(VI) The Cold War and The Soviet Union

Introduction

Ronald Reagan's staunch anti-communist stance had manifested itself from his days as President of the Screen Actors Guild. This stance also became one of the hallmarks of presidency. Reagan sought to achieve "peace through strength," and during his presidency he increased defense spending 35 percent.
During this time the Strategic Defense Initiative was devised to protect the United States against a Nuclear attack, but also as bargaining chip with the Soviets.

During Reagan's second term as President he attempted to improve relations with the Soviet Union. Reagan had three summit meetings with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Their third meeting in 1988 they negotiated a treaty that would eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles putting the world on a path to ending the cold war.

The following books depict the Reagan presidency and the Cold War. Earlier books do so from the point of view of the Soviets. The more recent books examine Reagan's anti-communism in relation to his cold war policy as President.

Bibliography

2005

Lettow, Paul Vorbeck. Ronald Reagan and his Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. New York : Random House, 1st ed., 2005. xi, 327 p. ; 25 cm. (See also Foreign Affairs)

2004

Matlock, Jack F. Reagan and Gorbachev : How the Cold War Ended. New York :; Random House, 1st ed., 2004. xv, 363 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

2003

Peterson, Christian. Ronald Reagan and Antinuclear Movements in the United States and Western Europe, 1981-1987. Lewiston, N.Y. : Edwin Mellen Press, 2003, iii, 187 p. ; 24 cm. (See also Foreign Affairs)

2002

Schweizer, Peter. Reagan's war; the epic story of his forty year struggle and final triumph over communism. New York : Doubleday, 2002. xii, 339 p. : ill.

A meticulously researched and penetrating analysis of the Cold War, and the man who ended it. Peter Schweizer delves into the origins of Ronald Reagan’s vision of America, and documents his consistent, aggressive belief in confronting the Soviet Union diplomatically, economically, and militarily.

Ronald Reagan is often dismissed as an "amiable dunce," a genial actor who simply mouthed whatever slogans his right-wing puppet masters put in front of him. Reagan's War brilliantly overturns this myth. Drawing on private diaries dating from Reagan's days as an actor and extending through his presidency, Peter Schweizer, a well-known historian of the Cold War, shows that Reagan’s fervent anticommunism marked every era of his life and was the driving force behind his policies as president.

Schweizer explores Reagan's involvement with anticommunist liberals in Hollywood and his role as a secret informer for the FBI. Reagan's outspoken criticism of detente in the late 1960s and his forceful advocacy for the overthrow of the USSR drew the attention of Soviet officials, who began a KGB file on him when he was still governor of California. By the time he was elected president, they viewed him as a serious threat to their interests. Reagan's War shows just how right they were, presenting compelling evidence that Reagan personally mapped out and directed a campaign to bankrupt the Soviet Union and wage an economic and political war against Moscow.

In telling the story of Reagan's ultimate triumph, Schweizer also brings to light dozens of previously unknown facts about the Cold War, based on secret documents obtained from archives in Russia, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and the United States. Among his many startling revelations are Kissinger's private deals with Soviet leaders that protected his own political viability while allowing the Soviets to pursue their goals within their own sphere; a North Korean and East German plot to assassinate Reagan in 1983; Reagan's secret funding of Solidarity in Poland; and the behind-the-scenes support Soviets and East Germans provided for European and American peace movements, as well as their clandestine contacts with U.S. government officials.

A fresh, often startling look at Ronald Reagan and his central role in winning the war for global dominance in the 1980s, Reagan's War is a major work of twentieth-century history.

2000

FitzGerald, Frances. Way out there in the blue; Reagan, Star Wars, and the end of the Cold War. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2000. 592 p. ; 24 cm.

Schweizer, Peter, ed. The Fall of the Berlin Wall; reassessing the causes and consequences of the end of the Cold War. Edited by Peter Schweizer. Stanford, Calif. : Hoover Institution Press Wash., DC : William J. Casey Institute of the Center for Security Policy, 2000. 94 p. ; 23 cm. (Papers presented at a symposium held Feb. 22, 1999, in Washington, D.C.)

1999

Shattan, Joseph. Architects of victory; six heroes of the Cold War. Washington, DC : Heritage Foundation, 1999. vii, 343 p. ; 24 cm.

1997

Fischer, Beth A. The Reagan reversal; foreign policy and the end of the old War. Columbia : University of Missouri Press, 1997. xi, 176 p. ; 24 cm.

1996

Winik, Jay. On the brink; the dramatic, behind-the-scenes saga of the Reagan Era and the men and women who won the Cold War. New York : Simon & Schuster, 1996. 672 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

The thesis that President Ronald Reagan's administration, through its embrace of military confrontation and brinksmanship, hastened the breakup of the Soviet Union and decisively won the Cold War for the U.S. receives a fresh twist in Winik's intensely dramatic, personal narrative history. He credits four members of the Reagan team, all renegade Democrats, with translating the President's hard-line policy into effective diplomacy. The four are Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, arms control negotiator, supporter of Star Wars and of the deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe; Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; human rights advocate Max Kampelman; and Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams. Drawing on more than 200 interviews with key participants, private papers, classified documents and memos of conversations, Winik, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs, also provides close-ups of Carter, Mondale, Kissinger, Caspar Weinberger, George Schultz, Paul Nitze and others.

1994

Greenstein, Fred I; Wohlforth, William Curti, eds. Retrospective on the end of the Cold War; report of a conference sponsored by the John Foster Dulles Program for the Study of Leadership in International Affairs. [Princeton, N.J.] : Center of International Studies, Princeton University, 1994. 51 p. ; 23 cm.
Corporate Source: John Foster Dulles Program for the Study of Leadership in International Affairs Series: Monograph series / Center of International Studies, Princeton University . no. 6 Monograph series (Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Center of International Studies)

Lagon, Mark P. The Reagan doctrine; sources of American conduct in the Cold War's last chapter. Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 1994. xiv, 187 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

1993

Whelan, Joseph G. Soviet diplomacy and negotiating behavior. Buffalo, N.Y. : William S. Hein, 1991; 1993. v. <4 > ; 26 cm.
Series: CRS report for Congress

All reports prepared by Joseph G. Whelan. Vol. 4 contains five works originally published: Washington, D.C. : Congressional Research Service, May 20, 1991-May 4, 1992. (CRS report for Congress ; 91-439 RCO, 91-632 RCO, 92-45 F, 92-405 S, 92-630 S). With new introduction.

1992

Bjork, Rebecca S. The strategic defense initiative; symbolic containment of the nuclear threat. Albany : State University of New York Press, 1992. xi, 182 p. ; 24 cm. Series: SUNY series in the making of foreign policy (Also in Foreign Policy, and the Great Communicator)

Hunter, Kerry L. The reign of fantasy ; the political roots of Reagan's star wars policy. New York : P. Lang, 1992. x, 181 p. ; 24 cm. Series: American university studies. Series X, Political science,. vol. 34 American university studies. Series X. Political science

1991

Shimko, Keith L. Images and arms control ; perceptions of the Soviet Union in the Reagan administration. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 1991. 277 p. ; 24 cm.

Whelan, Joseph G. Soviet diplomacy and negotiating behavior--1988-90; Gorbachev-Reagan-Bush meetings at the summit. Study prepared by the Senior Specialists Section, Office of Research Coordination, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. : Committee on Foreign Affairs : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 1991. xlvi, 478 p. ; 24 cm.
Corporate Source: Library of Congress Congressional Research Service Senior Specialists Section United States Congress House Committee on Foreign Affairs Series: Special studies series on foreign affairs issues . v. 3

1990

Whelan, Joseph G. The Moscow Summit, 1988 ; Reagan and Gorbachev in negotiation. Boulder : Westview Press, 1990. xvi, 141 p. ; 23 cm.
Series: Westview special studies in international relations

1989

Botchway, Benjamin Odartei. The impact of image and perception on foreign policy ; an inquiry into American Soviet policy during presidents Carter and Reagan administrations, 1977-1988. Munchen : Tuduv Verlag, 1989. xiii, 397 p. : ill. ; 21 cm. Series: Tuduv-Studien. Reihe Politikwissenschaften. Bd. 37

1987

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich. Reykjavik, results & lessons. Madison, Conn. : Sphinx Press, 1987. 87 p. : port. ; 23 cm.

Hyland, William, ed. The Reagan foreign policy. (Foreign affairs (Council on Foreign Relations)). Edited and with an introduction by William G. Hyland. New York : New American Library, 1987. xix, 268 p. ; 21 cm. (Also in Foreign Affairs)

Consists of articles written by George Shultz, Richard Nixon, James Schlesinger, George Kennan, Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, John Tower, and others.

Leighton, Frances Spatz. The search for the real Nancy Reagan. New York : Macmillan Pub. Co., 1987. xvii, 406 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.

Mandelbaum, Michael; Talbott, Strobe. Reagan and Gorbachev. 1st ed. New York : Vintage Books, 1987. xi, 190 p. ; 18 cm.

Sequel to: The Russians and Reagan.

Oye, Kenneth A.; Lieber, Robert J.; Rothchild, Donald S., eds. Eagle resurgent? ; the Reagan era in American foreign policy Boston : Little, Brown, 1987. viii, 472 p. ; 23 cm. (Also in the Foreign Affairs)

1986

Congressional Quarterly, inc. U.S. foreign policy; the Reagan imprint. Washington, D.C. : Congressional Quarterly, 1986. x, 177 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

Vasquez, John A., ed. Evaluating U.S. foreign policy. New York : Praeger, 1986. xiv, 237 p. ; 25 cm.

Haftendorn, Helga; Schissler, Jakob, eds. The Reagan administration ; a reconstruction of American strength? Berlin ; New York : W. de Gruyter, 1988. xi, 306 p. ; 24 cm.
Series: De Gruyter studies on North America.

1985

IAkovlev, A. N, (Aleksandr Nikolaevich). On the edge of an abyss; from Truman to Reagan : the doctrines and realities of the Nuclear Age. Moscow : Progress Publishers, 1985. 399 p. ; 21 cm. Translated from the Russian, "Ot Trumena do Reigana"

President Reagan's summit meeting in Geneva, November 19-20, 1985 ; briefing book. prepared by Timothy Ashby ... [et al.] ; edited by Burton Yale Pines, W. Bruce Weinrod Ashby, Timothy; Pines, Burton Yale; Weinrod, W. Bruce. Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.). Washington, D.C. (214 Massachusetts Ave., N.E., Washington 20002) : Heritage Foundation, 1985. vii, 54 p. ; 28 cm.

Geneva, the Soviet-US summit, November 1985; documents and materials. Moscow : Novosti Press Agency Pub. House, 1985. 87 p. ; 17 cm.

Mikhail Gorbachev's speech at the closing ceremony -- Ronald Reagan's speech at the closing ceremony -- Joint Soviet-American Statement -- Mikhail Gorbachev's press conference -- Communique on the meeting of the leaders of Warsaw Treaty member-countries -- At the Political Bureau of the CPSU Central committee -- Report by General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev at the fourth session of the USSR Supreme Soviet of the eleventh convocation, November 27, 1985 -- Resolution of the Supreme of the USSR on the results of the Soviet-American Summit in Geneva and the international situation.

Hackett, James T., ed. The State Department vs. Ronald Reagan ; four ambassadors speak out. Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.) Washington, D.C. (214 Mass. Ave. N.E., Washington 20002 : Heritage Foundation, 1985. 41 p. ; 23 cm.
Series: The Heritage lectures. 44

Roundtable discussion held at Louis Lehrman Auditorium, Washington, D.C., July 2, 1985, sponsored by the Heritage Foundation.

McMahan, Jeff. Reagan and the world ; imperial policy in the new Cold War. New York : Monthly Review Press, 1985. 300 p. ; 21 cm.

1984

Bol'shakov, Vladimir Viktorovich. Washington crusaders on the march. Moscow : Novosti Press Agency Pub. House, 1984. 83 p. ; 17 cm.

Churba, Joseph. The American retreat ; the Reagan foreign and defense policy. Chicago : Regnery Gateway, 1984. ix, 251 p. ; 24 cm. (Also in Foreign Affairs)

Keyworth, George A. President Reagan's new defense initiative ; a road to stability. remarks by George A. Keyworth, II ; delivered to the Hoover Institution Board of Overseers, January 10, 1984. [Stanford, Calif.] : Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 1984. 11 p. ; 23 cm.

McMahan, Jeff. Reagan and the world ; imperial policy in the new Cold War. London : Pluto Press, 1984. 214 p. ; 20 cm.

Shvedkov, IU. A. Reaganism, an all out challenge to the world ; words, deeds, and comments. [text and compilation by Yuri Shvedkov]. Moscow : Novosti Press Agency Pub. House, 1984. 96 p. ; 17 cm.
Translated from the Russian.

Talbott, Strobe. The Russians and Reagan. Foreword by Cyrus R. Vance. A Vintage original, 1st ed. New York : Vintage Books, 1984. xiv, 140 p. ; 19 cm.

1981

Shvedkov, IU. A, (IUrii Aleksandrovich). Reaganism, an all out challenge to the world ; words, deeds, and comments. [text and compilation by Yuri Shvedkov] Moscow : Novosti Press Agency Pub. House, 1984. 96 p. ; 17 cm.