1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,162 WWW.MY-SUBS.CO 1 00:00:14,598 --> 00:00:16,433 The american nation cannot, 2 00:00:16,767 --> 00:00:18,936 must not, and will not permit the 3 00:00:19,269 --> 00:00:23,106 establishment of another communist government in the western hemisphere. 4 00:00:25,192 --> 00:00:32,032 If America's soul totally becomes poisoned part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. 5 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:43,627 Let us be united in peace 6 00:00:44,294 --> 00:00:48,006 let us also be united against defeat. 7 00:00:51,176 --> 00:00:52,052 For General Electric, 8 00:00:52,594 --> 00:00:53,595 here is Ronald Reagan 9 00:00:54,554 --> 00:00:57,975 Good evening ladies and gentlemen tonight it's my pleasure to appear 10 00:00:59,935 --> 00:01:01,353 in the General Electric theater 11 00:01:21,039 --> 00:01:24,543 In 1970, attorney general John Mitchell gloated: 12 00:01:25,419 --> 00:01:29,673 'This country is going so far right that you're not going to recognize it.' 13 00:01:30,424 --> 00:01:33,176 But how much further to the right could the US go? 14 00:01:34,261 --> 00:01:40,183 In 1970 there was Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, nuclear threats, surveillance, 15 00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:45,439 sabotage, dirty tricks, official lies, racial polarization, crime, 16 00:01:46,189 --> 00:01:50,235 and still to come were war on drugs, Chile and Watergate. 17 00:01:51,778 --> 00:01:55,699 But compared to the world that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush 18 00:01:56,158 --> 00:01:59,578 would usher in, one could almost look back nostalgically on the 19 00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:01,663 Nixon era. 20 00:02:11,089 --> 00:02:14,134 Right-wing forces have always operated freely and openly in 21 00:02:14,885 --> 00:02:18,847 the dark chasms of American life where racism, militarism, 22 00:02:19,598 --> 00:02:24,394 imperialism and blind devotion to private enterprise festered. 23 00:02:25,061 --> 00:02:28,899 The raw underbelly of fanaticism has spun groups as disparate as 24 00:02:29,649 --> 00:02:30,984 the Ku Klux Klan 25 00:02:32,819 --> 00:02:34,154 Nazi party 26 00:02:34,905 --> 00:02:36,114 the Liberty League 27 00:02:36,907 --> 00:02:38,074 the American First'ers 28 00:02:39,159 --> 00:02:40,494 the John Birch'ers 29 00:02:41,244 --> 00:02:42,245 the McCarthyite's 30 00:02:42,662 --> 00:02:43,580 and the Tea Party 31 00:02:43,997 --> 00:02:48,502 spilling either hatred, bigotry or simply ignorance of history. 32 00:02:49,920 --> 00:02:53,089 Beginning with Nixon's courting of a new republican south 33 00:02:53,548 --> 00:02:56,801 and the success of George Wallace as a third party candidate 34 00:02:57,552 --> 00:03:00,597 these forces migrated from the fringes of American politics 35 00:03:01,389 --> 00:03:06,853 and the nether reaches of rationality to a new home in the republican party 36 00:03:07,270 --> 00:03:11,900 which gradually banished its once thriving moderate and liberal wings. 37 00:03:12,859 --> 00:03:16,939 Nixon had once said, domestic politics interested him about as much as 38 00:03:20,325 --> 00:03:24,663 But on his watch, whether he liked it or not, 18 year-olds won the vote 39 00:03:25,121 --> 00:03:26,331 censorship declined, 40 00:03:26,873 --> 00:03:29,918 and gays and lesbians emerged from the shadows. 41 00:03:30,377 --> 00:03:33,755 He established the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency 42 00:03:34,422 --> 00:03:35,924 supported the equal rights amendment 43 00:03:36,466 --> 00:03:39,135 and new regulations governing the health of workers 44 00:03:39,678 --> 00:03:42,180 and even strengthen the voting rights act. 45 00:03:42,847 --> 00:03:46,226 His former right-wing allies were belatedly recognizing that 46 00:03:46,559 --> 00:03:52,148 this was not the 1950s anti-communist hatchet man Richard Nixon they had known 47 00:03:53,316 --> 00:03:58,154 Though he was pulverizing southeast Asia, he horrified the right when he 48 00:03:58,571 --> 00:04:02,617 turned around and, seeking to ease the stresses of US land war in Asia, 49 00:04:03,076 --> 00:04:06,371 recognized red China in 1972. 50 00:04:06,788 --> 00:04:10,500 And on top of that, he went to the Soviet union and signed the 51 00:04:10,834 --> 00:04:17,299 historic SALT 1 treaty, placing limits on missile and anti-missile systems. 52 00:04:17,841 --> 00:04:21,886 When Nixon took the country off the gold standard and imposed wage 53 00:04:22,303 --> 00:04:25,807 and price controls in 1971, and then 54 00:04:26,017 --> 00:04:29,769 pulled all of remaining US troops out of Vietnam in '73, 55 00:04:30,311 --> 00:04:34,566 it seemed he had lost his mind and totally betrayed his base. 56 00:04:35,108 --> 00:04:38,611 By the time of Watergate, Nixon had made far too many enemies 57 00:04:38,945 --> 00:04:41,239 on both left and right that he could afford. 58 00:04:42,115 --> 00:04:47,912 Facing a probable impeachment, he resigned on aug. 9, 1974. 59 00:04:48,997 --> 00:04:52,417 The presidency was now in the hands of the amiable Gerald Ford, 60 00:04:52,959 --> 00:04:55,128 a man who, Lyndon Johnson said, 61 00:04:55,670 --> 00:04:58,089 could not fart and chew gum at the same time. 62 00:04:59,841 --> 00:05:01,593 As we can see the Ford popularity is 63 00:05:02,260 --> 00:05:03,887 certainly on a sharp rise here 64 00:05:11,519 --> 00:05:15,356 Ford announced that our long national nightmare is over. 65 00:05:15,899 --> 00:05:18,985 But, sending all the wrong signals, pardoned Nixon: 66 00:05:19,527 --> 00:05:26,326 an absolute pardon onto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the US which he, 67 00:05:27,202 --> 00:05:31,873 Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed. 68 00:05:32,540 --> 00:05:35,710 But, even more troubling for the future was that, Nixon's fall 69 00:05:36,711 --> 00:05:40,965 brought out the deepest impulses of rage and revenge from the core of 70 00:05:41,382 --> 00:05:43,259 Nixon's new republican party. 71 00:05:43,676 --> 00:05:46,095 His legendary anger became theirs, 72 00:05:46,763 --> 00:05:48,848 but now directed against the government itself. 73 00:05:49,808 --> 00:05:53,102 Reinvigorated by anger at a so-called liberal media which had 74 00:05:53,645 --> 00:05:57,607 played such a toxic role in their mind in distorting Vietnam and 75 00:05:57,941 --> 00:06:00,318 driving Nixon from the presidency, 76 00:06:01,069 --> 00:06:05,365 a network of conservative think-tanks as well as rich foundations 77 00:06:06,574 --> 00:06:09,077 invested large sums of money to push 78 00:06:09,494 --> 00:06:10,828 for their agendas. 79 00:06:11,371 --> 00:06:15,542 Among these was a radical return to the concept of privatization 80 00:06:16,292 --> 00:06:21,881 that had been, in their minds, destroyed by Roosevelt's loathed new deal. 81 00:06:22,757 --> 00:06:26,553 Roosevelt's old enemies, the money class, were back. 82 00:06:27,554 --> 00:06:29,973 The burgeoning right-wing network had little use for a 83 00:06:30,598 --> 00:06:33,810 relative moderate like Gerald Ford and itched to put a 84 00:06:34,352 --> 00:06:38,273 real right-winger like former governor Reagan of California 85 00:06:38,690 --> 00:06:39,607 into the white house. 86 00:06:43,611 --> 00:06:48,449 Bowing to pressure, Ford and Donald Rumsfeld -a young congressman 87 00:06:48,866 --> 00:06:52,912 who'd made a name attacking the Soviets in the '60s- engineered 88 00:06:53,496 --> 00:06:58,960 a major cabinet check-up known as the Halloween Day Massacre in oct. '75. 89 00:07:00,128 --> 00:07:05,300 Rumsfeld, who Nixon had called a ruthless little bastard, took over Defense. 90 00:07:05,842 --> 00:07:09,887 Kissinger, staying on at State, lost his national security post to 91 00:07:10,430 --> 00:07:11,848 gen. Brent Scowcroft 92 00:07:12,724 --> 00:07:17,103 Bush took over the CIA and Dick Cheney, a protégé of Rumsfeld's, 93 00:07:17,645 --> 00:07:19,397 replaced him as Chief of Staff. 94 00:07:19,939 --> 00:07:24,652 Vice-president Nelson Rockefeller, a moderate, was forced off the ticket 95 00:07:24,986 --> 00:07:26,279 in '76. 96 00:07:27,697 --> 00:07:32,744 Rumsfeld helped block a new SALT treaty, and Ford banished the term 97 00:07:33,077 --> 00:07:37,457 détente, associated now with Henry Kissinger from the white house. 98 00:07:43,212 --> 00:07:47,258 But the people wanted change, and in the interest of the presidency 99 00:07:47,592 --> 00:07:53,514 in 1976, the governor Jimmy Carter a former peanut farmer and long time 100 00:07:54,182 --> 00:07:58,853 sunday school teacher from Plains, Georgia who narrowly defeated Ford. 101 00:08:01,147 --> 00:08:03,357 Carter was anything but a typical candidate. 102 00:08:04,317 --> 00:08:07,737 He sought to end the arms race, revive détente, 103 00:08:08,154 --> 00:08:12,450 restore America's moral standing and learn from Vietnam, saying: 104 00:08:13,201 --> 00:08:16,037 Never again shall our country become militarily involved 105 00:08:16,496 --> 00:08:18,247 in the internal affairs of another nation, 106 00:08:18,998 --> 00:08:23,377 unless there's a direct and obvious threat to the security of the US. 107 00:08:24,253 --> 00:08:29,801 He said at the UN that the US would cut its nuclear arsenal by 50% 108 00:08:30,468 --> 00:08:32,220 if the Soviets did the same. 109 00:08:32,762 --> 00:08:36,808 Following his gut, Carter scored some significant early successes. 110 00:08:37,266 --> 00:08:40,645 He helped secure the Camp David Accords in 1978 111 00:08:41,104 --> 00:08:42,605 leading to Israeli withdrawal from 112 00:08:43,064 --> 00:08:47,235 Egyptian territory captured in the 1967 war 113 00:08:47,985 --> 00:08:49,946 and established diplomatic relations 114 00:08:50,404 --> 00:08:52,156 between the two countries. 115 00:08:55,952 --> 00:08:58,788 He negotiated a SALT 2 treaty with the Soviets 116 00:08:59,455 --> 00:09:01,874 mandating a reduction in nuclear missiles 117 00:09:02,291 --> 00:09:03,626 and bombers. 118 00:09:04,043 --> 00:09:07,880 But Carter knew little about foreign policy and had been deeply influenced by the 119 00:09:08,339 --> 00:09:13,010 ideas of Zbigniew Brzezinski, his national security advisor. 120 00:09:13,553 --> 00:09:20,017 An ... professor and fierce anti-communist he tapped the rising, though still little known, 121 00:09:20,351 --> 00:09:21,894 Carter from membership in the 122 00:09:24,188 --> 00:09:29,527 a group founded by Chase Manhattan Bank chairman David Rockefeller in 1973 123 00:09:30,194 --> 00:09:32,822 to bolster the world capitalist order. 124 00:09:33,489 --> 00:09:38,286 With 180 elite members and offices on 3 continents, most rejected the 125 00:09:38,744 --> 00:09:41,330 rigidity of right-wing anti-communism. 126 00:09:41,998 --> 00:09:46,586 But Brzezinski, like Kissinger before him, marginalized the moral liberal 127 00:09:47,044 --> 00:09:49,755 secretary of State, and engineered a return 128 00:09:50,423 --> 00:09:52,508 to cold war orthodoxy. 129 00:09:53,175 --> 00:09:56,679 He bragged about being the first Pole in 300 years in a position 130 00:09:57,430 --> 00:09:59,390 to really stick it to the Russians. 131 00:10:04,437 --> 00:10:09,233 Massive US arms sales to Iran, half of all US sales worldwide, 132 00:10:09,900 --> 00:10:15,698 had kept the unpopular Shah in power, and despite his dismal human rights record 133 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:19,410 Carter shared a lavish new year's eve in Tehran: 134 00:10:20,286 --> 00:10:23,914 There is no leader with whom I have a deeper sense of personal friendship. 135 00:10:24,540 --> 00:10:32,965 Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability 136 00:10:34,175 --> 00:10:37,470 in one of the more troubled areas of the world. 137 00:10:38,888 --> 00:10:43,059 Within a year the Shah had imposed martial law, and his troops 138 00:10:43,684 --> 00:10:45,436 shot down 100s in the street. 139 00:10:46,854 --> 00:10:51,150 Fearing that Soviets would occupy Iran's oil fields in this chaos 140 00:10:51,567 --> 00:10:54,403 Brzezinski warned Carter that the US now faced 141 00:11:03,621 --> 00:11:06,665 Two months later the Shah fled for his life. 142 00:11:07,208 --> 00:11:13,005 Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile demanding the Shah's return to face trial. 143 00:11:13,547 --> 00:11:17,593 Carter, under pressure from Brzezinski, Kissinger and David Rockefeller 144 00:11:18,135 --> 00:11:22,181 allowed the Shah into the US for medical treatment of his cancer 145 00:11:22,515 --> 00:11:25,810 infuriating the Iranian public: The US embassy in Tehran has been 146 00:11:26,143 --> 00:11:28,229 invaded and occupied by Iranian students. 147 00:11:28,562 --> 00:11:30,272 Americans inside have been taken prisoner. 148 00:11:30,940 --> 00:11:34,110 In november, students burst into the embassy and seized 149 00:11:34,652 --> 00:11:40,366 52 american hostages whom they held for 444 days, 150 00:11:40,908 --> 00:11:43,953 effectively destroying Carter's presidency. 151 00:11:45,037 --> 00:11:47,248 Crises seemed to be flaring all over. 152 00:11:47,790 --> 00:11:52,378 Central america, after suffering decades of poverty, brutality and corruption 153 00:11:52,920 --> 00:11:58,717 under US backed right-wing dictators, was ready to explode by the late 1970s. 154 00:11:59,718 --> 00:12:04,640 In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas seized power in july of '79 155 00:12:05,182 --> 00:12:07,143 Latin America’s first successful revolution 156 00:12:07,476 --> 00:12:09,770 since Cuba's 20 years earlier 157 00:12:10,521 --> 00:12:14,692 and began an ambitious program of land, education and health reform. 158 00:12:15,234 --> 00:12:17,653 Brzezinski argued for military intervention 159 00:12:18,112 --> 00:12:22,032 fearing the revolutionary ... would establish forces in neighboring 160 00:12:22,324 --> 00:12:28,205 Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador where 40 families had ruled for over a century. 161 00:12:29,623 --> 00:12:32,710 Right-wing death squad murders and tortures increased 162 00:12:33,252 --> 00:12:37,298 and the progressive Salvadorian archbishop Oscar Romero 163 00:12:37,715 --> 00:12:39,925 was assassinated in 1980. 164 00:12:40,593 --> 00:12:45,055 Later that year the FMLN insurgents were 165 00:12:45,514 --> 00:12:46,807 on the brink of another successful revolution 166 00:12:47,349 --> 00:12:52,396 when Carter, pressured by Brzezinski, restored significant needed military aid 167 00:12:53,147 --> 00:12:54,481 to the government. 168 00:12:55,691 --> 00:12:58,235 Another storm was brewing in Afghanistan, 169 00:12:58,861 --> 00:13:01,697 an impoverished remnant from the British empire where 170 00:13:02,156 --> 00:13:04,241 life expectancy was 40 years. 171 00:13:04,783 --> 00:13:09,163 Only 1 in 10 could read and most lived as no-man's or farmers 172 00:13:09,580 --> 00:13:13,334 in muddy villages scarcely different from when Alexander the Great 173 00:13:13,626 --> 00:13:15,711 had passed through 2000 years before. 174 00:13:17,671 --> 00:13:21,091 It was in july 1979 that Brzezinski had 175 00:13:21,717 --> 00:13:23,927 Carter sign a little known directive 176 00:13:24,928 --> 00:13:28,641 for secret aid to the Islamic fundamentalist opponents 177 00:13:29,183 --> 00:13:32,019 of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. 178 00:13:33,103 --> 00:13:35,856 In that day Brzezinski proudly noted that 179 00:13:40,653 --> 00:13:44,823 His intention was to drag them into their own Vietnam. 180 00:13:45,449 --> 00:13:48,410 Brzezinski understood the Soviet's fear that the 181 00:13:48,869 --> 00:13:53,123 Afghan insurgency might spark an uprising by the 40 million muslims 182 00:13:53,457 --> 00:13:55,417 in Soviet central asia. 183 00:13:55,959 --> 00:14:01,965 He compared it in its effect on the US to a communist insurgency in Mexico. 184 00:14:02,841 --> 00:14:07,554 The Soviets concluded correctly that the americans were instigating the insurgency. 185 00:14:07,721 --> 00:14:09,348 possibly with help from China. 186 00:14:10,099 --> 00:14:12,393 But they still hesitated to intervene. 187 00:14:13,060 --> 00:14:15,270 Veteran foreign minister Gromyko knew that 188 00:14:23,570 --> 00:14:27,491 With their top heavy bureaucratically ossified economy stagnating, 189 00:14:28,283 --> 00:14:32,079 the Soviets saw arms control as their chance to finally escape 190 00:14:32,538 --> 00:14:34,164 the wartime treadmill. 191 00:14:34,957 --> 00:14:36,375 The provocation worked. 192 00:14:36,792 --> 00:14:40,504 President Brezhnev, a Stalin unimaginative Soviet leader 193 00:14:40,963 --> 00:14:44,675 insisting the war would be over in 3 to 4 weeks, launched 194 00:14:45,134 --> 00:14:50,139 a full scale invasion of 80,000 Soviet troops into Afghanistan 195 00:14:50,681 --> 00:14:52,975 on christmas day 1979. 196 00:14:53,433 --> 00:14:57,020 The inexperienced Carter hyperbolically called the invasion 197 00:14:57,354 --> 00:15:00,440 the greatest threat to world peace since WW2. 198 00:15:02,818 --> 00:15:08,073 A NY Times columnist felt compelled to remind them of the Berlin blockade, 199 00:15:08,615 --> 00:15:12,661 the Korean war, the Suez crisis, Cuban missile crisis, and 200 00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:14,413 the war in Vietnam. 201 00:15:14,997 --> 00:15:19,001 Carter withdrew the US ambassador and took SALT 2 off the table. 202 00:15:19,459 --> 00:15:21,211 He cut trade between the two countries, 203 00:15:21,753 --> 00:15:24,923 banned US athletes from the upcoming Moscow olympics 204 00:15:25,382 --> 00:15:29,094 and sent his defense secretary ... Chinese leaders about 205 00:15:29,511 --> 00:15:30,929 military ties. 206 00:15:31,263 --> 00:15:33,557 He effectively extended the Truman doctrine to the 207 00:15:33,891 --> 00:15:37,394 adjacent Persian gulf region, including Iran 208 00:15:38,270 --> 00:15:41,773 which now would be regarded as a US vital interest. 209 00:15:42,441 --> 00:15:44,818 Muslim nations condemned the Soviet aggression. 210 00:15:45,402 --> 00:15:48,322 Saudi Arabia sent money, and thousands of young muslims 211 00:15:48,780 --> 00:15:52,492 from all over the middle east now began the journey to Afghanistan 212 00:15:52,910 --> 00:15:56,955 for jihad, holy war against the Soviet infidels. 213 00:15:57,748 --> 00:16:01,460 Brzezinski traveled to meet with the dictators of Pakistan and Saudi 214 00:16:01,668 --> 00:16:06,048 Arabia to work out financial and military aid for the holy warriors 215 00:16:06,381 --> 00:16:08,884 who were particularly upset over the Soviet supported 216 00:16:09,217 --> 00:16:13,055 government's reforms to emancipate and educate their women. 217 00:16:13,388 --> 00:16:16,767 Brzezinski has repeatedly denied having any regrets about 218 00:16:17,225 --> 00:16:23,231 fueling Islamic fundamentalism which would blow back against US on 9/11 219 00:16:23,982 --> 00:16:25,943 and plague it for years to come. 220 00:16:26,210 --> 00:16:28,695 because your cause is right and God is on your side. 221 00:16:30,572 --> 00:16:31,406 Later he would say: 222 00:16:31,990 --> 00:16:36,119 What is more important in world history? Taliban or the collapse of 223 00:16:36,578 --> 00:16:40,957 the Soviet empire? Some agitated muslims or the liberation of 224 00:16:41,375 --> 00:16:44,002 central europe and the end of the cold war? 225 00:16:44,670 --> 00:16:45,962 At what price? 226 00:16:59,976 --> 00:17:03,846 In seeking to destroy the Soviet empire, Brzezinski instead destroyed 227 00:17:04,356 --> 00:17:05,774 Jimmy Carter's presidency. 228 00:17:06,441 --> 00:17:09,820 Carter never fulfilled his promise to reduce defense spending 229 00:17:10,237 --> 00:17:13,740 increasing it from 115 billion to 180 billion. 230 00:17:14,199 --> 00:17:18,787 Carter more than doubled the number of warheads aimed at Soviet union. 231 00:17:19,996 --> 00:17:25,127 Carter even repudiated his earlier criticism of the Vietnam war. 232 00:17:25,669 --> 00:17:26,878 Vietnam veterans became 233 00:17:33,969 --> 00:17:39,558 Carter's policies ironically in the end laid the groundwork for the even 234 00:17:39,891 --> 00:17:44,396 more extreme actions that Ronald Reagan would bring to the white house. 235 00:17:45,564 --> 00:17:49,192 It's morning again in America. Today more men and women 236 00:17:49,609 --> 00:17:51,695 will go to work than ever before in our country's history. 237 00:17:53,238 --> 00:17:56,616 With interest rates and inflation down more people are buying new homes 238 00:17:57,617 --> 00:17:59,911 and new families can have confidence in the future. 239 00:18:01,580 --> 00:18:05,250 America today is prouder, and stronger, and better. 240 00:18:06,126 --> 00:18:07,586 Why would we want to return to where we were 241 00:18:08,336 --> 00:18:09,963 less than 4 short years ago? 242 00:18:15,427 --> 00:18:18,513 There's never been a president quite like Ronald Reagan with his 243 00:18:19,055 --> 00:18:23,977 charm, humor, elegant good looks and driving compulsion to 244 00:18:24,394 --> 00:18:27,355 transform America into a conservative fortress. 245 00:18:27,814 --> 00:18:31,067 A foxy home-spun actor turned General Electric pitchman, 246 00:18:31,735 --> 00:18:35,030 Reagan served 8 years as California's governor. 247 00:18:35,447 --> 00:18:38,950 He was underrated by many as a B-actor in Hollywood, 248 00:18:39,409 --> 00:18:43,121 and titled his first autobiography 'where's the rest of me?' 249 00:18:59,304 --> 00:19:06,061 based on his 1942 movie Kings Row, a gothic classic about small town America. 250 00:19:06,645 --> 00:19:12,192 In the film, his legs were amputated by his girlfriend's sadistic surgeon father. 251 00:19:12,859 --> 00:19:18,323 The film marked his transition from new deal liberal to cold war conservative. 252 00:19:19,324 --> 00:19:23,244 He had discovered his missing half in his fight against communism; 253 00:19:24,120 --> 00:19:28,959 a fight that, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, turned him into a highly 254 00:19:29,376 --> 00:19:35,048 public crusader against the red menace as well as a secret FBI informer 255 00:19:35,715 --> 00:19:37,926 who denounced colleagues as communists. 256 00:19:38,677 --> 00:19:42,389 Political consultant Roger Ailes who would later create Fox News, 257 00:19:43,056 --> 00:19:46,643 drawing on tactics he'd developed with Richard Nixon, reminded the 258 00:19:47,102 --> 00:19:51,815 73 year-old Reagan 'he got elected on themes, not details'; 259 00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:55,193 happy thoughts like Morning in America, 260 00:19:55,735 --> 00:20:00,323 or the puritan belief that America was the shining city on a hill. 261 00:20:00,990 --> 00:20:05,578 His critics were 'defeatists who would blame America first' 262 00:20:06,246 --> 00:20:09,082 or there were dark fictional themes such as 263 00:20:09,624 --> 00:20:13,586 We're in greater danger today than we were in the day after Pearl Harbor. 264 00:20:14,003 --> 00:20:18,383 Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country. 265 00:20:18,925 --> 00:20:21,761 The facts never quite mattered if there was a good punch line. 266 00:20:22,262 --> 00:20:25,432 He loved to repeat the story about the Chicago welfare queen 267 00:20:25,849 --> 00:20:30,019 with 80 names, 30 addresses and 12 social security cards 268 00:20:30,562 --> 00:20:33,940 who had a tax-free income of 150,000 dollars. 269 00:20:35,024 --> 00:20:38,319 He preferred films to reading and had visual aids, especially prepared 270 00:20:38,987 --> 00:20:43,158 on issues such as the Soviet threat or the problem in the middle east. 271 00:20:43,908 --> 00:20:47,287 For meetings even with a few people in the room, Reagan would 272 00:20:47,829 --> 00:20:51,666 read his lines like an actor from 3x5 index cards. 273 00:20:52,417 --> 00:20:56,254 At one meeting with US automobile leaders he read from the wrong cards 274 00:20:56,713 --> 00:20:58,673 until he finally caught on. 275 00:20:59,215 --> 00:21:02,510 He liked to go home to his beloved wife Nancy punctually 276 00:21:02,927 --> 00:21:06,973 late in the afternoon, exercise, eat dinner in his pyjamas, watch TV 277 00:21:07,432 --> 00:21:08,600 and be in bed early. 278 00:21:09,184 --> 00:21:13,104 There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, 279 00:21:14,439 --> 00:21:18,234 that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. 280 00:21:19,903 --> 00:21:23,823 General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, 281 00:21:24,908 --> 00:21:28,870 if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 282 00:21:29,829 --> 00:21:38,379 if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. 283 00:21:43,176 --> 00:21:47,680 Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. 284 00:21:49,182 --> 00:21:54,229 Less than 2.5 years later, the wall did indeed come crashing down. 285 00:22:01,778 --> 00:22:06,032 And by 1991 the Soviet empire had collapsed. 286 00:22:07,575 --> 00:22:11,955 The cold war was over. Many credit Reagan with winning it. 287 00:22:12,622 --> 00:22:16,668 Admirers lionized him as the greatest president since WW2, 288 00:22:17,085 --> 00:22:18,628 one of the greatest ever. 289 00:22:19,170 --> 00:22:22,006 But the real story is far more complex. 290 00:22:22,882 --> 00:22:26,928 Reagan left behind a bloody trail of death and destruction, 291 00:22:27,595 --> 00:22:32,183 but also came excruciatingly close to achieving enduring greatness. 292 00:22:33,851 --> 00:22:38,523 Reagan's disengaged style and lack of foreign policy experience left a void that 293 00:22:38,856 --> 00:22:42,902 the administration's anti-communist hawks scrambled to fill. 294 00:22:46,197 --> 00:22:48,032 Leading the pack was William Casey. 295 00:22:48,908 --> 00:22:52,078 The movies could not have invented a man like Casey. 296 00:22:52,954 --> 00:22:55,915 A catholic knight of Malta, he attended mass daily and 297 00:22:56,374 --> 00:22:59,544 proclaimed Christianity to anyone who asked his advice. 298 00:23:00,294 --> 00:23:03,673 Statues of the Virgin Mary filled his mansion on Long Island. 299 00:23:04,465 --> 00:23:08,052 He'd been the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and before that 300 00:23:08,511 --> 00:23:09,804 he'd worked with the OSS. 301 00:23:10,471 --> 00:23:15,601 According to Casey's deputy Robert Gates the Reaganites saw their arrival as a 302 00:23:16,060 --> 00:23:17,270 hostile takeover. 303 00:23:17,687 --> 00:23:22,400 Casey had read Claire Sterling's ... The Terror Network, and was convinced 304 00:23:22,817 --> 00:23:26,112 that Soviet union was behind international terrorism 305 00:23:26,654 --> 00:23:30,700 including the recent assassination attempt on the Polish born Pope 306 00:23:31,576 --> 00:23:32,785 and a fellow catholic. 307 00:23:33,411 --> 00:23:38,458 The head of the CIA's office for Soviet analysis Melvin Goodman 308 00:23:39,125 --> 00:23:43,379 said that much of Sterling's evidence was based on black propaganda 309 00:23:43,921 --> 00:23:49,719 anti-communist allegations that the CIA itself had planted in the european press. 310 00:23:50,303 --> 00:23:53,890 Yet, Casey told analysts that he'd learned more from Sterling than 311 00:23:54,223 --> 00:23:55,433 from all of them. 312 00:23:55,725 --> 00:23:59,896 Al Hague, the hardcore secretary of State, agreed and thought 313 00:24:00,438 --> 00:24:04,609 the Soviets had tried to assassinate him when he was the head of NATO in europe. 314 00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:09,197 Experts knew that the Soviets actually disapproved of terrorism 315 00:24:09,947 --> 00:24:13,576 and had not supported the nihilist terrorist groups of western europe. 316 00:24:14,243 --> 00:24:18,498 But Casey and Gates purged analysts who refused to knuckle under, 317 00:24:18,956 --> 00:24:22,960 crippling the agency in such a way that, when the Soviet union fell apart 318 00:24:23,252 --> 00:24:26,797 later in the decade, the agency was unable to predict it. 319 00:24:27,924 --> 00:24:31,511 At his first press conference using the language of John F. Dulles 320 00:24:31,969 --> 00:24:36,349 and James Forrestal, Reagan quickly reversed almost 2 decades of progress 321 00:24:37,099 --> 00:24:39,602 in easing cold war tensions when he declared 322 00:24:40,270 --> 00:24:46,275 that the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause 323 00:24:46,943 --> 00:24:49,654 meaning they reserve under themselves the right to commit any crime 324 00:24:50,571 --> 00:24:53,616 to lie, to cheat in order to attain that 325 00:24:54,367 --> 00:24:56,911 America's morality, he insisted, was different: 326 00:24:57,662 --> 00:25:02,041 I'd always felt that from our deeds it must be clear to anyone that 327 00:25:02,458 --> 00:25:07,380 Americans were a moral people who had always used our power only as a force 328 00:25:08,047 --> 00:25:09,257 for good in the world. 329 00:25:09,924 --> 00:25:14,595 In reality, Reagan's election encouraged right-wing elites throughout the 3rd world 330 00:25:15,263 --> 00:25:19,642 to take back perceived losses of land or power resulting from 331 00:25:20,184 --> 00:25:22,812 indecisive American leadership since Vietnam. 332 00:25:23,604 --> 00:25:24,897 The methods would be cruel. 333 00:25:25,898 --> 00:25:29,819 The colonel who headed the US advisory team in El Salvador said 334 00:25:35,199 --> 00:25:39,870 an apt description of US leaders' efforts to test their new post-Vietnam 335 00:25:40,454 --> 00:25:44,250 counter-insurgency doctrines and defeat uprisings without 336 00:25:45,042 --> 00:25:47,336 a large commitment of US forces. 337 00:25:49,046 --> 00:25:53,551 Many top Salvadoran, Honduran and Guatemalan army officers were trained 338 00:25:54,093 --> 00:25:58,472 at the US Army School of the Americas in Panama, and then after 1984 339 00:25:58,931 --> 00:26:00,558 Fort Benning in Georgia. 340 00:26:01,017 --> 00:26:04,812 The emphasis on counter-insurgency techniques honed from Vietnam 341 00:26:05,271 --> 00:26:06,230 was expanded. 342 00:26:06,564 --> 00:26:11,277 Visiting neighboring Honduras in 1982 Reagan met with Guatemalan president 343 00:26:11,610 --> 00:26:16,532 gen. Efrain Rios Montt, a born-again evangelical Christian 344 00:26:16,949 --> 00:26:19,368 who'd recently seized power in a coup. 345 00:26:20,036 --> 00:26:23,080 Reagan complained that Montt had received a bum rap: 346 00:26:23,414 --> 00:26:27,043 I know that president Rios Montt is a man of great personal integrity 347 00:26:27,793 --> 00:26:28,878 and commitment. 348 00:26:29,211 --> 00:26:34,341 Roughly 100,000 Mayan peasants living in the region of leftist insurgency 349 00:26:35,134 --> 00:26:39,263 would be killed between 1981 and '83 by the Guatemalan army. 350 00:26:40,473 --> 00:26:44,518 Across the Nicaraguan border in Honduras, former members of 351 00:26:44,852 --> 00:26:48,898 Somoza's thuggish national guard gathered with Casey's assistance. 352 00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:52,818 They plotted a return to power. They called themselves the 353 00:26:53,611 --> 00:26:56,322 counter-revolutionaries or Contras. 354 00:26:57,114 --> 00:27:01,911 The war began in march of 1982. Congress then banned the use of 355 00:27:02,244 --> 00:27:05,080 government funds to overthrow the Sandinista government. 356 00:27:05,623 --> 00:27:12,838 But Casey and NSC official Oliver North concocted a plot right out of WW2 OSS days; 357 00:27:13,964 --> 00:27:20,304 an elaborate, illegal operation aided by Israeli arms dealers. The US sold missiles to 358 00:27:20,721 --> 00:27:26,727 its enemies in Iran at exorbitant prices and used the profits to fund the Contras 359 00:27:27,645 --> 00:27:32,316 with Latin American drug dealers often serving as intermediaries and receiving 360 00:27:32,983 --> 00:27:36,028 easier access to American markets in return. 361 00:27:36,821 --> 00:27:40,950 The 15,000 men Contra army employing kidnapping, torture, 362 00:27:41,534 --> 00:27:46,664 rape and murder, targeted health clinics schools, agricultural cooperatives, 363 00:27:47,206 --> 00:27:48,624 bridges and power stations. 364 00:27:52,461 --> 00:27:55,297 I was aware that resistance was receiving funds directly from 365 00:27:55,631 --> 00:27:59,343 third countries and from private efforts, and I endorsed those 366 00:27:59,552 --> 00:28:03,806 endeavors wholeheartedly. But let me put this in capital letters 367 00:28:04,598 --> 00:28:07,226 I did not know about the diversion of funds. 368 00:28:07,768 --> 00:28:11,689 Reagan and Casey lied to Congress about what the CIA was up to. 369 00:28:12,147 --> 00:28:16,402 According to his deputy Gates, Casey was guilty of contempt of 370 00:28:16,819 --> 00:28:18,571 Congress from the day he was sworn in. 371 00:28:19,238 --> 00:28:22,741 Reagan defended the covert war by saying in 1984: 372 00:28:23,617 --> 00:28:28,956 The Nicaraguan people are trapped in a totalitarian dungeon by a 373 00:28:29,415 --> 00:28:33,669 dictatorship made all the more dangerous by the unwanted 374 00:28:34,128 --> 00:28:39,925 presence of thousands of Cuban, Soviet block and radical Arab helpers. 375 00:28:40,467 --> 00:28:42,219 He went so far as to call the Contras 376 00:28:42,428 --> 00:28:44,513 the moral equivalent of our founding fathers. 377 00:28:45,180 --> 00:28:48,475 His moral equivalence were responsible for most of the 378 00:28:48,892 --> 00:28:53,272 deaths of the 20 to 30,000 Nicaraguan civilians during the war. 379 00:28:53,814 --> 00:28:55,774 Similar atrocities occurred in neighboring 380 00:28:56,233 --> 00:28:59,403 El Salvador, where US trained troops stabbed 381 00:28:59,945 --> 00:29:06,744 de-capitated, raped and machine gunned 767 civilians in the village of El Mozote 382 00:29:07,369 --> 00:29:12,958 in late 1981, including 358 children under age 13. 383 00:29:14,585 --> 00:29:16,003 Congress ended up funneling almost 384 00:29:16,337 --> 00:29:18,964 $6 billion to this tiny country 385 00:29:19,757 --> 00:29:21,592 making it the largest recipient of US 386 00:29:21,925 --> 00:29:24,094 foreign aid per capita in the world. 387 00:29:24,970 --> 00:29:27,598 Wealthy landlords were running the right-wing death squads 388 00:29:28,057 --> 00:29:30,225 that murdered thousands of suspected leftists. 389 00:29:31,226 --> 00:29:33,312 The death toll from the war reached 70,000. 390 00:29:34,730 --> 00:29:36,815 I go, alright, just take her 391 00:29:40,402 --> 00:29:43,822 If you send her back they will kill her, rape her, mutilate her 392 00:29:49,286 --> 00:29:51,121 You don't know what it's like in El Salvador. 393 00:29:51,413 --> 00:29:55,793 The Salvadoran population of US expanded 5 times, to half a million 394 00:29:56,210 --> 00:29:59,254 by 1990, many of these illegal entries. 395 00:29:59,838 --> 00:30:04,301 Yet, Nicaraguan supposedly fleeing communist oppression, if not the 396 00:30:04,843 --> 00:30:08,263 Contra war, were allowed into the US. 397 00:30:09,014 --> 00:30:10,766 Many Salvadorans would turn back. 398 00:30:12,684 --> 00:30:16,522 Bogged down in protracted proxy wars in Nicaragua and 399 00:30:16,855 --> 00:30:21,235 El Salvador, and haunted by the memory of defeat in Vietnam which he called 400 00:30:22,069 --> 00:30:26,782 a noble cause, Reagan hungered for an easy military victory to 401 00:30:27,115 --> 00:30:29,076 restore Americans' self-confidence. 402 00:30:30,953 --> 00:30:36,291 In 1983 a powerful truck bomb set off by the anti-Israeli terrorist 403 00:30:36,834 --> 00:30:40,254 organization Hezbollah, the Al-Qaeda of its time, 404 00:30:40,921 --> 00:30:45,926 blew up a US Marine barracks in Lebanon leaving 241 dead 405 00:30:46,468 --> 00:30:49,638 and dealing another devastating blow to US pride. 406 00:30:50,430 --> 00:30:55,143 Two days later US troops invaded not Lebanon, but Grenada 407 00:30:55,894 --> 00:30:58,730 a tiny Caribbean island with 100,000 inhabitants. 408 00:30:59,815 --> 00:31:02,776 Reagan claimed it was a Soviet-Cuban colony being 409 00:31:03,318 --> 00:31:08,782 readied as a major military bastion to export terror and undermine democracy 410 00:31:09,575 --> 00:31:11,410 We got there just in time. 411 00:31:12,286 --> 00:31:16,790 As in one of his old Westerns, he sent 7,000 american soldiers into battle. 412 00:31:17,666 --> 00:31:22,045 Then in media, supposedly for their own safety, he offered government 413 00:31:22,462 --> 00:31:26,508 footage instead. The entire op was bungled from the start. 414 00:31:27,593 --> 00:31:31,096 19 soldiers died and more than 100 were wounded, as a 415 00:31:31,638 --> 00:31:33,181 small force of poorly armed Cuban 416 00:31:33,599 --> 00:31:35,142 construction workers resisted. 417 00:31:36,018 --> 00:31:37,352 9 helicopters were lost. 418 00:31:38,645 --> 00:31:42,357 The invasion from a military POV was a farce, with the Army 419 00:31:42,816 --> 00:31:48,363 awarding almost 275 medals for valor to 7,000 troops of whom 420 00:31:49,031 --> 00:31:51,992 only about 2500 saw a limited form of combat. 421 00:31:52,993 --> 00:31:55,037 Well lt. what are we waiting for? 422 00:31:56,246 --> 00:32:00,751 Alright you devil dogs let's take this fucking hell 423 00:32:03,253 --> 00:32:07,633 Reagan proudly announced: our days of weakness are over. 424 00:32:08,508 --> 00:32:14,306 our military forces are back on their feet and standing tall. 425 00:32:15,057 --> 00:32:19,436 Halfway across the world, Reagan and Casey transformed Carter's 426 00:32:19,978 --> 00:32:24,483 limited support for the Afghan insurgents into the CIA's largest 427 00:32:25,025 --> 00:32:29,279 covert operation to date, totalling over $3 billion. 428 00:32:30,364 --> 00:32:33,116 They channeled aid through Pakistan's general Zia, 429 00:32:33,658 --> 00:32:37,704 a corrupt dictator who funneled the arms and dollars to the most 430 00:32:38,038 --> 00:32:43,418 extreme Afghan-Islamist faction under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar 431 00:32:43,835 --> 00:32:46,922 a man of legendary cruelty whose forces were rumored to 432 00:32:47,547 --> 00:32:50,717 patrol the bazaars of Kabul throwing viles of acid in the 433 00:32:51,259 --> 00:32:53,595 faces of women not wearing full burkas 434 00:32:54,471 --> 00:32:57,057 and specialized in skinning prisoners alive. 435 00:32:57,849 --> 00:33:03,105 The CIA provided the insurgents between 2000-2500 US made 436 00:33:03,396 --> 00:33:04,606 Stinger missiles. 437 00:33:08,568 --> 00:33:12,155 The US helped both sides in the bloody Iran-Iraq war. 438 00:33:12,739 --> 00:33:17,285 Reagan in 1983 sent special envoy Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad 439 00:33:17,744 --> 00:33:21,039 to re-assure Saddam Hussein of US support. 440 00:33:22,457 --> 00:33:25,085 Under a license from the commerce committee 441 00:33:25,627 --> 00:33:29,881 US companies shipped several strains of anthrax later used in 442 00:33:30,215 --> 00:33:35,470 Iraq's biological weapons program and insecticides for chemical warfare. 443 00:33:37,222 --> 00:33:41,268 As president, Reagan persisted in the scare talk: 444 00:33:41,726 --> 00:33:44,437 So in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals 445 00:33:44,896 --> 00:33:48,150 I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely 446 00:33:48,817 --> 00:33:52,779 declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault 447 00:33:53,738 --> 00:33:56,908 to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an 448 00:33:57,367 --> 00:34:00,620 evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding 449 00:34:01,621 --> 00:34:04,791 and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong 450 00:34:05,458 --> 00:34:08,837 and good and evil. Let us be aware that, while 451 00:34:09,296 --> 00:34:13,091 they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over 452 00:34:13,425 --> 00:34:16,845 individual man and predict its eventual domination of all peoples 453 00:34:17,596 --> 00:34:21,308 on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world. 454 00:34:23,268 --> 00:34:29,274 In late '82, although US was ahead in every meaningful category, he said: 455 00:34:29,858 --> 00:34:35,113 Today, in virtually every measure of military power, the Soviet union 456 00:34:35,530 --> 00:34:37,908 enjoys a decided advantage. 457 00:34:39,034 --> 00:34:44,164 And he amped up the defense spending which, by 1985, had increased 35% 458 00:34:45,165 --> 00:34:47,334 over 1980 expenditures. 459 00:34:48,335 --> 00:34:55,884 The US arsenal now contained 11,200 strategic warheads, to the Soviet's 9,900 460 00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,347 New and upgraded weapon systems rolled off assembly lines including the 461 00:35:01,139 --> 00:35:05,268 long delayed and very costly MX program which moved missiles 462 00:35:05,727 --> 00:35:09,648 around loops that hid their precise location, making them invulnerable 463 00:35:10,190 --> 00:35:11,733 to a Soviet first strike. 464 00:35:12,817 --> 00:35:15,654 Despite massive protests throughout Europe, the US deployed 465 00:35:16,112 --> 00:35:19,824 ground launched cruise missiles to Britain, and Pershing 2 missiles 466 00:35:20,241 --> 00:35:22,661 to west Germany in november '83. 467 00:35:23,662 --> 00:35:28,041 Some Soviet officials were convinced that a US attack was imminent 468 00:35:28,458 --> 00:35:32,087 as relations reached their lowest point in more than 2 decades. 469 00:35:32,504 --> 00:35:36,800 To finance this, he slashed federal support for discretionary programs 470 00:35:37,217 --> 00:35:41,679 effectively transferring 70 billion from domestic programs to the military. 471 00:35:42,263 --> 00:35:44,307 He waged war on labor and the poor: 472 00:35:44,766 --> 00:35:48,019 If they do not report for work within 48 hours, they have 473 00:35:48,478 --> 00:35:51,231 forfeited their jobs and will be terminated. 474 00:35:51,773 --> 00:35:55,026 busting the Air Traffic Controllers union, meanwhile giving 475 00:35:55,610 --> 00:35:56,903 elegant parties in the white house 476 00:35:57,445 --> 00:35:58,988 for his millionaire friends. 477 00:35:59,614 --> 00:36:02,367 A sense of the 1890's Gilded Age, 478 00:36:03,034 --> 00:36:07,163 the Four Hundred of American Society returned to Washington. 479 00:36:08,623 --> 00:36:14,087 In june of '82 almost a million people rallied against the arms 480 00:36:14,504 --> 00:36:16,589 race in NY City's Central Park. 481 00:36:17,549 --> 00:36:21,928 Among them was a young Colombia undergraduate named Barack Obama. 482 00:36:23,138 --> 00:36:24,556 The movement unnerved Reagan 483 00:36:25,348 --> 00:36:26,891 who saw it as a serious threat 484 00:36:27,308 --> 00:36:28,601 to his re-election. 485 00:36:35,191 --> 00:36:40,196 Despite all his bluster, Reagan too feared the possibility of war 486 00:36:40,655 --> 00:36:44,909 which he associated with the biblical armageddon. After 487 00:36:45,451 --> 00:36:50,707 watching the enormously popular 1983 ABC tv movie The Day After 488 00:36:51,374 --> 00:36:53,001 Reagan wrote in his diary that it 489 00:37:10,852 --> 00:37:14,981 Whether influenced by his wife or her astrologer we don't know, 490 00:37:15,523 --> 00:37:18,818 but concerned about the bad blood he may have engendered 491 00:37:19,694 --> 00:37:22,530 Reagan began to rethink his approach to the Soviet union. 492 00:37:23,197 --> 00:37:24,532 He later wrote in his memoirs: 493 00:37:25,491 --> 00:37:29,537 3 years had taught me something surprising about the Russians. 494 00:37:30,538 --> 00:37:35,001 Many were genuinely afraid of America and Americans. 495 00:37:35,793 --> 00:37:40,048 Incredibly, if this diary is to be believed, it had never dawned 496 00:37:41,132 --> 00:37:44,844 on president Reagan that the Soviets might indeed fear a 497 00:37:45,303 --> 00:37:46,512 US first strike. 498 00:37:49,015 --> 00:37:52,852 Hoping possibly to appease the growing anti-nuclear sentiment 499 00:37:53,269 --> 00:37:59,067 in march of 1983, Reagan proposed the strategic defense initiative, SDI 500 00:37:59,525 --> 00:38:04,113 a space-based defense shield around the nation itself; 501 00:38:04,530 --> 00:38:06,824 or as his critics called it, Star Wars. 502 00:38:07,408 --> 00:38:10,578 It isn't about retaliation, it's about prevention. 503 00:38:11,204 --> 00:38:13,289 It isn't about fear, it's about hope. 504 00:38:14,082 --> 00:38:16,918 And in that struggle, if you'll pardon my stealing a film line, 505 00:38:17,543 --> 00:38:19,212 the force is with us. 506 00:38:20,088 --> 00:38:22,256 The fantasy of star wars became an enormously expensive 507 00:38:22,924 --> 00:38:24,550 anti-ballistic missile system. 508 00:38:24,884 --> 00:38:29,263 Despite the fact that no such Soviet project existed, the pentagon had 509 00:38:29,722 --> 00:38:33,643 begun research in the 1970s to counter a supposed Soviet 510 00:38:34,060 --> 00:38:36,354 breakthrough in energy beam weaponry. 511 00:38:53,996 --> 00:38:58,084 In march of 1985, an extraordinary development changed 512 00:38:58,376 --> 00:38:59,585 the course of history. 513 00:39:00,253 --> 00:39:05,049 A 54 year-old agricultural expert like Henry Wallace years before 514 00:39:05,633 --> 00:39:09,011 Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet union. 515 00:39:09,554 --> 00:39:14,475 Like Khrushchev, he had survived with his diplomacy, with luck 516 00:39:15,017 --> 00:39:19,188 and with a rare degree of honesty, a brutal obstacle course of inefficiency 517 00:39:19,605 --> 00:39:20,815 and lies. 518 00:39:21,357 --> 00:39:24,402 He'd travelled wildly in the west and, like Khrushchev, sought above all 519 00:39:24,944 --> 00:39:26,487 to improve the lifes of his people. 520 00:39:27,488 --> 00:39:29,782 He saw the problem with clarity. 521 00:39:30,658 --> 00:39:33,828 To achieve parity with the US, the Soviets were spending nearly 522 00:39:34,370 --> 00:39:37,874 a quarter of their gross domestic product on defense. 523 00:39:38,416 --> 00:39:41,377 Defense production consumed a highly disproportionate amount 524 00:39:41,794 --> 00:39:43,129 of the Soviet budget. 525 00:39:43,754 --> 00:39:48,050 Their planned economy, which had stagnated since the late 1970s, 526 00:39:48,384 --> 00:39:51,971 was run by a military-industrial academic establishment 527 00:39:52,638 --> 00:39:54,056 immune from reality. 528 00:39:54,515 --> 00:39:58,769 To revitalize society, he knew he would have to slash military spending. 529 00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:03,691 Gorbachev set out to end the arms race and redeploy resources. 530 00:40:04,567 --> 00:40:07,278 He also took steps to end the war in Afghanistan, 531 00:40:07,945 --> 00:40:12,742 a conflict, he thought, from the beginning was a fatal error and a bleeding wound. 532 00:40:14,619 --> 00:40:17,788 As a very young man he'd witnessed the horrors of war, 533 00:40:18,122 --> 00:40:21,959 and in a series of extraordinary letters to Reagan proposed, 534 00:40:22,501 --> 00:40:27,632 like Henry Wallace 40 years earlier, friendship and peaceful competition. 535 00:40:29,383 --> 00:40:31,469 Reagan responded encouragingly. 536 00:40:35,389 --> 00:40:38,893 The two leaders met for the first time in Geneva in november '85 537 00:40:39,769 --> 00:40:42,939 connecting on a human level, if not a political one. 538 00:40:44,148 --> 00:40:47,318 Gorbachev continued writing letters through 1986 calling for 539 00:40:47,735 --> 00:40:50,905 the elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2000. 540 00:40:51,906 --> 00:40:53,866 It didn't change Reagan's mindset. 541 00:40:54,742 --> 00:40:58,579 The US announced plans for a new series of nuclear tests and 542 00:40:58,913 --> 00:41:02,291 increased support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan. 543 00:41:04,460 --> 00:41:10,383 In oct. '86 Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavik, Iceland 544 00:41:11,467 --> 00:41:16,055 The 2 leaders would come within a few words of changing history forever. 545 00:41:18,265 --> 00:41:22,645 Gorbachev offered a stunningly bold set of disarmament proposals. 546 00:41:23,396 --> 00:41:27,733 Even Paul Nitze, who had done so much to harm relations 547 00:41:28,234 --> 00:41:32,446 between 2 countries, observed that the Soviet proposal was 548 00:41:37,493 --> 00:41:41,539 Nitze and secretary of State George Schultz urged Reagan to accept a 549 00:41:41,956 --> 00:41:43,833 sweeping arms control deal. 550 00:41:45,042 --> 00:41:49,088 Reagan turned to hardliner Richard Perle who feared such 551 00:41:49,422 --> 00:41:51,382 a deal would strengthen the Soviet economy. 552 00:41:52,341 --> 00:41:56,303 Perle warned that the agreement would effectively kill Reagan's SDI 553 00:41:56,971 --> 00:41:58,139 or Star Wars plan. 554 00:41:58,806 --> 00:42:03,728 Perle and other advisors knew Reagan's vision of SDI was a pipe dream, 555 00:42:04,270 --> 00:42:07,982 a fantasy. Only Reagan believed it would work. 556 00:42:08,566 --> 00:42:13,154 When negotiations stalled, Gorbachev urged Reagan to act boldly. 557 00:42:13,779 --> 00:42:17,950 Reagan shocked observers, 'it would be fine' he said, 'if we eliminated 558 00:42:18,409 --> 00:42:22,204 all nuclear weapons'. Schultz agreed: let's do it. 559 00:42:22,997 --> 00:42:28,002 Gorbachev said he was ready to eliminate nuclear weapons if Reagan restricted SDI 560 00:42:28,544 --> 00:42:31,505 testing to the laboratory for 10 years. 561 00:42:32,923 --> 00:42:36,760 Gorbachev and Soviet scientists knew that SDI would do nothing to 562 00:42:37,219 --> 00:42:41,932 protect US from a full scale Soviet attack, but feared 563 00:42:42,475 --> 00:42:46,937 US moves to weaponize space and recoiled at the thought of giving up 564 00:42:47,271 --> 00:42:53,152 the anti-ballistic missile treaty, the only tangible constraint upon the arms race. 565 00:43:08,918 --> 00:43:13,297 Reagan explained that confining tests to the laboratory would damage him 566 00:43:13,839 --> 00:43:17,218 politically at home. They had reached an impasse. 567 00:43:19,303 --> 00:43:23,891 The meeting ended. As they were leaving the building Gorbachev tried one last time 568 00:43:24,433 --> 00:43:28,312 Mr. president, I'm prepared to go back inside right now and sign 569 00:43:28,938 --> 00:43:34,944 the documents we already agreed upon if you drop your plans to militarize space. 570 00:43:35,611 --> 00:43:38,989 Reagan answered reportedly: I'm very sorry. 571 00:43:40,199 --> 00:43:44,995 The US and Russia had come within a hair's breadth of beginning the 572 00:43:45,454 --> 00:43:48,207 process of eliminating nuclear weapons 573 00:43:48,958 --> 00:43:55,631 thwarted by a Star Wars fantasy, that had hardly entered the lab. in 1986. 574 00:43:57,049 --> 00:44:01,637 Gorbachev was furious and blamed the failure on Reagan's plan to exhaust 575 00:44:02,638 --> 00:44:06,767 the Soviet union economically through an arms race the US 576 00:44:07,434 --> 00:44:12,481 subsequently spent well over $100 billion, with final cost projected 577 00:44:12,898 --> 00:44:14,316 to exceed $1 trillion. 578 00:44:15,317 --> 00:44:18,696 With the issue of multiple decoys overwhelming this system, 579 00:44:19,154 --> 00:44:25,035 among other issues, the creation of an effective Strategic Defensive Initiative 580 00:44:25,828 --> 00:44:29,540 to this day is still highy uncertain. 581 00:44:31,375 --> 00:44:35,754 Both sides hoped to revive the talks, but before that could happen 582 00:44:36,296 --> 00:44:40,259 a scandal that same month rocked Reagan's administration. 583 00:44:41,427 --> 00:44:46,140 In oct. of '86 a cargo plane was shot down over at Nicaragua 584 00:44:47,224 --> 00:44:50,519 the only survivor admitted it was a CIA operation. 585 00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:55,649 Congressional hearings revealed an administration up to its eyeballs 586 00:44:56,108 --> 00:45:00,904 in illegality, corruption, blundering and subterfuge involving American 587 00:45:01,238 --> 00:45:06,618 hostages in Lebanon, arms sales to both Iraq and Iran, ill-fated attempts 588 00:45:07,036 --> 00:45:12,708 to cultivate non-existent moderates in Tehran and collaboration with a 589 00:45:13,167 --> 00:45:18,630 whole set of unsavory characters including Manuel Noriega in Panama. 590 00:45:20,257 --> 00:45:24,094 In a flagrant violation on Congress' ban on government support to 591 00:45:24,553 --> 00:45:26,388 overthrowing the Nicaraguan government, 592 00:45:27,473 --> 00:45:29,892 Americans also learned that the CIA mined 593 00:45:30,559 --> 00:45:34,480 Nicaraguan harbors which provoked the conservative icon 594 00:45:35,147 --> 00:45:38,233 sen. Barry Goldwater to scold Bill Casey 595 00:45:38,984 --> 00:45:42,905 I'm pissed off, he wrote, this is an act of violating international law 596 00:45:43,572 --> 00:45:44,865 it's an act of war. 597 00:45:45,532 --> 00:45:50,913 Details of the murky convoluted operation consumed much of Reagan's last 2 years. 598 00:45:51,538 --> 00:45:56,043 Pathetically he told a news conference that he was not fully informed of the 599 00:45:56,919 --> 00:46:01,423 Iran policy, one aspect of which was seriously flawed. 600 00:46:04,259 --> 00:46:07,638 that so much of this can go on and the president not know it, 601 00:46:08,180 --> 00:46:10,599 he is the president of the US, why doesn't he know? 602 00:46:11,141 --> 00:46:12,559 because somebody didn't tell him, that's why 603 00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:19,024 It was apparent that he had little grasp of and less control over 604 00:46:19,441 --> 00:46:21,193 what his underlings were up to: 605 00:46:21,860 --> 00:46:24,821 A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade 606 00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:28,951 arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me 607 00:46:29,493 --> 00:46:33,455 that's true. But the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. 608 00:46:33,997 --> 00:46:38,252 As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran 609 00:46:39,127 --> 00:46:43,966 deteriorated in its implementation into trading arms for hostages. 610 00:46:44,925 --> 00:46:48,095 This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy 611 00:46:48,762 --> 00:46:51,056 and to the original strategy we had in mind. 612 00:46:51,932 --> 00:46:56,853 There are reasons why it happened. But no excuses. It was a mistake. 613 00:46:57,396 --> 00:47:01,650 As an apology, it wouldn't have worked for Nixon. But, perhaps 614 00:47:02,109 --> 00:47:05,612 Ronald Reagan had too kindly an aura to have to defend himself 615 00:47:06,154 --> 00:47:07,572 much less go to prison. 616 00:47:08,115 --> 00:47:10,659 And the Washington establishment apparently concluded that 617 00:47:11,410 --> 00:47:15,789 the country could not withstand another impeachment or forced resignation 618 00:47:16,331 --> 00:47:18,709 and thus, allowed Reagan to serve out his term. 619 00:47:19,584 --> 00:47:21,670 He left office a befuddled old man. 620 00:47:23,005 --> 00:47:24,965 His subordinates were not so lucky. 621 00:47:26,049 --> 00:47:28,343 Among those convicted of crimes were 622 00:47:29,011 --> 00:47:30,971 2 national security advisors, one of whom 623 00:47:31,430 --> 00:47:34,057 attempted suicide, as well as Oliver North 624 00:47:35,017 --> 00:47:37,853 and asst. secretary of State Elliott Abrams 625 00:47:38,645 --> 00:47:41,481 who would re-emerge in the 2nd Bush administration. 626 00:47:42,232 --> 00:47:44,651 Defense secretary Weinberger, Abrams and 627 00:47:45,110 --> 00:47:49,990 several others were convicted or indicted, but pardoned by the next president. 628 00:47:50,782 --> 00:47:55,704 The CIA director cheated his fate, dying of a brain tumor the day after 629 00:47:56,121 --> 00:47:57,664 the hearings began. 630 00:47:58,206 --> 00:48:02,794 Vice-president George Bush managed to avoid prosecution. He insisted he was 631 00:48:06,423 --> 00:48:11,094 but in his private diary, which he never thought he'd be forced to release, 632 00:48:12,012 --> 00:48:14,514 he admitted before the scandal began to break 633 00:48:20,103 --> 00:48:24,900 As a result, the independent council's final report noted the criminal 634 00:48:25,233 --> 00:48:28,612 investigation of Bush was regrettably incomplete. 635 00:48:31,698 --> 00:48:35,827 In the midst of this sordid affair Gorbachev wanting to salvage 636 00:48:36,286 --> 00:48:40,415 something came to Washington in dec. '87 and signed the 637 00:48:40,832 --> 00:48:45,086 intermediate range nuclear forces treaty, a major milestone. 638 00:48:45,962 --> 00:48:50,801 It was the first agreement ever to destroy an entire class of nuclear weapons 639 00:48:51,968 --> 00:48:55,180 one in which the Soviet union had superiority. 640 00:48:58,350 --> 00:49:02,854 In Afghanistan, Soviet withdrawal began in may 1988. 641 00:49:03,730 --> 00:49:08,652 When the Soviets sought it out the US on collaborating to curb Islamic extremism 642 00:49:09,194 --> 00:49:13,365 the US, having achieved its goals, washed its hands of the problems 643 00:49:13,782 --> 00:49:15,325 that it had helped to create. 644 00:49:23,625 --> 00:49:28,547 Up to 20,000 Arabs had flooded into Pakistan to join the jihad 645 00:49:29,089 --> 00:49:30,632 against the Soviet infidels, 646 00:49:31,716 --> 00:49:34,886 among them a very young Saudi construction heir 647 00:49:35,428 --> 00:49:39,933 able to support an army of volunteers, Osama Bin Ladin. 648 00:49:40,684 --> 00:49:43,770 Thousands more flocked to Pakistan's madrasas where 649 00:49:44,187 --> 00:49:48,024 they were indoctrinated in radical Islam and recruited for jihad 650 00:49:48,775 --> 00:49:53,488 often with books produced in Omaha, Nebraska, with USAID funding 651 00:49:54,155 --> 00:49:56,199 and distributed by the CIA. 652 00:49:58,159 --> 00:50:03,415 The Saudi's in the 1980s spent $75 billion to spread their brand of 653 00:50:04,082 --> 00:50:06,251 Wahabi extremism. 654 00:50:07,294 --> 00:50:09,796 A million Afghans had died in the war. 655 00:50:10,213 --> 00:50:15,051 5 million, 1/3 of the population had fled to Pakistan and Iran. 656 00:50:15,677 --> 00:50:21,391 In the late '80s Islamists linked to Pakistani intelligence seized control 657 00:50:21,808 --> 00:50:23,018 of Afghanistan. 658 00:50:23,560 --> 00:50:28,481 One Rand Corp. analyst said that the US had to throw the worst crazies 659 00:50:29,024 --> 00:50:33,069 against the Soviets. The reason we don't have moderate leaders in 660 00:50:33,528 --> 00:50:37,365 Afghanistan today is because we let the nuts kill them all. 661 00:50:38,450 --> 00:50:41,494 Among the victims of these American armed and trained fanatics 662 00:50:42,370 --> 00:50:46,207 were Afghan women who were driven back into the dark ages. 663 00:50:47,751 --> 00:50:51,463 Warned repeatedly that the fanaticism he was unleashing would threaten 664 00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:57,177 US interests, Bill Casey insisted the partnership between Christianity 665 00:50:57,635 --> 00:50:59,262 and Islam would endure, 666 00:51:00,055 --> 00:51:03,975 and in the spring of 1985 even backed the mujahideen 667 00:51:04,392 --> 00:51:06,269 cross-border raids into the Soviet union 668 00:51:07,270 --> 00:51:10,857 and the hopes inciting Soviet muslims to revolt. 669 00:51:13,693 --> 00:51:18,615 Although Reagan left office in near disgrace, conservatives have annointed him 670 00:51:19,074 --> 00:51:23,661 as one the nation's great presidents crediting him with restoring America's 671 00:51:24,204 --> 00:51:30,752 faith in itself, after the failed presidencies of Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter. 672 00:51:31,961 --> 00:51:34,506 But, what is Reagan's real legacy? 673 00:51:35,256 --> 00:51:38,426 Once a Roosevelt democrat, he developed an extreme contempt 674 00:51:38,968 --> 00:51:40,929 for government that was legendary. 675 00:51:41,513 --> 00:51:45,308 Yet, he spent enormous sums on the military while cutting social 676 00:51:45,767 --> 00:51:47,268 programs for the poor. 677 00:51:47,936 --> 00:51:49,479 He reduced taxes on the wealthy, 678 00:51:49,896 --> 00:51:53,108 doubled both the military budget and the national debt, 679 00:51:53,608 --> 00:51:57,237 and in a revolutionary change transformed the US from the 680 00:51:57,779 --> 00:52:02,033 world's leading creditor nation in 1981 into the biggest debtor nation 681 00:52:02,700 --> 00:52:04,369 by 1985. 682 00:52:04,786 --> 00:52:08,373 He deregulated industries, eroded environmental standards, 683 00:52:08,832 --> 00:52:12,669 defiantly ripping down the solar panels that Jimmy Carter had put 684 00:52:13,002 --> 00:52:14,212 on the white house roof, 685 00:52:14,838 --> 00:52:17,799 weakened the middle class, busted unions, 686 00:52:18,341 --> 00:52:21,427 heightened the racial divides, widened the gap between 687 00:52:21,761 --> 00:52:22,929 rich and poor 688 00:52:23,596 --> 00:52:27,433 greed, for lack of a better word, is good 689 00:52:27,851 --> 00:52:31,604 and abetted companies in shipping manufacturing jobs abroad. 690 00:52:32,564 --> 00:52:35,942 He deregulated savings and loans institutions, which led to the 691 00:52:36,526 --> 00:52:40,113 first giant too-big-to-fail government bail-outs of 692 00:52:40,655 --> 00:52:43,741 troubled banks, and failed savings and loans which by 693 00:52:44,492 --> 00:52:46,995 1995 would cost the taxpayers 694 00:52:47,787 --> 00:52:49,956 87 billion dollars. 695 00:52:51,583 --> 00:52:56,504 Under the guise of privatization and Reagan's extolling of market's forces 696 00:52:57,380 --> 00:53:02,093 Wall st. went on an enormous greed-is-good looting binge 697 00:53:02,552 --> 00:53:07,557 that resulted in oct. 1987 in the worst stock market collapse 698 00:53:08,099 --> 00:53:09,559 since the great depression. 699 00:53:11,060 --> 00:53:17,317 In a parting gift to future conservatives in 1987 the FCC, with Reagan's help, 700 00:53:17,859 --> 00:53:21,029 repealed the fairness doctrine which had required broadcasters 701 00:53:21,696 --> 00:53:26,826 since 1940's to give adequate and fair coverage to opposing views 702 00:53:27,243 --> 00:53:29,120 on issues of public importance. 703 00:53:32,081 --> 00:53:36,461 As a result, Rush Limbaugh and talk radio exploded on the scene 704 00:53:37,086 --> 00:53:38,630 finding a massive audience. 705 00:53:39,172 --> 00:53:42,008 This and the gradual loosening of the limitations on the number 706 00:53:42,467 --> 00:53:46,721 of stations a company could own had, by 1996, enabled the growth 707 00:53:47,055 --> 00:53:49,223 of a right-wing media empire. 708 00:53:49,891 --> 00:53:54,187 With it came a number of interlocked well-funded conservative think tanks 709 00:53:54,604 --> 00:53:58,191 that helped shape a new Washington group think. 710 00:53:59,567 --> 00:54:02,862 Playing up fears, resentments and hatred of government by the end 711 00:54:03,154 --> 00:54:07,116 of the '90s Clear Channel, Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, 712 00:54:07,867 --> 00:54:11,037 Talk Radio Network, Salem Radio, 713 00:54:11,913 --> 00:54:14,999 the USA Radio Network, and Radio America 714 00:54:15,666 --> 00:54:19,796 as well as the proliferation of cable TV networks had created 715 00:54:20,463 --> 00:54:23,299 a movement that would dramatically lower the standards of 716 00:54:23,758 --> 00:54:25,802 Amerian political discourse, and 717 00:54:26,469 --> 00:54:30,098 in general doomed prospects for progressive change. 718 00:54:30,723 --> 00:54:35,103 The Hoover institution at Stanford a respected conservative mecca 719 00:54:35,645 --> 00:54:40,233 described Reagan as a man whose spirit seems to stride over the country 720 00:54:40,900 --> 00:54:43,319 watching us like a warm and friendly ghost. 721 00:54:43,986 --> 00:54:47,365 Even democratic presidents like Clinton and Obama, whether 722 00:54:47,907 --> 00:54:52,411 pandering to conservative forces or suffering from historical amnesia, 723 00:54:52,703 --> 00:54:57,500 would bow to pressure to flaunt their religiosity, extol the virtues of 724 00:54:58,167 --> 00:55:02,421 a free capitalist market place, perpetuate the myth of the universal 725 00:55:03,089 --> 00:55:07,051 middle class and trumpet the notion of American exceptionalism. 726 00:55:07,927 --> 00:55:11,430 They would feed the insaitable appetite of the military-industrial 727 00:55:12,056 --> 00:55:16,435 complex, expand the search for threatening enemies at home and 728 00:55:16,894 --> 00:55:21,482 abroad, and move heaven and earth to maintain the resulting empire. 729 00:55:23,109 --> 00:55:28,698 Even in Nicaragua, those scolded Reagan won the long contra war, wrecking its 730 00:55:29,031 --> 00:55:33,161 economy and exhausting the local population who would soon lose faith 731 00:55:33,744 --> 00:55:37,123 in the Sandinista's ability to bring progress to the country. 732 00:55:38,082 --> 00:55:40,960 By 1990, the religious pro-Washington candidate 733 00:55:41,377 --> 00:55:44,547 helped by US funding as well as its embargo 734 00:55:45,089 --> 00:55:47,174 triumphed in a democratic election 735 00:55:47,717 --> 00:55:53,389 allowed by the supposedly communist Sandinistas who stepped aside peacefully. 736 00:55:55,057 --> 00:55:58,769 As far as Reagan's much ... role in winning the cold war, 737 00:55:59,687 --> 00:56:02,607 the lion's share of credit goes to Mikhail Gorbachev, 738 00:56:03,482 --> 00:56:06,569 a true visionary, and it turns out the real democrat. 739 00:56:07,111 --> 00:56:11,782 If Reagan had entered into the sincere partnership offered by Gorbachev 740 00:56:12,366 --> 00:56:14,869 as Roosevelt did with Stalin in WW2 741 00:56:15,620 --> 00:56:17,496 the world would have been transformed. 742 00:56:18,164 --> 00:56:21,876 But Ronald Reagan, at the least, let the chance to rid the world of 743 00:56:22,209 --> 00:56:25,922 nuclear weapons slip through his fingers because he wouldn't 744 00:56:26,255 --> 00:56:28,424 let go of a space fantasy. 745 00:56:29,508 --> 00:56:34,680 Appreciating Gorbachev's extraordinary effort, the leading Soviet expert on US 746 00:56:35,014 --> 00:56:40,353 warned his American counterparts: We will do the most horrible thing to you. 747 00:56:41,020 --> 00:56:43,572 We will leave you without an enemy. 748 00:56:44,065 --> 00:56:46,025 Unfortunately, he was wrong. 749 00:56:46,609 --> 00:56:48,569 We're dealing with Hitler revisited. 750 00:56:48,986 --> 00:56:53,783 A totalitarianism and a brutality that is naked and unprecedented 751 00:56:54,784 --> 00:56:56,202 in modern times. 752 00:56:56,744 --> 00:56:59,622 And that must not stand.