To be left alone, but now to attach that belief, not simply to escape but to a sense of greater selfrighteousness, a greater sense of american purpose. Overturned in this sense. Rights andof states they return in this sense to local control. S was we will talk about reagan and the new right, a new american right. Then we will talk about the new cold war, the changes in the cold war. Then we will talk about the end of the cold war. We will talk about that in our lecture next week as well. We will talk about early in the cold war and Ronald Reagans role in that as well as mikal gorbachev. Lets start with reagan and the new right. Reagan atave ronald his first job. Really, his second job. His first job was as a lifeguard. His second job, as a radio announcer in des moines, iowa. In des moines, iowa. His career was largely a career in entertainment, not in policy. In entertainment and in radio in and in movies as well. He was born in dixon, illinois, which was a rural town in illinois, a Farm Community where farmers came in to buy supplies and sell their goods, etc. Age, he became a fan of franklin roosevelt. He began his life as a teenager who was a new deal democrat. This was largely because of the experiences his family had. His father, jack reagan, as you can tell from the name, was an irish descendent, a descendent of irish immigrants. Talkinggan was a fast shoe salesman. Well loved. And as a shoe salesman in dixon, illinois, he went doortodoor. He actually went to peoples homes and sold shoes to them. I dont think they were wearing nike hightops. But maybe they were. We dont know. He was selling shoes. During the great depression, his father lost his job. Quite literally, it is hard for us to imagine. People stopped buying shoes. His father lost his job. His father was already a heavy jerger drinker and became an even heavier drinker. People did not simply lose their jobs. They lost their sense of purpose. They lost their sense of connection and control over their lives. It was difficult for men. Difficultticularly for men at a time where men were the assumed bread earners in their families. 25 of americans were unemployed in 1933. Most of them were single wage families. The men, when they could not bring a wage home, they had lost masculinity and manhood. His father, like many men dealing with this depression, became a deeper drinker, developed a serious drinking problem and began having problems with reagans mother and family. Reagan described later in life the horror of one day opening the door and seeing his father face planted in front of the house not having made it back into the home the night before. Ronald reagan believed as a young man that his family was saved by franklin roosevelt. The new deal was saved his family. His father after being unemployed got a job working for a new deal agency while working for the Works Progress administration, taking small amounts of money from the federal government to put people to work. His father was the perfect person to do this because, as the popular shoe salesman, he knew everybody. He knew how to find everybody and put them to work. It gave his father a job, gave his family and income. It gave him a sense of purpose. Growing up as a young man Ronald Reagan wanted to be someone who brought purpose to others and embody that hope and went into entertainment. He was a radio announcer. He had moved to des moines from dixon, illinois, moved from iowa, local radio station, he was a sportscaster. They used to send in the scores from baseball games by telegraph. They did not have video screens, and he would read the scores. It was his job to tell the story. He became a great storyteller, explaining what was happening in the chicago cubs game or the yankees game or whatever he was covering. After doing radio for a while, and radio was also Franklin Roosevelts means of communication, Ronald Reagan moved to hollywood. He never made it to the top of hollywood. He never became lauren bacall, humphrey bogart, although those were his friends. I dont know who would be the b grade movie stars today. People we recognize but they are not brad pitt. Youtubers . Dr. Suri i would say they are like the d list. They have moved up. Dr. Suri who are the supporting actors in a lot of movies . Whatever they are, that is who you recognize but usually arent the stars. He never quite made it to the top. And then, he became involved with the work of actors to protect their pay. He was very concerned, Ronald Reagan was, that actors like himself especially those not at the top were being exploited by the movie studios. This is the way things worked at that time. It was this way in sports. You as an actor were owned by the studio or the team you played for. Babe ruth played his entire career after being treated for the yankees because they owned him. Traded by the red sox to the because the yankees owned him. It all worked at the same studio they all worked at the same studio because they were owned. Reagan got involved with the creation of what some of you know now, what some people watch, when the actors get awards, they pretend to cry and think their grandmothers, the Screen Actors Guild. Which was essentially the first union for actors. The first union for actors. The Screen Actors Guild was designed to provide actors with the ability to bargain to be paid better and not to be owned by their studios. Reagan became president of the Screen Actors Guild and spent as much of his career as he would in hollywood negotiating as he did acting. This is important because he developed the sense of Free Enterprise and unions. Throughout our course unions have played an important role. Think of to let randolph and the a Philip Randolph and the brotherhood of sleeping car porters and the importance of the civil rights union. Unions were crucially important to hollywood and sports. It is the Major League Baseball union which allowed the creation and negotiation for free agency. Baseball players are not owned by their team when the contract is up. They can go somewhere else and negotiate with a team to be paid more. You all believe in this. Most of you will work for multiple people and often many of you will be at a job in one place, google, and apple will offer you more money and you will want to be able to leave to get more money. That is what being a free agent is all about. The negotiation for free agency was done by the Screen Actors Guild. He became well known as a b grade actor but an effective spokesperson for freedom and entrepreneurship, protecting values for actors and others and was hired by General Electric which makes dishwashers and washing machines to be a spokesman for them. He went around the country advocating for entrepreneurship in companies. General electric of the 1960s was like google today. We are bringing you the future. Embrace freedom. In 1964 he decided he would support a republican candidate. Not a democratic candidate. He supported Barry Goldwater against Lyndon Johnson. His belief was Lyndon Johnson was doing in support of the civil rights movement, what Lyndon Johnson was doing was creating too many restrictions on the freedom of individuals like himself. He did not oppose civil rights but he opposed the federal government getting too involved in peoples lives. Limiting their ability to live as their wish they wish. He saw Lyndon Johnson and others as over regulating the economy and society. And he became the first celebrity to get elected to office. Barry goldwater did not win in 1964 but Ronald Reagan was elected governor in 1966. He recently defeated the most he recently defeated the most recently what do you think, do you like my shirt . You and i do a lot of blue on blue. Dr. Suri i have surpassed you today. Sometimes we end up wearing the same thing. It is a higherquality shirt. It is wonderful you mention this because it was brought to me by my relatives from india. I am wearing my indian internationalism in a stylish way today. What about your shirt, by the way . It has been a while and no one has commented on the shirt. Dr. Suri it is very summery. Doesnt it remind you of a jungle . I thought it was camouflage. Join the marines. It is important to me. Dr. Suri doing the facial hair. Is it not possible . A weirdo. There was a real i like to vamp a little. Students appreciate it. Dr. Suri we dont want to be too serious. Nathan would like to know if reagan became popular because of his sense of humor. Dr. Suri it wasnt just reagans sense of humor. He was famous for his ability to tell jokes. Humor is important because being humorous is able to show you dont take yourself too seriously. If you do, it is hard to get other people to connect with you. We connect with people who we feel are open. He conveyed a sense of humor but it was not the only source of his popularity. A lot of it was his authenticity. Even though he was an actor, they believed they were getting the real person. He was humane. One of the things we have to remember it being the smartest in the room is not always the best way to connect with people. You should be smart and also be humane. People connect with others who they feel they can identify with. His humor, storytelling, all of these things allowed him to do that. He gained a lot of experience talking to people. One of the things he learned as a union leader, a campaigner, speaking for General Electric around the country, he learned how to talk to lots of audiences. Dont just travel widely but talk to different kinds of people. If there are people out there you have not figured out how to talk to, you need to because one day they will be important. Even if they see the world differently. One of the ways we do that is with humor. We break the tension in the room with humor. Another way is by revealing some of ourselves, being vulnerable and telling stories. T is far more effective rat this is why history is so valuable. It is more valuable to tell a story then to tell people what to do. During the 1970s, reagan campaigned on renewing americas story, renewing who we are. He was upset that we had forgotten who we were. We had gotten so caught up in the crises and controversies about civil rights, about vietnam we forgot who we were. This concept of a new right was a concept at the time of creating a return to what made america great, made america what it was. Return to basic humanitarian values. In return he said of using force in limited ways but using it to win. He was a big fan of the rambo movies. I know eddie is a fan. Have you seen all of them . All of them. Dr. Suri you like the rambo movies too . Yeah. Dr. Suri sure. He loved the rambo movies, sylvester stallone, because in those movies unlike in vietnam, the Good American finds a way to win. The problem is the government officials who dont understand and the enemy is on the ground. Be good, strong american finds his way to win. There is a famous moment in 73 or 74 where he is communicating back with home and he says can we win this time . Reagan used that line all the time. Yes, we can win this time. His belief was that and his new right was an argument the left had done so much to make American Society better and control American Society it had lost its sense of American Freedom and this was going to be recaptured. As he was elected the president , largely on that argument if carter was a response to nixon, providing integrity and honesty, reagan was a response to carter, providing idealism and hope. Carter was seen as dull. Reagan would be hopeful and exciting. His new right promised showcase American Power at home and abroad, we would win again. Reagan chose places where he felt this was possible. In particular el salvador. If you look at the bottom righthand corner, you can see it in central america. Reagans argument was communist forces were winning and we were losing. They were winning and we were losing. The soviets were developing weapons. We were leaving vietnam, but they were going into afghanistan and using allies in cuba and elsewhere to spread influence into countries like el salvador that had new soviet and cuban friendly governments. We would return to righteous ideals and we would not accept this. We were not going to accept this. Reagan argued the u. S. Had to pursue more militant anticommunism in our local region. No more big wars but the use of force in small wars to protect ourselves. The doctrine was one that said we would use force wherever necessary to keep communists out of our backyard. Here he quoted Theodore Roosevelt on the United States using its power to show it was a great power in its own back yard. This had consequences, however. It was popular among americans and made them feel they had a purpose in Foreign Policy again, idealism and a reminder for what we stood for. We stood for the defeat of communism. But the groups we often supported fighting the communists were not democratic or idealistic. The next slide, someone characterizing what happened. It is from the 1980s. This is a soldier in the field in el salvador. He said president duarte, Jose Napoleon duarte was a militarist who reagan supported, the u. S. Gave arms to to fight against communist forces. In this cartoon the soldier with the beer belly i was going to make a joke, but i wont. The soldier with the beer belly is communicating and says yes, president duarte. You can tell them el salvador moves steadily towards democracy. Does it look like it is . What do you think . What do you will see in this cartoon . There is a serious point in this cartoon relevant to the reagan years and later years. What does the cartoon say . What is the cartoon poking fun at . At the least it is not satirical to say they are moving steadily towards democracy. I notice also those little dudes on the bottom right dr. Suri we are winning the hearts and minds of the moral majority. That was a phrase used by a young minister named jerry farwell. He was a young minister who said the americans will be a majority of people pushing for morality abroad. What do we see in the cartoon . David says it looks like nothing is happening. Chloe says a bunch of people are dead. Stagnation. Oppression. Nathan says it looks more like militarianism. John says they are undemocratic. Miranda says not moving towards democracy. Dr. Suri the irony if we go back to the image is that they are not moving to democracy at all. He believed it, but it was at the pursuit of democracy which was destroying democracy. George kennans warning, we have to make sure when we are defending values, we defend in ways that dont destroy them. But reagans administration was supporting the people who needed to be supported because they were fighting the guys we hated. In supporting one group of thugs against another, we were not making it better. We were making it worse. Look at this image. Our friends are ugly, fat, and they are using guns to kill people. They are not building democracy. They are claiming they are building democracy, but they are destroying peoples lives. It is not to say the other side is better. What makes this cartoon powerful is this cartoon is not over simplifying. It is telling us how the policy makers are oversimplifying and the leaders are. It is not the people they are fighting are good either, but the people we are supporting against the bad guys are potentially as bad. The duarte regime would show people who were seen as not on the side of the good government. They used american aid not simply to buy food but in large parts to pocket the money for their own purposes and strengthen military capabilities without looking infrastructure and schools and a functioning this is a recurring pattern hiding a name for democracy. In reality, undermining the very values themselves. Those who study latin america, those who come will see the reagan years as a dark period of American Intervention and militarism and a step away from positive change in that region. It was not that way in other regions and not that way seen by everyone. One thing we have to recognizes the same policies can have different effect in different places. The same policies can have different effects in different places. If we go back to our list of topics, lets talk about raining and the new cold war. If reagan was pushing american ideals, often militaristic lay, he was also challenging the soviet union directly itself. Reagans believe was that the United States in the 1970s had fallen behind. The United States was getting weaker. That was his dominant impression especially because the soviet union seem to be building a bigger arsenal and received to be pulling out of places we seemed to be pulling out of vietnam. 1984, the old and picks were held. I remember these. Moment,n interesting mcdonalds had these cards they would give out when you went to buy a big mac. Would haverds they different events. If the americans won a gold in that event, you got a free big mac. If silver, fries. If bronze, a drink. I was 11 years old. I was working in the summer. I had to work to make money in the summer. I was working. These cards became my source of lunch. Since then, i have never eaten mcdonalds. I had my fill of mcdonalds at age 11 in the summer of 1984. That is why i donald is not a that is why mcdonalds is not a sponsor of our course. What happened in 19 84 is relevant because it affected me. If it affected me, you are stuck hearing about it. It is relevant because in 1980 after the soviet union had invaded afghanistan, jimmy carter had boycotted the olympics because they were in moscow. The u. S. Did not participate in the 1980 olympics. In retaliation the soviet union did not participate in the 1984 olympics which were held in authentic us. Which were held in los angeles. The United States cleaned up. It is easy when your real competitors dont show up. The United States