The Reagan Reversal: Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War PDF
Preview The Reagan Reversal: Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War
The Reagan Reversal The Reagan Reversal Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War Beth A. Fischer University of Missouri Press Columbia and London Copyright © 1997 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved First paperback printing, 2000 5 4 3 2 1 04 03 02 01 00 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fischer, Beth A., 1964- The Reagan reversal: foreign policy and the end of the Cold War / Beth A. Fischer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8262-1287-5 (alk. paper) 1. United States-Foreign relations-Soviet Union. 2. Soviet Union-Foreign relations-United States. 3. United States-Foreign relations-1981-1989. 4. Reagan, Ronald. I. Title. E876.F569 1997 327.73047-dc21 97-30459 CIP (~TM This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984. Designer: Stephanie Foley Typesetter: Bookcomp, Inc. Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc. Typeface: Berkeley To Gerard Contents Preface ix I. Introduction 1 2. America's Soviet Policy, 1981-1985 16 3. Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Making 51 The Impact of the 1984 Presidential Election 4. The Passive President 69 Reagan~ Advisers and the Change in U.S. Soviet Policy 5. The Reagan Reversal 102 The Case for Leader-Driven Policy Change 6. Conclusions 144 Bibliography 157 Index 169 Preface T HIS IS NOT THE BOOK I set out to write. While sifting through foreign policy documents for another project, I be came intrigued by what appeared to have been an abrupt and dramatic reversal in the Reagan administration's approach to the Soviet Union in early 1984. In January of that year President Reagan abandoned his hard-line approach to Moscow and began pursuing a more congenial relationship between the superpowers. Since this policy reversal preceded Mikhail Gorbachev and drastic reforms within the Soviet Union, I was curious as to why the Reagan administration would have suddenly reversed course. My hunch was that Secretary of State George Shultz had brought about the change. Shultz was a relative newcomer to the administration at that point, and was more moderate than his colleagues. I suspected that Shultz had somehow managed to redirect U.S. Soviet policy in a direction more to his liking. I had thought that I would be writing a book about a powerful secretary of state. But I could find no evidence to support my working hypothesis. The more digging I did, the more my research led me away from the secretary. Frustrated and more puzzled than ever, I was forced to reexamine my assumptions about the Reagan administration's way of formulating foreign policy. Like many others, I had assumed that the president played an inconsequential role in foreign policy devel opment. I had assumed that Reagan was simply the administration's spokesperson. His role was merely to read the policy statements that others prepared for him. It was only when I began to reconsider this assumption that the answer to my puzzle began to unfold. As I reread documents and speeches it became increasingly clear that Reagan's fingerprints were all over them. Much to my surprise, I would be writing a book about a widely misunderstood president, one who was far more involved in foreign policy making than contemporary scholars had believed. ix
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