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CNN Live Saturday

Interview With Presidential Historian On Reagan's Legacy

Aired July 12, 2003 - 18:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: The carrier naming is a big honor for the former president but then again Ronald Reagan had a major impact on the U.S. military. When he was in office, Americans knew the bitter chill of the Cold War.
Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley joins us now on the phone from Seagrove Beach, Florida, to talk about Ronald Reagan's legacy. So glad you're with us this evening, Mr. Brinkley.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN (via telephone): Well, thank you for having me on.

CHOI: So, let's talk about the significance of this ship being named for Ronald Reagan, a living president.

BRINKLEY: I think it's extremely significant. It has to mean a great deal to the Reagan family. Unfortunately, with Alzheimer's disease, Ronald Reagan probably was not able, of course, to be there or maybe fully comprehend just what a great honor this is.

When one looks at American history there are two presidents in the 20th century that are synonymous with the modernization of the U.S. Navy and that's Theodore Roosevelt, who helped build the great white fleet, and Ronald Reason who in 1980 started modernizing our Navy, increasing spending to the Navy, having Secretary of the Navy Lehman put in charge and with people like Caspar Weinberger and George Schultz really did an extraordinary job of building up and modernizing our Navy so this is a very fitting historical tribute.

CHOI: So, do you think, then, a modernization of the fleet is Reagan's legacy?

BRINKLEY: It's one of them, it's part of - remember when one looks at those Reagan years a couple of events happen. There were smaller foreign affairs events such as when we had Marines killed in Beirut, Reagan responded a few days later by connecting it to Grenada and we had an intervention there.

It will be the 20th anniversary of Grenada this September. That was a great celebratory moment for the U.S. Navy. They achieved an objective. They went to war albeit in a very small Caribbean nation like Grenada, but from that point on Reagan's rhetoric of the evil empire and then eventually his ability to negotiate with Gorbachev, (unintelligible) and elsewhere, led to the ending of the Cold War.

So, for people that look at the carrier, in many ways it's looking at a m an that's getting some degree of historical credit for being the person who ended the Cold War by scaring the Soviet Union and bankrupting them.

CHOI: Well, what would you say to critics who say by building up arms President Reagan actually delayed the ending of the Cold War?

BRINKLEY: I don't personally believe that to hold up. You know, one thing that sometimes people think Jimmy Carter was weak on defense but if you look at the 1980 election, Carter versus Reagan, Carter wanted to increase defense spending by five percent. Reagan wanted to by seven percent.

There was a feel, particularly after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and after it looked like they may be willing to do the same in Poland in 1980 that we definitely had to increase defense spending. Reagan wanted it more than Jimmy Carter.

But what happened is there's a lot of symbolism going on also. Reagan started making people proud again to be serving in the U.S. Navy and the armed forces in general and it's certainly part of his historical legacy.

Could those tax dollars have gone for something different in the education field or environmental policy, certainly, but the history books will view Reagan's modernization of the Navy as one of his accomplishments, I believe.

CHOI: Yes, we touched on some of his greatest military moments. What were some of his most challenging?

BRINKLEY: Well, I think the most challenging one was going against this grain that you couldn't go eyeball-to-eyeball against the Soviet Union. There was a timidness in our State Department about challenging the Soviet Union.

And, there was Reagan launching a Star Wars program which even today many people don't think is feasible, but getting advice from people like Edward Teller who was one of the key people with the hydrogen bomb and getting enough technology that it was at least able to throw that on the table and say the United States is going to keep modernizing our military and that frightened the Soviet Union.

New documentation coming out constantly shows how worried Russia was that they could not keep up with America in the defense field and he had many critics in his own administration.

You know, when Reagan gave that famous speech in Berlin to tear down this wall that speech was nixed by people like Colin Powell and George Schultz and others in his foreign policy team and CIA.

They all thought this was a terrible mistake that it was going to make things more inflammatory. Well now, that tear down the wall is one of the sound bytes that CNN and other networks play when they're trying to capture the essence of the end of the Cold War.

It was a defining moment and Reagan bucked skeptics in his own administration because he totally believed that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian state. People weren't allowed to practice freedom of religion or freedom of speech; hence, he was going to call them on it.

He wasn't going to play a game of detente as occurred during the Nixon, Ford and Carter years.

CHOI: Right, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley thank you so much for joining us and giving us some perspective on this big honor for former president Ronald Reagan. Thanks.

BRINKLEY: Thank you, Sophia.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired July 12, 2003 - 18:18   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: The carrier naming is a big honor for the former president but then again Ronald Reagan had a major impact on the U.S. military. When he was in office, Americans knew the bitter chill of the Cold War.
Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley joins us now on the phone from Seagrove Beach, Florida, to talk about Ronald Reagan's legacy. So glad you're with us this evening, Mr. Brinkley.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN (via telephone): Well, thank you for having me on.

CHOI: So, let's talk about the significance of this ship being named for Ronald Reagan, a living president.

BRINKLEY: I think it's extremely significant. It has to mean a great deal to the Reagan family. Unfortunately, with Alzheimer's disease, Ronald Reagan probably was not able, of course, to be there or maybe fully comprehend just what a great honor this is.

When one looks at American history there are two presidents in the 20th century that are synonymous with the modernization of the U.S. Navy and that's Theodore Roosevelt, who helped build the great white fleet, and Ronald Reason who in 1980 started modernizing our Navy, increasing spending to the Navy, having Secretary of the Navy Lehman put in charge and with people like Caspar Weinberger and George Schultz really did an extraordinary job of building up and modernizing our Navy so this is a very fitting historical tribute.

CHOI: So, do you think, then, a modernization of the fleet is Reagan's legacy?

BRINKLEY: It's one of them, it's part of - remember when one looks at those Reagan years a couple of events happen. There were smaller foreign affairs events such as when we had Marines killed in Beirut, Reagan responded a few days later by connecting it to Grenada and we had an intervention there.

It will be the 20th anniversary of Grenada this September. That was a great celebratory moment for the U.S. Navy. They achieved an objective. They went to war albeit in a very small Caribbean nation like Grenada, but from that point on Reagan's rhetoric of the evil empire and then eventually his ability to negotiate with Gorbachev, (unintelligible) and elsewhere, led to the ending of the Cold War.

So, for people that look at the carrier, in many ways it's looking at a m an that's getting some degree of historical credit for being the person who ended the Cold War by scaring the Soviet Union and bankrupting them.

CHOI: Well, what would you say to critics who say by building up arms President Reagan actually delayed the ending of the Cold War?

BRINKLEY: I don't personally believe that to hold up. You know, one thing that sometimes people think Jimmy Carter was weak on defense but if you look at the 1980 election, Carter versus Reagan, Carter wanted to increase defense spending by five percent. Reagan wanted to by seven percent.

There was a feel, particularly after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and after it looked like they may be willing to do the same in Poland in 1980 that we definitely had to increase defense spending. Reagan wanted it more than Jimmy Carter.

But what happened is there's a lot of symbolism going on also. Reagan started making people proud again to be serving in the U.S. Navy and the armed forces in general and it's certainly part of his historical legacy.

Could those tax dollars have gone for something different in the education field or environmental policy, certainly, but the history books will view Reagan's modernization of the Navy as one of his accomplishments, I believe.

CHOI: Yes, we touched on some of his greatest military moments. What were some of his most challenging?

BRINKLEY: Well, I think the most challenging one was going against this grain that you couldn't go eyeball-to-eyeball against the Soviet Union. There was a timidness in our State Department about challenging the Soviet Union.

And, there was Reagan launching a Star Wars program which even today many people don't think is feasible, but getting advice from people like Edward Teller who was one of the key people with the hydrogen bomb and getting enough technology that it was at least able to throw that on the table and say the United States is going to keep modernizing our military and that frightened the Soviet Union.

New documentation coming out constantly shows how worried Russia was that they could not keep up with America in the defense field and he had many critics in his own administration.

You know, when Reagan gave that famous speech in Berlin to tear down this wall that speech was nixed by people like Colin Powell and George Schultz and others in his foreign policy team and CIA.

They all thought this was a terrible mistake that it was going to make things more inflammatory. Well now, that tear down the wall is one of the sound bytes that CNN and other networks play when they're trying to capture the essence of the end of the Cold War.

It was a defining moment and Reagan bucked skeptics in his own administration because he totally believed that the Soviet Union was a totalitarian state. People weren't allowed to practice freedom of religion or freedom of speech; hence, he was going to call them on it.

He wasn't going to play a game of detente as occurred during the Nixon, Ford and Carter years.

CHOI: Right, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley thank you so much for joining us and giving us some perspective on this big honor for former president Ronald Reagan. Thanks.

BRINKLEY: Thank you, Sophia.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com