Reagan’s War Stories: A Cold War Presidency. Benjamin Griffin. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022.

While many aspects of Ronald Reagan’s legacy continue to be hotly debated in the more than thirty years since he left the White House as President of the United States, one facet that is widely agreed upon is that the vast majority of his time and attention during his tenure was focused on strengthening U.S. forces vis-à-vis their paramount Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union. In Reagan’s War Stories: A Cold War Presidency, Benjamin Griffin deftly analyzes the impact of popular culture on the decisions Reagan made that directly impacted upon the course of the Cold War. Griffin uses a plethora of primary and secondary sources to craft a convincing argument that Reagan, who has been considered by some contemporaries and historians alike as an “intellectual lightweight,” was, in actuality, laser focused on improving the U.S. position against the Soviet Union, effectively using popular culture, especially as conveyed through novels in the current zeitgeist, to help his platform resonate with the general public.[1]

Reagan was infamous for boiling down a complex argument into an easily digestible, if not always accurate, summation. Griffin argues throughout the book that Reagan was highly impressionable, particularly through novels and movies, and that he leaned on these resources to help him make decisions over the course of his life. Reagan’s War Stories can essentially be broken down into three main areas, all of which are novels, movies, or genres of fiction Griffin argues shaped Reagan’s perception and would weigh heavily in his decision-making during his time in public office, at times even more so than formal reports or briefings.

The first novels in question were the books Reagan enjoyed as a youth, particularly the John Carter books by Edgar Burroughs, a science fiction series incredibly popular during Reagan’s childhood, along with other significant books such as That Printer of Udell’s by Harold Bell Wright. Griffin argues that the strong characters, virtuous plot lines, and prevailing savior tropes resonated with Reagan, who lacked a reliable father figure in his life. This is not a groundbreaking or earth shattering observation, and it is a link that any amateur psychologist could make. However, what makes this book special and worthwhile is how Griffin ties the impact of these novels on a young Reagan’s psyche to his actions as president. An example of how these novels led to Reagan’s decisions later in life is when Griffin ascribes Reagan’s continued support of futuristic technology to the initial exposure he received on the subject from his reading of Burroughs as a youth. Griffin argues these works would play a major role in the eventual culmination of the Cold War, when Reagan would announce his support for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI); science fiction novels from his childhood would “help Reagan conceptualize the impact of technology, a technique he saw as perfectly reasonable.”[2]

The second focus area is an entire genre that profoundly formed Reagan’s vision of the world: the western. Reagan’s love for western movies such as Stanley Kramer’s High Noon and books by the former president’s favorite author, the award winning Louis L’Amour, was well known and documented.[3] Griffin argues authors such as L’Amour were able to create an engaging story where the “good guys” were easily identifiable through their virtues and actions and were always pitted in a battle with “bad guys,” who were inherently and obviously villainous and evil. These tendencies would replicate themselves in Reagan’s actions as president, often through his misguided attempts at over-simplifying complex and nuanced situations that in reality required skillful diplomatic resolution.

Griffin illustrates how instead of such a thoughtful approach, Reagan viewed such situations as America being right (in the manner of the heroes of his favorite western novels) and countries such as El Salvador and Nicaragua being wrong.[4] Griffin also ties these decisions into Reagan’s admiration of heroes such as the eponymous John Carter from the previous section, and his efforts time and again to replicate virtuous efforts to “save” countries with less economic or political stability in regions throughout Latin America and Africa instead of collaborating on collective security programs. Through this overly simplistic lens, Reagan would make decisions as president that would negatively impact relations with developing countries for the sake of strengthening U.S. Cold War security in a region, paying little if any heed for the nuanced and complicated societies impacted by his policies. A perfect example of this can be seen in the Iran-Contra debacle, as Reagan’s “single-minded focus on the Soviet Union would lead to policy in Africa and Latin America that ranged from tone-deaf to disastrous.”[5] Reagan saw the conflict in Nicaragua between the Contras and Sandinistas through his Cold War prism, and in doing so escalated a regional issue into one that almost destroyed his administration in part due to his desire to simplify complicated problems into an easily digestible right-against-wrong concept, which in this case meant the Contras were right since they were opposing the socialist Sandinista government.

The final section of Reagan’s Cold War Stories focuses on the initial works by author Tom Clancy: The Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, and The Cardinal of the Kremlin. Griffin not only highlights how Clancy’s techno-thrillers proved irresistible to Reagan, so much so that his staff and advisors made them mandatory reading to clarify Reagan’s many references, but also how Clancy would rise from a non-descript insurance agent to a national bestselling author with ringing endorsements from the President of the United States. Griffin explains that Clancy’s portrayals of American heroism and democratic virtue spoke directly to Reagan’s favored traits in a novel, and that the United States always won at the end of a Clancy novel sealed the deal for his support and readership. Reagan would often quote or reference Clancy novels, and Griffin argues the book Red Storm Rising even helped Reagan visualize the force laydown in Europe at that time and how a conventional war with the Soviet Union could play out. While largely inconceivable that a novel could impact a president so directly, Griffin argues convincingly that the plot influenced Reagan’s stunning offer to Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986 for both countries to abolish nuclear weapons.[6] Reagan and Clancy would go on to have a mutually beneficial relationship, the former with a staunch supporter churning out popular novels that ran parallel to the president’s desired goals and the latter with glowing reviews from the president and increased access to Department of Defense research and resources.

While the reviewer thinks this book is already a valuable contribution, it is worth noting that an increase in overall depth would have made it even more significant. At fewer than 180 pages, this book had plenty of space to expand on areas left uncovered. While the works Griffin explores are, indeed, pivotal to Reagan’s psyche and decision making, one is left wondering how other popular novels and movies—like the massively popular Star Wars films—impacted his mindset. There are also other events that occurred during Reagan’s presidency not featured in this book, such as the invasion of Grenada in Operation Urgent Fury, a decision Reagan made which was inherently Cold War centric and whose analysis by Griffin would have added value to the book. These small notes aside, overall Griffin’s thesis is interesting, well defended, and leaves the reader intrigued with the topic and desirous of more stimulating research from the author on this subject.[7]

Highly engaging and thought-provoking, Griffin has put together an insightful book that leaves the reader with an improved understanding of pop culture’s impact on Reagan in not only leading the nation through the Cold War, but in the totality of his life as well.

Chris Booth is an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Coast Guard or the U.S. Government.

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Header Image: President Ronald Reagan at a Reagan-Bush Rally, Endicott, New York 1984 (White House Photographic Collection).

Notes:

[1] Benjamin Griffin, Reagan’s War Stories: A Cold War Presidency (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022), 4.

[2] Griffin, Reagan’s War Stories, 146.

[3] Griffin, Reagan’s War Stories, 63.

[4] Griffin, Reagan’s War Stories, 10-11.

[5] Griffin, Reagan’s War Stories, 11.

[6] Griffin, Reagan’s War Stories, 108.

[7] See John L. Gaddis, The Cold War (New York: Penguin Press, 2005) for detail on aspects of the Cold War not covered in Reagan’s War Stories and James Wilson, The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev’s Adaptability, Reagan’s Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014) for further analysis on Reagan’s involvement in the culmination of the Cold War.