For Reagan people, this time of year is bittersweet. In late May, we proudly remembered President Ronald Reagan’s historic trip to Moscow 32 years ago. Today, we remember with great sadness his passing 16 years later.
Mixed though our feelings may be, recalling Reagan always makes us happy and reminds us how much we, the nation, and the world miss him. In recalling the Gipper, we cannot help but think about how different things are today from when he and Nancy Reagan lived in the White House. But that was then. This is now. And while, for Republicans especially, there is an understandable and perhaps valid temptation to compare the 40th president to the 45th, that is best left for another day.
For today, at least, we should just remember Reagan — an eternally optimistic, wise, unifying, consoling, principled, honest, kind, decent, and selfless man.
In looking back at the Reagan presidency, there are many things to which one could point as “his greatest accomplishment.” Bringing a moribund economy back to prosperity, rebuilding a demoralized and underfunded military, creating a badly needed feeling of national pride and optimism, making the government the servant of the people again, and reestablishing America’s prominence in the world are all contenders for that designation.
But because it saved us from the possibility of the deaths of tens of millions and maybe even the end of mankind itself, the one that had the greatest affect on history and matters most is Reagan’s forging a relationship with his Soviet counterpart, which transformed forever how our country dealt with the Soviet Union and deals with present-day Russia. Simply put, Reagan made the world safer.
Of all the relationships Reagan had with his fellow world leaders, none was more unlikely or more important than the one he developed with Mikhail Gorbachev. What “Ron” and “Mikhail,” as they came to call each other, accomplished, changed the world. Together, they redefined the how the world’s two greatest superpowers interacted with each other in a way that significantly reduced the risk of nuclear battle and ultimately led to the end of the Cold War.
That a died-in-the-wool anti-communist and a lifelong Marxist found common ground on the most vexing issue that made their respective countries fearsome adversaries may have surprised some, but not those who knew Reagan. From the very moment he entered public life, he worked hard to reduce, and eliminate, the possibility of the United States and the Soviet Union destroying each other through the use of nuclear weapons. Reagan never stopped thinking about the danger such weapons posed to the very existence of civilization as we knew it, and was constantly looking for ways to free the world of what he often called the “MAD,” or Mutually Assured Destruction, policy Washington and Moscow had adopted.
He rightly believed the U.S. and U.S.S.R. didn’t mistrust each other because we were armed, but rather that we were armed because we mistrusted each other. Removing the mistrust was the key to bringing us back from the brink of nuclear disaster.
Reagan’s approach to accomplishing that was pretty straightforward. He was convinced that the mistrust, and thus the need for nuclear stockpiles, could be eliminated if he could just get his Soviet counterpart in a room and tell him, man to man, two things: first, that the U.S. would never allow itself to be vulnerable to a Soviet attack, and second, that the U.S. had no hostile intent toward the Soviets, no designs on their territory or imposing our way of life on them. the reasons for the mistrust, and thus the need for nuclear stockpiles, could be eliminated.
That was Reagan’s goal from the day he took office. His path was neither smooth nor direct. Reagan had to wait until his second term to establish a meaningful relationship with his opposite number in Moscow. The first three Soviet leaders Reagan encountered (Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko) died in short order. Reagan was frustrated and disappointed. More than once he good-naturedly complained, saying: “they kept dying on me.” But he persevered, and it paid off. Eventually, a younger and presumably healthier Gorbachev was installed as the Kremlin boss.
While he was cautiously optimistic when British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told him Gorbachev was someone with whom he could “do business,” Reagan remained clear-eyed about who Gorbachev was and how he got the top job, writing this about him in his private diary: “If he wasn’t a confirmed ideologue, he never would have been chosen by the Politburo.” But that did not deter Reagan.
As president, Reagan had five summit meetings with Gorbachev. I helped plan and attended all of them, and it was fascinating to see the ebbs and flows of their developing relationship. To some, they may have seemed like an odd couple. Not exactly Felix Unger and Oscar Madison, but still an unlikely duo. Yet from their very first handshake in Geneva, it was obvious the two men were comfortable on the world stage, aware of the unique opportunity and obligation history had bestowed upon them, and had chemistry. Even after the implosion of their second summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, Reagan remained hopeful the two could strike a deal and instructed his somewhat demoralized team to keep negotiating.
Reagan was right. A little more than a year later, the two leaders were all smiles when Gorbachev came to Washington to sign the historic agreement eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons. When the Reagans went to Moscow a few months after that Washington summit, the Gorbachevs pulled out all the stops, including a fancy dinner and a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet. Reagan’s last meeting as president with Gorbachev took place in New York in December 1988. It was the handoff to President-elect George H.W. Bush. As confident as he was in his successor, Reagan was a bit wistful on Air Force One as he headed back to Washington, telling aides: “I’m going to miss Mikhail.” He needn’t have worried.
After they left the White House, the Reagans saw the Gorbachevs in California and Russia. It was truly a reunion of friends. The smiles were broad, the embraces warm, and the conversations picked up right where they had left off. It was obvious the couples genuinely liked each other. Who would have thought?
When Reagan died in 2004, in a gesture of great respect, Gorbachev made the long journey from Moscow to Washington to attend Reagan’s state funeral. Those in the National Cathedral who saw him were struck by the sadness etched in his face. Gorbachev said he took Reagan’s passing “very hard.”
So did we all.
Mark Weinberg served as Special Assistant to the President and assistant press secretary in the Reagan White House, and as Director of Public Affairs in the office of former President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of the best-selling memoir, Movie Nights with the Reagans (Simon & Schuster).
