Part of a better america. A year and a half into this presidency, president reagan stood in westminster palace and declared before British Parliament and the world that freedom and democracy will leave marxism and leninism. The ash heap of history. In that speech, president reagan didnt just lay out his Foreign Policy. He called for america to support, a Global Campaign for democracy. It was a turning point in the cold war. It was turning point in history. It is so significant and central to the reagan presidency that we celebrated its 40th anniversary here at the reagan an Institute Just this year. That speech also provides the opening scene for new book the peacemaker. Ronald the cold war and the world on the brink. Its the book written our guest tonight. Hes the executive director of the Clement Center for national at the university of texas austin here at the reagan library. We are so grateful for dr. Evidence, incredibly thoughtful scholarship, a book like this is no easy task. It was almost a ten year process. You practically took up residence here at the reagan library. We learned for almost a half a year all combined as he carefully combed the archives to get every detail just perhaps thats why this book is quickly becoming regarded. The authoritative, comprehensive history of the reagan administrations Foreign Policy and id like to emphasize the word comprehensive, because have you seen the size of this book . But dont be intimidated. It is extraordinarily accessible which in my view makes it even more for decades, dr. Inboden has worked at the crossroads of government and academia. He served on the National Security council on the state departments policy planning staff and as a Congressional Staff member hes been widely he teaches some of the most popular classes at uts lbj school and he serves on the cias historical advocate Advisory Panel and state departments historical advisory. Now, we dont time to talk about all of his accomplishments because we want to talk with him about the peacemaker. What did he uncover while working on the book, what lessons does it have for us today and how did a sunny optimism ensure that soviet communism would indeed end up on the ash heap of history so, ladies and gentlemen, here to bring us the answers please welcome dr. William inboden. So thank you for joining us. I just had the pleasure of speaking with him for about a half an hour in the green room and got a whole bunch of more on the book. I wish you could have heard that, but one of the things i did share with you down there is i really enjoyed how this book really reads like a novel not, like a history book. And so i want to know what inspired you to write the book that really is now being called the book on Ronald ReagansNational Security policy . Well, thanks so much, melissa and great to be with all of you here tonight. Melissa mentioned in her introduction, i spent a total of about somewhere between six and eight months here at the reagan library, upstairs in the archives, this book. So this became a home away from home in. A lot of ways. Its great to be back. I melissa mentioned in my day job im a professor at the university of texas and. One of the reasons why i wrote the book the way i did actually came from this current generation of college students, all of whom are born after the peaceful end of the cold war and not criticize my students. But i started realizing that there was this growing mentality among a lot of them and a lot of other americans that, of course, peaceful end of the cold war would happen. It was almost inevitable. Of course, the world would not be destroyed. A nuclear apocalypse, of course, the soviet union was weak and was going to crumble apart. But you know, some of you here in the room, maybe enough to remember the cold war. I grew up the early days of the cold war. I can i can remember it didnt seem that way at the and what i wanted to do in writing this book is to recapture for readers what the world looked and like too. President reagan and his as every day they were going into the west wing, into the Oval Office Making incredibly difficult decisions with quite literally the fate of the world hanging in the balance and pursuing much more confrontational posture towards the soviets. I think one that was very much warranted. We could talk more about what that looks like, but getting incredible criticism from the media from congressional democrats, from socalled policy experts at the time, saying this wont work, youre wrong. The union is strong and durable and going to last forever. And we just need to manage our relations with it. Theres no way it could actually be defeated or. You know, we cant believe youre pursuing this military and these and calling them the evil empire or saying theyll end up on the ash heap of history because thats just going to provoke a nuclear war. And so i wanted to recapture in writing the book is a narrative where, you know, events unfold in sequence is that president reagan team, even though they were rightly confident in their strategy, they didnt know the story was going to end well. No one could know that for certain. And most of the experts and critics thought otherwise. And so i in some ways, like i said, i it for my students, they can now understand we had a we were very fortunate have the leader we had at the time in the white house and even though know now that the story ended well people know it at the time. That said if you do read the book dont worry the good guys win in the well. And to that point, its one of the things that i kind of noticed as i reading the book. Reporter after reporter after reporter including tom brokaw. You know, scholar after scholar after scholar scoffed at what he was doing. How did he keep his resolve . How did he keep Going Forward . Just pushing through, knowing it was the right thing to do. Yeah, this is where one of the i think insights or revelations from my research is president reagan really was man of ideas. You know, he wouldnt call himself intellectual and. Thats not by any means a criticism. But he was he took ideas seriously. He saw the cold war as primarily this. So most previous just about every previous cold war president democrats and republicans had seen the cold war as primarily a great power contest between two powerful countries. United states, the soviet union. And it happened to be where democracy in a totalitarian dictatorship. President reagan reversed that. He saw the cold war as primarily a battle of ideas between the free, between Americas Free enterprise, democracy and. Communism with its command economy and its dictatorship. And repression. He saw it as primarily that battle of ideas. And so for him, the soviet was not a rival nation to be managed. It was a vile idea to be defeated. He also knew, of course, that were a powerful nation, and thats why we had to do military build up and put the pressure on them that we did and then do the diplomacy with them. But to melissas question about, where he got the resolve to withstand this criticism, you know, from the socalled experts and from the media and really, you know, some in his own party, its because he had been studying and thinking about the soviet and the cold war and virtues of a free society. For decades before he became president. And so he he had the confidence that that he had a much better formulation and strategy this conflict. And he also could point, you know, the previous decades there had been no path to winning and. You know, he did not want this cold war to continue forever. One more one more key to his is confidence. This was another revelation from my research. Is his his faith. He had a deep christian faith. He believed very much that god was watching over him and guiding a lot. He had this for most of his life, but it was especially after he survived the assassination attempt just three months into the presidency, march of 1981. And so when you believe that god is guiding and protecting you, that certainly can give you, i think, a strength and serenity to withstand it. The democrats, the washington post, the new york are trashing you. Well, and that answer about his beliefs and his ideals. Actually, its really nicely into my next question. So you know, Ronald Reagans thoughts and opinions on the cold war and in in communism. You know he was giving speeches in the fifties about that. And so in your book you talked a lot about in the beginning of your book you talked a lot about the relationship that formed in the sixties between Ronald Reagan, eisenhower and all the advice that eisenhower gave, you know, a younger Ronald Reagan. Yeah. And one of the things in your book that you said that eisenhower told reagan that the most use of military force was to win a victory without firing a shot. Yeah. You Flash Forward to the success. And Margaret Thatcher famously that Ronald Reagan, i mean, literally word for word, you know, brought an end to the cold war without firing a shot. So how much do you think of Ronald Reagans sort of belief system and thought about military buildup actually came from eisenhower . Yeah, i think there is i think im glad you picked up on that, because that was, again, another interesting revelation from my research on the book, the Important Role that eisenhower played in the 1960s. And i think thats where number of the seeds of president reagans thinking about the importance military strength for an overall strategy, including for diplomacy came from. But some of it comes from him coming of age during during World War Two and seen the importance of military to the allied victory. And of course that at the time what was a hot war but that america as the arsenal democracy had been able to dictate a lot of the final terms of the of the end of the end of World War Two. And so, of course, that was very formative for eisenhower as. Yes, i think these these ideas from from eisenhower. It was it said its quite a story. Many of you will know that president reagans political debut in 1964 and the goldwater campaign, he gives that time for choosing speech. Eisenhower had been out of office for four years. And at that time was in retirement spending winters in palm springs. And he watches reagans speech on on tv. And hes really taken with this guy. And he said, wow, this is a great political talent. And so he writes him a letter saying, hey, lets meet, get to know each other. So, you know, then mr. Ronald reagan goes to visit president eisenhower in palm springs and eisenhower tells him, listen, you ought to think running for governor of california. You know, i like your ideas, but i even think you may have potential to be president. And so lets talk about Foreign Policy, talk about what i learned as general eisenhower during World War Two. And over the next years, they start meeting regularly for these series of discussions, sessions, seminars if you if you if you will. But, you know, fast to president reagans strategy to actually win cold war. He absolutely wanted to win it. He wanted to defeat communism. As i mentioned earlier, but he wanted to keep the cold war, cold. He did not want it to turn hot because would have meant the death of all of us. And so thats why theres this much more surface dictated understanding we now have of his defense buildup, that it was designed win without fighting to the soviets, to have to negotiate from a posture of weakness rather than strength. And this is why during his eight years in office, even with presiding over, you know, a massive military modernization and and being much more assertive in his rhetoric, he actually only deploys american Ground Troops in combat once in eight years. And thats in the grenada operation, which is a, you know, significant but fairly small scale. Its over and just, you know, just about three, three or four days. And so i think theres a great to be taken away there on the importance of the American Military for actually strengthen our diplomacy and the fact that we have a military build up doesnt mean we necessarily want to get into some of these, you know endless or prolonged wars without good outcomes. Weve had in recent decades. So we talked about president eisenhower in the 1960s and how Ronald Reagan, you know, got a lot of advice and learned from him. The other thing your book talks about, speaking of president s, is once Ronald Reagan president , he gets a lot of ill use the word advice from president. Yeah. So can you talk how president nixons friendship with Ronald Reagan helped or hindered the reagan presidency . Sure. Yeah. This again, another one of these fascinating stories is the reagan and nixon relationship. And its a very complicated one. At times they pretty fierce political rivals, especially those you may be familiar with, the 19 1976 campaign, when reagan is challenging, of course, for president , but hes really running nixons Foreign Policy. And one of the things where both them have some common origins, right . So theyre born to a very humble background in the midwest and then both make their way out to for a new beginning. You know, the land land of land of opportunity and both make their way up to tremendous, tremendous success. Both of them really the two of them kind of dominate republican president ial. From the 1950s on up through the 1980s. So either a nixon or a reagan or, something that both of them is on every ticket from 52 on up to 80, 88 or less strongly influencing as in as in 60 as in 60 as in 64. And yet they have different Foreign Policy visions. Of course, is the architect of which is about coexisting with the soviet union. Its not surrounding them. Nixon was not weak, but the same time, nixon did not believe that the soviet union could ever be defeated. He was more of the camp of we just need to manage our relations them. Lets contain them. Lets not get them. Let them get any further advances around world. But lets not delude ourselves thinking we can actually push back against them. And of course, when he becomes president in 1968, you know, the quagmire of the vietnam war, United States was weaker country and had it had a weaker hand. They also have some differences in asia. Nixon, of course, overseas, the big strategic opening to china in 1972. Again, a bold and i think brilliant move at the time. So im not at all criticizing it. But president reagan, when he looked east, when he looked to asia, he saw japan as key to americas policy in asia and china as secondary. Whereas nixon, when he looked east, he saw during globe was when they looked to the party for look west, the far east, sorry. He saw china as the key and japan is kind of secondary. But for reagan japan at the time, the only democracy in asia americas important security ally. And so they had their differences there. And and yet once president reagan wins presidency in november of 1980, there are at the time only three people alive on the planet who know what it means to be the present United States. I did as gerald ford, who, you know, a wonderful who had done some distinguished service but at the time. Hes just not interested in politics anymore. Hes mostly spent his time on the golf course. Theres jimmy carter upset about jimmy carter, right and then theres richard nixon, who is living in kind of disgraced exile in new york at the. And and he starts writing these really interesting, thoughtful, moving letters, president elect and then president reagan saying essentially, i know weve our differences before, but my only agenda now is to be a resource to you and to serve country and to serve to serve the Republican Party and to do all i can to ensure that your presidency is a success and nixon really means that. And and reagan in turn, president reagan, you know, accepts that graciously, you know, looks past the rivalry. And so over the next eight years, theres steady stream of correspondence. Theres advice on politics, theres advice on policy, theres advice on personnel. Some of nixons advice and personnel is good. Other advice is not so good. And, of course president reagan is very much his own man. Hes making his decisions. Hes confident enough in himself that hell take advice from anyone. Then he will make the decisions on what he what actually wants to do. So its its a remarkable story. So when we were downstairs, we talking about the book. And if youve read it yet or not, but clearly its a book on Ronald Reagan, but its a book about all the people in and around Ronald Reagan in, the white house, around the white house, around the world. This may be a hard question. It may be an easy question, but who, in your opinion, were the most pivotal players, both and internationally to help Ronald Reagan achieve his goals . Yeah, great question. So if you do have a chance to read the book and hope you will, youll find that, of course, president reagans a central actor in in the story in this narrative narrative drama. But i try to spend a decent amount of time on his main advisers, his cabinet secretaries, his his seen his senior staff, you know, the first lady, mrs. Reagan plays a key role. Some of the key leaders, Margaret Thatcher in particular, Brian Mulroney from canada. Course, Mikhail Gorbachev makes a lot of appearances. And so theres a range of important folk important folks in it. And the my my takeaway with with reagans team is it very much was a team of rivals. These very capable strong people devoted to serving him devoted to serving our country but not in agreement with each other. And this comes with