governmental powers essential to our that is in fact a comey did duty the judiciary to say with the law is not what it should be. the society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and further application through its activities. now you may notice that i haven't adam smith tie on today. that's not because we have an economic historian coming to speak to us. but it's because adam smith was principally and educator, he was a professor. he was a private tutor. he was beloved by his students and marcus which are speaking us to us today is known as a very exuberant and enthusiastic educator. i first met marcus several years ago at an instant date for humane society's conference. i spoken and he followed me. he later told me 19 years later that he was so relieved i went first because i didn't do such a good job and made it so much easier for him to follow. i was an easy act to follow so he's very pleased by that. demarcus is spent the last five years writing this book and ronald reagan. ronald reagan has become a symbol he's become an icon for conservatives we have prime presidential primary debates at the reagan library. the de facto prerequisite for these presidents to pay homage to ron reagan as. there's a disconnect between conservatives thought about reuben is 1980 and the way that reagan has been mythologized the way we think about rigging the icon reagan assemble marcus and i were out of philadelphia society needing once and john divine who's out of the civil service in the reagan made some comment about the reagan ministration america said actually reagan did not cut domestic spending i got into this argument a much actually cut it was a funny moment for those of you seem don divine on television. he is a very animated person at a very adamant person makers marcus is as well, and it was a pretty robust argument and very exciting one to be standing next to (laughter) reagan's image was to a great degree self-made he was very aware of his legacy and sought to frame narratives about his presidency. during his presidency, the cold war united conservatives in a sort of fusion east way. some of you may recall the fusionist project as it was outlined by frank meyer,. the united people neoconservatives evangelicals came together because of a common enemy but after the cold war, we sort of lost that fusionism, so conservatives today exist in a fractured state. we have neoconservatives, those who celebrate american greatness, we have libertarians, classical we have local us we have evangelicals. and in the current political climate they are not as united as they were under the reagan presidency and a lot of that has to do with the cold war so here to talk to us today about the cold war, reagan conservatives, and the end of the cold war, is dr. is doctor marcus which are. he is at the university of arkansas. teachers in history department. in addition to being engaging and enthusiastic speaker, he specializes in economic political and intellectual history from 1922 to the present. his focus is on modern american conservatives and is look at reagan comes out soon he received phd from the university of alabama. this is what all the arbery fans in the room booth. (laughter) doctor which are offers classes in modern american history including courses on the cold war and conservative movement the american presidency the history of economic thought and u.s. economic development. he's published in a wide fire places, including the white house journal and his co-editor of the three volume and theology entitle public choice analysis of american economic history. he's currently researching for his next book fell in the region revolution please join me in welcoming doctor which are. [applause] thanks he did a great job >> well thank you so much for having me and it's a pleasure to be. here in talking to the summary chapter of the montgomery society. side of this done so much a reshaping the american judiciary and played such a large role in the conservative movement. it's a great pleasure for me to be here today. as doctor met in all, as allen said i'll be speaking to you guys about reagan conservatism and the end of the cold war. i want to start off by asking you to think about what do you think ronald reagan stood for? what defines ronald reagan for you? and i think for many conservatives what defines ron reagan for them is in adherence to principles an unflinching adherents unflinching adherence to to conservative principles that he never deviated from. this conception of reagan really started to merge around 2005 2006 in the wake of george w. bush is dismal presidency from the point of conservatives or he became very disillusioned with george w. bush i want to talk to you guys it today about how conservatives viewed reagan journey eighties often times, they view him with frustration, contempt, anger, because not more was done to sort of achieve the conservative. . policy goals i was really surprised when i went researching from a dissertation i went to steven hayward's book he basically talk about all these conservatives they were ups and frustrated with regan and then he went on told a lot of sort of story about the reagan years and i found that really fascinating i found that also several other books in my places i took it to my dissertation professors. and they said sounds like an excellent topic go and research it. our that research came to book reagan the struggle for true conservatism outstanding and be talking about today we'll talk about how conservatives view reagan today, and then we will look back in time about how conservatives viewed reagan during the 1980's. like i said, often times with frustration, and even contempt for his cold war policy, and then we will talk a little bit about how reagan wanted to be remembered, and we will end with me gesturing toward how conservatives began to construct the reagan legacy and later the reagan myth. a really really love this quote. i wish i had written it but i did not. matt purple road in the churchill we miss remember i think it really sort of grasps what i'm trying to do in the book. purple said historical memory is like a great contact, a crushing nuances in flashing wrinkles to a person or event made a perfect morsel for personal popular consumption. i think this is largely happens lauren reagan today. he sort of been compacted out of simplified version of himself, maybe a purest version of himself, and all the nuances and all the pragmatic policies of the eighties have largely been. forgotten is this is really personified fight w. w. already. this emerged in 2005. and culture said, she quipped, you know for christians it's wwj, but for conservatives it's w. w. already, what would ronald reagan do? course after this takes off in 2005 the lead up to the 2008 republican primary, sean hannity in the heritage foundation sort of partner on this, w. w. already. would ron reagan do today? we need candidates to do what reagan would do. he can go and amazon can by wwj brace akin myself a t-shirt as you see here. you can buy a bumper sticker put on your car. you can buy a mouse pilot on the far left, that says if we can resurrect and we would reelect. and the idea of zombie reagan running in the 2020 primary. but nonetheless, conservatives around 2005 to, six began to reconstruct reagan as a conservative purist. an indiana sort of claim, and maybe even before that ronald reagan won the cold war. a sticking to his conservative principles, and that reagan through his conservatism is to credit ultimately for the dissolution of the soviet empire and the end of the cold war. so today what we're gonna do is we're actually gonna go back in time to see what conservatives were actually saying about his policies in the 19 eighties. and how that is quite different from what they claim today. so what does my manuscript to? well, my manuscript details the complex and often tense relationship that existed between president reagan and conservatives, and it acknowledges the wide range of perspectives on the right, and i think that is something unique to my book. i think other historians have done a good job with that as well, but it is something i try to grapple with, all of the differences within the conservative movement. i do not think historians have done enough in understanding conservatism and all of its various iterations. it also questions whether or not the reagan years were actually the triumph of conservatism. i actually do not think this is true. i think they're 1990s are the where the triumph of think the clinton administration and she many many of the things maybe not a purpose maybe begrudgingly after looking a pause. but nonetheless the clinton ministration under president clinton, they'll to me get wall from reform, they get the balanced budget. etc we off into the nineties eighties is a triumph of conservatism, many many conservatives did not see the 19 eighties see as a triumph of conservatism at least in the 1980s. finally politics memory and mid building among american conservatives it tends to explain the creation of the reagan legacy of the evolution of that legacy and the creation of the reagan with i've got the slide here the tells you where the sources come. from outlook enough to visit a vast number of archives, including ronald reagan presidential library, which is a great place to go do some research, you know flight to california right? it was an excellent going out to sydney valley see the reagan papers particularly the morgan blackwell files. if anyone has any questions about the evidentiary sources came from, we can talk return to talk to it after the q&as. so just sort of as a primer everyone here is not upset with me. there are four schools of thought about what ended the cold war. the first is probably the most dominant, mikael gorbachev, through his policies, deserves most of the credit, right, for the end of the cold war, because inadvertently, he undermines the soviet system, undermined the communist party, and in doing so, destroy the fabric of the soviet union and its satellites, basically the control. the threat of coercion. and that is probably the and that is probably the largest school of thought within historical profession within this school of thought, reagan is given very little credit for the end of the cold war. there is another school of thought that claims reagan actually prolongs the cold war could not only did he not contribute to it, but he prolonged it, simply emboldening the hardliners within the soviet union and made it more difficult for someone like gorbachev to enact his reforms. th third school is the reagan victory school, this is mainly made up of conservative historians that. claim that rod oregon won the cold war by enforcing so the union into bankruptcy. it's kind of like the military board up in the united states to pressure on the soviets they couldn't keep up, they had to enact reforms it ultimately undid the soviet union and finally, they are sort of emerging -- this is the school i want to belong to -- that reagan and gorbachev worked together to set the foundation for a peaceful end of the cold war and the dissolution of the soviet empire. i think gorbachev deserves most of the credit, although he probably would not like to take it, as an avowed socialist. i think his policies under the soviet union, but i think reagan deserves a lot of credit for working with gorbachev to basically establish better relations to gorbachev to carry it does. reforms i know i'm speaking to a more conservative audience, so i'm not either of the first two, so don't be too angry with me right? (laughter) all right let's go and jump ahead in the 19 eighties. conservatives were frustrated with fragrance foreign policy 1980's, but they were also really frustrated with things reagan attempted to do in the policy arena and the first two years of the reagan administration. some were upset with the advanced airborne warning and control system to saudi arabia. they thought this violated israeli national security, and the israeli prime minister even came out and condemned reagan for the sale. this was reagan's first foreign policy accomplishment, or legislative accomplishment while he was in office. he basically actually step that up to the israeli lobby and also the prime minister of israel and basically told him. listen, i am the president of the united states. other countries do not make our foreign policy. you can imagine how well that went over neoconservatives when reagan made that type of comment. also, on taiwan reagan accepted china's nine point plan for taiwan, which included reduce weapon sales for you the united states, which were very wedded to taiwan, and still are, so many criticized reagan for being sort of soft on china here. thirdly, reagan was criticized specifically by neoconservatives for his lack of public response of martial law in poland, the crackdown on solidarity. neoconservatives claim that reagan should have done he should have pushed their back with massive embargo that sort of. thing is steady did nothing we know now that there is a new book and released on reagan and cnn poll. we know reagan was very active behind the scenes and helping support dissident groups within the eastern bloc and he was doing quite a bit. actually at least his administration is doing quite a bit in poland. conservatives at the time did not cut out was but not public no knowledge. they are also criticizing because they were thought they liked him to pursue a more aggressive policy towards the soviet union. and they do not really see that it really materializing the first two years. let's get to some specific criticisms. in 1982, right norman potter rights a piece in the norman plunderous titled it neoconservative egg wish over reagan's foreign policy in which he pretty much systematically dismisses the idea that reagan had any accomplishments in his first year presidency. potters insisted that he did not have an idea of what they wanted to accomplish during the cold war. they had focused on the economy. obviously when rain comes into office, that's the number one concern getting the economy back on track, and they get some, to, some spending cuts in the first year. but by and large neoconservatives, the hawks focuses feel that he's focusing on not to find a more conservative foreign policy the result, according to potter, was a vacuum into which all of the old ideas and policies against which reagan himself has stood for many years. potter it's continued then in the first two years of the reagan administration, he helped the soviet union stabilizes and fire rather than a strategy encouraging why the breakup of that empire from within. his criticism was so piercing that reagan actually picked up the phone and gave in the coal. that an extended conversation. try to convince him is now pursuing a policy of détente the kissinger had outlined in the 1970s. that was widely criticized by conservatives, including president. reagan potter is listening to the president, trying to justify what he had done up until, this point trying to get off the full of violence says thank you mister president and tries to get off the phone. he realized that the president would call daytona even if it was not the president self would call détente. in 1982, an addition of conservative digest was published in which they systematically criticized the president. they criticized him on social issues for not getting the school prayer amendment passed. they criticize them for not getting a right to life past. you also have budget hawks, because of the unbalance budget. the ballot has been running a deficit since 1982. he also have supply signers who are mad at reagan, because he was on the path to raise taxes, and you have foreign policy conservatives, who are the people we are going to focus on in the next slide, who are really criticizing reagan for not outlining a clear vision for his cold war policy. "has reagan deserted the conservatives? " a play off of one of reagan's films. , where is the best of me. "has reagan deserted the conservatives? " like i said, this magazine, or this edition of the magazine, this volume, it has criticisms from across the spectrum, right? if you were like i do not really by your arguments that conservatives had major problems with the reagan administration, i was somehow find this and hand it to you, because it is that good of a source. here are a few quotes from that magazine on foreign policy. general daniel graham, chairman of the coalition for peace and strength, asserted that there was "very little difference between reagan's policy and carter's policy." another lamented, "we have no strategy for the soviet general i'll be in light who had served on the reagan defensive transition team declared i am not disappointed, i am disgusted, " and when asked to rate the reagan out of 10, he said "i give him a 2 out of 010." mitch, who i was able to meet recently, said "reagan is following the policy of detente. reagan was not in office now, he would be leaving the opposition." he would be leading the opposition of his his own policies. there is a picture that has reagan sort of chastising, and then reagan is like ok, what did you want, and he says "we would reagan says "ok, would that be cash or credit? " [laughter] this is a sort of criticism that reagan heard more about an american farmer needed for standing up to the soviet union and casting the cold war moral terms i think it is really important in order to understand of where we are going to go in the next few slides, i think it is really important to understand what drove ronald reagan in terms of foreign-policy. ronald reagan was an adamant anti-communist. probably got the best and economist credentials in the conservative movement. he's an avid anti communist he can quote from "witness, " he does so. he will recite the first page in, like, cabinet meetings, so he is deeply influenced by that, and going back to his time in hollywood, he is an adamant anti-communist, believing they are socially and economically bankrupt, and eventually, right, socialism will collapse upon itself. most americans knew he was an anti-communist. that is what most people knew. something that people missed is that reagan was also a nuclear abolitionist. despite being a cold warrior, and adamant cold warrior, he detested mutual destruction. he and margaret thatcher disagreed about this. margaret thatcher like held that mutually assured destructio avoided world war iii. reagan thought it was fundamentally immoral, and he wanted to move toward a policy that would not just he always opposed a nuclear freeze it'll eliminate nuclear weapons. and so these two things, right, his anti-communism and his nuclear abolitionism are going to come in conflict with one another when he is in office. he and his memoirs, in his autobiography, claimed these two things always work in tandem with one another. i think that is sort of wishful thinking looking. back there are times when how do you get to abolishing nor nuclear weapons he probably have to work with the soviets in one capacity or another if you can get there he is going to run into problems because of this seemingly paradoxical ideas. now conservatives to in 1983, really begin to praise the president. 1983 is the year that conservatives feel that ronald reagan comes into his own in terms of embracing a conservative foreign-policy. lots of course the year that ronald reagan announces strategic defense initiative dubbed star wars by a very critical press reagan's vision with sti was of course to create a missile shield so the united states would not be under the threat of nuclear war. he saw it as a means to abolish those weapons, because in reagan's mind, he always tells gorbachev w i'll share the technology with you and govern gorbachev as like "who is this guy? he is going to share the technology with me." the soviets had this conception of reagan, rightfully, potentially so, that he was adamantly anti communist any want to destroy the soviet system. that he and his administration would be willing to do a preemptive nuclear strike in order to destroy the soviet union. in that context, the kgb and people in moscow viewed this very much as a means by which reagan can enact the policy they fear he wants to an act, which is a preemptive strike against the soviet union sti turns or to be extraordinarily destabilizing for the cold war. it is somewhat ironic that a time, 1983, the year that conservatives are most satisfied with reagan's foreign-policy is also the are that we dub in history "the year of fear, " because of how close the world came to nuclear conflict. reagan also in 1983 florida hundred a persian cruise missiles to western europe. this is in keeping with a promise of carter ministration account of the excess twenties that the soviets deployed address reagan escalated his rhetoric and eight 1983. at the 41st annual convention of evangelicals, reagan gets up before the crowd and says listen, you cannot be ambivalent about the cold war. he cannot join the nuclear freeze movement. you have to stand with us. this is a moral war. and he casts the soviet union as the evil empire, and he frames the cold war as a conflict between good and evil, right, good and evil. , stark stark rhetoric. 1983 is a year or the conservatives feel that reagan is really embracing their vision for what his foreign policy should be. very combative stick it to the soviets, but has a major destabilizing effect on the relations. the year of fear, right, that is where i called it, and i called it the year of fear for several reasons, one of which is sdi, which presented a really real danger, at least in the mind of the soviet union, but also the shooting down of the,. korean airliner that straight into soviet airspace, where it straight for two hours. the soviets sent fighters, because they thought it was an american spy plane initially, they can -- i am not sure what they were thinking, because they had windows, there were lights, it looks like a commercial airliner, but nonetheless, the soviets ultimately shoot,,,,. conservative activists down the plane, an onboard, there were 200 69 passengers, including 63 american, including congressman, conservative congregants congressma, all die in the shooting down. conservative activists immediately hold a press conference denouncing the soviet union and calling on ronald reagan to enact an embargo on technology, human rights activists who were imprisoned, and to embargo grain shipments to the soviet union immediately in response to this. reagan is on vacation when this happens. he had to cut his vacation short. but he and secretary schulz talked about it on the phone, and he said "we have got to be careful here this could escalate very quickly."so once again, reagan guns forward, he he gives this great speech he denounces a soviet union he calls them "barbaric, " probably the best -- it is extraordinarily harsh, but it is not enough for conservatives. he said we did not elect a dictionary. we all a commander in chief. there is a frustration in 1983 the reagan does really go to talking again but does not seem to be willing to to really, really embrace what they think are his actual values and principles when it comes to foreign policy. kale zero zero seven is really gonna rattle reagan in conjunction with a soviet response to able archer. reagan cannot understand how the soviets could be flying next to a career in orlando for two years and never contact united states. one of this is been something? bigger with a knot of gone through a back channel given us a call? this is problematic. this can lead to major consequences if it was on a larger scale. on november, 2, 1983, the united states and its allies conducted able archer to test which simulated the use of nuclear weapons to test command a control procedures. it was designed to entail the highest rankings entail the highest rankings of west german governments, margaret thatcher's and reagan and thatcher were supposed to be part of it. they decided at the last minute that might trigger the soviets. , they might get a little concerned if they were involved, nonetheless they went through with it as with still high-ranking but lower officials to run able archer. and, even know it was not reagan and thatcher, this really, the kgb immediately says this is it. this is the preemptive strike. this has got to be it. they activate code red. they are ready, they are on high alert. nuclear war is coming. we got to be ready for launch. so, the duration of able,,. word about that gets back archer for nine days there is this tension word about that gets back to reagan, because the united states has a double agent in london. by the end of november, early december, reagan is getting this information to the soviet union is comprised of people who believe the united states is capable of a preemptive strike and that their command-and-control procedures and the soviet union are so poor, per the kl007 incident that it might lead to nuclear annihilation. reagan begins to question how hard he should push the soviets. reagan was also influenced by abc's "the day after, " a made for tv movie which demonstrated what would happen in the case of a nuclear conflict. after he gets an advance copy from abc, and he watches camp david, the president is amazingly influenced by fell. it's not a knock on reagan but if you gave him a film, a briefing in film he would understand it, he would hold on to it and he will be able to repeat it later on so, film seems to have had a major effect on how so the day after was really significant according to reagan giving him an idea how things would look. in the midst of the able archer getting back to him, he is also watching "the day after. he said after watch the left him greatly depressed and he was greatly aware of the world. later on he was briefed on the united states nixon war. plan he wanted nothing to do with the football. president bush has to be sworn in before we get rid of that. he doesn't want anything to do on. he's briefed on the nation's nuclear war plan. and recorded that it was a sobering experience. it memory as he explained that the sequence of events in the briefing parallel those in the abc movie. i think all of those things came together to resonate with reagan by the end of 1983 that his administration had to take a different tone with. soviets not because they were wrong to calling the soviet union the evil empire. but because it didn't come bring about the results they wanted to achieve. the day that able archer and it reagan made his first public appeal for the total elimination of nuclear are minutes. i believe there can be only one policy for preserving our precious civilization this modern age. nuclear war can never be one and never be fought. i speak for everyone when i say that our dream will be that nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the earth. pretty radical rhetoric. i wonder how conservatives would've responded of jimmy carter had said those things. i'm not sure. in january of 1984, schulz and reagan over break talked with one another and reagan said, put together a policy. we want to have on new policy. in january of 1984 the reagan administration shifts public tone regarding the civil soviet union. reagan asserted that the two superpowers must establish a better working relationship marked by greater cooperation and understanding." this is important because if i take you guys back to that slide, right, where i talked about the different groups of historiography. there's one group that says that reagan didn't really take any role at all. this policy change takes place 15 minuteonths before gorbachev. it's not his fault or gorbachev died shortly after. this makes it sort of what he has to wait. nonetheless, it is very evidence to me that reagan, in conjunction with secretary schultz, that reagan initiated this public policy shift in 1984. and so once mikael gorbachev is the general secured jerry, once he comes in a power, thatcher famously tells reagan this is someone we can do business. with mcallen gorbachev, the first soviet leader born after the revolution. my cable mikael gorbachev the, social reform. nicole gorbachev, the man who came and comes into power when the soviet union has massive cultural social decline, drunken his problems, a war in afghanistan regime. which americans are making extraordinarily difficult on the soviets. yes to do something about the condition of the soviet union. his goal is to implement implement these policies of glass notes in paris striker emphasized more consumer goods over military spending. in order to do that, he's got to have an easing of tensions with united states. another thing pushing gorbachev in this direction is the decline of oil prices. the soviet union rides a high in the 1970's but oil declined dramatically in the second half of the 1980's, forcing the soviet union to come to the table. so, reagan and gorbachev decide to meet at geneva in 1985. like i tell my students not a great deal was accomplished in terms of policy outcomes. there were no reductions or anything like, that, but what happened is that gorbachev and reagan got into the same room together and began to talk to one another and they developed a relationship with one another and they began to develop this relationship and this trust that would matter so much to the end of the cold war. as reagan said, right, "we don't have these weapons because we hate one another. we have these weapons,. because we miss trust one another. if we have trust, maybe we can start to work toward some type of an agreement. but reagan leaves geneva,, and the administration is hopeful that this went better than expected. reagan got along with gorbachev. sure, he probably told some soviet jokes, that go gorbachev did not appreciate the soviet. jokes by a large they got along. gorbachev is always complaining about reagan making the soviet jokes the guy is an artifact but he seems to be genuine when he talks about nuclear disarmament, so we should continue to work with him. so, there's this hopefulness in this administration that they will be able to come back -- at reykjavik in 1986 and maybe make a deal. conservatives are also hearing this. they are extraordinarily scared this might actually be the case, that reagan might,. give away. sti he might bargain away the strategic defense initiative in exchange for nuclear reduction. so, conservatives are writing the administration and publishing op-eds. . reagan has to have the grassroots leaders to the white house and the major conservatives and the senate to the house he stands up in front of the group and he gives this eloquent speech about how gorbachev is a new type of leader and they can trust him. he is mr. conservative. and he finishes. and there's silence. he's not used to that. not from the people who are supposed to be his most adamant supporters. when he leaves the room, there is a real disconnect between conservative activists and president reagan himself. he promises them that he will not bargain away sdi at reykjavik. so, when he shows up at reykjavik it goes swimmingly well. two were talking about reagan quips we can be meat back here in 10 years and we will destroy the last nuclear weapon together, right? it'll be just wonderful because all nuclear weapons would be gone. that is how optimistic reagan is that they will get something big at reykjavik. they outlined a deal that would have been major reduction or complete reduction in intermediate weapons, but they break up. its growth goes its separate way to talk about regroup before they come back to the table to make a deal. and when i come back to the table gorbachev says he has i've just one condition. sdi must be limited to the laboratory for 10 years. if you will agree, mr. president, to limit sdi, we can sign this agreement today. go out an announced it to the press. reagan is furious. reagan is absolutely furious. he feels betrayed. there were not supposed to be any conditions. so, reagan puts on his white coat, and he walks out. and conservatives hail reagan for this achievement, for saying no, for sticking up for sdi, and the conservative vision of the, missile shield and whatnot. the reality is i think that most people in the pentagon would have told president reagan insert secretary sheltered sti was more than ten years away from being out of the laboratory anyways. i'm not convinced that walking away from the deal at reykjavik has any significant value but it did for reagan. he didn't sell them out. conservatives cheer. we did not get an arms-control agreement. we did not get rid of sdi. this is fine. so, reagan walks out of reykjavik. but, you know, the teams continue to talk. secretary schultz continues to talk with his counterpart. and, eventually, they agree to have another summit in washington, right? and in response to reports that the reagan administration is going to,. sign an intercontinental ballistic missile agreement national review the head of right-wing william f. buckley runs in addition entitled reagan suicide pack. in which they criticize reagan and the inf treaty. it featured criticism from jack kemp, henry kissinger and richard nixon. , the criticism tax reforms. the treaty was not verifiable. two, it left the soviets with a significant advantage. and the questiony whether or not the treaty was motivated by domestic political concerns. does anybody know what i'm talking about? iran-contra. that president reagan was making this deal not because he believed in it but rather because he was so unpopular in that moment. his poll numbers were so far down that he was making this deal for political reasons. nixon and kissinger, for their parts, by the way i believe to my knowledge, this is the first time nixon and kissinger had released a joint statement since watergate. they thought it was that important that they come out together and criticize president reagan for his naive foreign policy. they insisted that any western later indulges the soviets in disingenuous fantasies of a nuclear free world courts unimaginable perils." they concluded that while the president wanted to remember -- to be remembered as a peacemaker reagan needed to remember that however he may be held in today's headlines the judgment of history would severely condemn a false piece. national review was not the only organization that was criticizing the inf treaty. the new right took out, under the leadership of howard phillips, they took a full page ad in conservative newspapers. this has got to be my favorite source. this is my favorite source in the entire book, because it is got a picture of neville chamberlain, it's got a picture of ronald reagan, got a picture of adolf hitler and a picture of miguel gorbachev. it says, appeasement is as unwise in 1988 as it was in 1938. help defeat the reagan-gorbachev inf treaty. if a conservative calls you neville chamberlain, that's as low as it gets. that's the biggest in so you be given is that you are called neville chamberlain. they are going to sell out the world to hitler. this comparison of reagan to neville chamberlain is quite profound. senate conservatives propose hole back modifications to torpedo the inf treaty. they are's unsuccessful part of that was strategy. they were trying to show the president we might not be able to defeat you this time, but you better not go for any more reductions. we will adamantly oppose them. with the exception of george bush, every gop presidential hopeful oppose the treaty, many of them running to the right in 1988 of reagan. and jack, camper good friend or a left exhibit there with the football. blasted it labeling ratings treaty and nuclear munich. harsh rhetoric. here are some wonderful quotes from our good friends on the new right, our social conservative friends. howard phillips explained that ronald reagan is a very weak man with a strong wife and a strong samtaff and reagan was a useful idiot for soviet propaganda. richard viguerie asserted that reagan is now aligned with his former adversaries. the liberals the soviets and the democrats. we feel rejected by the president. he called reagan an apologist and exclaimed that this inf treaty a splitting of the blanket.s. conservatives will file for divorce and never reconcile again didn't turn out to be the case. another activist labeled reagan a weakened president and not in a position to make moral judgments about gorbachev. so conservative outrage, conservative criticism of the inf treaty was uniform and cross the ideological spectrum of reagan's treaty. ultimately the inf treaty just passed overwhelmingly in the senate and ultimately it reduces the soviet-american stockpiles by 5%. . that doesn't sound like that much but this is the first time in the coal world that we reduce nuclear weapons major, major achievement setting united states and the soviet union on a path toward other treaties such as start. the inf treaty was one of his foreign-policy achievements. i would say it is "the" principal foreign policy achievement. but in order to get that agreement with the soviet union he had to ignore his harshest critics who were conservative. we had to ignore them, get to norris complaints goes on. way gorbachev, schulz and reagan credit inf and that treaty and the relationship that reagan built with gorbachev to enabling a peaceful end to the cold war. this was key for setting the stage for the end of the cold war. this is probably the best quote in the entire powerpoint, courtesy of george will. writing in news week near the end of president reagan second term, george will lamented how wrong reagan is about what is happening in moscow. reagan has accelerated the moral disarmament of the west, actual disarmament will follow, by elevating wishful thinking to the status of political philosophy." will explained that december 8, the day the inf treaty was signed, will be remembered as the date the cold war was lost. that one didn't hold up very well, george. but, nonetheless, by the time reagan leaves office many conservatives are looking at for one another and they are saying, what did we achieve? we got tax cuts. , we got tax reform. but did we fundamentally change the trajectory of the united states? and many of them conclude, no, we didn't. we didn't succeed in this endeavor. not only that, george h.w. bush is about to be elected president. that's only going to further sort of frustrate them because many of them will be shown the door in the bush white house. so, there is this sort of belief that we haven't really achieved what they had set how to achieve. they hadn't transfer my country the same way fdr had in the 1930's. i want to pivot, i don't have a ton of time, but want to show you how reagan wanted to frame his own legacy because it is also very different from what conservatives claim the reagan legacy should be today. let's take a look at how did ronald reagan think about his own cold war foreign-policy legacy and what does that mean? so in order, this part of the book what i did was, i went to the irregular berry and looked at the exhibits reagan actually worked with the archivists in order to create those, the museum exhibits. he wrote the text. a lot of it is taken from his diary. he played an active role in putting together any the museum. i also draw from his -- especially is published speeches at the time let's take a look at how reagan wanted to form his own foreign-policy legacy. so, in november 1990, reagan gives his brotherhood of man speech which has -- in the fall of the berlin wall. he is standing in front sections of the berlin wall. he credited "the brave men and women on both sides of the iron curtain who devoted their lives and sometimes sacrifice them so that we might inhabit a world without barriers." so, he gives credit for the people on the ground in eastern europe are rising up in resisting communism and oppression. he also gives credit to margaret thatcher and helmut and the goal miguel gorbachev their role in enabling human freedom to emerge. reagan told his audience he was not sure whether or not gorbachev had listened to him when he said mr. reagan tear down this wall -- mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. but neither he nor the rulers of eastern europe could ignore the much louder chants of demonstrators in the streets of life segan dressed and in the churches and the schools and in the factors in on the farms, a once silent people found the voice and a battering ram to knock down walls, real and imagine. because of them the political map of europe has been rewritten." what about the museum? well, if you go to the the reagan museum. i highly recommend. it it's an exceptional museum. when you go there, you come upon, if you get to these large foreign policy sections. once you get through it there are these doors, as you can see from my amateurish photography. and, as you look through it, this big video playing of reagan and gorbachev and what they did to bring about an end to the cold war through peaceful negotiation. and there are exhibits all around the room. they talk about how did this end? and all of those exhibits emphasized reagan working with gorbachev. reagan talking with gorbachev. negotiating. doing what they could to try to develop the trust that would ultimately lead to disarmament. and a new détente that would bring lasting peace. by the way the iran contra exhibit -- you might just miss it as you are on your way to see the pretty statue an end film. it's a wall down exhibit i'm not criticizing exhibit itself it happens to be right there were you might walk past it. all righty. so, reagan on the end of the cold war, right? president reagan never claim to have won the cold war. reagan gave credit to others especially the people of eastern europe and the people of the soviet union, who demanded an end to the cold war status quo and who ultimately rejected communism. now, i don't want you guys to leave here and think barack ended up place a war role in the end of the cold war and i did not think that reagan played an end to the cold war. he contributed significantly to the end of the cold war. the way he contribute it is not the way to conservatives think he contributed. he deserves credit for believing in the bankruptcy of the soviet system, right. and for inspiring nationalist movement such as solidarity and for negotiating with gorbachev. i think ult imately, reagan like lincoln should be praise not because of his adherence to principle but praise because he was willing to take new information, digest that information, and alter and strategically change how he wants to address that situation based upon that new information. in short, i think he should be praised because he was a statesman. he wasn't rigidly ideological. he was a pragmatic conservative who took what he could get. if you can get 80%, take it. take the other 20% later. over the course of the 1990's however, many conservatives began to claim that reagan had single-handedly confronted the evil empire, demanded the be rlin wall be torn down, stuck to his principles and in so doing one of the cold war. and, if you want to know more about conservatives constructed the reagan legacy and myth, buy the book, which is available for preorder on amazon.com. with that, i'll go ahead and take questions. yeah. what you saw ronald reagan's actual policies in the 19 eighties out a conservative republicans get back to that from the front burner. the question was reagan years are very different in terms of policy than what we see now in the trump administration especially on issues i senior talking to immigration and trade? okay. support of international associations. how does the conservative movement get back? there it has to happen electorally. somebody has to stand up and say no. we don't represent anti-illegal immigration. we do not represent protectionism. that's not what conservatism is. i think that's what happening. i attended a meeting, and there is great debate over whether or not trump's tariffs are good policy to bring about the economic goals that he has there are many conservatives who are still ideologically and principally opposed to those things. i think they need a standardbearer. you may not like this answer, the best thing you could happen to the conservative movement is a donald trump lost in 2020, if you believe in both principles. four more years of a trump administration, the republican party will move into trump's vision. , key parties will be appointed to stay partisan what. not if you are reagan style republican you will have to think long and hard about what you care about -- power or principles. i was interested in (inaudible) attributed >> yeah so the question is how do i respond to people who lived it, who were in the reagan administration or who had been part of constructing the narrative? i'd never spoken with de sousa. i have another pleasure so i don't know what he would say. he is one of the key people in creating the narrative with his biography of reagan. i haven't had the pleasure of speaking with grover norquist. i requested an interview. i did not get it. what i usually say to folks in the administration, i have spoken with some people in the administration, and what they tell me, these people were out there. they're just a bunch of bomb throwers. they didn't actually represent the grassroots. they didn't represent the people within the administration doing the hard work. we supported reagan. i think they are right about that. there is a disconnect between the people who were in power that recognized in order to get things done you had to work with the democratic side. tip o'neill, the speaker, you have to work with him. that means you will not get everything you want. they were right. there were significant achievements. anne some of this is just disillusionment on the part of conservative activists and whatnot. i definitely do not want you to leave here today and think everything will conservative in the united states during the 1980's was always angry with the reagan administration. the purpose of the book is to push back against the absence of the criticism. and to try to reframe reagan and his legacy along the lines of what he actually did rather than what we misremembered that he did. yes? >> i was wondering (inaudible) so, the question is to what extent did conservatives create a myth of reagan because liberals, progressives basically created their own myths of reagan. i think that's part of that. the first generation of historians is quite poor. and the first generation of scholarship from activists is really poor. reagan was right actor in chief, the no-nothing president. , that's all been debunked by the work of anderson and skinner, where they publish his speeches that he wrote. he wrote all his own speeches and his own radio stuff. he was a thinking conservative. when i get into the sources and when you go to the reagan red, a nch., a lot of his books are there. you can pull those books down with permission and look inside and you will notice lee edwards is telling me and i haven't found a yet but reagan had a copy of the raodoad to serfdom, and he had dogeared and underlined the text. he engaged. the left have created this myth of reagan that is far worse than the reality. this view that reagan wasvpykyk elected because of dog whistling dixie and the racial backlash. that's part of that but i think it was a conscious decision in 1996, after dole was defeated to try and sort established calling language and a common history aand a common set of policy prescriptions in the wake of the cold war. the cold war and anti-communist and held the conservative movement together up until 1991 but after 1991, what is holding a libertarian and a political conservative together? there's not much. i think conservatives consciously used the reagan legacy and they did it really well to try and bring all of these disparate conservatives or people on the right broadly together into, to keep them in the party if you will. it was largely successful until around 2016. so, do you have a question in the back still? >> i'll catch you up. >> sounds great. thank you guys so much. 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