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Author: Paul Lettow
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588364550
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) has puzzled scholars and commentators. Some have claimed that it was a purely political maneuver, while others have explained it as a ruse conjured up by presidential advisers to weaken Soviet resolve. These assumptions, however, fail to acknowledge the depth of Reagan’s involvement in nuclear abolition, and how passionately committed Reagan was to the pursuit of this goal. In Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Paul Lettow renders untenable the persistent belief that Reagan was an ideologically shallow figurehead. Reagan’s wish to ban nuclear armament first came to light in 1945, just months after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. While sidestepping political partisanship, Lettow demonstrates that scholars and historians have largely neglected to assess properly the influence of Reagan’s ideal and how it led to one of the most important, if the least understood, of Reagan’s accomplishments. In a narrative that covers the start of Reagan’s presidency and the 1986 Reykjavík summit between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, during which SDI was a defining issue, we see SDI for what it was: a full-on assault against nuclear weapons waged as much through policy as through ideology. While cabinet members and advisers–Secretary of State George Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger among them–played significant roles, it was Ronald Reagan, himself who presided over every element, large and small, of this paradigm shift in U.S. diplomacy. Lettow conducted interviews with former Reagan officials–four of his six national security advisers, both of his ambassadors to the USSR, and both of his defense secretaries. He also draws upon the vast body of declassified security documents from the Reagan presidency; much of what he quotes from these documents appears publicly here for the first time. The result is the first major work to apply such evidence to the study of SDI and superpower diplomacy. In Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Paul Lettow does not simply add nuance to the existing record; he revises our very understanding of the Reagan presidency.
Author: Paul Lettow
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588364550
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348
Get Book Here
Book Description
Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) has puzzled scholars and commentators. Some have claimed that it was a purely political maneuver, while others have explained it as a ruse conjured up by presidential advisers to weaken Soviet resolve. These assumptions, however, fail to acknowledge the depth of Reagan’s involvement in nuclear abolition, and how passionately committed Reagan was to the pursuit of this goal. In Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Paul Lettow renders untenable the persistent belief that Reagan was an ideologically shallow figurehead. Reagan’s wish to ban nuclear armament first came to light in 1945, just months after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. While sidestepping political partisanship, Lettow demonstrates that scholars and historians have largely neglected to assess properly the influence of Reagan’s ideal and how it led to one of the most important, if the least understood, of Reagan’s accomplishments. In a narrative that covers the start of Reagan’s presidency and the 1986 Reykjavík summit between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, during which SDI was a defining issue, we see SDI for what it was: a full-on assault against nuclear weapons waged as much through policy as through ideology. While cabinet members and advisers–Secretary of State George Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger among them–played significant roles, it was Ronald Reagan, himself who presided over every element, large and small, of this paradigm shift in U.S. diplomacy. Lettow conducted interviews with former Reagan officials–four of his six national security advisers, both of his ambassadors to the USSR, and both of his defense secretaries. He also draws upon the vast body of declassified security documents from the Reagan presidency; much of what he quotes from these documents appears publicly here for the first time. The result is the first major work to apply such evidence to the study of SDI and superpower diplomacy. In Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Paul Lettow does not simply add nuance to the existing record; he revises our very understanding of the Reagan presidency.
Author: Paul Vorbeck Lettow
Publisher: Random House (NY)
ISBN: 9781400063079
Category : Ballistic missile defenses
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
A remarkable young historian offers this groundbreaking history of Ronald Reagan's longtime commitment to rid the world of nuclear threat.
Author: Frances FitzGerald
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743203771
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 588
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Book Description
Way Out There in the Blue is a major work of history by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Fire in the Lake. Using the Star Wars missile defense program as a magnifying glass on his presidency, Frances FitzGerald gives us a wholly original portrait of Ronald Reagan, the most puzzling president of the last half of the twentieth century. Reagan's presidency and the man himself have always been difficult to fathom. His influence was enormous, and the few powerful ideas he espoused remain with us still -- yet he seemed nothing more than a charming, simple-minded, inattentive actor. FitzGerald shows us a Reagan far more complex than the man we thought we knew. A master of the American language and of self-presentation, the greatest storyteller ever to occupy the Oval Office, Reagan created a compelling public persona that bore little relationship to himself. The real Ronald Reagan -- the Reagan who emerges from FitzGerald's book -- was a gifted politician with a deep understanding of the American national psyche and at the same time an executive almost totally disengaged from the policies of his administration and from the people who surrounded him. The idea that America should have an impregnable shield against nuclear weapons was Reagan's invention. His famous Star Wars speech, in which he promised us such a shield and called upon scientists to produce it, gave rise to the Strategic Defense Initiative. Reagan used his sure understanding of American mythology, history and politics to persuade the country that a perfect defense against Soviet nuclear weapons would be possible, even though the technology did not exist and was not remotely feasible. His idea turned into a multibillion-dollar research program. SDI played a central role in U.S.-Soviet relations at a crucial juncture in the Cold War, and in a different form it survives to this day. Drawing on prodigious research, including interviews with the participants, FitzGerald offers new insights into American foreign policy in the Reagan era. She gives us revealing portraits of major players in Reagan's administration, including George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger, Donald Regan and Paul Nitze, and she provides a radically new view of what happened at the Reagan-Gorbachev summits in Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington and Moscow. FitzGerald describes the fierce battles among Reagan's advisers and the frightening increase of Cold War tensions during Reagan's first term. She shows how the president who presided over the greatest peacetime military buildup came to espouse the elimination of nuclear weapons, and how the man who insisted that the Soviet Union was an "evil empire" came to embrace the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and to proclaim an end to the Cold War long before most in Washington understood that it had ended. Way Out There in the Blue is a ground-breaking history of the American side of the end of the Cold War. Both appalling and funny, it is a black comedy in which Reagan, playing the role he wrote for himself, is the hero.
Author: Christopher R. W. Dietrich
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119459699
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1542
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Book Description
Covers the entire range of the history of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial period to the beginning of the 21st century. A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations is an authoritative guide to past and present scholarship on the history of American diplomacy and foreign relations from its seventeenth century origins to the modern day. This two-volume reference work presents a collection of historiographical essays by prominent scholars. The essays explore three centuries of America’s global interactions and the ways U.S. foreign policies have been analyzed and interpreted over time. Scholars offer fresh perspectives on the history of U.S. foreign relations; analyze the causes, influences, and consequences of major foreign policy decisions; and address contemporary debates surrounding the practice of American power. The Companion covers a wide variety of methodologies, integrating political, military, economic, social and cultural history to explore the ideas and events that shaped U.S. diplomacy and foreign relations and continue to influence national identity. The essays discuss topics such as the links between U.S. foreign relations and the study of ideology, race, gender, and religion; Native American history, expansion, and imperialism; industrialization and modernization; domestic and international politics; and the United States’ role in decolonization, globalization, and the Cold War. A comprehensive approach to understanding the history, influences, and drivers of U.S. foreign relation, this indispensable resource: Examines significant foreign policy events and their subsequent interpretations Places key figures and policies in their historical, national, and international contexts Provides background on recent and current debates in U.S. foreign policy Explores the historiography and primary sources for each topic Covers the development of diverse themes and methodologies in histories of U.S. foreign policy Offering scholars, teachers, and students unmatched chronological breadth and analytical depth, A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present is an important contribution to scholarship on the history of America’s interactions with the world.
Author: Philip Taubman
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062098039
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
Offering a clear analysis of the danger of nuclear terrorism and how it can be prevented, The Partnership sheds light on one of the most divisive security issues facing Washington today. Award-winning New York Times journalist Philip Taubman illuminates our vulnerability in the face of this pressing terrorist threat—and the unlikely efforts of five key Cold War players to eliminate the nuclear arsenal they helped create. Bob Woodward calls The Partnership a “brilliant, penetrating study of nuclear threats, present and past,” and David Kennedy writes that it is “indispensable reading for all who would understand the desperate urgency of containing the menace of nuclear proliferation.”
Author: Jack Matlock
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812974891
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402
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Book Description
“[Matlock’s] account of Reagan’s achievement as the nation’s diplomat in chief is a public service.”—The New York Times Book Review “Engrossing . . . authoritative . . . a detailed and reliable narrative that future historians will be able to draw on to illuminate one of the most dramatic periods in modern history.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review In Reagan and Gorbachev, Jack F. Matlock, Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to the U.S.S.R. and principal adviser to Ronald Reagan on Soviet and European affairs, gives an eyewitness account of how the Cold War ended. Working from his own papers, recent interviews with major figures, and unparalleled access to the best and latest sources, Matlock offers an insider’s perspective on a diplomatic campaign far more sophisticated than previously thought, waged by two leaders of surpassing vision. Matlock details how Reagan privately pursued improved U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations even while engaging in public saber rattling. When Gorbachev assumed leadership, however, Reagan and his advisers found a willing partner in peace. Matlock shows how both leaders took risks that yielded great rewards and offers unprecedented insight into the often cordial working relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev. Both epic and intimate, Reagan and Gorbachev will be the standard reference on the end of the Cold War, a work that is critical to our understanding of the present and the past.
Author: Ken Adelman
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062310216
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
The dramatic, first-hand account of the historic 1986 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Iceland—the definitive weekend that was the key turning point in the Cold War—by President Reagan’s arms control director, Ken Adelman. In October 1986, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met for a forty-eight-hour summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Planned as a short, inconsequential gathering to outline future talks, the meeting quickly turned to major international issues, including the strategic defense initiative and the possibility of eliminating all nuclear weapons—negotiations that laid the groundwork for the most sweeping arms accord in history the following year. Scrupulously researched and based on now-declassified information, Reagan at Reykjavik tells the gripping tale of this weekend that changed the world. Filled with illustrative accounts of the private discussions between Reagan and his team, Ken Adelman provides an honest and up-close portrait of President Reagan at one of his finest and most challenging moments. Reagan at Reykjavik includes 16 pages of black-and-white photos and 11 illustrations.
Author: Henry R. Nau
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168490
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
A reexamination of America's overloaded foreign policy tradition and its importance for global politics today Debates about U.S. foreign policy have revolved around three main traditions—liberal internationalism, realism, and nationalism. In this book, distinguished political scientist Henry Nau delves deeply into a fourth, overlooked foreign policy tradition that he calls "conservative internationalism." This approach spreads freedom, like liberal internationalism; arms diplomacy, like realism; and preserves national sovereignty, like nationalism. It targets a world of limited government or independent "sister republics," not a world of great power concerts or centralized international institutions. Nau explores conservative internationalism in the foreign policies of Thomas Jefferson, James Polk, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan. These presidents did more than any others to expand the arc of freedom using a deft combination of force, diplomacy, and compromise. Since Reagan, presidents have swung back and forth among the main traditions, overreaching under Bush and now retrenching under Obama. Nau demonstrates that conservative internationalism offers an alternative way. It pursues freedom but not everywhere, prioritizing situations that border on existing free countries—Turkey, for example, rather than Iraq. It uses lesser force early to influence negotiations rather than greater force later after negotiations fail. And it reaches timely compromises to cash in military leverage and sustain public support. A groundbreaking revival of a neglected foreign policy tradition, Conservative Internationalism shows how the United States can effectively sustain global leadership while respecting the constraints of public will and material resources.
Author: H. W. Brands
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307951146
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 834
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Book Description
From the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War—and "the rare academic historian who can write like a bestselling novelist" (USA Today)—comes an irresistible portrait of an underestimated politician whose pragmatic leadership and steadfast vision transformed the nation. In his magisterial new biography, H. W. Brands brilliantly establishes Ronald Reagan as one of the two great presidents of the twentieth century, a true peer to Franklin Roosevelt. Reagan conveys with sweep and vigor how the confident force of Reagan’s personality and the unwavering nature of his beliefs enabled him to engineer a conservative revolution in American politics and play a crucial role in ending communism in the Soviet Union. Reagan shut down the age of liberalism, Brands shows, and ushered in the age of Reagan, whose defining principles are still powerfully felt today. Employing archival sources not available to previous biographers and drawing on dozens of interviews with surviving members of Reagan’s administration, Brands has crafted a richly detailed and fascinating narrative of the presidential years. He offers new insights into Reagan’s remote management style and fractious West Wing staff, his deft handling of public sentiment to transform the tax code, and his deeply misunderstood relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, on which nothing less than the fate of the world turned. Look for H.W. Brands's other biographies: THE FIRST AMERICAN (Benjamin Franklin), ANDREW JACKSON, THE MAN WHO SAVED THE UNION (Ulysses S. Grant), and TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS (Franklin Roosevelt).
Author: George Perkovich
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351225960
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 152
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Book Description
Nuclear disarmament is firmly back on the international agenda. But almost all current thinking on the subject is focused on the process of reducing the number of weapons from thousands to hundreds. This rigorous analysis examines the challenges that exist to abolishing nuclear weapons completely, and suggests what can be done now to start overcoming them. The paper argues that the difficulties of 'getting to zero' must not preclude many steps being taken in that direction. It thus begins by examining steps that nuclear-armed states could take in cooperation with others to move towards a world in which the task of prohibiting nuclear weapons could be realistically envisaged. The remainder of the paper focuses on the more distant prospect of prohibiting nuclear weapons, beginning with the challenge of verifying the transition from low numbers to zero. It moves on to examine how the civilian nuclear industry could be managed in a nuclear-weapons-free world so as to prevent rearmament. The paper then considers what political-security conditions would be required to make a nuclear-weapons ban enforceable and explores how enforcement might work in practice. Finally, it addresses the latent capability to produce nuclear weapons that would inevitably exist after abolition, and asks whether this is a barrier to disarmament, or whether it can be managed to meet the security needs of a world newly free of the bomb.
