Was Nixon so bad?

[Syzygys]

I Reagan was the guy reporters collected funny quotes from - he was OK reading a script, his life long career, but take the script away and he was apt to stumble out almost anything. There were whole books of these quotes, for sale in the bookstores; IIRC one of them was called "The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan". It was like the W quotes now - people snickering and feeling superior.

He was the first President I know of to have his handlers noticeably limit his ad lib press time and control his press conferences tightly, in the interests of keeping the embarrassment to a minimum.

EXACTLY!!! I couldn't have said better. The dude was a moron, but he was good at acting presidential and reading scripts.

And later, the mythmaking began...

 

[iceaura]

Iran-Contra did not sully the office of president or seriously damage American prestige at home or abroad

Iranians forgot all about it, eh? Eight years of internationally corrupt, back door dealings with the White House did no sullying, because the Americans don't remember it - never even knew about it, mostly.

Notice we are expected - assumed - to measure damage and sullage in units of image, PR, "prestige". So what people have forgotten did no damage, see. That's the wingnut world. There is no underlying reality that needs to be taken into account.

Reagan's systematic betrayal of his country and his office, for political power and to the military/industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about, as well as the international financiers and corporations Eisenhower did not foresee, did damage. And it set the stage for further damage, which we have now seen play out. Whether anyone remembers a word that he actually said, or a thing that he did.

 

[countezero]

Ice, if there is a wingnut world, rest assured it is you who live there -- what with your WTC claims and inability to see facts even when they are set before you -- and not me.

EXACTLY!!! I couldn't have said better. The dude was a moron, but he was good at acting presidential and reading scripts.

And later, the mythmaking began...

That "moron" sat down with the Soviet leader on numerous occasions, one-on-one and without a script, and engaged in some of the toughest negotiations of the Cold War. But yeah, I'm sure it's easier for people like you to cast all the politicians you hate into the same mold.

 

[iceaura]

That "moron" sat down with the Soviet leader on numerous occasions, one-on-one and without a script, and engaged in some of the toughest negotiations of the Cold War

Got any evidence for that improbable scene?

The Reagan we knew and loved tended more toward this kind of scene: http://www.quickchange.com/reagan/1982.html

10/19/82
During a White House meeting with Arab leaders, President Reagan turns to the Lebanese foreign minister. "You know", he says, "your nose looks just like Danny Thomas's." The Arabs exchange nervous glances.

Danny Thomas was an actor Reagan knew, who was Lebanese. A lot of Reagan's stories and observations came from Hollywood movies and people.

Reagan had just committed US Marines to Lebanon, and the foreign minister had just spent a half an hour trying to explain to Reagan what that meant in his country.

In the coming year, there were several US Marines individually killed in Lebanon, and two major terrorist bombings of those Marines in Lebanon, and Reagan pulled them back out - thereby emboldening the enemies of that foreign minister, and providing Islamic jihad generally with one of its first real successes against the US. Subsequent evaluation blamed poor preparation and inadequate security or information for the debacle.

But, you know, no loss of like prestige or anything.

 

[countezero]

Got any evidence for that improbable scene?

Yes. Read Dutch, the Edmund Morris biography. He deals with Reykjavik and a few other meetings between Reagan and Gorby. Roberts Gates From the Shadows also discusses the same, in policy terms.

Here is what Gates, who served four presidents, concludes about the man:

"The conventional wisdom is that Reagan paid attention to two or three big issues and stayed above the fray (or was uninterested) on the rest. I don't believe it, at least not in the first term. Based on my observations, that "Aw shucks," easygoing manner masked one of the toughest and shrewdest political minds of our time. ... At some point, someone will acknowledge that Reagan, twice elected governor of California and twice elected president, was a hell of a lot better politician than actor."

But, you know, no loss of like prestige or anything.

Sending the Marines to Lebanon -- and then pulling them out -- was a horrendous decision in hindsight. I can, however, understand why the president chose that course of action.

 

[iceaura]

Yes. Read Dutch, the Edmund Morris biography. He deals with Reykjavik and a few other meetings between Reagan and Gorby. Roberts Gates From the Shadows also discusses the same, in policy terms.

Here is what Gates, who served four presidents, concludes about the man:

And in all the hagiography, anything actually said or done beyond the capabilities of, say, Sarah Palin?

Two days of three on three or so (not "one on one without a script") and according to records the whole thing began poorly prepared and crashed on one of Reagan's pet boondoggles (SDI). Do we see a pattern?

Wrong guy at the wrong time.

 

[superstring01]

and according to records the whole thing began poorly prepared...

I'm sorry, what "records" are you going off of? Or are we to continue without any original source material on your part and just trust your judgment?

~String

 

[countezero]

And in all the hagiography, anything actually said or done beyond the capabilities of, say, Sarah Palin?

Two days of three on three or so (not "one on one without a script") and according to records the whole thing began poorly prepared and crashed on one of Reagan's pet boondoggles (SDI). Do we see a pattern?

Wrong guy at the wrong time.

The bar was not terribly high, and so I think I cleared it.

That is, if you recall, the initial skirmish began when Reagan was called a "moron." My point was that a "moron" would have made a fool of himself in high-level summits like the ones with Gorbachev. By all accounts, Reagan did not. You asked for sources, I gave them. I added Gates' assessment of him to undermine -- or offer an alternative -- to the general tone you keep espousing. So far, we've seen no such arguments from you. As usual, you're just . . . I don't know . . . saying things.

 

[iceaura]

I'm sorry, what "records" are you going off of?

All of them, essentially. First two grabs off of wiki:

http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_95.html

."[1] Yet at the time the summit was deemed a failure due to poor preparation and a chaotic negotiating process. The next, George H.W. Bush Administration, had a mantra of sorts - no more Reykjaviks, meaning no more hastily prepared summits with grand, but impractical agendas.
- - - -
The proposal to hold such a meeting was made by the Soviets in July 1986. Six months earlier, in January 1986 Gorbachev went public with a sweeping proposal to eliminate all nuclear weapons in 15 years, by 2000, in three stages. - - - - Marshal Akhromeev, the Chief of the General Staff at that time, disclosed in his memoirs that the specifics of the nuclear disarmament plan originated in the Ministry of Defense itself.[2]

Deep reductions of nuclear weapons were conditioned, however, on the United States agreeing not to withdraw from the 1972 ABM Treaty, which limited strategic missile defense, for at least 10 years. That condition interfered with the Reagan Administration's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) — a plan to deploy large-scale defenses that would "render nuclear weapons impotent," as Reagan described the intended outcome.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB203/index.htm

The documents show that U.S. analysis of Gorbachev's goals for the summit completely missed the Soviet leader's emphasis on "liquidation" of nuclear weapons,
- - -
Politburo notes from October 30, two weeks after the summit, show that Gorbachev by then had largely accepted Reagan's formulation for further SDI research, but by that point it was too late for a deal. The Iran-Contra scandal was about to break, causing Reagan's approval ratings to plummet and removing key Reagan aides like national security adviser John Poindexter, whose replacement* was not interested in the ambitious nuclear abolition dreams the two leaders shared at Reykjavik.

Document 4: Memorandum to the President, Secretary of State George Shultz, "Subject: Reykjavik," 2 October 1986, 4 pp.

This briefing memo from Shultz to Reagan, labeled "Super Sensitive" as well as formally classified as "Secret/Sensitive," shows that the U.S. did not expect any actual agreement at Reykjavik, but rather, mere preparations for a future summit in the U.S. Shultz talks here about ceilings on ballistic missiles but fails to predict Gorbachev's dramatic agreements to 50% cuts and a process leading to the abolition of nuclear weapons. Ironically, Shultz says one of the U.S. goals is to emphasize progress "without permitting the impression that Reykjavik itself was a Summit," when history now sees Reykjavik as in many ways the most dramatic summit meeting of the Cold War.
====
Document 6: "Gorbachev's Goals and Tactics at Reykjavik," National Security Council (Stephen Sestanovich), 4 October 1986, 2 pp. (plus cover page from John M. Poindexter [National Security Adviser to the President] to Shultz)

This briefing memo prepared (on the same day as Gorbachev's Politburo discussion above) by one of the National Security Council's senior Soviet experts, completely mis-predicts Gorbachev's behavior at the Reykjavik summit. Far from being "coy" or "undecided" about a future U.S. summit, Gorbachev was already planning major concessions and breakthroughs. Far from having to "smoke" Gorbachev out during the talks, Reagan would be faced with an extraordinarily ambitious set of possible agreements.
= ===
Document 17: Russian transcript of Negotiations in the Working Group on Military Issues, headed by Nitze and Akhromeev, 11-12 October 1986, 52 pp.

In the all-night negotiations of Soviet and U.S. military experts during the middle of the Reykjavik summit, the Soviet delegation led by Marshal Sergei Akhromeev starts from the new Soviet program, just outlined by Gorbachev in his meeting with Reagan earlier in the day-proposing 50% cuts of strategic weapons across the board, a zero option on intermediate-range missiles in Europe, and a 10-year period of non-withdrawal from the ABM treaty. At the same time, the U.S. delegation led by Paul Nitze conducts the discussion practically disregarding the new Soviet proposals and negotiating on the basis of U.S. proposals of 18 January 1986, which by now are overtaken by the latest developments in the Reagan-Gorbachev talks - -

*btw: We might include here one of the many connections between Reagan's betrayals and incompetencies and W's: Soon to be convicted felon John Poindexter was replaced as NSC secretary by Frank Carlucci, one of Count's "liberals" from the CIA (Northeasterner, Princeton, etc). Carlucci as CIA Deputy Director was mentor to Donald Rumsfeld, and was succeeded in his roles in the Reagan cabinet by first Colin Powell (NSC) and then Dick Cheney (Sec Def).

 

[countezero]

I applaud you for posting primary sources. I'm not so sure they "prove" Reagan is a moron (in fact I question the relevance of many of them), but I applaud you all the same.

 

[iceaura]

I'm not so sure they "prove" Reagan is a moron (in fact I question the relevance of many of them)

Not my contention. They are directly relevant to my contentions, for the exchange in which they appear.

Another downside of Reagan visible here was his short horizon and scientific ignorance - SDI was of course a boondoggle, and should not have been the stumbling block for any nuclear arms reduction agreements, but on top of that we see an inability to recognize Gorbachev's value and importance - Reagan stonewalled Gorby, forced him into damaging compromises, and weakened him at home, eventually bringing him down with (unexpectedly) the rest of the Soviet empire. That was only saved from being a disaster by luck and the hard work of some Soviets, keeping track of their arsenal amid the chaos - and the replacement in Russia was not as promising. Now it's Putin. And Reagan's legacy lives on among the enemy as well.

 

[Syzygys]

I applaud you for posting primary sources. I'm not so sure they "prove" Reagan is a moron ...

Hey you said you read all Woodward's books. look up Veil, page 24:


(Turner)...."The more he was exposed to Reagan, the more Turner came to doubt the man's basic thoughtfulness. He had described him in private as "stupid"."

Now Turner had an ax to grind, but still.....

 

[countezero]

He also is universally loathed at Langley, and is generally regarded as one of the worst DCI's the agency ever had. That someone as partisan, obnoxious and bullheaded as Turner didn't like Reagan doesn't surprise me.

 

[countezero]

Not my contention. They are directly relevant to my contentions, for the exchange in which they appear.

Ice, you jumped into a conversation I was having with another member, in which I counter-claimed that Reagan wasn't a moron. So that's the point I was addressing. You, of course, are free to pursue your own agenda. However, if you enter a conversation and start making arguments, I will assume you are arguing about the actual topic of the argument you entered. I know it's next to impossible for you to stick to subject, but this is how people communicate.

Another downside of Reagan visible here was his short horizon and scientific ignorance - SDI was of course a boondoggle, and should not have been the stumbling block for any nuclear arms reduction agreements, but on top of that we see an inability to recognize Gorbachev's value and importance -

SDI was not a boondoggle, see it's development today.

And what Reagan was arguing for was the ability to research a new technology he knew the Soviets couldn't keep pace on. He wanted to do this for both strategic and diplomatic reasons, but above all, I think he wanted to push the Soviets back in the one arena he knew he could win: Spending and weapons development.

As for Reykjavik, here's what Gates says:

"During the sessions ... the Soviets laid out an amazing cornucopia of concessions in nearly every area of arms control. Reagan got into the spirit of the occasion and repeated his July proposal to eliminate all ballistic missiles, and Gorbachev then proposed to eliminate all strategic offensive forces. Then they agreed to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

Then Gorbachev sprang the trap. Surveying all that was on the table, all the progress that had been made, a smiling Gorbachev said: "This all depends, of course, on you giving up SDI. He had taken Reagan to the mountaintop, showed him a historic achievement, and tempted him. But there was a flaw in the plan -- Gorbachev, like so many before him, underestimated Ronald Reagan. The president got mad. He realized he had been set up. ... Reagan truly believed in SDI and that it promised a safer future for Americans and the rest of the world."

So there is another view, one which I am sure you will deny and carp about in your usual manner. But the only point I was trying to make is that Reagan wasn't a moron. I had no idea you wanted to get into the details of arms negotiations more than 20 years past . . .

Reagan stonewalled Gorby, forced him into damaging compromises, and weakened him at home, eventually bringing him down with (unexpectedly) the rest of the Soviet empire.

I'm sorry: Are you pining for the destruction of the Soviet Empire, and are you actually giving Reagan credit for that?

That was only saved from being a disaster by luck and the hard work of some Soviets, keeping track of their arsenal amid the chaos -

Not to mention the Americans and IAEA officials who helped . . .

and the replacement in Russia was not as promising. Now it's Putin. And Reagan's legacy lives on among the enemy as well.

So Putin is Reagan's fault? That's a new one.

 

[SkinWalker]

This thread is less about history and more about political ideology. Such nonsense has no place here. Closed.