Although these were the three main doctrines which Reagan rejected, there were other areas where he and the U.S. administrations differed, all of which were cut from the same cloth. For one, he rejected Nikita Khrushchev’s “peaceful coexistence,” because he spurned the idea of Soviet existence. He wanted peace but not coexistence. In Reagan’s judgment, coexistence did not engender “peace” for the enslaved inhabitants behind the Iron Curtain, who could be jailed for exercising the most basic civil rights. As long as coexistence remained, it meant that the USSR would continue its position as captor over the peoples beneath its control.
In addition, coexistence fed the notion of so-called “spheres of influence,” which maintained that both the United States and USSR had regions of influence or hegemony, in the West and East, and each side ought to respect the other’s sphere. To Reagan, “respecting” a Soviet sphere entailed, again, accepting the East’s subjugation. On the contrary, the U.S. sphere in Western Europe was free; the United States only governed one country: the United States.
This refusal to draw parallels between the two countries could also be seen in his rejection of moral equivalency, a doctrine dear to the heart of the political left, which claimed, among other things, that both the United States and USSR had legitimate mutual interests and thus an equally justifiable right to pursue their interests. To Reagan, the USSR pursuing its interests meant shackling people from Budapest to Bucharest. As far as Reagan was concerned, the people of Eastern Europe were still under siege, as they had been in World War II, only by a different hostile, totalitarian, occupying power. Western Europe won freedom in 1945, whereas Eastern Europe did not; its nightmare was still ongoing, and Reagan would not passively tolerate such repression for so many.
There was and could be no moral equivalency between America and a country that sought “world domination.” “It’s a frightening thought,” said Reagan in the spring of 1975, “but it should make Americans all the more determined to show Europe that we have no intention of leaving the pages of history with a whimper: that, with or without them, we’ll make our stand.” When sharing this thought in an interview, he quoted (from memory) Churchill, from when the prime minister readied to take on the Nazis, another moral unequaclass="underline" “This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of the bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year, unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor we rise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden times.” Churchill’s words, Reagan instructed, “are now our destiny.”17
Ed Meese connected these different but intertwined concepts in Reagan’s eyes:
He was not satisfied with the détente idea, and moral equivalency, which was anathema to him, and implicit in détente. He saw détente as a one-way street [that benefited only Soviet interests]. He wanted to reverse that. He believed that throughout the seventies and said it repeatedly when he first ran in 1976.18
These beliefs, particularly the real result of détente, came to determine much of Reagan’s stated policy during the buildup to his presidential campaigns. They came to represent the backbone of the stance that he would offer when president, much to the dismay of those inside the Kremlin. From Yalta to détente to “spheres of influence,” Reagan believed he had documented proof of failed attitudes toward the Soviet Union; at each juncture the United States was in denial about the true nature of Communism. Reagan was not willing to make the same mistake, and these ideas soon became the cornerstone of the principles that he hoped would govern America to greatness.
MORALITY AND FOREIGN POLICY
While the 1970s saw Reagan starting to voice his many critiques of the United States’ Soviet policies, they also saw his fervent beliefs take on a new tone, one focused not just on the fall of Communism but on the moral imperative of the West to generate the collapse. This new voice spoke of the necessity of the demise of Communism, drawing a clear and unassailable connection between U.S. foreign policy and morality.19 To Reagan, accepting détente meant a rejection of a moral foreign policy, an idea which became a Reagan campaign theme for 1976. Richard Allen termed it Reagan’s “spring offensive” of 1976—an assault on the “intellectual and moral bankruptcy” of not only the USSR but current U.S. policy.20
This morality dimension made Reagan’s foreign-policy preferences quite different from those of the previous hard-line anti-Communist Republican president, the realpolitik Richard Nixon, who felt that morality-driven foreign policy was nonsense. Nations are driven by interests, Nixon protested, not morality! “It’s ridiculous,” he growled, speaking of Reagan: “Foreign affairs aren’t about trust. They’re about interests and power.” He thought Reagan’s talk of morality and trust was “naïve.”21
Despite Nixon’s critiques, Reagan had serious reservations with a Machiavellian foreign policy. For starters, he took exception with his friend over how Taiwan was treated once the United States began recognizing Red China. Reagan understood that a rapprochement with China would hurt Moscow and help Washington. In an August 1971 letter, he wrote: “Personally, I think the Red Chinese are a bunch of murdering bums. I think the President probably believes the same; but in the big chess game going on, where Russia is still head man on the other side, we need a little elbow room.”22 Hence, he supported Nixon’s shift toward China, keeping in mind, as he told fellow conservative M. Stanton Evans, that “Russia is still enemy number one.”23
But though Reagan recognized the immense strategic value in a closer U.S. relationship with Communist China, he was highly sensitive not to “sell out” Taiwan in the process. When it appeared America had sold out its loyal ally, Reagan was furious, believing that the United States had not acted properly toward Taiwan. Later, when Taiwan was ousted from the United Nations, Governor Reagan wrote to President and Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, whom the Reagans had earlier visited on a mission for President Nixon: “Mrs. Reagan and I want you to know how deeply shocked and disappointed we were by the completely immoral action of the U.N. General Assembly.”24
Reagan applied that moral sense to the Cold War. He said in a campaign speech that he wanted to “exert America’s moral leadership in the world again.”25 This meant he could not accept any theory or policy that accepted the status quo for Eastern Europe.
He found people in Moscow who agreed: Speaking of the Brezhnev doctrine, which called for Soviet support of Communist guerrilla forces throughout the Third World, Genrikh Trofimenko, the well-known director of the prestigious Institute for U.S.A. and Canada Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that the Soviet government’s opinion in the 1970s was that “there could not be a peaceful coexistence between wicked warmongering imperialists [America] and honorable and peace-loving Communists caring for the well-being of all progressive humanity.” This, he said, was the view elucidated by Comrade Brezhnev. To his credit, said Trofimenko, Reagan realized this, recognizing détente and peaceful coexistence for the “shams” they were.26
Further vindicating Reagan’s allegations were the Soviets themselves, who made it clear that détente did not mean an end to their support of Communist insurgencies. In a January 16, 1976 article in the Washington Post, Peter Osnos reported: “Soviet commentators have been saying almost daily that the ‘policy of relaxation of tensions [détente] between states with different social systems [US and USSR] cannot be interpreted as a ban on the national liberation struggle of peoples who come out against colonial oppression or as a ban on class struggle.’”27