Reagan, Bush, Gorbachev: Revisiting the End of the Cold War

by Norman A. Graebner, Richard Dean Burns, Joseph M. Siracusa

This work is a contemporary chronicle of the Cold War and offers an analysis of policy and rhetoric of the United States and Soviet Union during the 1980s. The authors examine the assumptions that drove political decisions and the rhetoric that defined the relationship as the Soviet Union began to implode.

This work demonstrates that while the subsequent unraveling of the Soviet empire was an unintended side effect of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, termination of the Cold War was not. Ronald Reagan deserves full credit for recognizing Gorbachev's sincerity and his determination to change the direction of Soviet policies. For this, Reagan felt the full wrath of anticommunist hawks for doing business with a communist leader. But it was Gorbachev who concluded the superpowers had become mesmerized by ideological myths which ruled out any meaningful discussions of a possible accommodation of political issues for more than four decades. The evidence is compelling that Gorbachev himself broke the Cold War's ideological straight jacket that had paralyzed Moscow and Washington's ability to resolve their differences. Though politically weakened, Gorbachev conceded nothing to U.S. military superiority. Never did he negotiate from a position of weakness. In doing so, the last Soviet leader faced even greater political and physical risk. Without Gorbachev the end of the Cold War could have played out very differently and perhaps with great danger.

188 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2008

About the author

A specialist in American diplomatic history, Norman Graebner was professor emeritus of history at the University of Virginia, where he taught from 1967 until his retirement in 1986.

Reviews

[Matt Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Norman Graebner, Richard Burns, and Joseph Siracusa’s Reagan, Bush, Gorbachev is a “realist appraisal of the events leading up to the end of the Cold War” which “shows clearly the thinking that was driving the policies … [and] assumptions … during the last years” of Soviet-American relations. While beginning with the turbulent foreign policy legacy of Jimmy Carter, the bulk of the authors’ work centers around the relationship between US President Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union’s final leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Graebner/Burns/Siracusa present a well balanced analysis of the two politicians' ultimate objective and effort to achieve a more stable international system via some level of nuclear deterrence/arms control. However, the authors do not necessarily consider Reagan and Gorbachev to be equally responsible in accomplishing a more peaceful global landscape. While the authors contend that Reagan “deserves credit for recognizing Gorbachev’s sincerity and his determination to greatly alter earlier Soviet policies” they affirm that “it was Gorbachev himself who conclude the superpowers had become mesmerized by ideological myths” and had “broke the Cold War’s ideological straightjacket that had paralyzed Moscow and Washington’s ability to resolve their differences.” Even though Geroge H.W. Bush would preside over the end of the Cold War for the US and achieve a respectable level of diplomacy and arms deterrence with the Soviets, it was Gorbachev who was most instrumental in cooling Cold War tensions.