The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War

by James Mann

Book Overview

In The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan, New York Times bestselling author James Mann directs his keen analysis to Ronald Reagan's role in ending the Cold War. Drawing on new interviews and previously unavailable documents, Mann offers a fresh and compelling narrative-a new history assessing what Reagan did, and did not do, to help bring America's four-decade conflict with the Soviet Union to a close. As he did so masterfully in Rise of the Vulcans , Mann...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670020540
• ISBN13: 9780670020546
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 396 Pages
• Weight: 3.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Thorough and excellent

I've never been a fan of Ronald Reagan, but this book raised my opinion of him. The book presents in great detail the way in which Reagan threw his support behind Gorbachev and the critical importance of that support to Gorbachev's "success" in ending the USSR as it had existed since Stalin. While it's still clear that Gorbachev was the real agent of change, Reagan deserves credit both for his deep commitment to eliminating the terrible threat of nuclear weapons and for facing down his political base in order to stick to that commitment. Most politicians lack the fortitude to do such things. The other thing to take away from the book is that the myth that Reagan's bellicosity and squandering of money on military hardware was the decisive factor is patently false. It was Reagan's flip-flop from threatening the USSR to assuring them that the USA did not pose a threat which bolstered Gorbachev against Soviet hard-liners. The enduring impact of Gorbachev's legacy is still in question, as Russia is moving in ominous directions, but there is no denying that Reagan played an important role in the end of the USSR by supporting Gorbachev in his reform efforts.

An inside view of the end of the cold war.

We have thus far been denied adequate biographies of Ronald Reagan, partially because he was not an outgoing man in spite of his genial manner. The Reagan family made the mistake of appointing Edmund Morris as official biographer and Morris repaid them with an unreadable book. This book is concerned with only one aspect of Reagan's life and his presidency; the winning of the Cold War. It is the most important of his legacies and this account is worthy of its subject. Reagan was a "big picture" man but the author makes a point of of noting the difference between Reagan and Nixon, a comparison in which Nixon does not come off well. Reagan began as a liberal Democrat and his experiences dealing with the communist infiltration of the film industry, as described in books like Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony's Long Romance with the Left by Ron Radosh, left him with an antipathy to the ideology that was based on its effects on people. Nixon came to anti-communism through politics and the author points out that some amount of political opportunism was involved. Reagan, on the other hand, had negotiated with communists and had a visceral dislike of their ideology on a personal level. When Reagan became president, he was ending a period of detente' that ignored the personal aspect of ideology and treated the two superpowers as rivals roughly equivalent ideologically. Reagan's first term was focused on reversing the imbalance that had developed and his use of "Evil Empire" was part of that effort. When Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary, no one expected any change but Reagan already had a sense that the Soviet Union was weak and would not be able to survive an open competition. He rebuilt the military from the Carter period of neglect (an issue largely ignored by the book) and challenged the Soviets as they had not been challenged in a long time. When he met Gorbachev, he became convinced that the new Soviet leader was sincerely trying to deal with the internal contradictions of the Soviet Union. Reagan was already convinced that these weaknesses existed from his experience with the ideology. He believed that communism was a form of "insanity" that contradicted human nature. Thus, he was prepared to accept that a new leader of the Soviets would see those problems and be willing to reduce the competition with the West to focus on internal issues. Margaret Thatcher, Reagan's close ally, had already assured him that Gorbachev was ready to "do business." Early in Reagan's presidency, he had sent a conciliatory note to Breshnev and received a brusque and icy response. Now, he had a counterpart who might agree with him that the Soviets needed to focus on their internal problems even as he was convinced those problems were insoluble. Ironically, once he sensed the potential of Gorbachev and began to change his policies to meet the new circumstances, he faced furious opposition from the political conservatives who had supported him for years.

A nuanced look at Ronald Reagan

James Mann mantains that Ronald Reagan was able to look beyond both the Realist and Neoconservative tradtions of the Republican Party and developed a working relationship with Gorbachev. In the first part of the book, Mann discusses Nixon's troubled relationship with Reagan when it came to the Soviet Union. Nixon, had a Realist emphasis on balance of power and military might when it came to dealing with the Soviet Union while Reagan thought that the Cold War was a war over ideas in which the Russians would embrace American ideals. In the first part of Reagan's term Nixon felt that Reagan should at least talk to the Soviets and then criticized Reagan for being too close to the Soviets in the second term. Reagan disargeed with Nixon because he thought that the Russian people had abandoned Communism. The second part of the book describes how Suzanne Massie persuaded Reagan that the Russians hated Communism and that Gorbachev was a new kind of Soviet leader , who would embrace Western values. The third part of the book is about how this new vision of Gorbachev allowed Reagan to give the "tear down the wall," speech despite protests from Realist in the state department. The fourth part of the book Mann tells how Reagan infuriated both Realists and Neoconservatives alike by signing the INF treaty with Gorbachev. Mann contends that only Reagan could have signed that deal with Gorbachev since most other Republicans opposed that deal and a Democrat would have had a tough time passing that treaty through the senate. Mann concludes by stating that Gorbachev was the main reason that Communism fell in Europe. Gorbachev tried to refrom the Communist Party and security services through reconciliation with the West. Since the Party and the security services were built around hositility towards the West, they lost any legitimacy once Gorbachev's reforms were enacted. Reagan played his part in the Cold War's ending by talking to Gorbachev and signing the INF treaty which gave Gorbachev enough political capital to launch his reforms which eventually resulted in the demise of Communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. I wished that Mann would described in greater detail the Euromissile debate in Europe and SDI and how they poisoned realtions with Soviets in the early eighties. Despite this failing, Mann gives an accurate picture of how the Cold War ended.

A Well Researched Thesis

I found the thesis of this book to ring true. The idea that Reagan on his own, came to conclusions at variance, with both his conservative base, and the "realist" school that included Nixon, Kissinger, and Snowcroft, has been repressed on both sides of the American political divide, for different reasons. Some like to think of Ronald Reagan as either a rigid and narrow-minded, ideological Cold Warrior, in the school of Joe McCarthy...or, a conservative, neo-con, cowboy-saint, who single-handedly, won the Cold War by forcing the Soviets to capitulate in the face of our arms build-up, our Pershing missile deployment, and our moral vigor. James Mann explodes both these misconceptions. His thesis is that eventually, Reagan saw in Mikhail Gorbachev...as good hearted man of flexible mind...and crucially, as man with whom he could negotiate. Reagan was aided in this effort by an extraordinary woman...a writer, with good contacts within the Soviet Union, and whom Reagan personally trusted to send and receive messages and overtures...as well as report her observations. In fact, he trusted this woman more than his conservative political base, and more than George Schultz and his own State Department. It's an extraordinary story of the personal diplomacy of "trusting, but verifying". Mann documents that Reagan's real role was, in first understanding Gorbachev's internal political position, and responding to it in such as way as not to undermine the Kremlin politics that kept him on top. The fact that Reagan's arms build-up, in a way, actually helped to propel Gorbachev into power, is intriguing, for as Andropov's intelligence protege, he was trusted on security issues by the Soviet military and political establishment. This was particularly important for progress on the IMF treaty, so vehemently opposed by Reagan's right wing...the up-and-coming American neo-cons. Mann sees Reagan deftly acting in ways to respect and support his "enemy"...who eventually became his colleague in ending the Cold War. I even see an element of Gandhi's non-violent opposition, in this highly counter-intuitive idea of supporting one's opponent. I think Mann convinces the reader that, in the end, it was Gorbachev's central role, in desiring a European Russia...who ABANDONED the Cold War...not Reagan who FORCED its ending. But Mann is most clear that Reagan was quite instrumental in making it politically possible for him to do so. This was, without doubt, a HUGE contribution to the success of peace, and the nearly bloodless transformation and normalization of Europe. Ronald Reagan deserves the credit he's accorded as a first class diplomat..but Mann's script for how he achieved this, is different from the usual dogma of either the American right, or the American left...or, for that matter, the genetically critical Euro left. Mann's thesis is quite believable to me....and I think this well documented history should have nothing but a beneficial effect, upon the highly cont

An important new study

The importance of Ronald Reagan is often being debated with books on both his greatness, sort of hagiographies, and those opposing places to much credit in him (Tear Down This Myth: How the Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics and Haunts Our Future). This book attepts to examine Reagan from he standpoint of his 'rebellion' against the consensus on the right and left that the Soviet Union was a fact of life. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and other powerful voices in the Republican and Democratic parties believed the USSR was part of the status quo of the world, something that would always exist. This book posits that Reagan and those around him imagined a world without the USSR and they sought to bring it about. This 'revolutionary' ideology meant that the State Department's current policies had to be pushed aside and instead of accomidating the USSR the U.S had to push against it, rather thanc containing, it had to be done away with. Suprisingly Reagan found a sort of soul mate in Michael Gorbachev, who also sought radical reform in the USSR. In a freindship forged in ideological combat they together helped tear down the myth of Soviet invincibility. This book examines such famous incidents as the 'tear down this wall' speech. It shows that Reagan had a very real ideology that he pursued with vigor. An important work. It doesn't highlight the role of the Afghan war at all and this is a major dificiency, but one filled by such books as Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times. For those interested in the Cold War and Reagan this is an important study from a master writer. Seth J. Frantzman