Kissinger itself [ sic ], he would have hailed it as a historic achievement.” Nevertheless, the former president went on, while others might believe this about Kissinger, Nixon himself certainly did not. 10

The condemnations from the foreign-policy elite also reflected a general disbelief that Ronald Reagan could be responsible for an improved relationship with the Soviet Union—or indeed, that any arms-control agreement negotiated under Reagan could be of genuine significance. After all, Reagan had been the leading opponent of détente in the 1970s. His early years in the White House had brought a period of Cold War tension unprecedented since the Cuban missile crisis. He had consistently rejected efforts at arms control during the initial years of his presidency. How, then, could these veterans of détente take seriously what Reagan was now attempting to negotiate? The former officials had grasped correctly the political dynamics underlying some of Reagan’s diplomacy with Gorbachev—above all, Reagan’s desire to regain stature and divert public attention away from Iran-Contra. Where they erred was in dismissing the long-term value and impact of the diplomacy itself.

Above all, the former officials reflected a static view not only of Reagan but of the Soviet Union. They refused to acknowledge the possibility of fundamental change in America’s Cold War adversary. They argued repeatedly that Gorbachev was one more Soviet leader with the same foreign-policy goals, approaches, and assumptions as those who had preceded him. “Gorbachev has taken the first steps towards reform at home, but has not retreated one inch from Moscow’s posture abroad,” wrote Nixon and Kissinger in their commentary for the Washington Post in April 1987. “Indeed, his policy can be said to be a subtler implementation of historic Soviet patterns.” 11

In this, Nixon and Kissinger turned out to be wrong. Gorbachev was indeed in the midst of a profound transformation of Soviet foreign policy. In retrospect, there were early signs of this change in 1986, when Gorbachev began offering reductions in nuclear weaponry, and in early 1987, when he was so eager for an arms deal and a new summit with Reagan that he dropped his conditions. Critics such as Nixon and Kissinger tended to dismiss these efforts as cosmetic tactical maneuvers by Gorbachev on behalf of the same old Soviet foreign policy. But soon the changes of Soviet behavior would become undeniable. Only a month after the Nixon-Kissinger article was published, Gorbachev appeared in East Berlin to propound the new military doctrine under which the Warsaw Pact would henceforth be considered merely a “defensive” alliance that would no longer view the United States and its allies as enemies. That new doctrine undermined the Soviet-backed regimes in Eastern Europe—for if there was no threat from the West, then what was the justification for political repression, isolation, or economic deprivation?

In hindsight, it seems clear that Reagan and Shultz had understood Gorbachev better than Nixon and Kissinger. They intuited more quickly what his leadership of the Soviet Union might mean for American foreign policy. They seemed to comprehend, where the old hands did not, that even if Gorbachev was seeking to preserve the Communist Party’s control at home, he was at the same time attempting to alter the Soviet Union’s relationship to Europe and to the rest of the world. As a result, it was in America’s interest to transact as much business with him as possible.

The traditional Washington outlook, exemplified by Nixon, Kissinger, and Scowcroft, was to view the Cold War as a matter of strategic calculations: troop deployments, military forces, overseas bases, nuclear weapons. Reagan and Shultz, by contrast, tended to view the Cold War as a contest of ideas and economic systems. Throughout his anti-Communist career, Reagan had always cared more about ideology than Nixon; now, this same interest in ideology made him instinctively more open to a Soviet leader whose words and ideas sounded different from those of his predecessors. When Nixon and Kissinger sought to minimize Gorbachev’s impact by saying he had moved toward reform only at home and not abroad, they overlooked the fact that Gorbachev’s domestic reforms had far-reaching consequences for Soviet foreign policy. Eastern European leaders such as Erich Honecker in East Germany were forced to explain why they could not allow glasnost too.

Finally, the critics of Reagan’s 1987 diplomacy did not give the president credit for flexibility. By their logic, Reagan had been a hawk toward the Soviet Union; therefore, he would remain a hawk. If his actions during his second term seemed increasingly dovish, they should be discounted. But Reagan’s zigzag approach to Soviet policy did not fit into such linear thinking. Indeed, Reagan’s unusual blend of truculence toward the Soviet Union in his early years in the White House and eagerness for accommodation later on made sense as a negotiating tactic. It confused and unsettled his Soviet counterparts. It wasn’t entirely deliberate, but it was effective.

Those who criticized Reagan’s proposed deal with Gorbachev overlooked the larger political significance this diplomacy would carry inside both countries. Inside the Soviet Union, it gave Gorbachev the breathing room to proceed with his domestic reforms. It enabled him to fend off powerful constituencies such as the armed forces and the KGB, which could no longer argue that the Soviet Union should not risk domestic change in the face of an immediate external threat.

Reagan’s conciliatory stance toward Gorbachev carried broad political implications inside the United States too. It helped foster the perception that the Cold War was winding down. Reagan had been the leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party for more than two decades, ever since Barry Goldwater’s defeat in 1964. His willingness to enter into an arms-control agreement with the Soviet Union carried considerably greater weight because of his own reputation and his unimpeachable credentials with the right wing of the Republican Party.

Jimmy Carter, Reagan’s predecessor, had tried to win ratification of an arms-control agreement with the Soviet Union. He had been soundly defeated. A more moderate Republican would almost certainly have had similar difficulties. Jack Matlock, who served as the American ambassador to Moscow under both Reagan and President George H. W. Bush, believed that if Bush had been president instead of Reagan in 1987 and 1988, he would not have been able to win Senate approval of the proposed deal with Gorbachev. 12

During a visit to Moscow in 1986, Nixon had suggested to Gorbachev that the Soviet Union try to conclude some sort of arms-control agreement with Reagan, rather than waiting until Reagan’s successor came to the White House, because Reagan had a better chance of winning Senate approval of whatever deal he made. If the Soviets waited for a new American leader, Nixon argued, then Reagan, as an ex-president, could emerge as an incomparably powerful opponent. Nixon’s assumption that Gorbachev was just another Soviet leader proved way off the mark, but he understood better than anyone else the political dynamics of the Cold War inside the United States.