Transcript: Chapter 15

Title Card: REAGAN Part Two: An American Crusade

Narrator: Ronald Reagan had been optimistic in 1980 that he could revitalize the economy and restore national confidence.

Reagan: I am not frightened by what lies ahead and I don't believe the American people are frightened by what lies ahead.

Narrator: Two years later Reagan realized many Americans were frightened. They had lived through a recession for more than a year.

Voice: They tell you we got hundreds of people laid off, and we're not taking applications. That's scary, too, because ...

Second Voice: We got people in the shop that voted for him, and they think it's the biggest mistake they ever made.

Man: Reagonomics is right on, but, look at me, I used to work for these people, and now I've got to stand in line to get a box of cheese.

Narrator: His blue collar supporters were defecting. There might not be a second term. Reagan's defense buildup had triggered protests at home by those who feared his finger on the nuclear trigger and demonstrations in Europe that threatened the NATO alliance. If Reagan's presidency failed, his personal crusade against Communism and the Soviet Union would fail with it -- the passions that had consumed him since 1946 when he battled Communists in Hollywood and an anonymous caller threatened to disfigure his face, the passions that animated his presidency from the very start, 35 years later.

Reagan: I know of no leader of the Soviet Union since the revolution, including the present leadership, that has not more than once repeated in the various Communist congresses they hold their determination that their goal must be the promotion of world revolution and a one world socialist or communist state. Now as long as they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat, in order to attain that, I think when you do business with them, even at a détente, you keep that in mind.

Narrator: Reagan rejected détente, the efforts of three presidents in the 1970s to lessen the tensions of the nuclear age through treaties. Treaties that allowed each side to build thousands more strategic nuclear warheads. He saw the Soviets projecting their power in Afghanistan, Africa and Central America -- filling the void when America's resolve weakened after the failure in Vietnam. He decided to confront them.

Edmund Morris, Official Biographer: He was not afraid of this monolith. I think he felt that Jimmy Carter was afraid and that Gerald Ford was, and who knows else. Reagan was never afraid of the Soviet Union and he hated it very much. It's about the only powerful negative emotion he's had in his life was that animus against this totalitarian system.

Narrator: Within days of saying the Soviets lied and cheated, Reagan greeted their ambassador Anatoli Dobrynin. The "truth is, he and his wife are most likable," Reagan wrote, "and very much in love ... after forty years of marriage. ... You wonder how they can stick with the Soviet system."

Reagan approved an across the board military buildup, the most massive in peacetime history. He told his secretary of defense to order what was needed and not to worry about the budget. Pentagon spending would reach $34 million per hour.

From a position of strength, Reagan said, he would negotiate arms reductions. He would build up to build down. That was the stated goal. The unstated goal was more ambitious.

Richard Allen, National Security Adviser: He did not want an arms race, but if there was to be an arms race, we were not going to lose it. And that was the message he wanted to convey to the Soviets, namely that we would be willing to spend them into oblivion. And it would be done peacefully, although the major expression of this spending race, so to speak, would be military.

Morris: He had this overriding conviction that a strong military face presented by the United States for a year or two would bring this hostile system to its knees.

Narrator: In his campaign Reagan had told reporters the Soviet economy could not sustain an arms race. William Casey, his new CIA director, confirmed this.

Herb Meyer, Special Assistant to CIA Director: What we realized is that the CIA was monitoring Soviet strengths. It was not looking at Soviet weaknesses. And we felt that there were weaknesses. Now you can simultaneously be strengthening your armor and also dying of cancer. And we started to look at that. The result is we came up with a very different perception of the Soviet Union than the conventional wisdom subscribed to.

Narrator: Reagan and Casey decided to push the Soviet Union to the point of collapse.

Meyer: It's very dangerous. And there were a lot of people who said, oh dear, you're right, the bear is wounded, don't poke sticks at a wounded bear. Ah, the Casey and Reagan approach was hey, my enemy is on his knees, it's a good time to break his head. It's a very gutsy decision.

They decided, not just those two, but among others, that they wanted to win the Cold War. And their definition of winning the Cold War was that the Soviet state would cease to exist.

Polish Workers: "Democratzia"

Narrator: In 1981, Reagan saw a chance to strike at the heart of the Soviet empire. The Polish workers movement, Solidarity, marched for democratic freedoms. When the government declared martial law, Reagan was determined to keep Solidarity alive.

He met Pope John Paul II a few months later in June 1982. Like Reagan the Polish Pope had also survived an assassin's bullets in 1981. He too believed God had spared him for a special mission.

The pope would turn the Catholic Church in Poland into an underground Solidarity network. Reagan imposed economic sanctions and committed the CIA to undermine the government and keep Solidarity alive. If Poland were freed, they felt all Eastern Europe would follow.

Other covert actions were less peaceful. In Afghanistan Reagan continued President Carter's policy of backing the factions fighting a Soviet invasion. In Central America, the CIA began to train forces to harass the Sandinistas, the Soviet backed government in Nicaragua. The "Contras" became one of Reagan's favorite causes.

Reagan: They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French resistance. We cannot turn away from them. (applause) All they need is proof that we care as much about the fight for freedom 700 miles from our shores as the Soviets care about the fight against freedom 5,000 miles from theirs.

Narrator: Reagan spoke to the hopes of people the world over who feared Communism. The "Great Communicator" had the actor's gift of connecting with his audience in a deeply personal way. But in private he held himself apart.

Lyn Nofziger, Reagan Adviser: I don't think anybody absolutely knows Ronald Reagan. There always seemed to be a kind of a veil between Reagan and the rest of the world. And you know, not obvious or anything, but you kind of didn't get that last quarter of an inch through there.

Patti Davis, Daughter: My father's very shy emotionally. So I would say he is probably not as demonstrative as other people.

Ronald Prescott Reagan, Son: I don't think in my life that I've ever had a real conversation with him.

Narrator: Ron Reagan dropped out of Yale in 1976 and after four years of rigorous training became a professional ballet dancer.

Ron Reagan: I remember once they had come to see me dance, and a little while later Mike Deaver came up to me and said you know, I was talking to your dad the other day and he said to me, I wonder if. I wonder if Ron knows how proud of him I am. And I said, well, did he delegate you to come and tell me? [LAUGHS] You know. I, you know, I don't know, he's never told me and I think, in effect, it was Mike Deaver sort of being assigned the task of you know, I don't think he put it in so many words, but you know, go tell my son I'm proud of him. But I think he would have found it very difficult to say that himself.

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