Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire

336 Pages·2018·3.81 MB·English

by  Bret Baier

Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Introduction: Finding Reagan
Prologue: The Walk
Part One: Reagan’s Destiny

1: Dream Maker
2: A Political Evolution
3: The Greatest Stage
4: A Revolution of Ideas
Part Two: Speaking Truth

5: The Trumpet Call
6: Ron and Mikhail
7: Iceland Freeze
8: “Tear Down This Wall!”
Part Three: Three Days in Moscow
9: The True Mission
10: Cry Freedom
11: The Speech
12: Morning in Moscow
Part Four: Dreams for the Future

13: The Fall
14: Without Firing a Shot
The Last Word: 2018
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Ronald Reagan’s Speech at Moscow State University
Notes
Index
Photo Section
About the Author
Praise for Three Days in Moscow
Also by Bret Baier
Copyright
About the Publisher

Dedication
To my sons, Paul and Daniel, and their generation,
that they might inherit the legacy of
peace that Reagan envisioned
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction: Finding Reagan
Prologue: The Walk
Part One: Reagan’s Destiny
1: Dream Maker
2: A Political Evolution
3: The Greatest Stage
4: A Revolution of Ideas
Part Two: Speaking Truth
5: The Trumpet Call
6: Ron and Mikhail
7: Iceland Freeze
8: “Tear Down This Wall!”
Part Three: Three Days in Moscow
9: The True Mission
10: Cry Freedom
11: The Speech
12: Morning in Moscow
Part Four: Dreams for the Future
13: The Fall
14: Without Firing a Shot
The Last Word: 2018
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Ronald Reagan’s Speech at Moscow State University
Notes
Index
Photo Section
About the Author
Praise for Three Days in Moscow
Also by Bret Baier
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
Finding Reagan
T
he long, winding road up to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and
Museum in Simi Valley, California, is lined with banners picturing US
presidents from George Washington to Donald Trump. They flap in the breeze,
historical markers and patriotic flags—a reminder that the presidency is not
about one man alone. As I exited my car at the top of the hill and walked toward
the entrance, the hot sun beating on my back, I passed the tall bronze statue of
our fortieth president at the entrance, making sure I touched Reagan’s
outstretched hand, which is clearly worn on the palm by the thousands of visitors
every day who make the same move—a presidential high five.
That day I was on a mission. With my fantastic coauthor, Catherine Whitney,
and amazing researcher, Sydney Soderberg, both of whom I truly loved working
with on the Dwight D. Eisenhower book, I was in search of the next focus, the
next moment in presidential history that needed reexamination, the next speech
that might have changed the world but that very few people at the time or since
seemed to grasp the importance of—not to mention the very real prospect that a
new generation might be reading about this president in an intimate way, or in
any way, for the first time.
It was an equation that seemed to work well with Three Days in January,
which focused on President Eisenhower’s farewell address, delivered three days
before John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, then bounced back to Eisenhower’s
life to show how he arrived at the convictions and the specific messages he
expressed in that legendary eighteen-minute farewell speech from the Oval
Office.
With Reagan, my interest settled on a speech near the end of his second term
in office, in late May 1988, on a momentous trip to Moscow, the capital of the
Soviet Union. The purpose of that visit was to hold a fourth summit between
Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. A lot happened on that now
largely forgotten trip, but my attention was especially captured by the speech
Reagan gave at Moscow State University.
I made my way back to the library, passed the entrance to the museum, and
entered a room with familiar large wooden tables, similar to the setup at the
Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas. I pulled up a
chair next to the gray cardboard box on the corner of the table. I flipped it open
and thumbed through the contents. The folder I pulled out contained several
drafts and a printout of the complete speech, along with a transcript of the
question-and-answer session with Moscow State University students. I read
through it but didn’t truly appreciate the genius of the speech and the Q&A until
I heard President Reagan deliver it. Ten steps away, I put on headphones at
another table and listened to the address delivered that day. I was struck by the
complete absence of rancor—no veiled threats, no chest-thumping, no insults—
only a hopeful message directed at young students just starting out. Reagan was
funny, optimistic, and warm in a grandfatherly way. He expressed awe at all the
wonders that awaited the young students—the one catch being that freedom was
a prerequisite. He seemed to relish the moment, which had been a lifetime in the
making—from anti-Communist activist to president touring Red Square and
speaking to Soviet students.
Most experts believe the fourth summit between Reagan and Gorbachev was
essentially just the final turn and dip in a long diplomatic dance over Reagan’s
two terms. But looking at the text of the speech that day in Simi Valley, hearing
it on audio, and eventually seeing it on video, it seemed to me to be much more
than that.
President Reagan spoke to the college students in Moscow under a giant
image of Vladimir Lenin, with confidence, optimism, self-assuredness, pride in
his country, and knowledge that the Soviet Union’s days were numbered, telling
the students at one point, “I want to talk not just of the realities of today but of
the possibilities of tomorrow.”
And then, in the heart of Communist thought—the capital of communism—
President Reagan delivered these words about freedom, not in a threatening or
scolding way but in a “shining city on a hill,” hopeful manner:
Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuing
revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and
seek solutions. It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire
among the people. It is the right to dream—to follow your dream or stick to your conscience, even if
you’re the only one in a sea of doubters. Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single
authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely
precious, that every one of us put on this world has been put there for a reason and has something to
offer.
The speech can still evoke a thrill. It was an audacious challenge by a US
president to a Soviet citizenry rocked by economic crisis and international
conflicts. The speech sounded to many listeners like a siren call, an invitation to
follow a different dream.
Looking at the words of the speech and then hearing and seeing them
delivered was powerful for me. I was intrigued to learn how a relentless enemy
of communism had helped orchestrate such a dramatic finale to an adversary
he’d once called the “Evil Empire,” without firing a shot. What was in his
character and temperament that allowed him to collaborate with Gorbachev in a
strategy of “peace through strength”? How did he stand firm on an opposing set
of principles and still negotiate? He found a way. What is the measure of a man
who could so completely capture the imagination of both the nation and the
world?
UNLIKE THE EISENHOWER PRESIDENCY, which was before my time, I did have some
sense of President Reagan’s two terms in office growing up. And it so happened
I was in the Rose Garden with President Reagan just months before the Moscow
summit.
I’m forty-seven, and in the fall of 1987, I was a senior in high school and the
student council president at Marist School in Atlanta. With that position came
the honor of representing Marist in Washington, DC, to accept a national
excellence award on behalf of the school. So I traveled with Marist headmaster
Father Joel Konzen to Washington for a ceremony at the White House.
I distinctly remember being struck by awe walking into the Rose Garden for
the event—the sun shining, the White House gleaming, the garden manicured,
the chairs lined up, the podium positioned. I can still see the White House press
corps crowding into the back of the Rose Garden, a mass of television cameras,
photographers, and reporters with notebooks milling around, waiting for the
president to arrive.
President Reagan walked out of the Oval Office with his education secretary,
William Bennett. Both men talked about the importance of education and of
supporting schools that were succeeding, taking time to name and praise the
schools being recognized for excellence that day, their student and faculty
leaders all in attendance. When he was finished, Reagan started to walk back to
the Oval Office, and ABC White House correspondent Sam Donaldson yelled
out a question: “Mr. President, what is your reaction to the Bork nomination
possibly dying in committee?” (Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s
nomination was on the rocks at the time, and it was the story of the day in
Washington.) Reagan ignored the reporter’s shouting at first but then turned and