An American History

1068 ★ CHAPTER 26 The Triumph of Conservatism

Gorbachev realized that significant

change would be impossible without

reducing his country’s military budget.

Reagan was ready to negotiate. A series

of talks between 1985 and 1987 yielded

more progress on arms control than in

the entire postwar period to that point,

including an agreement to eliminate

intermediate- and short- range nuclear

missiles in Europe. In 1988, Gorbachev

began pulling Soviet troops out of

Afghanistan. Having entered office as

an ardent Cold Warrior, Reagan left

with hostilities between the super-

powers much diminished. He even

repudiated his earlier comment that

the Soviet Union was an “evil empire,”

saying that it referred to “another era.”

Reagan’s Legacy

Reagan’s presidency revealed the contra-

dictions at the heart of modern con-

servatism. In some ways, the Reagan

Revolution undermined the very values and institutions conservatives held

dear. Intended to discourage reliance on government handouts by rewarding

honest work and business initiative, Reagan’s policies inspired a speculative

frenzy that enriched architects of corporate takeovers and investors in the stock

market while leaving in their wake plant closings, job losses, and devastated

communities. Nothing proved more threatening to local traditions or family

stability than deindustrialization, insecurity about employment, and the relent-

less downward pressure on wages. Nothing did more to undermine a sense of

common national purpose than the widening gap between rich and poor.

Because of the Iran- Contra scandal and the enormous deficits the govern-

ment had accumulated, Reagan left the presidency with his reputation some-

what tarnished. Nonetheless, few figures have so successfully changed the

landscape and language of politics. Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush,

defeated Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, in the 1988 election

partly because Dukakis could not respond effectively to the charge that he was

a “liberal”—now a term of political abuse. Conservative assumptions about

the virtues of the free market and the evils of “big government” dominated the

President Reagan visited Moscow in 1988,
cementing his close relationship with Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev. They were photo-
graphed in Red Square.