36. Jon Nordheimer, “Reagan Attacks Ford’s ‘Timidity,’” New York Times, March 7, 1976, A40.
37. Editorial, “Mr. Reagan’s Veto,” New York Times, May 14, 1976, A26.
38. Editorial, “President Under Seige,” New York Times, May 9, 1976, A14.
39. Quoted by Martin Anderson, Revolution (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1988), 43.
40. Reagan speaking on “Reagan,” The American Experience, PBS.
41. “Where Reagan Stands, Interview on the Issues,” U.S. News & World Report, May 31, 1976, 20.
42. Quoted in Jon Nordheimer, “Reagan, in Direct Attack, Assails Ford on Defense,’” New York Times, March 5, 1976, A10.
43. Lou Cannon noticed this as well. Cannon, Reagan, 219.
44. “Text of Platform Proposal,” New York Times, August 17, 1976, A23.
45. Richard L. Madden, “Reagan’s Plank Criticizes Ford-Kissinger Policies,” New York Times, August 17, 1976, A1, A23.
46. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Solzhenitsyn Speaks to the West (London: The Bodley Head, 1978), 73.
47. Solzhenitsyn once said to Reagan regarding his assassination attempt: “I unceasingly thank God that you were not killed by that villainous bullet.” John O’Sullivan, “Friends at Court,” National Review, May 27, 1991, 4.
48. This includes Reagan’s attack on detente, Ford’s ceasing to use the term and opting for peace through strength, and the morality plank. Soviet media archives from the time featured at least twenty separate newspaper articles, radio and TV transcripts, and press releases from the likes of TASS and the Moscow Domestic Service. They cover primarily the spring and summer 1976 period, but also touch late 1975 and early 1977.
49. Commentary by Valentin Zorin, Moscow Domestic Service, February 16, 1976, published as “Reagan Making Detente a ‘Football Game,’” in FBIS-SOV-27-FEB-76, February 27, 1976, B5–6.
50. M. Sturua, “Reagan Applies the ‘Corrective;’ the Essence of the Amendments to the U.S. Republican Party Platform,”
51. Morris, Dutch, 402.
52. Nancy Reagan recalled these words in an interview with “Reagan,” The American Experience, PBS.
53. Reagan might have quickly uttered the word “to,” though that is not clear.
54. A few weeks later, Reagan expanded on his remarks by turning them into a radio broadcast that he taped on September 1, 1976. For a handwritten copy of that broadcast, see Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, eds., Reagan, In His Own Hand, 9–10 and inside cover of book.
55. Edmund Morris speaking on “Reagan,” The American Experience, PBS.
56. Interview with Michael Reagan by telephone, May 9, 2005. Michael said his father “finally got that chance at Reykjavik, Iceland ten years later in October 1986 when he said [’nyet’] to Gorbachev over SDI.”
57. Maureen Reagan, “A president and a father,” Washington Times, June 16, 2000, A23.
58. Interview with Richard V. Allen, November 12, 2001.
59. Interview with Allen; and Richard Allen, “An Extraordinary Man in Extraordinary Times: Ronald Reagan’s Leadership and the Decision to End the Cold War,” Address to the Hoover Institution and the William J. Casey Institute of the Center for Security Policy, Washington, DC, February 22, 1999, in Schweizer, ed., The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 52.
60. Allen in Schweizer, ed., The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 58–59.
61. Here is a transcript of that exchange between myself and Allen:
Question to Allen: I’m trying to clarify that Reagan in fact had a specific intent to take on and defeat the USSR and the Soviet empire before his presidency even began. Was that his intent? Allen: Yes. Q: That’s a big, big deal. Are you telling me that on that day in January 1977, Ronald Reagan told you that his goal was to take on and defeat the Soviet empire? That’s what you’re telling me? Allen: Yes. That’s absolutely right. That’s what I’m telling you. Q: So, you then, on that day, decided to join him for the purpose of taking on and defeating the Soviet empire? Allen: Yes. That’s it exactly. Nothing longer and nothing shorter than that. Q: You joined Reagan because you were convinced that that was his intent. Allen: Yes. Q: And this was four years before his presidency began? Allen: That would be correct.
January 1977. Four years.
When Ed Meese was asked his response to Allen’s statement about the January 1977 meeting, and asked if Reagan ever said such a thing to him prior to the presidency, Meese said, “Well, not in such stark terms… But what he said there is not surprising. He did believe that.” Bill Clark had the same reaction. Interviews with Ed Meese, December 5, 2001, and Bill Clark, July 14, 2005. Strategy for Growth,” to the International Business Council of Chicago. “RWR, Pres. Election-1980,” folder, RRL.
21. Reagan, “Address at Liberty State Park,” Jersey City, NJ, September 1, 1980. Speech text located at Reagan Library, “Reagan 1980 Campaign Speeches, September 1980,” vertical files.
22. Credit again goes to the digging of Kiron Skinner and Annelise and Martin Anderson. For full text, see Skinner, Anderson, Anderson, eds., Reagan, In His Own Hand, 470–79. Prior to their discovery, one had to read about the speech in the form of quotes in newspapers and other documents. This is the first full copy made available.
23. The other speech was on August 18, 1980. “The greatest fallacy of the Lenin-Marxist philosophy is that it is the ‘wave of the future,’” wrote Reagan in the speech draft. “Everything about it is as primitive as tribal rule.” Speaking of boat people from Southeast Asia and Cuba, fleeing “the inhumanity of communism,” he stated: “I believe it is our pre-ordained destiny to show all mankind that they, too, can be free without having to leave their native shore.” Text available at Reagan Presidential Library. Reagan-Bush 1980 Campaign Papers, 1979–80, Box 949.
24. Skinner, Anderson, Anderson, eds., Reagan, In His Own Hand, 478.
25. Ibid., 479.
26. Ibid., 471.
27. Ibid., 472.
28. Ibid., 474, 478, 479.
29. Ibid.
30. Kiron Skinner found that nearly a third of the 670 Reagan radio transcripts addressed defense or foreign policy, of which “Reagan’s main concern throughout… is the cold war.” “According to Reagan,” she deduced, “the main goal of the United States’ cold war policy should be to hasten the end of communism….Communism will not survive, he writes.” She listed steps that Reagan felt would (in her words) “hasten the demise of communism.” Skinner says Reagan wrote that (in her words) “a first step toward hastening the demise of Soviet communism was to distinguish the symptoms of the Cold War from its sources.” She lays out the steps on pages 23–25 of Reagan, In His Own Hand.
31. As will be seen in the chapters ahead: The “strategic deterrent” Reagan insisted upon might be any of a number of nuclear missile programs in the 1980s, from the MX to Pershing IIs. The Naval superiority was seen in Reagan seeking his 600-ship Navy, restoring old, mothballed destroyers. Pay for military personnel was jacked up significantly once Reagan became president, sparking much higher morale and making the armed forces a destination rather than a last resort for young people. The science and technology thrust was embodied most saliently in SDI and other technological challenges to the Kremlin. Lastly, intelligence in the 1980s was refocused to search out and exploit Soviet economic vulnerabilities.
32. Reagan said this in Anaheim, California. “Reagan Proposes Arms Approach,” United Press International, Washington Post, April 17, 1977, A5.
33. Quoted by Dugger, On Reagan: The Man & His Presidency, 395. To cite another example, in a May 1979 radio broadcast, Reagan complained: “Our President is telling us that SALT II holds out the promise of peace and an end to any costly arms race. But what does that do to us if we are the only ones racing?” In “Ronald Reagan: Pre-Presidential Papers: Selected Radio Broadcasts, 1975–1979,” October 31, 1978 to October 1979, Box
