Power, Lost and Found: America At Century’s End 533before his trial. Although several laws had been broken and the American
people had come to doubt the honesty and integrity of their President, most
accepted Reagan’s claim of good intentions, that his actions were done in the
interest of national security, or that old age had caught up with him and he
had become forgetful. By the end of his presidency, most had come to believe,
mistakenly, that Reagan had restored the American economy, brought the
“Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union to its knees, and made the U.S. the world’s
biggest “Superpower” once more.
Reagan’s Military-Industrial Complex
Reagan and conservatives, in the aftermath of the 1960s, gained great support
by attacking “big government,” the idea that the state had a role and respon-
sibility in spending money and creating programs to make life better, as in
anti-poverty laws or even civil rights. But in one area, the right-wing was
stridently pro-government, as always, and that was military spending. Just as
FIGuRE 10-9 President Reagan in Robert McFarlane’s office with Adolfo
Calero, a Nicaraguan Democratic Resistance (Contra) leader, and Oliver
North, April 1985