House to alert the president , he receives a third call. The whole thing had been a false alarm, a computer error at norad. The point about this is the scenario was very real, the stakes are very high in the cold war. 10 years later, something amazing happened. We have all seen images of the berlin wall opening in 1989 and we will get to see them again this fall as we commemorate the 25th anniversary of that momentous occasion. What happened over these years . How does the cold war and . How do we go from the National Security advisor getting called in the middle of the night to suddenly the whole thing ending peacefully . They were big changes, structural changes that happened in the world during this decade. The spiraling debt crisis in Eastern Europe and the discrediting of the communist economic model. A drop in the global price of oil, which spelled relief for the last and presented a severe obstacle for the soviet union in its effort to gain currency. You have the nascent Information Age that threatens closed societies and empowered the fundamental concepts marxism was supposed to render obsolete. You have the consequences of the end of decolonization, which had liberated over a billion people in africa, southeast asia, and elsewhere. It provided two opposing models. The collapse of the portuguese empire in 1975 and 500 years of direct european rule. You have the rise in supernatural National Trading zones perhaps supernatural. You have the recovery of capitalist economies in the middle of the 1980s, particularly the United States and west germany. There are reversal trends of u. S. And its allied military capabilities. You have deployment of missiles, the success of the u. S. Trident, some resolution cruise missiles on the old 52s. And the advancement of the stealth bomber. All of these were very much questions without answers. They were unresolved. By the end of the carter administration. Of course you have 1989, the year of miracles, Peaceful Protesters who put their futures come if not their lives, on the line. Not just their political reputations. The passage of time was important. Scriptural changes were important. People power was important. At the end of the day, however, i think the story of the end of the cold war is one of individuals in power my basic argument in the book is that adaptation, improvisation, and engagement by individuals in positions of power ended up half century of cold war and the specter of a nuclear holocaust. Four of these leaders stand out. Mikael gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, George Schultz, and george h. W. Bush. These individuals did not have a master plan or a grand strategy, i would say, to end the cold war. They improvised and they did so in ways i will try to describe in just a few minutes. Let me go over these four individuals. I do not have a powerpoint because we all know what gorbachev and reagan looks like, plus they are on the book. [laughter] for those of you who dont know, this is them. What is it about these four individuals that were important to the story . Gorbachev was the most important individual in the story of the end of the cold war. He believed that his country possessed sufficient military strength to focus primarily on domestic priorities and he sacrificed an empire to advance his reforms. Gorbachev pursued new thinking and policies to adapt to an evolving world. He attempted to reconfigure his ideology, which was communism, to meet the challenges of the 1980s. His devotion to reforming communism inspired him to make concessions that reversed the course of the u. S. Soviet confrontation and allowed east germany, poland, czechoslovakia, hungary, romania, bulgaria to bring the soviet bloc to an end. He struggled to align means with ends. His slogans, above all, were examples acceleration, new world order often amounted to just that. Slogans. His new thinking did not provide a tangible alternative for structuring the International Economy and preserving order and unstable regions. I believe it is very important, what he put forth in 1987. New thinking for the world. Much of the world regarded him as a savior. His limitations reveal that he was human and like all leaders, he faced choices, and those choices came with cost. His view of humanity was shaped by the conflict of world war ii. He had no use for martial valor, he could not abide the prevailing tenets of mutual assured distraction, and he took little pride in the quantity of the soviet missiles. He traveled to western europe in 1970 and the disparity in wealth there stung his pride. So did going to prague after 1968 and seeing how other younger idealistic people of his generation viewed the soviet union. He discarded moscows commitment to International Class struggle and embraced strategic sufficiency. In january of 1986 he gave a speech calling for the abolition of Nuclear Weapons by the year 2000. Three months later, after chernobyl. He engaged with an american president who shared this vision of a World Without Nuclear Weapons. That man, Ronald Reagan, was not the cowboy that his critics alleged. One thinks of reagan in terms of his offthecuff line, we begin bombing in five minutes, right . That is not capture Ronald Reagan. He had long dreamed of a World Without Nuclear Weapons and he had an idea about how to do it, an idea that evolved over the course of his presidency and involved gorbachev. In march 1983, the strategic defense initiative, or star wars, gradually became an essential component for a grand vision of the world. After getting to know gorbachev and deeming him to be trustworthy, reagan envisioned as a massive insurance policy, one he would share with the kremlin to make sure both sides stuck to arms reduction agreements. It was enigmatic, nobody would have imagined that a man who called for Massive Nuclear buildup in 1980 would be offering to share this with the soviet counterpart, Share Technology to shoot down missiles. In the president s mind, however, and this comes through in the documentation available, it was not a deception and sharing was not a ploy. Reagan did not win the cold war, but he established, he set the terms for the big strategic debates of the 1980s. These notions of zero options, the ultimate goal for these intermediate ranged stockpiles in europe should be zero, something reagan announced at the start of his administration, which the United States had not yet deployed, this was regarded to be a cynical nonstarter. Strategic defenses, these were reagans inventions and he stuck to them. There is another part of reagan, though, that is very important, and that is when it came to Foreign Policy, his thoughts and emotions were conflicted. He wanted to abolish Nuclear Weapons and he wanted to eradicate communism. At times, he recognized the required engagement with soviet leaders. At others, he did not. The great example of this, of reagans ambivalence, would be that he goes out and give speeches in 1981 and 1982. When he gives these hawkish speeches, he would very often write personal letters saying we need to sit down to find a way out of the cold war and to ratchet down the rhetoric of the cold war. Soviet leaders did not understand how to respond to this. Given his ambivalence and given the type of manager he was, reagan had difficulty firing people. That is one thing. He had difficulty telling his subordinates and his advisers exactly what he wanted them to do. This sets up in the first two years a sense of confusion in terms of who is running the show. Ed meese is the de facto National Security advisor in 1981. I say that because richard allen, the actual National Security adviser, it did not have direct access to the president. Alexander haig, who is the secretary of state, expected to be the vicar of Foreign Policy, he quickly learns he is often shut out and is unable to cultivate a real relationship with reagan. Because of this ambivalence and the power of more hard line elements, such as weinberger and william clark, who have longstanding connections with reagan, because of this, i think George Schultz needs to be regarded as the third indispensable actor in this period. Over the course of the first administration, from this period onward throughout the second administration, George Schultz was the critical agent of u. S. Foreign policy in the administration. He garnered the trust of the president and deflected hardliners. He concentrated on the soviet union and labored to steer relations with it from confrontation to cooperation, even before gorbachevs ascent. When he comes in, George Schultz forms a bond with him that turns out to be just as important as the soviet leaders relationship with the president. He wanted to engage the cold war adversary, establish trust, share ideas, and promote human rights everywhere. He found optimism in what was going on in the world. The coming Information Age and the promise it held for capitalism and he did not regard the relationship between east and west as a zerosum game. That is different than previous socalled more Foreign Policy professionals, shall we say, henry kissinger, for instance. George schultz did not have much use for theories or grand strategy. At superpower summits in 1987 and 1988, George Schultz interacted with his counterpart and gorbachev almost as an outside advisor to perestroika. Someone who was offering his credentials as a professor of management, an expert on economics, in a way that impressed gorbachev and those reformers around him. He also empowered reagans impulse to bargain with the soviets. He supported the redoubling of efforts in 1987 to achieve an inf treaty when a lot of people around reagan and people outside, such as kissinger and nixon, who were saying this was a bad deal and you had a number of u. S. Allies who expended tremendous Political Capital to accept missiles. In april of 1997, following the kgbs penetration of the u. S. Embassy in moscow, George Schultz rushed aside critics and congressional resolution to travel to moscow at the very moment when gorbachev really needed him. In a series of really in a series of really fascinating meetings that have all been declassified, there is a real battle between schultz, weinberger, and a number of others over whether the u. S. Should cut off all arms negotiations. In the end, schultz outlasted weinberger and all of his other rivals and we did get a treaty and significant progress. When reagan and schultz left office, in early 1989, they believed the cold war was basically over. George h. W. Bush is having a moment. Everywhere these days, he is universally beloved and it is something to consider why that is i have my own thoughts. When he came into office, there was a sense that reagan had been such a towering figure, bush did not have the same mandate either in the popular vote or in the congress that reagan had coming out of 84. Bush was constrained, his manner was cautious. When he came in in 1989, even though there had been such progress in the cold war in arresting the arms race and reducing tensions, the fundamental dynamics still remained. Germany was divided, europe was divided, communism was still alive, and nuclear strategic, the strategic arms reduction treaty was still unsettled. His manner was cautious and he lacked reagans ebullience. He prudently led the nation through these years and skillfully managed his National Security team, something that reagan had a lot of trouble with. Bush did so in the face of domestic political constraints, a hostile congress, public clamor over the federal deficit, and support for rapid independence on the part of americans who shared ethnic heritage. He managed competing domestic games while maintaining the priorities of dealing with gorbachev and minimizing violence as the soviet empire withered. The last chapter in the book is about how i think bush oversaw the construction of a new configuration of power after the berlin wall. One that resolved the fundamental components of the cold war on washingtons terms. It undercut the rationale for huge Nuclear Arsenals to defend European Security against overwhelming soviet advantage. Diplomacy allowed for the swift reunification of germany and european integration. Reform of existing International Institutions and promotion of some new ones revived capitalization of markets, trade, investment that had existed before world war i. The confirmation of cold war victory occurred when bush put together a coalition to expel Saddam Hussein from kuwait. 1991, the persian gulf war, demonstrated that the cold war finally was over and the u. S. Power and American Values reign supreme with all of the consequences that supremacy implied. Let me just say quickly about some of the other individuals that i write about. Gorbachev and reagan and schultz and bush all had very astute and imaginative advisors. Chief among them on the soviet side jack matlock was the most important soviet expert on the u. S. Side. Baker, i write about. Others played key roles. Margaret thatcher and her economic policies were an important precursor to Ronald Reagan. Went against the neoliberal consensus. Helmut kohl took the lead on german unification. He was Ronald Reagans closest ally. And, on this occasion, or after this weekend, one has to consider the importance of john paul ii. He was the foremost anticommunist. He sustained the hope of the Solidarity Movement in poland. I also write about the decisions in the late 1970s to move away from the communist model. Let me tie it back to the opening. This notion of the National Security advisor in 1979 being woken up in the middle of the night, saying that the missiles are coming. I think that one needs to have some kind of perspective on what is going on now. The cold war generation grew up with the specter of a nuclear war. For me, this is a personal project. I am very lucky. People of my generation who came were 16 in the 1990s, have no real memory of having to face existential angst. It is a wonderful thing, no matter what we say here. The importance of the forum of the National History Center Features the Free Exchange of ideas, the importance of what the cold war history project has done, in terms of transparency and preserving the story of what happened in Eastern Europe and elsewhere at the end of the cold war. It is wonderful to be in a community where we can be driven by the pursuit of knowing more and not less about the past and not be afraid of it. Thank you. [applause] now, we get to the part where we Exchange Ideas that we heard about. I ask if you would wait for the microphone before you speak and identify yourself before you offer the question. We would appreciate it. Let me start it off. Thank you. Thank you, james. A wonderful presentation. Congratulations on the book. We are delighted to feature it today. I wonder if i could press you on a couple of issues a little bit further. I would like you to tell me why somebody should buy this book. It is not the first book on the end of the cold war. We have featured others here. Can you tell me your main argument . A piece of that answer is the role of george bush that you persuasively underlined in your presentation. To put it in a different way, how would you counter critics who would say that this is just another great man history of the end of the cold war . What is the graphic context and what is your particular place in this book . That is the first question. The second question is more a specific question. Bush there are those who said that he was having a moment. When you first said that, i thought you were going in a different way. There are those who have argued that, in fact, the bush administration, in the first part of 1989 were missing in action. They fought for policy review. They step back stage a bit. You know, a vacuum. So, how would you how would you deal with that criticism . Let me start with the second one first. That is the most persuasive exposition of what you are saying. Tom blanton has written about the first few months of 1989. The pause, as the soviets referred to it as. I do not think that bush was missing in action in the first few months. I think that, first of all, given his walking away from the view of nuclear abolitionism, which gorbachev believed that he had had a sincere oath with Ronald Reagan that this would continue. There was a meeting with bush at the end of 1987 or in new york in 1988. Gorbachev believed that he had an understanding that things would continue as reagan had left them. I think that anyone who is elected president would have stepped away from reagans grand vision. I also think that the last year and a half of the Reagan Administration, there was real drift. Reagans capabilities declined. He, i think, was not he had trouble in 1988 giving clear priorities. Schultz was well, i think that there was a lot of reconsideration that should have happened in 1988 that bush felt needed to happen in the first few months of 1989. There was we see in the records that robert and Brent Scowcroft were all thinking about how do we translate perestroika and the unpredictability of where it may lead into concrete ways. After all, nobody could have anticipated how quickly and how the soviets and gorbachev, in particular, would allow Eastern Europe to go in the fall. I do not think they were missing in action. In the end, even if they were, i am not sure what the effect ultimately was. What the longterm effect was. Other than that gorbachev was frustrated. In terms of as to why you should buy the book, it is the story of individuals. These people were not gods or saints. They struggled very hard. They made lots of mistakes. Gorbachev is somebody that i walk away with amazement about. He really believed in the notions of new world order. He calls for it in december of 1988. He believes in perestroika. He says to bush in malta in 1989 that they need perestroika. They say that they do not think he has much of an idea of how to proceed. And yet, these ideas and slogans let him to act in ways that were very good. And, i think that one of the things that i try to do in the book that, maybe well, there are really great books. David hoffmans. I think theres a book called, for the soul of mankind. I do not think it is available anymore. This is a story that has been told. I try to accentuate the extent to which gorbachev was acting based on the ideas and the motivation that he drew from seeing that the west and capitalism was recovering by the middle of the 1980s. Recovering not in the way that his ideology informed him. He did not think that the more western, the more military they would be. You know, i also, i think, try to accentuate the role that internal power struggles within the president ial administration, where schultz is so fundamental. I think the importance of that is a new story. I think the ability to have, in his mind, a contradictory grand vision, a World Without Nuclear Weapons and to eradicate communism. These competing ambitions acted across purposes. Beyond even the lead up to the fall of 1989, i think that the concept of a new world order that bush and scowcroft talked about were derided for not having much specificity. I think it was Something Real to them. I think there is a lot that is new here. Whether it is better, i will leave it up to others to decide. Right there in the back in the blue shirt. Thank you. University of amsterdam. James and i have bought the book. I recommend it to everybody here. It is wonderful. Concise and persuasive, for all the reasons you mentioned. I want to ask a question that goes back to the beginning of your presentation. You started out describing Larger Forces at play in the late 1970s and early 1980s. How the world was changing. Then, you quickly jumped to these individuals. You said, i think, this is his story of individuals in power. I would like to talk more about how we should think about the relationship of these larger impersonal forces, these changes. And, how the individuals that you have chosen to describe and focus on influence and developments. What is the relationship and how did you make the choice . Well, was kind enough to host me a couple of years ago and we discussed similar things. I think the historical changes that i lay out in the Second Chapter of the book the point is that, what matters is the particular ways in which leaders in power reacted to them. That is to say that brezhnev signs off on the soviet invasion of afghanistan in 1979. Those around him thought that detente was dead. He made a choice. Gorbachev made choices. Sometimes they were results of when gorbachev felt threatened at times by the trends in the world, whether it was the revival of capitalism, the collapse in the price of oil, the debt crisis in Eastern Europe, he felt threatened by sdi. He thought that he would have to order up a new round of soviet defense spending that would impede his ability to reform the system and create a consumer sector. At these moments, gorbachev made choices to react to the world. And, in terms of decolonization, gorbachev and those around him are conscious that there are no more frontiers for uh, exporting communism. It is not to say that he did not have an idea for how the world would act. What i am trying to do what i tried to do in the book, is to say argue against the notion that people acted in only the ways that they were able to act, given the circumstances of the structures around them. I think that the Important Message that i try to deliver in the book is that at any of these points, leaders made choices. Sometimes, in the case of the soviets going into afghanistan, it was verifiably the wrong choice. What gorbachev could have done is come home and say, you know what, this guy, Ronald Reagan, i cannot work with him. He is out to destroy communism. He is out to build an invulnerable shield. We are going to stop and hold up for another 2. 5 years until the next guy comes in. It only takes about 10 weeks for gorbachev to delink the package. He says that they are going to go for an imf treaty on their own. He could have made a different choice and responded differently to recovery in the u. S. And europe. He could have reacted differently to european integration. Also in the back. Hope harris. Thank you so much for the book and your talk. I want to follow up a little bit with the line of questioning about others and how your work would respond to those who have a critical view of gorbachev, saying that what people in the west view as heroic was because he was disorganized and distracted by things going on domestically. There have been various lines of criticism of gorbachev made by various scholars. I am wondering if you can persuade us that the gorbachev you are presenting here is the one we should look at when we look at this important history. Thanks, hope. I am not sure how much i would draw a distinction between my sense of gorbachev and a failed empire version. Did he have a plan . Did he know what he was doing . There was a great line in the book that gorbachev was fdr to the soviet union. He wanted to revive communism anyway he could. He did not know how to do it. It is the inverse of fdr. The results, in terms of gorbachevs actions, with regard to the cold war, are what matter more. When the hungarians go to gorbachev in the spring of 1989 and ask him how he regarded what happened in 1956. He is permissive for them to go ahead and rebury and have the ceremony. As a function, the notion of what it means to take a critical view of gorbachev uh, i dont think that there was some plan for the world that he had for his country that the west was purposely holding back. I think that he was his ideas were disparate. Ultimately, what matters are the results. What he says to john paul ii in late 1989, he says that you and i are working towards the same project. We have been working towards the same ends for the last few years. That is completely insane. How is it that he believes that he and john paul ii are working towards the same end . There is a critical line on gorbachev. It was his decisions that led to the collapse of the empire. Not just the outer empire. Territory that russia had held for several hundred years. The same issues that we are seeing today and the reason why Vladimir Putin says that this is the greatest geopolitical collapse in recent history. The failure of gorbachev to create a new union. There are plenty reasons to be critical of gorbachev. Maybe his intentions were less than noble. In terms of his willingness to withstand the loss of the cold war with United States, we owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. I second that. The gentleman to the side here. I can hear you, pat. Anyways, i am pat. A retired historian. Reagan and scholz had been in the cold war. Baker and scowcroft were men of the cold war. My question is, what was their objective . Was it to establish armscontrol treaties and tie the soviet union up with arms productions . Was it stability . Was it that they sensed that they could get all of Eastern Europe free and win Eastern Europe . As an objective. I think that for reagan and scholz, they had a framework for the topics to negotiate with the soviets. It is something that they called the fourpart framework. Bilateral relations, arms controls, human rights, and covering a number of one might have called them proxy conflicts. In the highest level interactions between scholz, it is about how we broker specific armscontrol deals and enhance stability. That was on his mind after the shoot down in the fall of 1983. He was concerned about the prospect of not having dialogue, even if it meant yelling at each other for a few minutes. They had to sit down. The soviets walked out of negotiations in geneva that fall. I think that reagan stressed mostly the same things. Although, he was a more romanticized view. Think about the two of us coming back and looking at what we have accomplished. I think that was very important, in terms of building trust. Speaking in moscow, in 1988, saying that he does not view the soviet union as an evil empire anymore. That was important. More important than the tear down this wall speech. One thing that is notably absent from the conversations is that they do not really talk about they do not talk about Eastern Europe and the longterm goal of freeing Eastern Europe. In scholzs mind, one of the reasons why there was an antischolzism, was that he saw the soviet union as developing the way china was. He thought that it could be our china. Gradually reform and become less of a menace. He did not have in his mind the events playing out the way they did in 1989. In terms of scowcroft, baker, and bush, the priority i would not say getting Eastern Europe is the right way to put it. I think it was encouraging gradual change in a way that would not invoke violence. Bush was able to sit down with yaruselzke and encourage him to remain part of the new government to hopefully avoid a civil war which was an extreme prospect. That was something the bush was very good at and i dont the reagan would have been able to do that. There is a question of whether reagan would have reacted to Saddam Hussein in the same way in 1990. I dont think that would have happened. The short answer to Eastern Europe is that they had an understanding, the bush people, of the potential for violence and they were seeing it starting to take place in yugoslavia and they were very mindful of this notion of yugoslavia n withukes in 1991 onward. Thank you. Here, in the front. Hopefully it will work. Thank you. Just a comment and a couple of very Big Questions i understand there is fairly influential chinese writers also pointing at gorbachev in a way you mentioned, having caused the collapse of communism in the soviet union. You did not mention richard perle. I recall at the time he was thought by some that he had proposed the expectation that could never be accepted. The other question is there was an event calledablearcher 33 which had some positive views by the that nato exercises purportedly elicited from president reagan a comment like this do they really believe that . With regard to the idea that the predecessor of gorbachev had actually anticipated for some time the possibility of a nato attack on the soviet union. Richard perle had the nickname the prince of darkness. Its kind of a fun nickname. Im sure there is a Facebook Page for this. Richard perle floated this term. There is an nse meeting in 1981 with a guy named jason ibben who has but a number of classified meetings on his website of reagan files. Weinberger proposes this on behalf of perle has given it to him and he says its perfect. They will never go for it but we will be seen as the white hats. Hague is upset by this and says this is a cynical ploy. Reagans attitude was i like it. I think thats what we should go for. He really sticks to that zero option. In early 1987, there is a lot of pushback among his advisers saying that we put so much to get these missiles in, how do we know that the soviets will not just move them all east and not destroy them . I think the term itself started with some cynicism but then Ronald Reagan appropriates it. In terms of able archer 83, there is a collection of documents and the archives about this. There was something going on called operation vrion correct me on the pronunciation andropov had asked the kgb to look for signs of a surprise attack on the part of the make Reagan Administration in the first few years. This kind of leads to people reporting that they saw the lights on at the state department and the pentagon at 1230 a. M. And that kind of thing. In the fall of 1983, there is a command post exercise that nato does to simulate the release of Nuclear Weapons. The soviets had their own war planning. They have one scenario with a would start off as an exercise and move to the real thing. Was there a war scare in the fall of 1983 . Secondly, did knowledge afterwards of that war scare fundamentally change reagans attitude toward the soviet union . I think the answer isno on both counts. Less emphatic in terms of the purse part because yes, the soviets did have apprehensions. I dont think there was a war scare. Secondly, for it to matter, i think one would have to find evidence that reagan changes his positions. Yes, he has shown something about this and he asks if they believe that. Yes, that was his mentality from the very start he could not understand what the soviets thought he was threatening person. He did not understand why the soviets thought americans were friendly. He wrote over and over in these letters about the same story, the same history lesson, as he called it, that if america was a nation of hostile people, that we at the end of world war ii, since we have the capabilities, we would have tried to dominate the world. The fact that we didnt shows that we are a nonthreatening people. He wrote that over and over again and says this to every soviet leader he meets. It always goes over poorly. From the soviet perspective, the Administration Sets up a ring of bases around the soviet union. Its not like reagan is snapped into reality and shift fundamentally from confrontation to cooperation. There were things that happened in late 1983 that are important. Jack matlock is working on this speech that reagan delivers in january i aboutvan and anya meeting at a diner to talk about issues and a couple would talk about. Early in 1984, reagan starts meeting with suzanne massie, russian historian who tells him about the russian people in the russian soul. I think thats an important relationship. Of course, he is running for reelection. He wants to run as a man of peace even though hes been the First American president , as Walter Mondale remind them constantly, that he was not getting together with the russians in a summit. Reagan wanted to have a summit with the soviets in the first few years under the right circumstances. I think the broader answer to your question, tom, is that i dont think that able archer 83 i think there has been a mythology that has grown about that. I dont think it was a decisive moment in this story. Im going to slip in a question if i may you note in the book and in the talk that these men are not saints but at the end of the day, they come off looking pretty impressive. There was an occasion and they rose to it in the world is a much better place for it. But use a number of phrases in the book and the talk i was wondering if you could comment on the particular context. You mentioned that schultz was committed to spreading human rights everywhere and the look is about the burden of responsibility and that reagan had a mandate coming out of the 1980 and 1984 elections. On all three of those points, if i shift your focus from the soviet union and United States with regard to europe and Nuclear Weapons and i say the word Central America and ask about reagans engagement with the contras and nicaragua or supporting the government of el salvador, the question of mandates, human rights, and the burden of used on stability of responsibility dont resonate in the Reagan Administration. If you could add that notion of Central America and the other cold war and to the mix, does this story change in any way . Do your characters look any different when that conflict is added to consideration . Uh i would say that reagan, schultz, and bush do not look better when you add nicaragua and el salvador into the mix. One of the things i have not quite understood and one of the great things about working on these formulations is to talk to people who were around at the time. I have not still understood the extent of why there was such fear about nicaragua and el salvador and why there was a willingness to support very unsavory elements. With reagan, the fear never really goes away in nse meetings in the summer of 1986. He is talking about he is quoting lenin to talk about what happens if the sandinistas prevail in nicaragua. I think the full story from this has yet to be told. It will come out about the kind of by the full story, i mean in the currents of ideology and calculation of Strategic Interests and just plain blundering. But your point is very valid, that one of the things that i do not do in this book is to come to a moral reckoning in terms of how these individuals overlooked or encouraged, in some cases, the very questionable things. I still think in their defense, certainly in terms of schultz, i think there was a kind of benign neglect and maybe thats not the right word, when it comes to a lot of the things that came out of irancontra that schultz had his priorities and his biggest priority was dealing with the soviets. I think he may have had a sense that the nse was up to a number of dubious things but i think he did not really want to know. He just did not want to touch it. As i say, thats the story that remains to come out. At the end of the day, the achievements in terms of arresting the nuclear arms race, that is still something that overrides other things. I want to go back to some of the preconditions and see if they were kind of Market Driven or, in the case of oil, the saudi role in driving down the price of oil was significant. Was that in concert with an american strategy or was it as much targeted to under cut the sinfuels company . There is a kind of narrative in a lot of the reagan literature of reagan having a defined grand strategy. The narrative is that casey convinced the saudis to increase production in order to drive down the price to hurt the soviets. I have never seen, from what i worked on in this dissertation and the book, i did not come across a discussion of that. From what i have seen and we talk about this in the book that it was a market decision that the saudis made. They made a decision in their own interest as they are want to do. We have an Energy Policy and over the next few years, there will be a conscious kind of effort to illuminate this story in the formulations serious. Series. What is your opinion regarding the 1989 massacre and if it could affect the collapse of the soviet empire if there was any . I think thats a very important question. I call your attention to sergeis book on gorbachev in asia. My own sense is that her chop was in china is that gorbachev was in china several weeks before the crackdown and he makes some brilliant, tempered remarks to the politburo about whats the big deal. I think that the experience of seeing tianenmen is very much on gorbachevs mind in the fall of 1989, that he thinks that is not how europeans, by his concept of it, thats not how we act. I think even says this in one of the meetings about how why is ciechesku acting like that . I dont quite know if there is enough evidence to say that this is a kind of, almost a racial thing with gorbachev. I think there is some hints of this notion that we are not going to act like the chinese did. Its worth rethinking what you just said because i think just prior my timing on this may be wrong i think it was just prior to Tiananmen Square that there was a massacre before that. I think it was in april thats right. Then there were killings in i believe 1990 in the winter. In the baltic states. Gorbachev allegedly was complicit with. I wonder if there really if what sergei said about the 3000 deaths being that not big deal is more reflective of gorbachevs actual attitudes than this notion that you very generously gave him that is not what we white folks do. Gorbachev certainly, from what ive seen at least and you may have seen more, was horrified by what happened in to tablisi in april of 1989. In terms of lithuania, january 1991 . I think at this point, and i dont have really a clear answer on this, he is so fed up with the lithuanians. In terms of complicity, i dont know honestly the extent of that. I have a sense of his reaction to that which was not one of total horror. Its something that certainly one has to keep thinking about, what it is that his thinking has changed by that point. It does not belie the fact that, in the fall of 1989, this is postfall of 1989, when he clearly and decisively does not even consider a chinese solution in east germany. Im afraid that was our last question, our last answer given the time. We would invite you to remain afterwards and join us for a glass of wine and carry on the conversation and buy a book. I would call to your attention for next week im amazed five, Thomas Bogart of the u. S. Army center for military history will be speaking on covert legions of a u. S. Army intelligence, and the defense of europe, 19441949. Thank you all for coming. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] you are watching American History tv. All weekend, every weekend, on cspan3. Like us on facebook at cspan history. Gruesome, but was it was an international sensation. It was called the trunk murder, in 1885. There were two englishmen who came to america. They were traveling salesmen and they meet on the boat. They decide to go across america and they wind up together at a nice hotel in st. Louis. One of them was richard and the other richer than the other. The poorer guys suddenly has a lot of money flesh rot. He tells everybody that his buddy went out of town. The hotel room starts smelling. And itmbermaids go in winds up that his buddy is in the trunk for several days. The police try to start chasing him, but he has taken a ship from San Francisco already. This becomes a Big International case. You have two guys from england, usa lewis, you have the manhunt to the other end of the world. The new Zealand Police sent two officers. Officers from st. Louis went to get him. When they come back to the train station downtown, half of st. Louis is there to see this guy. Interviews galore he winds up being hanged. We used to have a gallows at the police headquarters, like a lot of times did. We look at the history and literary life of st. Louis, missouri, today at 2 00 on American History tv on cspan3. Withu can keep in touch Current Events from the Nations Capital using any phone at any time. Cspan radio on audio now. 268888. 6 recapweekday, listen to a of the days events at 5 00 eastern. Thecan also hear audio of Public Affairs programs beginning sundays at noon eastern. Cspan radio on audio now. 2026268888. Longdistance or phone charges may apply. Congress,direction of the voices and experiences from the Civil Rights Movement of the mid20th century are being documented in an oral history project. The effort is a collaboration of the Smithsonian National museum, the african American History and culture, the library of congress, and the Southern Oral History Program at the university of North Carolina chapel hill. Juniusrview with williams, born in the south but educated in the north. He joins the students for nonviolent coordinating committee. In part two of this interview, mr. Williams talks about his move to do work new jersey in the 1970s. He worked to lift africanamericans out of poverty and the shift to nonviolent resistance. But first, a conversation with bonnie bunch from the museum of he is a fascinating individual. Of little class. He went to college in massachusetts. He got involved very early. E was with a group of whole they were going down to march inland memory in 1963, 1964. Suddenly introduced to the coordinating committee. He is introduced to the activity going on in the south. He becomes very act it. What becomes so powerful is that he goes back to law school. Asked by the head to come to new jersey. And fight the battle for civil rights
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