Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency 20160727

In the atlantic, and the soviet conquest between the soviet union and moscow. They are successful pushing into west germany, and seizing iceland. The narrative centers on the u. S. Nato as they try and get more resources in order to turn back the soviet tied. Eventually, nato was able to establish a bit of a stalemate, buying enough time for reenforcements to arrive in the United States. The broad scope of the book, allowed clancy and larry bond to examine what modern war would look like and prevents the nearexhaustive look for both sides and in its appeal to reagan, is a World War Three scenario n which united stat scenario in which United States wins but not engaging in a nuclear event. The book approaches its climax and becomes clear to the soviets they cannot win consequently, hard liners attempt to bring about the use of new weapons. This muteultimately leads to a , and take control of the government, ultimately ending the war. Clancy and bond construct the narrative this way intentionally, to demonstrate only the truly mad would advocate the use of Nuclear Weapons. Antinuclear sentiments are in the book throughout the leaders. Earlier in the book, the money was spent on holes with predict ability to kill the holes ten times over. The commander of so far i dont forces views the secretary general as crazy and mad, possessing the possibility of using Tactical Nuclear strikes. Its also notable u. S. Planners never once employ the weapons, even though they were there to mitigate the advantage in conventional forces. This is because the technical advantage they avoid serves the same forces allowing for nuclear forces. Its a mirror to reagans view of the only weapons, and reacted strongly to her oshimhiroshima, negashi. At one point shortly after the war, he read set your to u2 35, and said if you like your contract youre not going to read this people. Reagan did like the contract and opted not to read the people. He maintained criticism of the role of Nuclear Visions and policy. They shattered the public nomination in 1968 and compared to two westerners standing against a salon, aiming guns at their head. So some situation would limit policy options and forced a geopolitical standoff. Reagan did not not rate his views against the nuclear views of the presidency. In 1981, speaking with representatives to the vatican, he referred to them as the last epidemic of man kind. Talking to troops in 1983, he argued a nuclear war cannot be one and must never be fought and promised to extend one of the most extensive arms program in history. A made for tv movie about a small kansas town, about a month before this town served to strengthen his resolve to make sure there is never a nuclear war. As unwillingness to success, was the only way to be safe was to be vulnerable to it. The willingness to share the Technology Cal breakthroughs of the program with the soviets, and harks back to his organization, and speaks to the univers universal destain regardless of any country who had them at the time. He seems to directly contradict any notion he sought to neglect weapons. As reagan sought to modernize all legs of the trial, missiles, bombers, and submarine, and launched a five Point Program to relaunch the b 1 program, modernize existent force, and improve the launch missile by submarines and develop a most robust system, and produced an additional 17,000 warheads by 1987, a significant increase as a result of the carter plans. U. S. Nuclear forces were more lethal and technically advanced at any point in American History and focused on strong modernization with a strong contrast to focus on arms control and reduction in the second, credit aintingating a narrative. The shift in tone is a bit less stark when viewed to the contact of how to achieve peace. Reagan viewed military strength as essential to establishing peace, and identified establishing a sound, east west military balance as absolutely essential to peace, as well. We assumed office. Reagan and his National Security advisors perceived a stopgap between the soviet union and the United States. Nsd 32 takes the loss of the superiority, and the over whelming growth as givens, in indicated of a imbalance and strength. Reagan blamed a taunt for this disparity, and felt continuation of the policy would only weaken the u. S. And ensure soviet gains. In one 1978 radio dress, he said taunt is what a farmer has with his turkey before thanksgiving. The only way with the soviets peace in the soviets was achievable would be to demonstrate strength. Between the military capabilities of both states entering in organizations, embodied by slogans, build up to build down and peace through strength. So he wanted to make sure he was negotiation yet on equal terms before embarking on any significant reductions in arms. But ultimately, his strong antinuclear stance put him at odds with many leading voices in the Foreign Policy and in the pentagon. Reagan would lament in his memoirs a nuclear war is still doable, following the near breaking at reykjavik, argued against reagan continuing to pursue the Nuclear Weapons entirely, and commanded the force was inadequate, and bringing it to par would result in an investigation over tens of billions of dollars over a decade. The army chief of the staff, expressed doubts theyd be able to put up out of the manpower or the budget to bring the Defense Forces to where it would need to be. John pointdexter reversed the proposal to eliminate them and shortly after returning he wrote lamenting all missiles return to the u. S. , similar to that it faced in the 1950s, leaving only a chance of stopping a conventional assault rather than the strong deterrents that current arsenal represented. Former president richard nickon and his secretary of state, wrote an off bed for the national review, which proposed the deal would reopen the gap and the deturrance, due to the inability of the u. S. To provide conventional power to match that of the soviets. National security advisor to ford also expressed assertions it may lead to absolutely disaster. And not only the oppositions came from the right. In the same issue, the chairman of the house, les aspen, argued it would take another ten divisions in order to make the reykjavik framework feasible. As nato allies expressed genuine concern about what a nonnuclear United States could mean for their security. U. S. Information director charles wick wrote poinde dprxt wrote they were amazing and might be strategically decoupled from europe as a result. It proposes reykjavik brought assist criticism, and could not eliminate weapons because without them, there was little hope of regrounding the association. While at reykjavik, he pleaded with gorbachev to relent on sdi. He noted the most outspoken over the years, the socalled right wing, would react strongly towards Nuclear Weapons. He was direct in that thinking. Reagan noted critics were kicking his brains out for eliminating nuclear missiles, since gorbachev threw all of his followers i follow followers in in jail. He refused lament on the issue strategic defense. Despite the expected outcry, and the criticism from his right, reagan was willing to move forward and engage in a tough political battle to ratify the agreements because he viewed the strategic situation in europe differently than his critics did. He felt the fall of 1986, the conventional forces and its allies were more than a match of the counterparts, making the missiles an evil, as opposed to the force his critics maintained they were. The meeting in the white house arguing the narto together and the u. S. Had an enormous superiority. The combined population of the west, rather than that of the soviets, as opposed to the uncertain a lieu uncertain a liegences, and had capacities of both the United States and its allies was the work of his first term. The review of this National Security issues began by reviewing the record over five years as one of progress and accomplishment, and went on to argue the refurbishment and the strengthen of u. S. Appliancellit cites significant improvements in the better use of eemergent technologies, and dispute the movement of lower level in antiforces. The explicit objective should primarily focus on nonnuclear systems. Developing the nonnuclear systems needed to wean them from deterrent deterrents. The administration began construction of 34,000 combat ships, and expanded support for new infantry fighting vehicles resulting in the armys bradley fighting vehicle and the marines light armored vehicle, basically the technology were still using today. Additionally, the administration sought to extend aero capabilities, the black hawk support helicopter and the f 117 stealth fighter. Other investments in armorments and Communication Systems meant the u. S. Military in 1986 was a more lethal and precise force when reagan gained office. All the unified and specified commanders in chief is saying by every measure of common sense, conventional forces were more ready for combat than in 1980. This assessment by commanders and its National Security staff left reagan with the strong sense the u. S. Military was Strong Enough to forego offense of nuke lar weapons, a sense red storm rising reinforced before going to reykjavik. Clancys books also place a starring role, and red storm rises ing certainly no exception to this. The new technology i mentioned previously, plays a Critical Role in this narrative. South still a classified program at the time, the f1 appears in a title the frisbees of dream land, leading to serious logistics problems in the early skies of the war. And almost significantly responsible for making a stalemate in germany, and forces between the west. During a Critical Exchange in the early days of fighting, an armored re armored regiment, faces a dismounted infantry. The battle goes poorly, to say the least, as the effective integration of u. S. Tanks and war hogs cost the soviets nearly a third of their strength. The conversation between the soviet commanders makes it clear this is not an atypical battle, and an indication of this is that the better weapons of the us, allows them to approach at a ratio 101, enough to nullify the conventional forces. The forces are able to continue their forces thanks to the earlywarning control platform, which has a highly accurate view of the battlefield. You want to make sure that youre not wasting people in places they dont need to be. Friendly aircraft strike exactly when the soviets meant, and destroyed a full battalion. And technical ability to allow command elements of the soviet army to devastating effect. Chancy and bond incorporated this precise target of leadership in red form rising as it was an emergent doctrine at the time. And between awe and frustration about the capabilities and nato forces recognizing the advanced technologies is playing the decisive role in the conflict. Red storm rising came out at the absolutely perform time for reagan. It provided a real life narrative how policies may come out in the real world. On the surface, the use of this normal novel seems ludicrous. Why would you use a work of form to form your strategic envision. Many were perhaps less than secretly appalled by it. Mars Margaret Thatcher added the book to her reading list, however, the realism makes their manner perhaps a bit more feasible. Clancys research lent his looks a great deal of the authority and noted that in his meeting with clancy, asking the author how he achieved it. He said the characters were the hard part. While this is likely true, clancy did devote significant night to researching and fact finding. He want to the talk internal soviet politics with chenko, who deflected serving under the u. S. Secretary general. Clancy called his book breaking with moscow, and his influence on clancys work is evident, and discussed joint operations there, providing more authenticity to providing the novel. Trips to military installations allowed the authors to observe procedures, and m1 tank operations. Clancy road on a submarine, and being an officer, he would note it was riding in the m1 tank, basically described as a 72ton corvette. But all of this contributes to the realism used by soldiers and the way the novel depicts the weapons systems. While the research, trips and interviews contributed greatly, another was war gaming. The novel is rudiment in war gaming, and federally funded Research Development center tied to the navy. Larry bond was working on similar projects analyzing how the u. S. Would represent this invasion. He mentioned this to clancy, and proposed the two write a book, given the success of hunt for red october. The book transformed the central findings into a narrative everyone could express. The scenario describes intere intentionally brought the supply issue to the floor of the narrative. Red form rising is an indirect consumption of military simulations, however, the novel provided a more recommendgnizabd ultimate format for the president. The war games was not the only one to have significance on the book. Larry bond disliked the official navy war game, and it was classified, which made it very difficult to use. He designed a market through harpoon, and would advertise through dungeons and dragons and took the time to read a letter to bond, which starts their correspondents and friendship. It became a major method for validating red storm rising. They used the check title of the dance of the vampires, in which theyre able to air bomb a plane in iceland. The purpose is not to identify what will happen, but rather what could. Allowing for the games to serve as analytical tools for military and civilian planners. And peter perla, a long time war gamer, noted to as the Peyton Manning of war gaming, noted a greater impact rather than a simple discussion or memorandum on the plan. This is because individual decisions determine success or failure, forcing a lot more personal investment into the scenario. The results didnt last longer because of this emotional tie and this is something a novel can do, as well, because it is designed to cause emotional ties and have you invest more in the narrative. If forces the readtoer to emphasize and remember the policy or effectiveness of technology more than a newspaper article or quick conversation with a friend would. Throughout his career, reagan makes use of crowds with large populations as a sports caster on iowa radio stations, as a movie star through hollywood and through hout his career. Nsc member and speech writer matt lock, views the essential essence of his message regards of the medium. If the story was true or false, it didnt matter near as much as the message himself, so reagan viewed himself as more of a modern day aaesop. And for reagan, every story true or in the had a distinct purpose, because of the ability to form strong emotional connections. He would keep telling the story until he found a better one, which often exacerbated those around him with his repeativene repeativenerepeativ repetitiveness. Historian Walter Hickson argues reagan and the National Security exploited the popular ability, applying a much more sinister reality than suggest an erie resemblance to the successments and envision how his policies show in the real world to discuss his ideals with the american people. The overall impact of the books is debatable, but the head wins not. The case study shows the political ideals is not limited to official forums. Instead, policy comes from complex and difficult to define interactions between cult and you are individual experience, the public, and the policy ma r makerers themselvmake makers themselves, how one can operate to find success, and so thank you, and im happy to take questions. Well go around with the mic. I have been asked to remind you when you ask your questions to please stand up, thats so that facial Recognition Software will be better for tracking purposes later. Thank you. Thank you. That was interesting. How much did reagan do you think how much did reagan use these popular fiction narratives to tell stories to convince people and how much do you think that he got his views from reading popular fiction . I mean, it seems that reagan was an effective leader in so many ways but sometimes he comes across as intellectually shallow. Reagan is constantly using fiction to communicate with the american people. We see this very early in his administration, so a good example comes when he is awarding the medal of honor to whats the the name of who is escaping right now. But the medal of honor, where hes talking in his speech about a novel, the bridges at tokoria, which is a move thats stars reagans close personal friend and was the best man at the wedding between nancy reagan. He quotes the novel where hes talking about this commander looking flying off to go over the peninsula, and asking where do we get such men. You know, marveling at the ad t quality in people and service. So reagan talks about, we have our cities and towns and farms and highlighting this quality of american service. Throughout his presidency, hes using fiction to communicate these ideas and wothe works of james warner bella. He has the sense to prioritize fiction over nonfiction, in very strange ways. As far as how much influences him, i think he uses fiction as again, a kind of personal war game. Basically where you can imagine the near future. I equate to how hes working through the fog of war. So they talk about the fog of war and how you need to make out these in distinct shapes in the fog. Hes going to try and compare them to something he knows where is reagan is imagining what they could be, which is why hes different in how he yoviews the soviet unions. Because hes trying to imagine with the future could be, using more of a creative approach, he has a greater view in policy as a result. Is there any record how clancys books were received and interpreted back in the soviet union . Publicly, they were denounced. They werent very popular there. Theyre pretty consistently reviewed negatively, you can imagine its kind of reinforcing the superior capitalist nation denouncing the soviet union unfairly, so, in the public records, it had very negative reviews of the tom clancy novels. I havent seen anything that indicates a more official, how theyre used internally. Ive seen the article talking about the embassy buying them, and nancy gives a copy to sort of a presentative of a Human Rights Convention in i haviennad laughs, now im going to be on a list, thank you for giving this to memory. Beyond that, i havent been able to find a list. Thank you very much. A person with a conservative representation, one of his biographies was a teacher at mine i cant think of his name but when he told me one of the things that most impressed him about reagan was his mutually assured destruction you know, the nuclear contest. You know, i read the newspapers and stuff. Somehow this seemed inconsistent with reagans reputation. How about the media cover this and why was that sort of missed by so may be ny of us . A lot of it goes to the rhetoric hes employing. So you see in his first term hes using very harsh rhetoric towards the soviet union, something that the soviet ambassador will an idealogical defense. You have to be on even terms with them and he felt that under the carter presidency, and under the ford presidency, the us had qu fallen behind, both in conventional and forces. He thinks bombers and subs arent effective, and in order to effectively reduce arms you have to build up to the soviets fear. Theyre going to want to be as mutually motivated so you see a shift in tone in the second administration, not necessarily because he has a change in heart, but because he thinks the u. S. Achieved what its going to achieve. While this was going on, i was a student in germany and what i remember very clearly was that there was tremendous resistance during the administration while the spd was in power to the stationing of the pershing missiles. Where did all that fit into this, you know, clancys vision and everything . I mean, how was that a part of these novels . Is there anything that he had to say about that, that influenced reagan . There was theres very little mention of a protest of u. S. Policy in the novels. So the global zero isnt really much talked about. In 1983, reagan mentions and comments they ultimately support and going to the global zero, but something he isnt ready for because we dont have the parity we need kwiconvincing enough. While obviously a major influence in the real word, it hasnt replicated much within clancys novels. This issue that you raise about him mistakiing hollywood themes with reality, supposedly, he alleged that he had film the the liberation of auscwitz, and when he raised the question of high noon, its amusing that carl foreman was attacked and blacklisted the author of the screen play, and john wayne refused take the role in the movie because he realized that high noon was an attack on the mccar mccarthy period and made rio brafy bravo as an attack later. I have a different remembrance of that early period of reagan. I remember reagan 81, 82, 83, people were felt we were moving to an unstricken capability, and members of the administration talked about we could openly win a nuclear war, regardless what you say about his personal feelings and this was something that really scared people and led to the largest demonstration against Nuclear Weapons in American History in the city at that period of time. I was wondering in a general sense, how do you look at popular cultural in general, in terms of shaping Public Opinion . Looking back at our culture . You know, is Norman Mailer writing naked in the dead after world war ii where he wants to be the novelist of the war . Naked of the dead is a different image of war than clancy, and im wondering how you see that shaping, these kind of waves in our society. Because reagan, most of us, i would say, have dubious feelings about reagan, and you know, i wonder if alzheimers was setting in when hed make these kind of silly comments because the great communicator was not at auschwitz and did not film it, and it sucked he was sort of stupefied by that. And joking about the bombing began in the half hour, the media at the time was portraying this as danger and there was a lot of fears of starting World War Three, and administration are bringing this up fairly publicly. As far as the question looking at how to deal with pop culture, it touches on historical memory in a lot of sense, too. The way we talk about and look at particular conflict in the war. You mentioned mailer in world war ii. So sticking with the 1980s period, you can look at members of the vietnam war, so you have movies like rambo first blood and part two, which are kind of raising this narrative that you know somehow the Service Members that people are fighting in the war was portrayed by the politician, they werent allow to win the war, but you have platoon, and full metal jac t jacket, so public memory is a battlefield for as far as how i remember conflict and then what lessons we take from that. So if were taking the a pop lips n apocalypse now, were not going to be able to reconvene. The rambo movies were more likely to do things aggressively. Speaking of the public to september these things and how theyre discussing how they talk about it. Theyre certainly shaping it. It is difficult to trace it sometimes, youre right. I wanted to extend your idea about collaplancy showing the u military technology in the best light and also showing soviet military technology, like in it hunt for red october, he gives them the red october caterpillar drive that essentially makes it able to move silently through the ocean, sonar cant detect it, jones again we talked about, who was like this great sonar operator, and in red storm rising, early on in the book they pull off these brilliant action where is they sneak into iceland and take it over through a ruse, and then are able to knock out american Aircraft Carrier and sink a french Aircraft Carrier. And i think again, its this the soviets are hes giving us the soviets are 10 foot tall story, which now we know their military is much less capable, which is why they planned on nuking us at the beginning of any invasion of western europe. I just wonder again obviously reagan didnt know at the time. Its not conventional perry. We have overwhelming conventional superiority, and what would have won any additional conflict between us and the soviets. I think thats a really good point, because technology is o portrayed very positively. You mentioned the caterpillar hard drive, and clancys third book, theyre ahead and more capable than we are there. And that serves a purpose for chancy and reagan, about this fear the soviets are going to keep passing us, theyre going to be ahead of us, that we need the best systems and weapons to take care of this manpower and if we all behind, it becomes incredibly dangerous, and particularly lines that stand out in the movie talking about hunt for red october, they would they could sit off the coast and we could be dead in 15 minutes and goes after the sense that we dump money into these programs. You get into the late 1980s, some of the defensive authorization act in congress, one of the senators is asking the navys chief of marine warfare, they asked about the article, and the admiral, knew a, what it was immediately and was, like, thank you senator for allowing m tow addree to addres issue. What follows is this really delicate dance. He doesnt want to influence the allies and doesnt want to piss off clancy. No one loves clancy more than i do, but i respectfully disagree with him here. Tom chance segreat for the navy and is great for us. Hes absolutely fantastic for us, so it goes to the sense they know these books are good it, good for driving the program, and the fetisization helps drive interest in funding them and employing them ultimately. Hi, how are you . Good, things. I enjoyed your rapid fire delivery. It was really nice. Thank you. But there is a film that reagan did endorse in the 80s. It was a low budget movie. Very few people have heard of it called if all the guys in the wor world. Its about a cia that releases all of these patriotics and lunatics at a mental hospital, and puts them on the front lines, and the shock of being on the front lines puts forces to lucidity, and they become well. And he personally endorsed this film as a progressive Mental Health issue. He totally endorsed it. Are you aware of this film . No, i havent heard of that. Ill have to look it up now. Its really rarely seen. Se s se my toughs and doris weaver. King of hearts. Thank you. Sir, excellent talk, captain. Thank you. It showed a lot of investigation. I was in camp kakoosh in 2006, a little before you got there, and i was working on boomerang and warlock duke putting them on to humvees and mwraps, not putting them on to abrams m1. I see youre understanding my question. Not putting them on m 1s, or lavs. Also, the heroes that i like are van, hoffman, okay . My question to you is, clancy and reagan had a specific view and that went into the training of the military. Id say though when you went in 2007 you werent trained very well for the war you got. They did not have a small war or a irregular warfare concept, and that caused or i think that Reagan Clancy viewpoint caused the caused our country to be unprepared for 2005 when we needed not m1s, not lavs. We needed mwraps, we needed m4s, not m16s. We needed those types of weapons for irregular warfare, and what do you say about that . So, yes, youre right. A lot of what reagan and clancy are laying is the groundwork for the modern force. Were still using these systems that were developed in the 80s, and m1s, and the submarines that came out there, and its designed in part to respond to what the expectation of fighting World War Three with the russians would be, and following there was little desire i think to real study some of the lessons we had from vietnam, we werent necessarily prepared to do this, i think thats a fair criticism. Okay. I have one question. Im drawing a blank now. [ laughter ] oh, yes, i remember now. You talked about president reagan not revealing or resentrt about other books he read. Did historians find out what other books he read and if so, what books did he read other than tom clancy . Thats been rather difficult to hunt down. So we know that clancy likes westerns, unsurprisingly, given what his interest are, and he likes Science Fiction quite a bit of the one of the book he most fondly remembers reading is the john carter series, so he likes those books quite a bit. A book called that printer of udels, which is a terrible book that he credits with kind of revig ratir rerig vatir rer rer rerigvigorating, and im confident he read the star line seekers and contributes two reagans speech that introduces sdi. Its likely reagan read the third world war, by general hackett, which is kind of a precursor to john clancy, and very similar to red storm rising. Written with a degree of realism, but bestseller, but doesnt have the lasting success that clancys work does, and is also known to like thrillers when he was reading in the white house. A forget the name of the book, but one about air force one being taken over and that kind of stuff. In general, western Science Fiction and thrillers is what he would go for. He was consistent then . Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Can you clarify your dependent and independent variables . I was a foreign area officer during this period, top secret clearance, worked at the joint staff. You seem to imply that the independent variable was clancys work influenced reagan, and somehow decided the reykjavik outcome. I would kind of feel that it was more like helen caldecot talking about the danger of nuclear war, and that real independent variables at reykjavik were the pope and gorbachevs belief it was time to end the cold war, so you can clarify independent and depend not variables . And im not sure i would phrase them as dependent or independent variables. Im not trying to put forward a formula for really theres a lot of factors so the pope is playing a role, gorbachev is playing a role, clancys past is playing a role, so its all of these things combining into a very chaotic environment. It would be wrong to say red storm rising is why, it certainly contributes to his thinking, so would be many variables as opposed to having one of two there. The question over simplistic narrative that he put out, its obviously not genius, but its necessary. And if you want to look at somebody who has copied to the inth degree, thats put iin. Its working for their global view. Hes done an excellent job convincing his people they should be where he is and what theyre doing is correct. You can mark reagan in his clancy cowboy narrative, but hes actually hes being copied. We have nothing comparable to what putin is doing, and we have nothing comparable to what reagan is doing. I dont see anything wrong. Obviously its a far more complex thing that he was doing other than just, you know, going with the clancy model. You need that kind of current within the publics mind in order to do what you need to do, which is ultimately outspend them. I agree with that. I didnt mean to mock this. I think its showing a level of savvy of reagan to recognize the importance of pop culture and media portrayals. Its showing political okacumen and skill. Hi, my name is garth. I heard you talk about the power of narrative and also i want to comment, i interviewed as a graduate of nyu, in my studies, i had the opportunity to interview 500 cops and federal people, also. In one term is very aprapote and writing about the cops report about, crime story, fact is stranger than fiction. Crime stories are more logical than real life, and how would how am i trying to say . And going into another tangent that in a contra positive, like did Ronald Reagan ever go view things like a lawyer on the and the viewpoint the european side russian side, lecar series, tinker tail, and the spy . Go into that . Yes, i think reagan was a fan of lecar. He talked about his speech to the cia at langley. As hes researching this, his speech writers reach out to lecar and look out for some of the ken filby pieces. Lacar, tends towards a bit more depressing narrative. The spy who came in from the cold is not a heavy story. Tinker taylor soldier spy isnt a happy story, even though the main characters escape me now smiley, yes. I wanted to mention also, the fact that those spy stories, the reality is, the movies dont the movies dont the Police Department would say, movies its cia stories are more complex, are more complex than those movies could ever portray. Saving private never ever depict what real war is all about. It gives some semblance what reality is. I dont think the challenge is to try to get as much of reality and truth as they can. It is always from a certain perspective. You have people go through a war and will view it different ways. So it is challenging. It is hard to get a fully accurate one. For reagans purposes he tended to like happy stories. His story was morally gray or ended poorly it wasnt like he would read, enjoy and talk about as much as ones you thought ended well. It would define a rager story and talk about one versus one that he wouldnt use as much. Very interesting comment on culture and military. I am interested specifically in the area of technology you talking about. And i know the whole focus and the war games, that kind of thing and at the time which is interesting because it is the start of the internet and internets use or that kind of thing and my question is did he foresee the transition from war games to what we are doing currently beyond Systems Operations and the drone . Or was that engineering where we are moving towards that at the time . And also i know you come from the army side and are the air force when they are training folks who are operators, do they transition from actually a war game to, in fact, a technological use of the dreone system . The development of drones was begun in this time period. As to the question with the air force i dont know in all honesty. Thank you. One question saying that goal to outspend them. National security adviser a couple of years ago was caught on video saying we baited the russians into afghanistan. And later on he denied that. He said he misspoke. But that indicates that that may have been a Strategic Plan to get russia into afghanistan to basically use their forces and economic power there, waste it. To what extent was reagans strategy, the way i see it was it was an economic plan newt to outspend them but basically either beans or bullets, basically to wreck havoc with the russian economy. Im curious if you come up with any information that supports that theory . They are pretty explicit about that talking about the need to make the soviets realize cost of operation is too high, talking about how much they spend on military budget. Officials estimates were somewhere around 10 to 15 . Reagan felt that everything the soviets did were support tanks and hospitals. You get to 32 it is very much about trying to convince the soviets that the cost of the game is too high and beans versus bullets. So the idea is to make them pull back as a result. That is a fair characterization, yes. Switching the topic back to clancy for a minute. I heard a story that after hunt came out he was visited by somebody who wanted to know how he got his information. Is there any truth to that . So prior to the book being released the naval force institute sent it out to a couple of readers in the navy and asked them to see if there is any classified material because it has a high level of detail. One reader says it is fine. The other one says you cant possibly publish this, it is giving everything away. Clancy going through exactly where he is finding everything in open source. The point where he is satisfied with it. Secretarys response was who cleared this. I think he was told it wasnt classified. Throughout his career clancy denied having access to classified material. There was a fairly vigorous Fact Checking before publication. I have one question. I happen to have read red october. I did read a number of his books for several years. I picked one up which was about an attack submarine and the missions it went on. It was god awful. I mean, it was obvious somebody sat down with harpoon and played ten scenarios. None of the American Equipment never fails. None of the soviet equipment ever works right. I was just wondering, i find most of his late stuff unreadable. I dont know how much of that he wrote or did he just do a trump where he stuck his name on it . It depends what series you are talking about. You have the core jack ryan series. Really through the mid 2000s clancy is primary author. Im not sure when he starts sharing. But throughout the 90s there are a series of spinoffs. You have power plays and net center. All of these books are franch e franchises. It has his name on the cover and somebody else writes it. It is a way for the other author to get more sales and clancy able to make money off of licensing his name. I have one question. When everyone attends a talk about Ronald Reagan there is always a lot of laughter about Ronald Reagan and desire to criticize him and make him a fool. In fact, the Great Central achievement of his administration in Foreign Policy was to lay the foundation for the destruction of the soviet union and of communism in europe. I for one in all of history cannot think of another leader who has done so much at the cost of so little blood shed. His achievements are extraordinary. Why is it, do you think, that people are unwilling to accept that central truth and rather laugh at his minor nonsense . Is it that they are maybe detached from reality . It is highly debated as far as end of the cold war. You touched on one of the common acts. These attacks date back to his first run for governor when he is being characterized as just an actor. He is not someone to take seriously. A bad actor. His possible breakout role was kings row. That was the tail end of his career. So he is just an actor. So after he is elected you have the crisis over university of california who then fire clark kerr. Reagan had little to do with that firing. It does early paint him as not serious. So that is going to follow him throughout his career. His leadership style, too, is one that he seems disengaged a lot of times. People will come to him and different policy options and both could leave thinking they green lit theirs. The inability to try to avoid crisis and avoid internal drama and conflict tended to create a picture of someone who was disengaged. I think he was a very serious and involved leader on issues of the cold war. That is from his earliest days of political career. Thank you for the presentation. You mentioned general hacketts book which ends differently. There were other World War Three fiction genres going on at the time. Team yankee started. You did a nice job of crediting larry bond. Larry is still around and the role that the harpoon game played. I was wondering if you had contact with larry. Larry was fantastic. He is a wonderful guy. I had the privilege of going out to northern virginia, interviewing him and his current coauthor and another guy credited with working the harpoon. Unsurprisingly he destroyed me. I dont think i sank one of his ships. So that is why you dont play games with designers of games. He gave me a lot of great material. He is a wonderful guy. I am grateful for everything. Sometimes novels turn out to be not that important and then turn out to be very presiant. Two of them, 110 years ago, one and then about the same time he came out with the world set free. The one was about use of zeppelins by germans in new york city. Basically nobody paid attention to it. As far as world set free remembered it and he had just read it between the wars. And he luckily for us he decide today talk, to write to einstein and einstein wrote to roosevelt about the possibility of the use of atomic bomb. Sometimes these things turn out to be pretty important. I completely agree. The importance of pop culture is fairly understated and fun for me to study and somewhat valuable. One thing to ask, was it a much it didnt increase the chance of nuclear war by threatening the soviet union especially irresponsible stupid remark reagan made about the soviet union being destroyed in five minutes . The bomb beginning in 30 minutes doesnt help things. Tensions between the u. S. And soviet union hit their peak in 1983. You end up during nato exercises there is a possibility because tension is so high. You have a soviet officer who launched nuclear missiles. Decides the system is broken, not reporting accurately. Given the heightened tension he sent the report up it is possible. It goes down to what the soviet ambassador calls the offense of reagan. He is talking to evangelicals in florida and talks about relegating them to the dust bin of histra. This is aggressive language and is certainly worried about it. It does heighten tensions and tightens the possibility of war. I read quite a bit about the breaking of german and japanese codes in world war ii. But i never came across information if the soviet military code was broken during world war ii. I dont know. There is a very interesting book called youth heroism and war propaganda. I suggest perhaps you look at it because what it talks about is the creation of stereotypes that lend to cohesion in that period. What i find amusing in this is that we know from declassified information about war games that were waged between with allied commanders. The exchange of Nuclear Weapons was off the charts. It would be expanded to the point where in three or four days hundreds of them would be fired by both sides. So what we are seeing in these kinds of books, hackett, i met hackett before he died, a great officer, captured, et cetera. So here write ag book about conventionally stopping the soviets. I think there was sort of a fantasy about this. We still are numb to this. I wonder what you think about that because the reality is that when the war games occurred in classified settings they would shoot those things off and destroy humanity. Thats not necessarily reflected in tech no books like clancy does which basically are feel good things that sort of america wins. The bad guys lose and it is a bunch of bull hacketts book does have limited exchange. So there is an element of imagination. I think the take away is that u. S. Systems were so much better than soviet ones. We never fought a war. You not sure how it will work out until you fight the war. It is all assimulation. These war games do go nuclear very quickly and something that was mentioned. Though we can look somewhat at performance of technology in the gulf war and beat the technology pretty handily. It is possible. The problem is it is hard to know for sure one way or the other. We still have Nuclear Weapons. Still certainly part to come up multiple times in debates now. This is my last question. Going back to the power narrative and what the gentleman said about a book leading to Albert Einstein talking to president roosevelt about atomic bomb and previous book he mentioned, what does the power of narrative have to do with Star Wars Initiative . What led to idea that it was Ronald Reagans presidency . And why was it not implemented if it could make a big difference . So the first question on implementation, they never got to where it was technically feasible or possible to deploy. It was very expensive. Support started dying down later into the 80s. They had initial support for a lot of different reasons. Reagan was a true believer. A lot of people as far as origins go with reagan it was something he expressed interest in in his early days as governor. He talked to scientists about it. It is hard to pin point where he gets the idea because there are a lot of people who claim to have given him the idea for it. There is a role that Science Fiction plays. He talks about the first time, part of the speech is written by a collection of Science Fiction writers from california. So we are seeing a blending of fiction and policy with that when you debuting this program to the world. The fact that kennedy decides to use star wars to label it speaks to trying to tie it to a certain type of saying it is a fantasy. Everyone loves star wars. You probably shouldnt label things with popular movies. Last question. My concern is with the who won the cold war. The Chicken Hawks won. The idea of nuclear war, you light the board with a match after the first few games, chapters play out. When i played the game in europe and when i did it at the pentagon, somehow the Chicken Hawks win the cold war. We have Nuclear Weapons. The russians are out there with Nuclear Weapons. We had a chance to disarm. What was the lesson that we should have learned from the reagan period . Was it that the clancy idea was correct . Or was it that gorbachev, pope, solidarity pushed it and Chicken Hawks sat back believing they were somehow the winners . Tough question. There is a lot of parts to that one. I think the problem with the end of the cold war is it defies easy narratives. People say reagan wins the cold war because we sent soviets to their grave. People say solidarity and Pope John Paul are responsible. People say it was going to end no matter what. And in reality i think it is a mixture of all of these things. Clearly, you cant ignore contributions of people on the ground, people who are resisting soviet rule. The rise of catholicism and political resistance plays a role in breaking soviet power. That happens in part because of the environment gorbachev instills and reforms leading to more openness. Part of it is because of economic pressure. Part of that is tied to pressure u. S. Put on them by spending more. Because soviets cant afford to resist when u. S. Goes in, because soviets decide that they cant afford to risk u. S. Wrath when they see uprisings, there has been a bit of pullback. And then after that you have mix of george h. W. Bush going around in 89 and 90 and 91. It is all of these things that it is sad to break it down to one had to have done it by themselves and not credit a broad group of people for bringing back a stunningly peaceful end and demise to an empire. Thank you very much. I was very happy to be with you guys. Each night this week cspan 3 is showing American History tv program. Tonights programs are about president Ronald Reagan. Beginning at 8 00 a former aid talks about Ronald Reagans life and personality a. After that a look at Dwight Eisenhowers behind the scene mentoring of president reagan. And then the influence that author tom clancy and president reagan had on one another during the 1980s cold war. All of this tonight on American History tv on cspan 3. This weekend james rosebush talks about the 40th president s personal life and personality. Mr. Rosebush is the author of true reagan. The Richard Nixon president ial library and museum hosted this event. I what like to introduce someone who served in the nixon and reagan white houses. He joined the president nixons campaign in 1968. He served at Deputy Assistant to president nixon. He then retired and he helped him research and write his bestselling memoirs. He returned to politics in the Reagan Administration where he served as a speechwriter and senior adviser. Hes been influential in many states and national campaigns. He is a very supportive member of the president reagan board. Thank you, jonathan. First, id like to add a note thats relative to this setting. Having worked so closely with both president s, i think he would like to know first how much they respected each other and worked very closely both with president nixon and president reagan. And president reagan had deep respect for president nixon for insights and depth of experience in Foreign Policy and he also looked to president nixon for political advice from time to time. And i also, i live in san clemente for obvious reasons. I worked with president nixon on his memoirs after he left the white house. I worked for him for four years and i sat for many hours with him. He prepared his memoirs and as we prepared for the david frost interviews and as he wched the 1976 and then later conferred with him as he watched the 1980 and 1984 elections. He had Great Respect for president reagans skills all around as a communicator, as a politician. Yaen way sh its nice to be able toinlt deuce a former colleague of mine in the reagan white house. There are hundreds of books written about president reagan. I havent read all of them. Many of them purport to be written from the inside. They say what i saw or what they say about reagan the man or the real reagan