question of restricting and/or raising the costs of credits to the countries of the Soviet bloc.”62 An attempt to deter the Western European governments from involvement with the pipeline, NSDD-24 put into motion the covert diplomatic efforts that sought to limit Western Europe’s role in construction.63 By utilizing the departmental powers of the executive branch, Reagan would reach out to the participating governments, trying to convince them to abandon the pipeline.
Ultimately, the significance of this NSDD lay not only in its concentrated diplomatic efforts to oppose the pipeline, but also in its clear articulation of government policy. This NSDD became a standard by which others would be judged, as it successfully demonstrated both clear objectives and decisive action, a combination that would be the hallmark of the most important NSDDs that lay in the weeks and months ahead. Distilling months of planning and internal policy debate into a concentrated document, the NSDDs which began with NSDD-24 eliminated the need for guesswork among the administration’s security officials and provided them with a distinct roadmap. APRIL TO MAY 1982
While Clark and his team at the NSC kept the economic strategy on track, Reagan pressured the Soviets on another front. On April 5, 1982, he gave a speech to the AFL-CIO in which prayer and Poland were very much on his mind: “Poland’s government says it will crush democratic freedoms,” said Reagan, before shaking his finger: “You can imprison your people. You can close their schools. You can take away their books, harass their priests, and smash their unions. You can never destroy the love of God and freedom that burns in their hearts. They will triumph over you.”64 It was an opinion that Reagan echoed throughout that spring, and in May he shared a similar view in Hambach, West Germany on May 6, 1982: “You know some may not like to hear it, but history is not on the side of those who manipulate the meaning of words like revolution, freedom, and peace. History is on the side of those struggling for a true revolution of peace with freedom all across the world.”65
Jetting back home—truly home—to his alma mater, Eureka College, on May 9, 1982, the Crusader made some emphatic statements. Handing little Eureka some big publicity, Reagan insisted that the “course” Soviet leaders had chosen would “undermine the foundations of the Soviet system.” He identified the ingredients he saw as setting the stage for that unraveling:
The Soviet empire is faltering because rigid centralized control has destroyed incentives for innovation, efficiency and individual achievement. But in the midst of social and economic problems, the Soviet dictatorship has forged the largest armed force in the world. It has done so by preempting the human needs of its people and, in the end, this course will undermine the foundations of the Soviet system.
He went on to talk about the proper relationship between the United States and Soviet economies, speaking more candidly than ever about how the West should deal with the USSR:
We recognize that some of our allies’ economic requirements are distinct from our own. But the Soviets must not have access to Western technology with military applications, and we must not subsidize the Soviet economy. The Soviet Union must make the difficult choices brought on by its military budgets and economic shortcomings.66
Here he was sending a message—not just to the Soviets but to the Western nations as well. To Reagan, the influx of Western money into the USSR was one of the greatest buoys to the Soviet system. If America was going to undermine successfully, he would have to convince the American public and the world to avoid assistance or dependence of any kind on the Soviets.
Within a week and a half of that speech, Reagan’s and Clark’s NSC produced yet another highly significant NSDD, one that made NSDD-24 seem like the calm before the storm. Labeled “U.S. National Security Strategy,” a title as flat as the blade of a sword, NSDD-32 was signed on May 20, 1982. It was the first of the Reagan administration’s formal intents to actually reverse Soviet expansion and encourage democratic change within both the Soviet bloc and the USSR itself.67 With its unmistakable language, it stands as a remarkable demonstration of a very early desire to produce historical change. NSDD-32 set the precedent for additional consequential NSDDs, laying the crucial groundwork for NSDD-66, NSDD-75, and others.
NSDD-32 began by stating that the Reagan national security plan “requires development and integration of a set of strategies, including diplomatic, informational, economic/political, and military components.” It then listed ten bulleted points which laid out the “global objectives” of U.S. security policy and established the Reagan intent to undermine. Incorporating a variety of components, the sum total of the objectives constituted a plan for rollback laid out in multiple parts. The document’s language was rife with strong wording, such as this objective on page one, which was reiterated later in the document, as if for good measure: “To contain and reverse the expansion of Soviet control and military presence throughout the world, and to increase the costs of Soviet support and use of proxy, terrorist, and subversive forces.”
This phrasing was enormously significant, as it expressed Reagan’s goal of not merely containing the USSR, but going beyond containment and actually rolling back positions and territory already controlled by the USSR. Furthermore, these words also sought to reverse positions over which the Soviet military threatened control, meaning most of Eastern Europe and numerous other spots around the world. To “increase the costs” meant U.S. support of counter-Soviet forces like the Mujahedin rebels in Afghanistan, among others. Additionally significant was the fact that NSDD-32 authorized clandestine support for Solidarity, allowing for secret financial, intelligence, and logistical support to ensure the survival of the trade union as an explosive force in the Soviet empire. The straightforward wording in NSDD-32 belies the large internal debate over this issue. While NSC members such as Richard Pipes thought the support of Solidarity was essential, they were strongly opposed by Secretary of State Al Haig, who deemed the plan “crazy,” and Vice President George Bush, who worried about inflaming Moscow and counseled against clandestine operations. Pipes said that Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige and Chief of Staff James Baker also disagreed, thinking that the policy “wasn’t realistic.”68
Nevertheless, all were vetoed by Reagan, who liked the idea and included it in NSDD-32.69 Pipes recalled: “The president talked about… how we had to do everything possible to help these people in Solidarity who were struggling for freedom…. Reagan really understood what was at stake.”70 The president instructed Bill Casey to draw up a covert plan; the DCI enthusiastically complied. In fact, Casey had moved to prepare plans for aiding Solidarity as early as April 1981, a half year before martial law, and as such he became the principal architect of the operation.71
Throughout the document there were continual references to places where Reagan wanted to discourage the Soviets from active expansion. Page two alone featured three calls to curb the USSR and its activities. The first desired to “neutralize the efforts of the USSR to increase its influence.” The second called for economic pressure by the Reagan administration to “foster” restraint in Soviet military spending, to discourage Soviet “adventurism,” and to “weaken the Soviet alliance system by forcing the USSR to bear the brunt of its economic shortcomings, and to encourage long-term liberalizing and nationalist tendencies within the Soviet Union and allied countries.” Within those allied countries, meaning the Soviet bloc, the directive called for the “independent evolution” of “popular movements and institutions in Poland and other East European countries.”72 The third objective sought to limit technology and resources sent to the USSR, and to stymie “Soviet military capabilities by strengthening the U.S. military.”
In short, NSDD-32 constituted a formal assault on Soviets interests, intended to rupture the empire, a declaration of which the USSR was quite aware: Writing in
