During the 1980 campaign, Reagan thundered to an audience: “There will be no more Taiwans….There will be no more betrayals of friends by the United States!” Quoted in Laurence I. Barrett, Gambling with History: Ronald Reagan in the White House (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 206–7.
25. Reagan, “Address to the Roundtable National Affairs Briefing,” Dallas, Texas, August 22, 1980, located at Reagan Library, “Reagan 1980 Campaign Speeches, August 1980,” vertical files.
Soviet forces on the “NATO front” had increased by fifty-four divisions, a 40 percent increase in tanks. He said the Soviets had developed six new strategic nuclear systems. He leveled more complaints and listed evidence of Soviet aggression. Located in “Ronald Reagan: Selected Radio Broadcasts, 1975–1979,” January 1975 to March 1977, Box 1, RRL. For a full transcript, see Skinner, Anderson, and Anderson, eds., Reagan, In His Own Hand, 117–19. A year later, in a September 1978 radio broadcast, Reagan probably referenced the same meeting when he spoke of an “intelligence report” of a secret meeting between Brezhnev and Communist Party leaders in which the general secretary allegedly said that (in Reagan’s words) “détente was a stratagem to allow the Soviets time to build up their military so that by 1985 they could exert their will wherever they wished.” Ronnie Dugger, On Reagan: The Man & His Presidency (New York: McGraw Hill, 1983), 536.
30. Reagan NSC member Constantine Menges says that between 1975 and 1980, eleven new “pro-Soviet regimes” were established. Tom Henriksen of the Hoover Institution says that from 1974–79 the Soviets “incorporated 10 countries into their orbit.” Constantine C. Menges in Hofstra conference (1993) proceedings, 29–30; and Thomas Henriksen, “The lessons of Afghanistan,” Washington Times, December 29, 1999.
31. For examples from the New York Times and the Washington Post, see New York Times, January 29, 1976, A21; February 26, 1976, A31; March 5, 1976, A1, A10; March 13, 1976, A10; March 14, 1976, A14; March 25, 1976, A1, A35; April 1, 1976, A31; April 8, 1976, A32; April 15, 1976, A1; May 14, 1976, A11; May 19, 1976, A46; May 28, 1976, A13; and June 10, 1976, A37. From Washington Post, see January 16, 1976, A12; February 11, 1976, A1; April 1, 1976, A10; and April 29, 1976, A6.
32. Reagan radio broadcast from October 31, 1975, titled “Détente.” Dugger, On Reagan: The Man & His Presidency, 514.
33. Ronald Reagan, “Tactics for Détente,” Wall Street Journal, February 13, 1976, A8.
34. Among others, see C. L. Sulzberger, “How The World Looks At Carter,” New York Times, July 24, 1976, A23; William Safire, “Life of the Party,” New York Times, March 18, 1976, A14; Cannon, Reagan, 219; and Laurence Barrett, Gambling With History, 288.
35. Anthony Lewis, “By His Own Petard,” New York Times, April 19, 1976, A27.
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 détente, 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 Détente 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,” Izvestia, August 25, 1976, 3, published as “Concessions to Right in Republican Platform Attacked,” in FBIS-SOV-27-AUG-76, August 27, 1976, B1–3.
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. Interview with Richard V. Allen, November 12, 2001.
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.