Out of the Shadow: George H. W. Bush and the End of the Cold War (review)

Conventional wisdom holds that Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. According to many Reagan acolytes, it was his increase in bellicose rhetoric, his escalation of the arms race, and his negotiations on significant arms reduction with the Soviets that exposed the deep fissures in the foundation of the Soviet Union. Despite the fact that the Berlin Wall fell, the Warsaw Pact dissolved, and the USSR disintegrated on President George H. W. Bush's watch, Reagan's defenders argue that those events occurred because the Bush administration merely extended Reagan's policies. Out of the Shadow: George H. W. Bush and the End of the Cold War seeks to clarify some of this conventional wisdom. Maynard demonstrates that although there was some continuity between the Reagan and Bush administrations, Bush also made some fundamental shifts that facilitated the peaceful end of the Cold War. Out of the Shadow is a study of how these fundamental shifts came about and thus how Bush managed the last days of the Cold War so that it came to an end "not with a bang, but a peaceful whimper" (xi).

The book is comprised of six chapters, all of which contribute to its overall purpose of examining the shift in foreign policy apparatus and the decision-making process of the Bush administration regarding pivotal events concerning the Cold War's conclusion. Chapter 1 outlines how President Bush began to differentiate his foreign policy from Reagan's. Maynard highlights three fundamental differences. First and foremost, Bush restored the primacy of the National Security Council and the National Security Advisor to decision making on foreign relations. Bush's National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, became his most trusted advisor on international relations, whereas Reagan had relegated the National Security Advisor to a more minor role. Second, despite a couple of major holdovers, Bush asked most of Reagan's foreign policy staffers for their resignations. Bush cleaned his foreign policy house from top to bottom. Finally, Bush initiated a fundamental review of foreign policy toward the Soviet Union. This review, known as "the pause," ultimately led to a shift in strategy toward the USSR. As president, Reagan primarily focused on nuclear arms reduction when talking with the Soviets. By contrast, Bush's strategy began to focus on transforming Central and Eastern Europe. Bush reasoned that because the Cold War started in Eastern Europe, that region held the key to winding down the antipathy between the United States and the Soviet Union. These three items laid the groundwork for Bush to put his own stamp on foreign policy and transform the way it was being fought.

Chapter 2 examines the Bush administration's developing relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviets. Maynard illustrates how Bush and his administration handled four major events—his first NATO summit, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and his first trip to Eastern Europe—and how these decisions affected the overall relationship between the United States and the Soviets. For example, Maynard explains how Bush reacted to the fall of the Berlin Wall. In a press conference held in the Oval Office, the president gave the appearance that the fall of one of the Cold War's most iconic symbols was an unimportant event. To the American public, Bush seemed distracted and disinterested. His responses to reporters' questions were tepid and uninspired. However, Maynard concludes the president's uninspired response was part of an overall strategy of prudence, as it related to the Soviet Union. Bush asserted that publicly gloating over the fall of this Cold War symbol would engender no respect from the Soviet leadership. He understood that the fall of the Berlin Wall was not the end of the Cold War, but one step in the journey to its ultimate demise. Great changes and anxiety remained for Central and Eastern Europe. The president realized...