The Clear-Headed Ronald Reagan

Is there a need for another full-length treatment of what is universally acknowledged to be the most significant triumph of Ronald Reagan’s presidency—the peaceful unwinding of the Cold War? Even specialists will find William Inboden’s new telling of the story answers with an emphatic Yes, and anyone who hasn’t previously taken in any of the several fine accounts of those late great years should run, not walk, to pick up this new book.

To be sure, Inboden trods familiar ground of Reagan’s foreign policy, but both the lengthening of time that is opening up more documents and evidence, along with new perspectives that current conditions inspire, enable Inboden to fill in some fresh details to key episodes, emphasize parts of Reagan’s strategy and actions that have eluded other authors, and reach new conclusions about several contested aspects of the story. Above all, The Peacemaker provides a case study of how an administration, despite its mistakes, internal disputes, and confusion, can nonetheless be consistently purposive and competent—a welcome reminder just now of the capacities of genuine leaders.

The Peacemaker succeeds because its narrative style allows Inboden’s judicious understatement to advance bold perceptions of Reagan as a statesman of the highest order, as a person who combined remarkable strategic vision with tactical reflexes that none of his friends, staff aides, or critics perceived clearly. By sticking with a strict chronological approach (following Churchill’s advice that “chronology is the soul of narrative”), Inboden’s narrative demonstrates by accumulating force Reagan’s remarkable capacities rather than telling us in a didactic way as many other books do.

Inboden goes one step further than most previous accounts of Reagan’s grand strategy for the Cold War, which highlight his famous private comment before becoming president that his idea of the Cold War was “we win, they lose.” But what did that mean in practical and political terms? Inboden’s striking central argument: Reagan consciously sought the negotiated surrender of the Soviet Union (his italics). This did not mean a military defeat in armed conflict; in fact, that is the outcome Reagan most wished to avoid for obvious reasons. Neither did he want to humiliate the Soviet Union. Inboden makes clear that “though Reagan wanted to bring the Soviet Union to a negotiated surrender, he did not seek a public surrender ceremony.” In another passage late in the story, after many pieces of Reagan’s grand strategy were in motion and

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