Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

by Paul Lettow

In Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Paul Lettow explores the depth and sophistication of President Ronald Reagan’s commitment to ridding humankind permanently of the threat of nuclear war.
Lettow’s narrative spans the start of Reagan’s presidency and the 1986 Reykjavík summit between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, during which America’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a defining issue. Lettow reveals SDI for what it a full-on assault against nuclear weapons waged as much through policy as through ideology. While cabinet members and advisers played significant roles in guiding American defense policy, it was Reagan himself who presided over every element, large and small, of this paradigm shift in U.S. diplomacy.
Lettow conducted interviews with several former Reagan administration officials, and he draws upon the vast body of declassified security documents from the Reagan presidency; much of what he quotes from these documents appears publicly here for the first time. The result is the first major work to apply such evidence to the study of SDI and superpower diplomacy. This is a survey that doesn’t merely add nuance to the existing record, but revises our
very understanding of the Reagan presidency.

Genres: History

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Alec Autor]

Interesting read on Reagan's opposition to nuclear weapons, and how Reagan shaped policy and administration based on this goal. A few key takeaways:

1. I agree with Lettow that Reagan had firm personal views, shaped by his religious and moral stance, about nuclear weapons that he held throughout his life.
2. I'm skeptical of the extent to which these views constituted a comprehensive strategy within the broader context of the Cold War, as the book suggests.
3. The Soviet perspective is really missing in all of this. As a result, the book reads as Reagan apologetics, where he's the good guy trying to create a comprehensive missile defence system and the Soviet Union is the bad guy because they oppose it for (reason). Ironically ends up reproducing Reagan's Manichaean moral framework.

[Panda Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cons: The author never shares three quotes when thirty will do, so readers must plow through dozens of people saying, "Oh, yeah, Reagan hated nuclear arms. He absolutely hated them. He wanted to get rid of them." It's nice to know that everyone Reagan ever met understood his feelings about this issue, but the author could have said so in a single summary paragraph, instead of weaving it throughout the entire book. This excessive repetition was emblematic of the whole reading experience, and this book could have been hundreds of pages shorter if the author had only said things once.

Pros: The book was substantive and educational, and it's really easy to get a near-perfect score on a book test when the author repeats every significant point thirty times!

[Clayton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I was very impressed with a lot of the information that Paul Lettow brought forth. Before I get into any specific details, you can definitely tell that Lettow is a trained historian. The reliance on primary sources and direct quotes is probably the most extensive of any Ronald Reagan historiography that I've read. While all monographs on Reagan heavily rely on these kinds of sources, this one was so extensive - far beyond any I've ever seen.

But with that being said, specifically, Lettow dives deep into Ronald Reagan's desire to abolish the world of nuclear weapons. While the author in the introduction and the conclusion (and some of the in-between chapters) base Reagan's desire for nuclear abolition in his religious views, the author really doesn't dive deep into that. There's usually only one or two sentences highlighting this fact and it's usually the same sentence just rephrased over and again. That's really my biggest critique.

This book is already the most extensive and well-researched book on SDI aka "Star Wars" there is. It includes a very detailed look at the various opinions and outlooks on the program. It crucially highlights how SDI led directly into the end of the Cold War and thus effectively bringing about the downfall of the Soviet Union. It was really neat to see the various opinions on program. But the key point to take away is that this was all Reagan's idea.

Despite people thinking he is unlearned, stupid or whatever other arguments they may have, this book really showed the creative genius and foresight that Ronald Reagan had when it came to the downfall of Communism, his almost Martin Luther King Jr like dream of having nuclear missiles abolished and the end of the Cold War. Even the advisors and cabinet members admit that they did not fully realize the genius until much later.

And as a different side note, this really shows Gorbachev in a different light than what I've ever seen before as well. It shows as anger and frustration but almost also provides a sense of hopelessness.

[Sierra Allred · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should have been a pamphlet. Far too long for the minimal information it provides. The circular logic Little provides would have fit into half the pages this book contains. Each poorly supported point is used to support a grander assertion. I think I even agree with some of the points made in this book, but they come out of absolutely nowhere. It was hard to get through.

[David Skeen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Valuable account of Reagan's support for missile defense and opposition to mutually assured destruction. Reagan himself led his administration to initiate SDI and to negotiate for the reduction (or elimination) of the most destabilizing classes of nuclear weapons.

[Ronald J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and very detailed look at Ronald Reagan’s loathing of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war. How that view shaped his presidency and policies, and the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative, which he believed would catalyze the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Too bad it didn’t work out that way. Doesn’t mean it still couldn’t. He believed an arms race with the Soviet Union, and seeing the Western way of life, would force them to change their system. He didn’t claim that it would bankrupt the USSR and cause it to crumble. In a speech in May 1964, Reagan called the Soviet Union “the most evil enemy that has ever faced mankind.” His anti-communism goes back to his acting days, and president of the Screen Actors Guild. In January 1967 he visited physicist Edward Teller at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and learned about Teller’s work in missile defense. There is no indication Reagan knew of missile defense prior to this visit. Reagan liked the idea, but didn’t like the fact that Teller’s defense relied on nuclear warheads to destroy incoming missiles. I loved how Reagan called Robert McNamara, secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968, an “efficient disaster.”

Reagan also didn’t like the Mutually Assured Doctrine, likening it to an Old West standoff. He didn’t want to avenge the American people in case of a nuclear strike, he wanted to defend them from one. The book then takes you into the Reagan presidency with chapters on 1981-82, 83-84, 1985 (with Gorbachev coming to power, and how this changed USSR-America relations), 1986, and then the ending. It includes information from recently declassified memos from the Summits with Gorbachev, including dialogue from their private meetings. This work is incredibly detailed, well documented, and provides incredible insight on the events of the day.

One thing it reminded me of was how Reagan’s stance on wanting to eliminate nuclear weapons was rejected by many in his own administration, and by many of his allies in the conservative movement, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., Margaret Thatcher, and many others. Reagan held firm, and it turned out he was right. In a speech Reagan gave in March 1988, he said:

"The fact is that many Americans are unaware that at this moment the United States has absolutely no defenses against a ballistic missile attack. If even one missile were to be accidentally fired at the United States, the President would have no way of preventing the wholesale destruction of American lives. All he could do is retaliate—wipe out millions of lives on the other side. This is the position we find ourselves in; to perpetuate it forever is simply morally untenable.

It can be said that the old discredited policy of MAD is like two adversaries holding loaded guns to each other’s head. It may work for a while, but you sure better hope you don’t make a slip. People who put their trust in MAD must trust it to work 100 percent—forever, no slip-ups, no madmen, no unmanageable crises, no mistakes—forever.

For those who are not reassured by such a prospect, and I count myself among their number, we must ask: Isn’t it time we invented a cure for the madness? Isn’t it time to begin curing the world of this nuclear threat? . . . I believe that, given the gravity of the nuclear threat to humanity, any unnecessary delay in the development and deployment of SDI is unconscionable.

. . . [T]he world is changing rapidly, and technology won’t stop here. All we can do is make sure that technology becomes the ally and protector of peace, that we build better shields rather than sharper and more deadly swords. In so doing, maybe we can help to bring an end to the brutal legacy of modern warfare. We can stop the madness from continuing into the next century. We can create a better, more secure, more moral world, where peace goes hand in hand with freedom from fear—forever."

The author concludes:

"Ronald Reagan harbored an intense dislike of nuclear weapons and the concept of mutual assured destruction. That antinuclearism was based on his deeply rooted personal beliefs and religious views. Reagan was convinced that it was his personal mission to avert nuclear war. His goals were to eliminate the threat posed by nuclear weapons—particularly those in the hands of the Soviet Union—and ultimately to abolish nuclear weapons altogether."

"While Reagan allowed SDI to be used to bring the Soviets to the negotiating table, he refused to allow it to be traded away as a bargaining chip."

"It is notable that several of Reagan’s former aides later stated that he was smarter and more adept than they thought at the time."

"Reagan successfully negotiated the INF Treaty, which eliminated an entire category of nuclear weapons for the first time."

"We live in a world that Ronald Reagan did much to bring about."

If you like history, this book will enrich your knowledge of the events leading to the Cold War’s end, from the people who were there, engaged in the policies to bring it about.