The Federalist Society for law and Public Policy studies at montgomery, alabama posted this event. Good morning. Is Federalist Society founded on the freedoms that the separation of governmental powers is central to our constitution and that is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to tell you what the law is, not what it should be. The society seeks to promote both an awareness of these principles and to further their application. An, you may notice i have adam smith tie on today, and that is not because we have an economic historian coming to speak to us, but it is because adam smith was principally an educator. He was a professor and a private tutor, and he was beloved by his students. And marcus witcher, you have seen throughout the day, is known as a very exuberant, enthusiastic educator. I first met marcus several years you mayn institute, or say a conference, i spoke, and then he followed me. He later told me, and i mean years later, that he was so relieved that i went first, because i did not do such a good job, i made it so much easier for him to follow. [laughter] i was an easy asked to follow. He was very pleased by this. But marcus has spent the last five years writing this book on Ronald Reagan, and Ronald Reagan , he hasme a signal become an icon for conservative spirit we have the president ial debate for the Republican Party held at the Reagan Library. It is a de facto record for candidates to air their opinion and pay homage to Ronald Reagan. But, as marcus likes to point out, there is a disconnect between the way conservatives thought about Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, in his own time and space, and the way reagan has been mythologized, the way we think about reagan today, reagan the icon, reagan the simple. Marcus and i were at a Philadelphia Society meeting once, and we were added reception, and don devine, who was head of these Double Service in the Reagan Administration, made some comment about the Reagan Administration to marcus, and marcus said actually, reagan did not cut domestic spending, and they got into this argument about how much reagan actually cut, and it was a funny moment, for those of you who have seen don devine on television, the is a very animated person and a very adamant person. Marcus is as well, and it was a pretty robust argument in a very exciting want to be standing next to. [laughter] reagans image was, to a great degree, selfmade. He was very aware of his legacy and sought to frame narratives about his presidency. During his presidency, the cold united conservatives in a ist way. Fusion aske some of you may recall the fusionist project as it was outlined by frank meyer, neoconservatives and 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 liberals, we have local lists, we have evangelicals, and in the current political climate, they are not as united as they were under the reagan presidency. And a 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. Marcus richard. Itcher. C he is at the university of arkansas. He specializes in political, economic, and intellectual history from 1922 the present. Modern american conservatism, and his book on reagan comes out soon. He received his phd from the university of alabama. This is what all of the album fans in the room do. Tedious classes on the cold war, the conservative movement, the american presidency, the history of economic thought and u. S. Economic development. He is published in a lot of places, including the white house journal, it is coauthor of a threevolume anthology entitled public choice analysis of American Economic history. He is currently researching for his next book, filling the reagan revolution. Please join me in welcoming dr. Witcher. [applause] thanks. Her you did a great job. I dont know that i even need to speak. [laughs] dr. Witcher thank you so much for having me. It is a pleasure to be here and to be talking to the summary chapter of the Federalist Society, who has done so much in reshaping the American History and such a large role in the conservative movement. Aid,r. Mendenhall, as alan s i will be talking about the cold war, and i want to start off by asking you to think about what you think Ronald Reagan stood for . What defines Ronald Reagan for you . Think for many conservatives, what defines Ronald Reagan for them is an adherence to principles, unflinching adherence to principle that he never sort of deviated from. This inception of reagan really around 2005,erge 2006, in the wake of sort of george w. Bushs dismal presidency, from the point of view of conservatives, where he became very disillusioned with george w. Bush. I want to talk about how conservatives viewed reagan during the 1980s. Often times, they view him with frustration, contempt, anger, because not more was done to sort of achieve the conservative policy goals p or i was surprised when i was researching for my dissertation, because i went to steven haywards book, and he basically talked about all of these conservatives who were upset and frustrated with reagan, and then he went on and told the long sort of story about the reagan years, and i was like that is really fascinating, and i found that aside in several other books in my classes, and i took it might my dissertation professors, as a set explore this, and out of that research came the book reagan the struggle for true conservatism. We will talk about how conservatives view reagan today, and then we will look back in time about how conservatives viewed reagan during the 1980s. 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. I really, really love this quote i wish i had written it but i did not, matt purple wrote it in the churchill we misremember, and i think it addressed what im trying to do in the book. Purple said historical memory is like a great compactor, crushing nuances and flashing wrinkles in till it is a perfect more so for popular consumption. I think that is what has happened with reagan, compacted down to a simple five version of himself, maybe a purist version of himself, and all of the nuances and the pragmatic policies of the 1980s have largely been forgotten. This is really personified by wwrd. This emerged in 2005. Ann coulter said, you know, for christians, it is wwjd, but for conservatives, it is wwrd, what would reagan do . This really took off, sean hannity, and the Heritage Foundation sort of partnered on this, wwrd, right . What would Ronald Reagan do today . You can go on amazon, you can buy a wwrd bracelet, you can buy yourself a tshirt, as you see up here, you can buy a Bumper Sticker to put on your car, you can buy a mousepad, that says if we could resurrect him, we ight, thelect him, r idea of zombie reagan. But nonetheless, conservatives around 2005 began to reconstruct reagan as a conservative. , and they began to sort of claim, and maybe even before, that Ronald Reagan won the cold by sticking to his principles, and that reagan, through his conservatism, gets the credit, ultimately, for the dissolution of the soviet empire and the end of the cold war. So we will go back to what conservatives were actually saying about reagans policy in the 1980s, and how that is quite different from what they claim today. So what does my manuscript do . Details theuscript complex and often tense relationship that exists 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 good i actually think the 1990s or the triumph, i think the Clinton Administration achieved many, many of the things, maybe not on purpose, maybe begrudgingly, but nonetheless, the Clinton Administration, president clinton, they ultimately get welfare reform, they get the balance budget, etc. As we often view the 1980s a triumph of conservatism, but they did not see it as a triumph of conservatism, at least in the 1980s. We see misgivings among the american conservatives, and it tends to explain the creation of the reagan legacy of the evolution of the legacy and the creation of reagan myth. Slide hereis flight that tells you where the sources com. I was able to visit many places, including the Reagan Library, great place toh do some research, fly out to california, right . It was actually going out to simi valley, see the reagan papers, particularly the black blackwell files. If anyone has any questions about where the sources come from, we can return to it after the talk during the q a. This is the primer, so 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. 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, enforcing the soviet union into bankruptcy, kind of like the military buildup in the United States that put pressure on the soviets. They could not keep up, had to enact reforms that ultimately undid the soviet union. Sort oflly, they are 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 enable rich off to establish those reforms at home. I know i am speaking to a more conservative audience, so i am not either of the first two, so dont be too angry with me, right . [laughter] dr. Witcher lets go ahead and jump into the 1980s. So conservatives were frustrated with reagans Foreign Policy throughout the 1980s, but they were also really frustrated with things reagan attempted to do in the first arena and two years of the Reagan Administration. Some were upset with the advanced Airborne Warning and control system to saudi arabia. They got this violated Israeli National security, and the Prime Minister even came out and condemned reagan for this sale. First foreignns compliment, and he basically told the Prime Minister of israel, listen, i am the president of the United States. Other countries do not make out Foreign Policy. You can imagine how well that went over with neoconservatives when reagan made that type of comment. Also, on taiwan, reagan accepted chinas nine point plan for taiwan, which included reduce weapon sales for you the united wedded which were very 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 , thertial law in poland crackdown on solidarity. Thatnservatives claim reagan should have done more come up with back with an bar goes, technology, and things like that, and they say essentially did nothing. We know there is a new book on sort of reagan and the cia in poland. We know reagan behindthescenes was very active in supporting different groups within the eastern block, and he was doing quite a bit, actually. Conservatives at the time did not know that, because that was not public knowledge. They are criticizing him for that. They also are criticizing him because they wanted a more aggressive policy toward the soviet union, and they do not see that really materializing. Lets get to some specific criticisms. Norman potter rights a piece in the New York Times titled the neoconservative egg wish over reagans Foreign Policy, in which he pretty much systematically dismisses the idea that reagan had any accomplishments in his first year presidency. That he did not have an idea of what they wanted to accomplish during the cold war. Obviously when reagan comes into office, that is the number one concern, getting the economy they getrack, and they to divines point, get some spending cuts, initially, and the first year, but by and large, foreignpolicy conservatives, neoconservatives, hawks, feel like it has not really defined a conservative foreignpolicy. 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. In the first two years of the Reagan Administration, he helped the soviet union stabilizes and fire rather than a strategy encouraging the breakup of that empire from within. His criticism was so piercing that reagan actually picked up call,one and gave him a trying to convince him he was not pursuing a policy of the detente, that kissinger had outlined in the 1970s, widely criticized by conservatives, including president reagan. He is listening to the president , trying to justify what he had done up until this white, politely a couple of times, trying to get off the thank you,ly says, mr. President , and tries to get off the phone, and he realized that the president would call what he would call detente, even if it is not what the president himself would call they taught. 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 criticized him for not getting it right to life amendment passed. You also have physical conservatives criticizing the president because of the unbalanced budget, the budget deficit has been run up since 1982 p are you also have supplysiders who were mad at reagan, because he was on the path to raise taxes, and you have Foreign Policy conservatives, who are the people we want to focus on on the next flight, who are really criticizing reagan for not outlining a clear vision for Foreign Policy. Has reagan deserted the conservatives . A play off of one of reagans films. 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, and handehow find this it to you, because it is that good of a source. Here are a few quotes from the magazine on for policy. General daniel graham, chairman of the coalition for peace and strength, asserted that there was very little difference between reagans policy and carters policy. Another lamented, we have no strategy for the soviet threat. That served on the Reagan Defense 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 10. Mitch, who i was able to meet recently, said reagan is following the policy of detente. He would be leaving the opposition. Ding the be lea opposition of his own party. There is a picture that has chastising, and then reagan is like ok, what did you want, and he says we would like to buy some grain, and reagan says ok, would that be cash or credit . [laughter] dr. Witcher you get about him sort of standing up to the soviet union and casting the cold war in moral terms. I think it is really important, in order to understand sort 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 foreignpolicy. Ronald reagan was an adamant anticommunist. He had credentials in the soviet movement. Witness, herom 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 anticommunist, believing they are socially and economically bankrupt, and eventually, right, soc