A brief word on the Reagan presidency before the Cold War. Zinn says “Unemployment grew in the Reagan years.” (1) He follows this by citing a statistic from 1982, his second year in office. This is misleading, unemployment did not continue to grow in the 80s, by the end of the 80s it fell. He could have said that half of the new jobs created were low wage jobs, and half the jobs lost were high wage jobs. (2) In fairness he does point out the various social programs that were cut in favor of defense spending. However Reagan’s defense budget and various social programs could have been maintained via higher taxes, but, despite Zinn’s frequent claims to the contrary, people usually object to higher taxes. (Even though the United States had a low tax rate compared to other countries, which would have helped Zinn’s argument had he pointed it out.)
He also bemoans the FCC’s elimination of the “fairness doctrine,” which required air time on radio for dissenting view points. He further bemoans 1990s right wing talk radio which had 20 million viewers. Zinn seems curiously ignorant that people are free to have left wing radio, not to mention why left wing radio doesn’t find as large of an audience. (3) He also discusses military action in Latin America, but I’m saving that for another chapter.
Now to the Cold War, 1989-1991 was one of the high points of the 20th century. In 1989, East and West Germany were united under one non-communist government, and the Berlin Wall, a horrible symbol of Soviet repression was torn down by the people. Ronald Regan said years earlier, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Two years later, an attempted coup failed against Gorbachev, and on Christmas day, 1991, the Soviet Union was formally dissolved.
Zinn quietly mentions this in one sentence on p 584, and quickly dismisses the idea the Reagan ended the Cold War, suggesting it actually continued due to America’s militarism. While Reagan did build up conventional military forces, one of his goals was to reduce nuclear weapons on both sides. All intermediate range missiles were eliminated in a treaty in 1987. (4) More amazing was in October of 1986, in Reykjavik Iceland, Reagan and Gorbachev sincerely discussed eliminating all nuclear weapons. (5) Such details would never make it into an account of a blindly warmongering America.
In the academic world the jury is still out on who deserves credit for ending the Cold War. Conservatives claim that Reagan’s military build up pushed the USSR into bankruptcy as they tried and failed to compete. Vladimir Lukhim for instance, Soviet Foreign policy expert says, “It is clear that SDI (Star Wars, which Zinn criticized) accelerated our catastrophe by at least five years. (6)
Others point to Gorbachev’s reforms of Perestroika and Glasnost (openness) as leading to the end. Gorbachev wanted to improve the Soviet economy, which for him meant shifting resources from defense to domestic needs.
While others simply suggest that the Soviet Union was simply wouldn’t survive in the dawning information age. Reagan’s Secretary of State George Schultz said “As the world gets smaller, the importance of freedom only increases….The yearning for freedom is the most powerful political force on the planet.”(7)
A real academic would examine all arguments and attempt to provide some insight, but after 584 pages I’ve learned not to expect to so much from “People’s History.”
1. Zinn, Howard: “A People’s History of the United States” Harper Perennial Modern Classics 2005 P 584
2. Chafe, William H The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II Fifth Edition 2003 Oxford University Press p 472
3. Zinn p 564
4.Johnson, Paul: “A History of the American People” Harper Collins 1999 p 930
5. Levering, Ralph B The Cold War: A Post-Cold War History Harlan Davidson Inc, 1994 p. 168, 169
6. Levering, p. 183
7. Levering, p. 186
