| Lou Cannon
Author
Announcer: Boeing presents another in a series
of essays from contemporary opinion leaders. Today, President
Ronald Reagan
biographer, Lou Cannon.
Mr. Lou Cannon: Ronald Reagan drew upon his life’s experiences
to face the challenges of his presidency. In 1985, after his
first meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, I asked
President Reagan what aspect of his life was most overlooked.
Reagan recalled that he had negotiated a difficult contract
with the movie studios when he was president of the Screen
Actors Guild. When I asked what he had learned from that, he
replied without hesitation that “the purpose of a negotiation
is to get an agreement.”
At the time Mr. Reagan said these words, the United States
and the Soviet Union were locked in the Cold War. Each side
had thousands of destructive nuclear-tipped missiles, ready
to launch on a moment’s notice. Mr. Reagan worried that
a mistake could lead to a nuclear exchange. But he also knew
that the Soviet economy was in shambles. Before he became president,
Mr. Reagan predicted to me that if the United States strengthened
its military capabilities, the Soviet Union would come to the
bargaining table.
It took awhile. It wasn’t until Mr. Reagan’s second
term, after he and Congress had bolstered U.S. defenses and
Mr. Gorbachev had replaced a succession of old-style Soviet
leaders, that the heads of the two nuclear superpowers met
in Geneva. That began the hard bargaining which led, in 1988,
to ratification of the first U.S.-Soviet treaty to reduce nuclear
arms. This, in turn, was a prelude to other momentous events
that led in time to the disappearance of the Soviet Union itself.
As far as the world knew, this process began in Geneva. But
if I close my eyes, I can hear Reagan reminiscing about the
old days in Hollywood when he learned that the purpose of a
negotiation was to get an agreement.
Some negotiation. Some agreement.
Announcer: Boeing. Forever New Frontiers.
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