The Crusader

then listed results. Yet, NSDD-320 continued, “Despite recent improvements in U.S.–Soviet relations and the program of internal Soviet reform instituted by President Gorbachev, the military threat posed by the Soviet Union to the United States and its allies remains unchanged.” As a result, “It therefore remains the policy of the United States to restrict the transfer of strategic technologies to the Soviet Union and its allies whenever such transfers would make a significant contribution to Soviet bloc military capabilities that would prove detrimental to the national security of the United States and its allies.”

Thus, NSDD-320 pursued continued restrictions on key high-tech exports to the USSR. It enlisted greater export control laws and enforcement of laws by the federal government and COCOM.²⁴ The economic-warfare campaign would continue until the USSR’s final gasps.

Although this move could be viewed as odd in light of the advances that had been made between the two countries, the reality was that this thinking was completely in line with Reagan’s perception of the situation at the end of his presidency. Sure, Reagan had come to trust and even like Gorbachev, but he did not like the Soviet Union; he was trying to push the USSR over the edge, and nothing would stand in the way of that goal. Despite the fact that Gorbachev seemed to be a nice guy, Reagan was not about to alter his commitment to “reverse the wheels of history,” as Pravda editor Tomas Kolesnichenko put it, in judging that the president still “views himself as some sort of provincial overthrower of Communism.”²⁵ Or, as Georgi Arbatov put it, he was not about to give up his goal of dislodging the Bolsheviks from power, of “conquering” the “empire of evil.” Reagan “wants to throw Communism and socialism on the dust heap of history.”²⁶ Or, alas, as Manki Ponomarev laid out in the Red army publication Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), he was not about to retire his “crusade” to “wreck” the USSR.²⁷

NSDD-320 proved to be the last significant piece of anti-Soviet policy that Ronald Reagan implemented before leaving the White House. It was fitting that the year would end in the same fashion in which his presidential crusade had begun, with a determined and hard NSDD. Like Reagan himself, the NSDDs which had done so much damage to the Soviets would now come to a close and the man who wreaked so much havoc on the Soviets would make his exit.

As the dust began to settle on 1988, there was little that members of the administration could do but watch and hope that the steps that they had taken over the previous eight years had made a difference. Over the course of the previous eight years, Reagan and his team had taken the most dramatic steps in forty years to bring about the fall of Communism and the USSR. Now, with all of their chips in place, there was little that they could do but wait for their plans to come to fruition, hoping for the realization of their goals, and for the freedom of those enslaved by the Soviet Communist state.

PART IV The Fall of the Soviet Empire

20. The March of Freedom: 1989

APPROACHING THE END OF HIS EIGHT YEARS IN THE WHITE House, Ronald Reagan was thrilled over the sudden resurgence of freedom around the world; it looked as though democracy was indeed on the rise. “More of the world’s populace is today living in relative freedom than ever before in history,” he triumphed in December 1988, “more and more nations are turning to freely elected democratic governments.” He cited numbers from Freedom House, and noted that this democratic revolution was accompanied by a considerable change in economic thinking as well, as the world looked to free markets in addition to free elections.¹ And this was just the start; there was a “transformation” afoot alright, one “that many would have thought impossible only a decade ago”; yet, even the eternal optimist could not foresee the fast and furious shift in the months ahead.²

As he bade farewell, there was no doubt to Reagan about what he had committed America to in the 1980s: freedom at home and abroad. “[T]hat’s what it was to be an American in the 1980s,” he said with satisfaction to his fellow Americans in his Farewell Address on January 11, 1989. “We stood, again, for freedom.” He summed up victoriously: “We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world.”³ While clever, that line was not totally forthright: his intent to change both the nation and the world had been clear for a long time.

In that final speech, Reagan also could not resist one more poke at detente, even after it had lost currency: “The detente of the 1970s was based not on actions but promises,” he reminded his fellow Americans. “They’d promise to treat their own people and the people of the world better. But the gulag was still the gulag, and the state was still expansionist, and they still waged proxy wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.”⁴ This desire to end detente, and the source and system that embraced it, never left him.

By the time of his Farewell Address, morale had long been restored at home, democracy was readying to spread abroad, and Communism had declined from its apogee of expansion in 1979. Reagan’s popularity had grown substantially over the course of his presidency, even surviving setbacks like Iran-Contra. He was leaving office with the highest Gallup approval ratings of any president since Eisenhower, and there were many Americans who would have gladly voted for him for a third term if they had the option—as would many Poles. Andrew Nagorski, Bonn bureau chief for Newsweek, was in Poland in 1988, where he was asked wistfully by Poles: “Is it really true that Reagan can’t run for a third term?”⁵ Fortunately for the world, another Reagan term was not necessary for Communism to fall.

Alas, it was fitting that on the final day of the Reagan presidency, Pravda was sensing a similar shift. Looking back, columnist Gennady Vasilyev affirmed on January 20, 1989 that without question Reagan’s objective had been “to roll back communism on a worldwide scale.”⁶ And that once unthinkable prospect now appeared quite possible.

POLAND UNRAVELS

In the spring of 1989, Reagan’s beloved Poland was preparing for what in December 1981 would have been unimaginable: free and fair Parliamentary elections, open to candidates from any political party, Solidarity included. The inevitability of freedom was finally upon Poles, and former president Reagan eagerly anticipated the moment from his home in California.

A few weeks before the elections, Reagan received a visit from four gentlemen: two Solidarity members and the two Polish Americans hosting them. One of the hosts, Chris Zawitkowski, who today is head of the Polish- American Foundation for Economic Research and Education, asked the master campaigner if he had any words of wisdom or encouragement for the two Solidarity members as they prepared for the final stretch to the June elections. Zawitkowski was expecting to hear about political strategy, or even the invocation of Thomas Jefferson or the founders; instead, he was taken aback by what he heard from the seasoned candidate: “Listen to your conscience,” said Reagan, “because that is where the Holy Spirit speaks to you.”⁷

With this line, what began as a political appeal became a spiritual encounter. The ex-president pointed to a picture of Pope John Paul II, which hung on his office wall. “He is my best friend,” explained Reagan. “Yes, you know I’m Protestant, but he’s still my best friend.” Antoni Macierewicz, a Solidarity member who had been imprisoned by the Communists, reciprocated by giving Reagan a Madonna that he had handcarved in a Polish gulag. Holding the gift in his hands, Reagan gladly accepted it and said that he and Nancy would be proud to have it in their home.⁸