When President Ronald Reagan met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, Republican Rep. Newt Gingrich called it “the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich.”
Yet, Reagan’s role in ending the Cold War through diplomacy with the soon-to-be-former Soviet Union would arguably become his most significant legacy.
Reagan’s Cold War victory, including it never becoming a hot war, proved him right and his anti-diplomacy critics wrong.
In the interest of avoiding war, President Trump defended his diplomatic outreach to North Korea and its dictator Kim Jong Un during the final presidential debate on Thursday night. “North Korea, we’re not in a war,” Trump insisted. “We have a good relationship.”
That’s when Biden went full 1985 Gingrich: “That’s like saying we had a good relationship with Hitler before he, in fact, invaded … the rest of Europe. Come on.”
Biden’s comments didn’t really make sense, but it was clear he was trying to establish that being diplomatic with authoritarian regimes such as North Korea, even in the interest of avoiding war, was somehow on par with supporting Hitler.
This tactic is not new.
When Biden’s former boss, President Barack Obama, struck his diplomatic nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, Republican Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois compared it to appeasing Hitler. “Neville Chamberlain got a lot of more out of Hitler than Wendy Sherman got out of Iran,” said Kirk, referencing the top State Department negotiator on the deal.
When Obama sought better diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2013 and met with that country’s dictator, Raul Castro, the late Sen. John McCain said, “It gives Raul some propaganda to continue to prop up his dictatorial, brutal regime. That’s all.” The reliably hawkish McCain added, “Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler.”
Again, none of this is new. Yet, on Thursday night, Democrat Biden assumed the role of hawkish critics of diplomacy, including neoconservative-leaning critics of Obama who were quick to say he was basically appeasing Hitler similar to Chamberlain in his diplomatic efforts.
Similarly, Gingrich was by no means Reagan’s only hawkish critic of his Russia outreach in 1985.
Reagan, at the time, thought talking to Russia instead of allowing something closer to military action to develop might be best for America and the world, despite that nation’s horrific human rights and civil liberties abuses. It was a gamble. But it worked out for the best. You would be hard-pressed to find few of any political persuasion that would disagree today.
Obama chose negotiations with Iran and Cuba over more aggressive measures. Those were gambles, too. Time will tell if his efforts were worth it.
But neither of Obama’s efforts “legitimized” these autocratic regimes, similar to Reagan’s Russia efforts.
Trump said Thursday of his outreach to North Korea’s Kim: “We have a good relationship. People don’t understand. Having a good relationship with leaders of other countries is a good thing.”
Presidents reaching out to enemies and building relationships in the hope of avoiding war and keeping the peace is not new. Neither is hawkish politicians discouraging diplomacy because they seem to prefer more “war, war” than “jaw, jaw.” Some hawkish Trump officials have even left his administration over this president’s refusal to start new wars.
Reagan’s diplomacy with Gorbachev’s Russia was a victory for the United States and the world. Whether Trump’s diplomacy with Kim’s North Korea is a similar victory remains to be seen.
But Trump has been right to try. With his sophomoric “Hitler” blather on Thursday, Biden proved himself an ahistorical fool to discourage such diplomacy and a hypocrite, considering the same line of fire was used against his administration’s similar efforts.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
