Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended

by Jack F. Matlock Jr.

In Reagan and Gorbachev, Jack F. Matlock, Jr., gives an eyewitness account of how the Cold War ended, with humankind declared the winner. As Reagan’s principal adviser on Soviet and European affairs, and later as the U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R., Matlock lived history: He was the point person for Reagan’s evolving policy of conciliation toward the Soviet Union. Working from his own papers, recent interviews with major figures, and archival sources both here and abroad, Matlock offers an insider’s perspective on a diplomatic campaign far more sophisticated than previously thought, led by two men of surpassing vision.
Matlock details how, from the start of his term, Reagan privately pursued improved U.S.—U.S.S.R. relations, while rebuilding America’s military and fighting will in order to confront the Soviet Union while providing bargaining chips. When Gorbachev assumed leadership, however, Reagan and his advisers found a potential partner in the enterprise of peace. At first the two leaders sparred, agreeing on little. Gradually a form of trust emerged, with Gorbachev taking politically risky steps that bore long-term benefits, like the agreement to abolish intermediate-range nuclear missiles and the agreement to abolish intermediate-range nuclear missiles and the U.S.S.R.’s significant unilateral troop reductions in 1988.

Through his recollections and unparalleled access to the best and latest sources, Matlock describes Reagan’s and Gorbachev’s initial views of each other. We learn how the two prepared for their meetings; we discover that Reagan occasionally wrote to Gorbachev in his own hand, both to personalize the correspondence and to prevent nit-picking by hard-liners in his administration. We also see how the two men were pushed closer together by the unlikeliest characters (Senator Ted Kennedy and François Mitterrand among them) and by the two leaders’ remarkable foreign ministers, George Shultz and Eduard Shevardnadze.

The end of the Cold War is a key event in modern history, one that demanded bold individuals and decisive action. Both epic and intimate, Reagan and Gorbachev will be the standard reference, a work that is critical to our understanding of the present and the past.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: History, Politics, Russia, American History, Nonfiction, Soviet Union, Presidents

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Frank Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to this book after seeing videos of Matlock recently talking about the reasons for the current situation in Ukraine. I found it to be a very interesting account of Reagan’s dealings with Gorbachev, written from the unique perspective of an insider who was intimately involved in drafting some of the agreements concerned. Since I was involved in the campaign against Cruise and Pershing missiles and later against Reagan’s SDI there was a lot here that interested me. One of the surprising things about that period was that after denouncing the Soviet Union as the “evil empire” Reagan went on to make an arms control treaty with them, and Matlock’s account explains in some detail how this happened, and which forces were pitted against them in the pursuit of it (Caspar Weinberger etc.)

Although the book functions well as a blow by blow historical record, Matlock’s general “we are the good guys” attitude is a bit naive. He complains that the Russians refused to accept SDI in spite of the fact that Reagan’s intentions were entirely benign, but Reagan’s intentions were really beside the point once such a system was put in place, similarly when he talks about the Euromissiles he talks about counting systems in the Soviet Union and Europe as though those systems were equivalent, and he doesn’t seem to realize that what brought the European people out on the streets was not the number of systems but the fact that systems in Europe remained under US control and could be used to fight a limited nuclear war in Europe. Reagan probably was well intentioned, and probably did want to usher in a new era of peace for the world, but after he went he was replaced by what GH Bush (the elder) called in his memoirs the “iron assed” faction of Cheney and Rumsfeld whose policies led to the second Gulf War and the eastward expansion of NATO which scuppered any hopes of a lasting peace in Europe.

So I definitely recommend this book as an account of the history involved, but the reader should bear in mind that it’s not about the intention, in geopolitics as in chess you’re not playing the man you’re playing the board.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating look behind the scenes, so to speak, of a pivotal time in our world's history.