Engaging the Enemy

2019 ◽  
pp. 13-39
Author(s):  
Beth A. Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
White House ◽  
American President ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Core Components ◽  
The Cold War

Triumphalists contend that President Reagan won the Cold War by employing hard-line policies and refusing to negotiate with Moscow. Reagan’s refusal to engage with the enemy compelled the Soviet Union to disarm, adopt democratic reforms, and ultimately collapse. This chapter debunks the notion that Reagan was a hard-liner throughout his time in office, as well as the idea that he rejected diplomacy. It demonstrates that Reagan’s initially hawkish posture brought the superpowers to the brink of war in 1983. By 1984 the president was actively seeking negotiations aimed at improving superpower relations and reducing nuclear arsenals. Reagan was seeking dialogue and disarmament even before Mikhail Gorbachev came to office and years before the Soviet Union began to reform. By the time he left the White House, Reagan had met with his Soviet counterparts more frequently than any previous American president. These negotiations were critical to the peaceful conclusion of the Cold War. Diplomacy, engagement, and dialogue are core components of Reagan’s legacy.

The Reagan Presidency and US Foreign Relations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Miles
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
White House ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy legacy remains hotly contested, and as new archival sources come to light, those debates are more likely to intensify than to recede into the background. In dealings with the Soviet Union, the Reagan administration set the superpowers on a course for the (largely) peaceful end of the Cold War. Reagan began his outreach to Soviet leaders almost immediately after taking office and enjoyed some success, even if the dominant theme of the period remains fears of Reagan as a “button-pusher” in the public’s perception. Mikhail Gorbachev’s election to the post of General Secretary proved the turning point. Reagan, now confident in US strength, and Gorbachev, keen to reduce the financial burden of the arms race, ushered in a new, cooperative phase of the Cold War. Elsewhere, in particular Latin America, the administration’s focus on fighting communism led it to support human rights–abusing regimes at the same time as it lambasted Moscow’s transgressions in that regard. But even so, over the course of the 1980s, the United States began pushing for democratization around the world, even where Reagan and his advisors had initially resisted it, fearing a communist takeover. In part, this was a result of public pressure, but the White House recognized and came to support the rising tide of democratization. When Reagan left office, a great many countries that had been authoritarian were no longer, often at least in part because of US policy. US–Soviet relations had improved to such an extent that Reagan’s successor, Vice President George H. W. Bush, worried that they had gone too far in working with Gorbachev and been hoodwinked.

Jazz as Democracy?? Dave Brubeck and Cold War Politics

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Crist
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Governmental Secrecy ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The Dave Brubeck Quartet's 1958 tour on behalf of the U.S. State Department, part of the grand Cold War project of propagating American-style democracy in opposition to communism, did not advance in an orderly and self-evident manner. Rather it was an extremely contingent enterprise enacted through countless individual actions and statements by a motley assortment of bureaucrats and businessmen, and frequently teetered on the brink of chaos. The story of Brubeck's tour, including its evolution and impact, is complex and multifaceted, involving overlapping and conflicting agendas, governmental secrecy, high-minded idealism, and hard-nosed business. The narrative also raises issues of race and race relations in the context of the Cold War struggle against communism and brings into focus the increasing cultural prestige of jazz and other popular genres worldwide during the period when the ideological premises of the Cold War were being formulated. Thirty years later——in 1988, as the Cold War was waning——the Quartet performed in Moscow at the reciprocal state dinner hosted by President Ronald Reagan for General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev during their fourth summit meeting. The sequence of events leading up to this occasion, including the Quartet's long-anticipated tour of the Soviet Union during the previous year, reveals Brubeck to have been not only a talented musician but a canny entrepreneur as well. By the late 1980s the cultural and political landscape had shifted so dramatically as to be virtually unrecognizable to the Cold Warriors of the 1950s. By all accounts, Brubeck's tours in the 1950s and 1980s were among the most successful of their kind. Though Brubeck attributes their efficacy primarily to the power of an influential idea that came into its own toward the beginning of the Cold War——namely, jazz as democracy——the documentary record makes clear that the impact of his travels involved a multifarious nexus of other factors as well, including reputation, personality, and marketability.

scholarly journals FORMING THE IMAGE OF A SOVIET ENEMY: A STUDY OF THE AMERICAN PRESS AND OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS OF THE BEGINNING OF THE COLD WAR

2018 ◽  
pp. 49-51
Author(s):  
Yu. Yu. Shamatova
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Negative Image ◽  
White House ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The World ◽  
American Press ◽  
The Cold War

The article is devoted to a review of materials of the American press and official documents of the White House in 1946-1953-ies. The focus is on analyzing the techniques and methods used in periodical and daily publications to construct a negative image of yesterday's ally in the person of the Soviets. Informational and ideological indoctrination of the population affected not only the adult population, but also the younger generation. For this purpose, various comics were created, cards that contained information about the approaching threat from the USSR. As a result, by the early 1950s the state apparatus managed to radically change public opinion: the positive image of the Soviet Union in the eyes of Americans was replaced by skepticism about the future relations of the superpowers and confidence in the new war to cleanse the world of the "red plague".

The United States at the End of the Cold War, 1989–1993

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Graham Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Military Campaign

The Cold War may have ended on the evening of November 9, 1989, when East German border guards opened up checkpoints and allowed their fellow citizens to stream into West Berlin; it certainly was over by January 28, 1992, when U.S. president George H. W. Bush delivered his annual State of the Union Address one month after President Mikhail Gorbachev had announced his resignation and the end of the Soviet Union. After the Berlin Wall came down, Bush and Gorbachev spoke of the Cold War in the past tense in person and on the telephone. The reunification of Germany and U.S. military campaign in the Persian Gulf confirmed that reality. In January 1991, polls indicated that, for the first time, a majority of Americans believed that the Cold War was over. However, the poll results obscured the substantial foreign and domestic crises, challenges, and opportunities created by the end of the Cold War that occupied President Bush and his national-security team between November 1989 and Bush’s defeat in the 1992 presidential inauguration and the inauguration of William Jefferson Clinton as America’s first post–Cold War president in January 1993.

“I Feel More Comfortable with You”: France, the Soviet Union, and German Reunification

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 116-158
Author(s):  
Frédéric Bozo
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
German Reunification ◽  
European Security ◽  
Soviet Leader ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
German Question ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Cold War

This article explores the interactions between French and Soviet leaders at the end of the Cold War when they were confronted by German reunification. This important dimension of the events of 1989–1990 has been largely neglected up to now. Although allegations of Franco-Soviet collusion against German reunification have long been widespread, the evidence presented here from declassified French, Soviet, and West German sources shows that the two countries in fact failed to cooperate to shape the modalities and outcome of these processes despite the close relationship that by then prevailed between French President François Mitterrand and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Although for decades Paris and Moscow had shared the objective of avoiding a disruptive settlement of the German question, and although both leaders were initially deeply troubled by the pace of events, they did not agree about the fundamental issue of German self-determination and did not share an understanding of the international conditions required for German reunification. Even more critically, they had different visions of the transformation of the European security system that should accompany it.

The Soviet Union's Partnership with India

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vojtech Mastny
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Third ◽  
Nikita Khrushchev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Indian Relations ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between the Soviet Union and India was a hallmark of the Cold War. Over nearly forty years, Soviet-Indian relations passed through three distinct periods, coinciding with the ascendance of three extraordinary pairs of leaders, each extraordinary for different reasons—Jawaharlal Nehru and Nikita Khrushchev, Indira Gandhi and Leonid Brezhnev, and Rajiv Gandhi and Mikhail Gorbachev. The rise and decline of a political dynasty in India paralleled the trajectory seen in the Soviet Union. None of the periods ended well—the first in debacles with China, the second with Indira Gandhi's assassination, the third with the demise of the Soviet Union. The relationship in its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s was the product of a unique set of circumstances during the early Cold War. In the end, however, the relationship proved to be little more than a sideshow in the larger drama of the Cold War.

Solidarność, the Western World, and the End of the Cold War

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-64
Author(s):  
Idesbald Goddeeris
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Western World ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Polish Crisis ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Underlying Processes

It is not unusual to credit certain individuals with having put and end to the Cold War. This essay discusses some of the most important of these people, focusing on their role in the Polish crisis of 1980–82: Mikhail Gorbachev, John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and Lane Kirkland. The author arrives at the conclusion that the question of the extent to which individuals can be held responsible for the victory over the Soviet Union is wrong, because it neglects underlying processes, such as the economic crisis in the Eastern Bloc and East–West contacts established during the détente of the 1970s.

The Change to Engagement in Britain's Cold War Policy: The Origins of the Thatcher-Gorbachev Relationship

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Archie Brown
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Freedom Of Information ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Political Relationship ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Cold War

Using previously unseen British Cabinet Office and Foreign Office papers obtained through the UK Freedom of Information Act, this article shows how a change in Britain's stance in the Cold War was initiated in 1983. As a result of this process, the British government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to move to greater engagement with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Distrusting the Foreign Office as an institution, Thatcher asked for papers from eight outside academic specialists, on whose analyses she placed considerable weight. The desire for East-West dialogue was strongly favored by Foreign Office ministers and officials, whose advice, paradoxically, was more readily accepted by Thatcher when similar policy recommendations (though with some differences in analysis) were made by the academics. The invitation to Mikhail Gorbachev to visit Britain in 1984, prior to his becoming leader of the Soviet Union, had its origins in a Chequers seminar involving both academics and officials on 8–9 September 1983. This was the beginning of an important, and surprising, political relationship that transformed Britain's militantly anti-socialist prime minister into the strongest supporter—certainly among conservative politicians worldwide—of the new leader of the Soviet Communist Party.

Trust, but Verify

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
East West

This book uses trust—with its emotional and predictive aspects—to explore international relations in the second half of the Cold War, beginning with the late 1960s. The détente of the 1970s led to the development of some limited trust between the United States and the Soviet Union, which lessened international tensions and enabled advances in areas such as arms control. However, it also created uncertainty in other areas, especially on the part of smaller states that depended on their alliance leaders for protection. The chapters in this volume look at how the “emotional” side of the conflict affected the dynamics of various Cold War relations: between the superpowers, within the two ideological blocs, and inside individual countries on the margins of the East–West confrontation.

The Cold War in the Schools

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria M. Grieve
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
School Experiences ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
Voluntary Programs ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
Science And Art ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
The Cold War

The Cold War experiences of America’s schoolchildren are often summed up by quick references to “duck and cover,” a problematic simplification that reduces children to victims in need of government protection. By looking at a variety of school experiences—classroom instruction, federal and voluntary programs, civil defense and opposition to it, as well as world friendship outreach—it is clear that children experienced the Cold War in their schools in many ways. Although civil defense was ingrained in the daily school experiences of Cold War kids, so, too, were fitness tests, atomic science, and art exchange programs. Global competition with the Soviet Union changed the way children learned, from science and math classes to history and citizenship training. Understanding the complexity of American students’ experiences strengthens our ability to decipher the meaning of the Cold War for American youth and its impact on the politics of the 1960s.

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