Reagan at Westminster: Foreshadowing the End of the Cold War

5. The Importance of Reagan at Westminster

chapter฀ The Importance of Reagan at Westminster American history is filled with examples of speeches that created a sensation but then quickly were forgotten. The campaign speeches of Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and even Ronald Reagan were immensely powerful at the time, but they continue to be studied only as historical artifacts that tell us about a moment in American political and rhetorical history. Other speeches are immediately recognized as important and maintain that importance over time. Among Reagan’s most famous addresses,the Brandenburg Gate and Challenger speeches are obvious examples. Reagan’s address at Westminster, however, follows neither pattern. A few observers,notably Lou Cannon,saw that the speech was the most comprehensive vision of Reagan’s Soviet policy, but most commentators viewed it as a not very successful effort at changing his image. Several commentators criticized the address as essentially pedestrian. Over time,however,the importance of the address has been recognized by historians, biographers, political commentators, and students of American-Soviet relations. What explains this pattern? Our conclusion is that the very characteristic that made the address a failure as a tool for image building also made it more powerful over time. At Westminster, Reagan said that the core issue of the cold [฀] chapter฀ war was a battle between two competing ideologies. He also outlined a defense and diplomatic policy that was fundamentally rhetorical in that it was intended to show both the Soviets and the free world that the Soviets could not intimidate the United States and could not win an arms race. Reagan set forth this view by explicitly attacking totalitarianism in general and the Soviet Union in particular, offering a defense of liberal democracy and stating a commitment to both an arms buildup and negotiations aimed not at cosmetic treaties but real arms control. At the time, the speech failed as image building, largely because almost no one believed that he meant it. But during his presidency, as Reagan restated various aspects of his message, especially in his statements at the Brandenburg Gate and Moscow State University, and as he demonstrated a commitment to negotiating real arms reduction, a fuller understanding of Reagan’s policies and rhetoric evolved.1 Part of that evolution, which is still under way, was a recognition that the Westminster speech amounted to a central statement of Reagan’s foreign policy views, as outlined here in the context of the address. It was, we believe, the most important foreign policy speech of his presidency. The remainder of this chapter assesses the importance of the speech. We begin with a discussion of efforts at democracy development, including the National Endowment for Democracy,that were influenced by the address and then consider what these efforts indicate about the contested issue of Reagan’s role in the end of the cold war and the demise of the Soviet Union. Finally, we consider what the speech reveals about Reagan himself and judge whether it should be understood as a founding document of the neoconservative movement that dominated American foreign policy during the George W. Bush administration. Democracy Development One of the results of the Westminster address was the creation of institutions for supporting democracy,the most important of which was the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the address atWestminster,the president of the National [฀] importance฀of฀the฀address Endowment for Democracy, Carl Gershman, wrote, “As presidential speeches go,this one [theWestminster address] has had unusual staying power, and not just because it foresaw the collapse of communism . . . [but also because it] set in motion the institutionalization of democracy promotion as a core element of American foreign policy.”2 Similarly, David Adesnik and Michael McFaul note in an important essay on the legacy of democracy promotion that “although the president’s critics either ignored the Westminster speech and other similar statements or dismissed them as hollow and cynical, Reagan took his own ‘crusade for freedom’ very seriously.”3 The Westminster speech should be understood as a foundational document in focusing American foreign policy toward support of democratic institutions. It is important,however,not to overstate the impact of theWestminster speech and democracy promotion as an ideal.While the“NED had a mandate to support democratic movements all around the world,”in its early days the organization’s focus was on Poland and other Sovietbloc countries; it even provided a grant “to publish a Russian version of...