An awareness of the principles and to further their application through activities. Now, you may notice i have an adam smith tie on today, and that is not because we have an economic historian coming to speak to us, but it is because adam smith was principally an educator. He was a professor and a private tutor, and he was beloved by his students. And marcus witcher, you have seen throughout the day, is known as a very exuberant, enthusiastic educator. I first met marcus several years ago at an institute for humane studies conference. I spoke, and then he followed me. He later told me, and i mean years later, that he was so relieved that i went first, because i did not do such a good job, i made it so much easier for him to follow. [laughter] i was an easy act to follow. He was very pleased by this. But marcus has spent the last five years writing this book on Ronald Reagan, and Ronald Reagan has become a symbol, an icon for conservatives. We have the president ial debate within the Republican Party held at the Reagan Library. It is a defective prerequisite for candidates to air their opinion and pay homage to Ronald Reagan. But, as marcus likes to point out, there is a disconnect between the way conservatives thought about Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, in his own time and space, and the way reagan has been mythologized, the way we think about reagan today, reagan the icon, reagan the symbol. Marcus and i were at a Philadelphia Society meeting once, and we were added reception, and don devine, who who was head of the Civil Service in the Reagan Administration, made some comment about the Reagan Administration to marcus, and marcus said, actually, reagan did not cut domestic spending, and they got into this argument about how much reagan actually cut, and it was a funny moment for those of you who have seen don devine on television, the is a very animated person and a very adamant person. Marcus is as well, and it was a pretty robust argument in a very exciting one to be standing next to. [laughter] dr. Mendenhall reagans image was, to a great degree, selfmade. He was very aware of his legacy and sought to frame narratives about his presidency. During his presidency, the cold war united conservatives in a sort of fusionist way. Some of you may recall the fusionist project as it was articulated by frank meyer, that united libertarians and evangelicals and neoconservatives that came together because of a common enemy. But after the cold war, we sort of lost that fusionism, so conservatives today exist in a fractured state. We have neoconservatives, those who celebrate american greatness, we have libertarians, classical liberals, we have paleo conservatives, we have local lists we have , evangelicals, and in the current Political Climate they are not as united as they were under the reagan presidency. And a lot of that has to do with the cold war. So here to talk to us today about the cold war, reagan conservatives and the end of the cold war, is dr. Marcus witcher. Dr. Witcher is a scholar in residence in the History Department at the Arkansas Center for research and economics, otherwise known as a. C. R. E. He is at the university of arkansas. He teaches in the History Department. In addition to being an engaging and enthusiastic speaker, he specializes in political, economic, and intellectual history from 1920 to the present. His focus is on modern american conservatism, and his manuscript, getting right with reagan, comes out this month, november 2019. He earned his bachelors in history at the university of Central Arkansas and received his phd from the university of alabama. This is when all of the auburn fans in the room boo. [laughter] boo. Dr. Mendenhall [laughs] dr. Witcher offers classes in modern American History, including courses on the cold war, the conservative movement, the american presidency, the history of economic thought, and u. S. Economic development. He is published in a wide variety of places, including the white house studies journal, and is coeditor of a threevolume anthology entitled public choice analysis of American Economic history. He is currently researching for his next book, titled fulfilling the reagan revolution clinton, gingrich, and the conservative 1990s. Please join me in welcoming dr. Witcher. [applause] dr. Witcher thanks. You did a great job. I dont know that i even need to speak. Thank you so much for having me. It is a pleasure to be here and to be talking to the montgomery chapter of the federalist society, who has done so much in reshaping the American History judiciary and such a large role in the conservative movement. Its a pleasure for me to be here today. As dr. Mendenhall, as allen said, i will be talking about reagan conservatives and the end of the cold war. I want to start off by asking you to think about what you think Ronald Reagan stood for . What defines Ronald Reagan for you . And i think for many conservatives, what defines Ronald Reagan for them is an adherence to principles, an unflinching adherence to principle that he never sort of deviated from. This conception of reagan really started to emerge around 2005, 2006, in the wake of sort of george w. Bushs dismal presidency, from the point of view of conservatives, where we became very disillusioned with george w. Bush. I want to talk about how conservatives viewed reagan during the 1980s. Often times, they viewed him with frustration, contempt, anger because not more was done to sort of achieve the conservative policy goals. I was surprised when i was researching for my dissertation, because i went to steven haywards book, and he basically talked about all of these conservatives who were upset and frustrated with reagan, and then he went on and told the long sort of story about the reagan years, and i was like that is really fascinating, and i found that aside in several other books i was reading in my seminar class. I took it to my dissertation professors and they said go look into it. Out of that research came the book getting right with reagan the struggle for true conservatism. We will talk about how conservatives view reagan today, and then we will look back in time about how conservatives viewed reagan during the 1980s. Like i said, often times with frustration, and even contempt when it came to his cold war Foreign Policy. Then we will talk a little bit about how reagan wanted to be remembered, and we will end with me gesturing toward how conservatives began to construct the reagan legacy and later the reagan myth. I really, really love this quote by matt purple i wish i had written it but i did not, matt purple wrote it in the churchill we misremember, and i think it grasps what i am trying to do in the book. Purple said, historical memory is like a great compactor, crushing nuances and flattening wrinkles until a person or event is made a perfect morsel for popular consumption. I think that is what has happened with reagan, compacted down into a simplified version of himself, maybe a purist version of himself, and all of the nuances and the pragmatic policies of the 1980s have largely been forgotten. This is really personified by wwrd. This emerged in 2005. Ann coulter said, you know, for christians, it is wwjd, but for conservatives, it is wwrd, what would reagan do . After this takes off in 2005, it really takes off in 2007 in the lead up to the 2008 republican primary. Sean hannity and the Heritage Foundation sort of partnered on this, wwrd, right . What would Ronald Reagan do today . That is what we need. They are equipped with bracelets. You can go on amazon, you can buy a wwrd bracelet, you can buy yourself a tshirt, as you see up here, you can buy a Bumper Sticker to put on your car, you can buy a mousepad, that says if we could resurrect him, we would reelect him, right, the idea of zombie reagan. But nonetheless, conservatives around 2005 to 2016 or so began to reconstruct reagan as a conservative, and they began to sort of claim, and maybe even before, that Ronald Reagan won the cold war by sticking to his conservative principles, and that reagan, through his sort of conservatism, gets the credit ultimately for the dissolution of the soviet empire and the end of the cold war. Today we will go back in time and look at what conservatives were sank about reagans policies in the 1980s and how that is quite different from what they claim today. So what does my manuscript do . Well, my manuscript details the complex and often tense relationship that exists between president reagan and conservatives, and it acknowledges the wide range of perspectives on the right, and i think that is something unique to my book. I think other historians have done a good job with that as well, but it is something i try to grapple with, all of the differences within the conservative movement. I do not think historians have done enough in understanding conservatism and all of its various iterations. It also questions whether or not the reagan years were actually the triumph of conservatism. I actually do not think this is true. I actually think the 1990s or where the triumph of conservatism with the gingrich revolution. I think the Clinton Administration achieved many, many of the things, maybe not on purpose, maybe begrudgingly, but nonetheless, the Clinton Administration, president clinton, they ultimately get welfare reform. They get the balanced budget, etc. But we often view the 1980s as a triumph of conservatism, but many conservatives did not see the 1980s as a triumph of conservatism. At least in the 1980s. Examines theook interconnectedness of politics, americany among conservatives, and it tends to explain the creation of the reagan legacy of the evolution of the legacy and the creation of reagan myth. So i got this slide here that tells you where the sources come from. I was lucky enough to visit a vast number of archives including the Reagan Library, which is a great place to do some research for two weeks. Fly out to california, right . It was excellent going to see me valley, going to the reagan papers particularly the , Morton Blackwell files. If anyone has any questions about where the sources come from, we can return to it after the talk during the q a. Just sort of as a primer, so everyone here is not upset with me there are four schools of , thought about what ended the cold war. The first is probably the most dominant. That is mikael gorbachev, through his policies, deserves most of the credit, right, for the end of the cold war, because inadvertently, he undermines the soviet system, undermined the communist party, and in doing so, destroy the fabric of the soviet union and its satellites, basically the control. The threat of coercion. That is probably the Largest School of thought within historical profession. Within this school of thought, reagan is given very little credit for the end of the cold war. There is another school of thought that claims reagan actually prolonged the cold war. Not only did he not contribute to it, but he prolonged it, rhetoric simply emboldening the hardliners within the soviet union and made it more difficult for someone like gorbachev to enact his reforms. The third school is the reagan victory school, mainly made up of the conservative historians. He forced the soviet union into bankruptcy, kind of like the military buildup in the United States that put pressure on the soviets. They could not keep up, had to enact reforms that ultimately undid the soviet union. And finally, they are sort of emerging this is the school i want to belong to that reagan and gorbachev worked together to create and set the foundation for a peaceful end of the cold war and the dissolution of the soviet empire. I think gorbachev deserves most of the credit, although he probably would not like to take it. He was an avowed socialist. I think his policies under the soviet union, but i think reagan deserves a lot of credit for working with gorbachev to basically establish better relations to enable gorbachev to establish those reforms at home. That is where i fit into the history graffiti. Iography. I know i am speaking to a more conservative audience, so i am not either of the first two, so dont be too angry with me, right . [laughter] dr. Witcher lets go ahead and jump into the 1980s. Conservatives were frustrated with reagans Foreign Policy throughout the 1980s, but they were also really frustrated with things reagan attempted to do in Foreign Policy arena in the first two years of the Reagan Administration. Some conservatives were upset with sale of the advanced Airborne Warning and control systems to saudi arabia. They thought this violated Israeli National security, and the israeli Prime Minister even came out and condemned reagan for this sale. This was reagans first Foreign Policy, schmidt or legislative a punishment while he was in office. Actually stood up to the israeli lobby and the Prime Minister of israel and told him listen, i am the president of the United States. Other countries do not make out make our Foreign Policy. You can imagine how well that went over with neoconservatives when reagan made that type of comment. Also, on taiwan, reagan accepted chinas nine point plan for taiwan, which included reduce weapon sales for the United States. Conservatives, for historical dded to taiwany we and still are. So many criticized reagan for being sort of soft on china here. Thirdly, reagan was criticized, specifically by neoconservatives for his lack of public response of martial law in poland, the crackdown on solidarity. Neoconservatives claimed that reagan should have done more, he should have pushed back with the soviets with embargoes, technology, and things like that, and they say essentially did nothing. We know there is a new book on sort of reagan and the cia in poland. We know reagan behindthescenes was very active in supporting different groups within the eastern bloc, and he was doing quite a bit, actually. At least his administration was doing quite a bit. Conservatives at the time did not know that because that was not public knowledge. They are criticizing him for that. They also are criticizing him because they thought they elected him to pursue a more aggressive policy towards the soviet union. In the first two years you dont see that materializing. Lets get to some specific criticisms. In 1982, Norman Podhoretz writes a piece in the New York Times shes a major neoconservative figure. He writes the neoconservative anguish over reagans Foreign Policy, in which he pretty much systematically dismisses the idea that reagan had any accomplishments in his first year presidency. Podhoretz insisted that he did not have an idea of what they wanted to accomplish during the cold war. They focused on the economy. Obviously when reagan comes into office, that is the number one concern, getting the economy back on track, and they get the tax cuts in 1981. Divines point, they get some spending cuts, initially, and in the first year. By and large, foreignpolicy conservatives, neoconservatives, hawks, feel like he has not really defined a conservative Foreign Policy. The result, according to podhoretz, was a vacuum into which have come forward all the old ideas and policies against which Ronald Reagan himself had stood for so many years. In the first two years of the Reagan Administration, he helped the soviet union stabilize its empire rather than a strategy encouraging the breakup of that empire from within. His criticism was so piercing that reagan actually picked up the phone and gave him a call, and the had an extended conversation were reagan try to convince him he was not pursuing a policy of detente, that the idea of cooling of tensions with the soviet union that nixon and kissinger outlined early in the 1970s. It was widely criticized by conservatives, including president reagan. He is listening to the president , trying to justify what he had done up until this point, politely a couple of times, trying to get off the phone, finally says, thank you, so much. He writes down later in his memoir after he hung up with reagan he realized the president was pursuing what he would call detente, even if it is not what reagan himself would call detente. Right published an addition of conservative digest in which they systematically criticized the president. They criticized him on social issues for not getting the School Prayer amendment passed. They criticized him for not getting it right to life amendment passed. You also have physical conservatives criticizing the president because of the fiscal conservatives criticizing the president because of the unbalanced budget, the budget deficit has been run up since 1982. You also have supplysiders who were mad with reagan because he was on the path to raise taxes, or he was on the path to raise taxes. You have Foreign Policy conservatives, who are the people we want to focus on the next slide who are really criticizing reagan for not outlining a clear vision for co