How Reagan Brought the World to the Brink of Nuclear Destruction

AlterNet / By Tad Daley

How Reagan Brought the World to the Brink of Nuclear Destruction
Reagan nearly started a nuclear war. It was everyday citizens, protesting the insanity of nuclear brinkmanship, who stopped him.

February 7, 2011 |


As Ronald Reagan is lionized this month to commemorate the centennial of his birth, it ought to be recalled that Reagan’s presidency brought America and the world to the brink of infinite peril. President Reagan’s nuclear buildup and nuclear saber-rattling so increased the temperatures inside the pressure cooker of the Cold War that it seemed likely to blow its lid at any moment – splattering everyone standing in the kitchen of Planet Earth. In retrospect, what might have done more than anything else to prevent such an atomic eruption was much the same thing we are seeing in Tahrir Square in Egypt at this very hour. A million outraged citizens, gathering together in one of the most important public spaces in the land, and saying, simply, "no more."

Ronald Reagan was perhaps the fiercest military and nuclear hawk ever to occupy the Oval Office. He may well have believed, as some of my nuclear abolitionist colleagues are pointing out this month, that the elimination of all nuclear weapons was a desirable and achievable goal. Yes, he did say, more than once, "our dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth."

But his nuclear policy rhetoric and actions, both prior to and during his first term in office, might well have banished all life from earth instead.

Before he assumed the presidency, Ronald Reagan said "the day of Armageddon isn't far off. ... Ezekiel says that fire and brimstone will be rained down upon the enemies of God's people. That must mean that they'll be destroyed by nuclear weapons." He told voters that American national interests would best be served if the United States proceeded to build and deploy several new kinds of nuclear weapons and delivery systems -- the B-1 bomber, the neutron bomb, the Trident nuclear submarine, and the MX nuclear missile. He denounced Soviet leaders as "monsters" and "godless communists." He attacked the SALT II treaty signed by President Jimmy Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev as "an act of appeasement." Indeed, prior to assuming the presidency, Ronald Reagan had opposed every single nuclear arms control agreement negotiated since the dawn of the nuclear age. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/news/149821/how_reagan_brought_the_world_to_the_brink_of_nuclear_destruction/