Bret Baier - Three Days in Moscow Young Readers Edition: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire

THREE DAYS IN MOSCOW: RONALD REAGAN AND THE FALL OF THE SOVIET EMPIRE YOUNG READERS EDITION . Copyright 2018 by Bret Baier. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Cover art by Getty Images

Cover design by Catherine San Juan

Digital Edition MAY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-286447-5

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-286445-1

1819202122 PC/LSCH 10987654321

FIRST EDITION

To my sons, Paul and Daniel, and their generation,
that they might inherit the legacy of peace that Reagan envisioned

Contents

I am pleased to bring you this story of President Ronald Reagan and the end of the Cold War. It is not an abstract tale of a distant time. History is a living thing. We can always find wisdom and inspiration for our current struggles in the experiences of those who came before us.

For me, Reagans story is more than history. I was alive to experience his presidency, and I even got a chance to visit him at the White House when I was youngan encounter Ive never forgotten.

Im forty-seven, and in the fall of 1987, I was a senior in high school and the student council president at Marist School in Atlanta. With that position came the honor of representing Marist in Washington, DC, to accept a national excellence award on behalf of the school. So I traveled with Marist headmaster Father Joel Konzen to Washington for a ceremony at the White House.

I distinctly remember being struck with awe walking into the Rose Garden for the eventthe sun shining, the White House gleaming, the garden manicured, the chairs lined up, the podium positioned. I can still see the White House press corps crowding into the back of the Rose Garden, a mass of television cameras, photographers, and reporters with notebooks milling around, waiting for the president to arrive.

President Reagan walked out of the Oval Office with his education secretary, William Bennett. Both men talked about the importance of education and of supporting schools that were succeeding, taking time to name and praise the schools being recognized for excellence that day, their student and faculty leaders all in attendance. When he was finished, Reagan started to walk back to the Oval Office, and a reporter yelled out a question about some big dispute that was going on in his presidency. Reagan ignored the question, but I was offended that reporters were interfering with our important education excellence ceremony. Obviously, the press was there not to honor us, but to get to the president. I was so disturbed by it that I went back to Marist and wrote an opinion editorial in the school newspaper, the Marist Blue & Gold. I was the sports editor of the paper, but the indignity in the Rose Garden had forced me to put on my news hat and to weigh in (so I thought at the time). This is part of what I wrote in an op-ed entitled Press Needs Etiquette:

The press has to respect others around them. They had no right to come into that ceremony and be obnoxious by yelling questions at the President as he walked away. I understand that they do need some way to get the stories, but I think that respect has a lot to do with it also.

In my way of thinking, the president did not walk into the Rose Garden that day to deliver a press conference; he was there to deliver a speech to schools of excellence, to tell them to keep up the good work. The press gets plenty of time as it is without using someone elses.

Fast-forward exactly twenty years, and as chief White House correspondent for Fox News, an older Bret Baier was back in the Rose Garden yelling questions at then-president George W. Bush as he walked away from the podium. Older and wiser, I understood more fully that such questions, uncomfortable as they may be, are essential to our free press. Fast-forward ten years from there, and as Fox News chief political anchor and host of Special Report with Bret Baier, I regularly invite theneducation secretary and now radio talk show host Bill Bennett on the Special Report panel to talk about the stories of the day. From that October 5, 1987 Rose Garden event at the White House to the present, it all comes full circle. And writing about Reagan feels personal to me.

In writing this book I spent time at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. If youve never been to a presidential library, they are wonderful places to experience the people and events that shaped our country.

Reagans library is very special. It sits on top of a hill overlooking the valley, and the road going up is lined with banners picturing U.S. presidents from George Washington to Donald Trump. They flap in the breeze, historical markers and patriotic flagsa reminder that the presidency is not about one man alone. The buildings at the top are lovely Spanish-style architecture, surrounded by beautiful gardens. At the front entrance is a large bronze statue of Reagan, with his hand reaching out. I couldnt resist grasping the bronze hand, and I noticed it was well worn from thousands of other people doing the same thing.

Inside the library is a reading room with large wooden tables where researchers like me can access documents from Reagans life and presidency. There are over sixty million pages of documents, 1.6 million photographs, half a million feet of motion picture film, and tens of thousands of audio- and videotapes. It can be hard to wrap your head around the enormity of the records collection. I learned that if youre going to do research, you have to narrow it down. For this book, I focused on Reagans trip to Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, near the end of his second term in office, in late May 1988. The purpose of that visit was to hold a fourth summit between Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. A lot happened on that now largely forgotten trip, but I was most interested in the speech Reagan gave at Moscow State University.

In the Reagan Library reading room, I pulled up a chair next to the gray cardboard box on the corner of the table. I flipped it open and thumbed through the contents. The folder I pulled out contained several drafts and a printout of the complete speech, along with a transcript of the question-and-answer session with Moscow State University students. I read through it but didnt truly appreciate how powerful the speech was until I put on headphones at another table and listened to the address delivered that day. I was struck by the complete absence of rancorno veiled threats, no chest-thumping, no insultsonly a hopeful message directed at young students just starting out. Reagan was funny, optimistic, and warm in a grandfatherly way. He expressed awe at all the wonders that awaited the young studentsthe one catch being that freedom was a prerequisite. He seemed to relish the moment, which had been a lifetime in the makingfrom anti-communist activist to president touring Red Square and speaking to Soviet students.

I was impressed by how fervently he spoke about freedom. He told the students, Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuing revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions. It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the people. It is the right to dreamto follow your dream or stick to your conscience, even if youre the only one in a sea of doubters.