Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

by Paul Lettow

Book Overview

A remarkable young historian offers this groundbreaking history of Ronald Reagan's longtime commitment to rid the world of nuclear threat. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812973267
• ISBN13: 9780812973266
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: Random House Group
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

That Reagan was a persistent cuss . . . and so was this author

While reading this book, I had the distinct impression that it was actually a dissertation aimed at proving to a doctoral committee that beyond any shadow of doubt Ronald Reagan's primary mission in life, particularly during his presidency, was to abolish nuclear weapons from the face of the earth. Few would have believed that in the 1980s, but the author of this book more than proves it. He does so by thoroughly researching his subject and then meticulously analyzing Reagan's thoughts as distilled from his writings, interviews, broadcasts, speeches, and actions from the early 1960s through his presidency. In the process, he also clearly demonstrates that Ronald Reagan's thinking was so far beyond that of his contemporaries that even his closest advisors had difficulty understanding him or even taking his ideas seriously. Who, in the 1960s-70s, for example, seriously believed that by stepping up the arms race you could bring the Soviets to the negotiating table, let along get them to negotiate in good faith? But Reagan did. The one fault which I found with this book was that by concentrating on his one theme, almost to the exclusion of everything else, the author presents a somewhat one sided view of what was really taking place during Reagan's presidency. For example, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), although the most powerful tool, wasn't the only tool being used by President Reagan to bring about the demise of the Soviet Union. He also supported subversion within the Eastern Block, supplied arms to those fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, pressured the Saudi's to bring down the price of oil so as to starve the Soviet economy, and curtailed technical and monetary support to the USSR to slow its economy. All of these efforts, taken together, brought the "Cold War" to an end. All that aside, however, this is a remarkable book which sheds a great deal of light on the historical Reagan and further substantiates his legacy. And, as the author intended, after reading it, there can be no doubt that Ronald Reagan was obsessed with eliminating the nuclear threat to the people of the world; almost as obsessed, in fact, as the author was in proving it. For content, this book certainly rates five stars, but for readability it only rates three, so I'll have to give it four.

Important Book On Reagan's Dismal View of Nuclear Weapons

Paul Lettow's "Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons" is an important scholarly account of Reagan's aims for his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) - perhaps better known - if incorrectly - as "Star Wars" and his strongly felt desire to abolish nuclear weaponry. It is a scholarly account which deserves to be read by a wide readership, since it demonstrates convincingly what Reagan actually thought of nuclear weaponry. Lettow observes that Reagan's keen interest in the abolition of nuclear weaponry is one that isn't widely known, even today, and that this interest arose immediately from the 1945 nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Lettow not only does an admirable job in exploring Reagan's interest in the abolition of nuclear weaponry, but also makes a persuasive case as to why Reagan may be the most visionary leader of the late 20th Century, having created the world which we still live in. Using both recently declassified documents from the National Archives and extensive interviews with former Reagan Administration officials and Reagan historians, Lettow makes a very compelling case for asserting that Reagan's quest to abolish nuclear weapons was the key underlying theme of his foreign policy with the Soviet Union, especially with respect to nuclear arms control. It was an issue Reagan was personally involved with, often overriding strenuous objections from key aides like National Security Adviser Robert "Bud" McFarlane, who thought that Reagan was quite naive in his advocacy of eventual abolition of nuclear weapons. Lettow also illustrates how Reagan's insistance on substantial American military spending, coupled with Soviet opposition to SDI, led not only to substantial reduction of nuclear weapons on both sides, but eventually to the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself. This relatively terse book may be the most important history I have read yet on the Reagan administration and its relations with the Soviet Union, especially with regards to nuclear arms control. For this reason alone, Lettow's book deserves to be read by as wide a readership as possible.

Leadership: Reagan

Leadership against the bomb (WMD) including the Reykjavik summit and Gorbachev defined SDI policy review shifts. "The soviet policy review group submitted the dreaft decision directive to the NSC in early December 1982." (p. 77) The center of the book inquires deeply into the results of that start. It was aimed toward Soviet imperialism. It was anti-elitist. That defined Reagan and ultimately undermined his constituency. Gorbachev pressured Reagan. It didn't work well. The President stood. There was START and INF, ABM and NSDD. It was a tangle. Reagan provided leadership. He stood his ground more sucessful with the Soviets than the U.S. Eric J. Lindblom PhD Harvard

Reagan Deserves Rushmore, Lettow Deserves Pullitzer

This brilliant book about Ronald Reagan's greatnessshould be read by President Bush, leaders in both parties and heads of state around the world. Lettow shows through diligent research and first person sources that Ronald Reagan throughout his life aimed at nothing less than the abolition of nuclear weapons and combined true vision and hard headed pragmatism to achieve enormous and historically profound successes that will be remembered in a thousand years. I remember those years well, for a good part of Reagan's Presidency I servedwith the Democratic leadership in Congress and have written myself about how Reagan deserves a special place in history for the same reasons that Lettow documents so thoroughly. From the first use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, Reagan set himself on a determined lifetime course to eliminate nuclear weapons. Throughout his life, as both liberal and conservative, Reagan steadfastly pursued this noble and visionary goal that remained constant through his shifting ideology and political parties. As Lettow documents, Reagan understood more than his contemporaries on the left or right that national security is protected not by war without diplomacy, or diplomacy without military strength, but by building enormous military strength for leverage, then applying that strength diplomatically to achieve visionary goals. Lettow traces the history of nuclear weapons spreading alongside the history of Ronald Reagans evolution, and demonstrates how Reagan employed combinations of vision, ideology, pragmatism, boldness and the negotiaing skill natural in a former President of the Screen Actors Guild. Reading Lettows accounting, one can see that Reagan was neither a warmonger looking for wars to fight, nor a pacifist who feared military strength, but a visionary realist who had a large lifetime goal....abolishing nuclear weapons....and pursued that goal courageously and relentlessly. Standing ovation for Reagan, in achieving historic goals of immense and lasting magnitude, and standing ovation for Lettow, for dispassionately telling Reagan's story with integrity and depth.