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Inna Tlivsov
Author's Bio
Born on October 21, 1940, Frances Fitzgerald obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree from Radcliffe College in 1962. After graduating with high honors, Fitzgerald went on to become a critically acclaimed author and journalist, writing for The New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Architectural Digest, and Rolling Stone. Fitzgerald received the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and the Bancroft Prize for her first book, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam. She currently serves on the editorial boards of The Nation, an ultra-liberal magazine, and Foreign Policy, and is vice president of PEN, an international writers' organization.
The Star Wars Enigma
Maybe Ronald Reagan was thinking about starring for a future Star Wars film and then he started thinking about light sabers and laser weapons. Perhaps, he was thinking of becoming a director and starring as the protagonist of his own science fiction film, but according to Frances Fitzgerald, Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a delusion, an imaginary design that extorted billions of dollars from American peoples' pockets. Fitzgerald's Way Out There in the Blue exposes the truth about Reagan's administration and his SDI: she endeavors to show the American people that "to study the period is to reflect upon the extent to which [the] national discourse about foreign and defense policy is not about reality 每 or the best intelligence estimates about it 每 but instead a matter of domestic politics, history and mythology." 1 The title of her book certainly characterizes both the SDI and the Reagan administration; both were shadowy and obscure, hidden behind a smoke screen of lies, propaganda, and stories. The SDI especially was a program that was "way out there in the dark blue sky," hidden among the mysteries of the stars, the moons, and the celestial bodies; it was a vague and unfeasible program, not developed by anyone except for the directors of movies. Yet, it was also "way out there" because of the unexpected and unprecedented support it obtained. Despite its impossibility, something made it appealing to the people of the United States. Against all odds and amid much ridicule, Reagan pulled out the trump card, manipulating the United States into accepting the SDI.
In the first quarter of her book, Fitzgerald explores how Reagan's ability to transform himself into a variety of different characters helped make his defense initiative a reality. With a highly conservative attitude dominating America, Reagan was able to "speak the language of both the post- and the pre-millennial Mr. Smith," the American Everyman who was the epitome of righteousness and purity. 2 To the optimists, he was the post-millennial Mr. Smith 每 a man who believed that he could perfect society, protect America, and prevent the spread of the demonic forces of Communism. To the pessimists, he was historian Richard Hofstadter's "paranoid spokesman," preaching that the end was near and that if something wasn't done to check the balance of both the American government 每 which was slowly leaning towards socialism 每 and Soviet Communism, America would meet its doom. 3 Reagan could preach the American civil religion because he was not only an actor who could assume a different persona rather quickly, but also because he was perceived as a small-town, all-American boy who, in the American tradition, worked his way up to stardom. Born in the small town of Dixie, Illinois, Reagan appealed to all conservatives with his boyish charm and sincerity, his comedic oration skills, and his credentials as a Communist hunter during the Hollywood Witch Hunts. But most of all, Reagan appealed to the conservatives with his "citizen-politician" charm: American traditions had always favored simplicity and a religious utopian and Reagan was the epitome of this tradition. 4 With this character, Reagan was easily able to convince the American people to adopt the SDI.
Fitzgerald goes on to explore how Reagan's vision initiated SDI research in the United States. During Carter's administration, the Salt I talks had settled a negotiation between the US and the Soviet Union; despite these "talks,＃the Soviets began testing MIRVs＃that could carry up to ten independently targeted warheads, whereas the U.S. Minuteman carried only three." 5 The "window of vulnerability" and "events abroad seemed to＃demonstrate that the nation was weak and had lost its credibility in the world," inflaming the American conservatives to "battle against SALT II and [fight] for a major strategic buildup." 6 Running for President in 1980, Reagan "had gotten the gist of the scenario," realizing that it was imperative that he was a proponent of "civil-defense measures." 7 Inspired by his visit to the NORAD base in 1979, Reagan 每 after much behind-the-scenes consultation 每 chose to present his defense initiative in 1985, along with a carefully prepared "Star Wars" speech. Invoking religion, the speech was designed to charm the "National Association of Evangelicals." 8 By portraying the Soviet Union as an "Anti-Christ," a nation that would be part of the confederation of nations that "Christ and his saints would fight" on the "field of Armageddon," Reagan inflamed passions and roused spirits. 9 By utilizing popular culture, Reagan also tried to sell the initiative to the more liberal Americans and sure enough, in 1985, "Congress [granted] the administration three out of the four billion dollars it had requested for the SDI program." 10 For the first time, Congress had succumbed to "direct popular pressure" despite the fact that both Congress and the architects of SDI knew "full well that what the public expected from [SDI] could not possibly be achieved". 11
Fitzgerald focused on the dissociation of the Reagan administration as they split into hard-liners and pragmatists, or simply those who advocated further progress in the SDI program and those who wanted to reinstate the conventional SALT I and SALT II Treaties. The "hard-liners had sought to kill the policy of not 'undercutting' the unratified treaty (SALT II Treaty) off and on ever since Reagan was first elected, but they had never been able to show there was any military advantage to be gained by it," while the pragmatists, the minority group, believed in reinstating conventional policies and adhering to the regulations and restraints of the older, more confusing, yet less tension-filled treaties. 12
The last section depicted the collapse of the Soviet empire and the obstinacy of Reagan and his administrative staff as well as Gorbachov. At Reykjavik, the talks came to an end as both sides refused to compromise. Gorbachov had forced "Reagan to say nyet (no)" because Gorbachov refused to agree to "deep cuts in offensive weapons without a clear and restrictive understanding about what the defensive half of the agreement would entail." 13 Soon after, at the United Nations summit on December 7th, 1963, the Soviet Union signaled a shift in policy; Gorbachov's rhetoric changed and he was talking about freedom and democracy rather than socialism and communism. The Soviet Union had collapsed and the United States wanted to keep its power curbed; success in the SDI was the key to US foreign policy towards Russia. Reagan worried about "Bush's 'foreign policy indecisiveness'" yet despite these worries, Bush pledged "thirty-three billion dollars＃to pay for＃Phase One" of SDI research. 14 During fiscal 1991, the "funding request for these new defense weapons rose to $392." 15 By the time Clinton became president however, "the fortunes of SDI were at an all-time low" since the "Cold War was over, the Gulf War had receded into the past, the economy had been in recession for over a year＃[and] Congress [was] pressing for major cutbacks in defense spending. 16 The SDI "did not figure in [Clinton's] election campaign." 17
Way Out There in the Blue examines the failures of Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Though the SDI was credited for ending the Cold War, it was a superfluous program that spent "$4.15 billion 每 a 43-percent increase over the previous year and a record high for the program." 18 Despite spending "over forty-billion dollars on SDI from fiscal 1990 through fiscal 1994" the Reagan administration failed to accomplish anything. 19 By the time Bush got to office, scientists were still working on Phase One of SDI. The Soviets were neither bankrupted into collapse nor were they forced to collapse from fear. According to Fitzgerald, the SDI merely "alarmed Soviet leaders because it threatened to reverse what they saw as the trend towards strategic stability and stable costs." 20 As CIA analysts discovered, by the end of 1987, "the Soviet leadership no longer regarded SDI as a threat." 21 Despite what was said in Washington, "[the Soviets] did not respond to [SDI] by creating their own SDI program [either]＃[and thus,] their military spending was unaffected." 22 The CIA also realized that "while the United States military budget was growing at an average of eight percent a year, the Soviets did not attempt to keep up, and their military spending did not rise as might have been expected given the war they were fighting in Afghanistan:" the maximum rate the Soviet budget grew at was 4.3 percent a year, only to be brought back down by Gorbachov in 1988. 23 Though many had depicted Reagan as a simpleton character, a "bubble-headed actor" turned politician, Fitzgerald depicts the many facades of Reagan, crediting them for his ability to implement a defense program that would send the media, the government, and the people of the United States into frenzy. During the Cold War, the people especially "trusted their government with national life and death,＃assuming their officials knew what they were doing and told them the truth," and were supportive or Reagan's defense initiative despite the "shadows and [plays]＃of deception and deceit" which were being carried on by Reagan's radical right revolutionists.24 Because the Soviet Union collapsed at the height of SDI rhetoric and defense spending, the people of the United States would come to regard SDI not as "an instance of exceedingly expensive technical exuberance sold privately to an uninformed leadership by a tiny in-group of especially privileged advisers," but as the slayer of the USSR. 25
First published in 2000, Fitzgerald's book is definitely influenced by the revival of the Cold War and the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union during the SDI talks. Fitzgerald asserts that Reagan's SDI "upset the elaborate system of conventions developed over two decades" and "managed to create the worst period of friction in U.S.-Soviet relations since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.26 Fitzgerald notes however that the SDI did not play a significant role 每 or possibly any role 每 in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the conclusion of the Cold War as the Soviets "did not respond to the Reagan administration's military buildup." 27 However, Fitzgerald speaks from a liberal perspective. As a leftist writer, it is expected of Fitzgerald to caustically ridicule SDI as a pointless program that cuts spending from other beneficial programs such as welfare and Social Security, instead of funneling it into a program that is a daunting and implausible endeavor. Fitzgerald condemns the Reagan administration for hypocrisy; despite claiming to return the United States to the nostalgic, pious times, the Reagan administration surrounded the public with "phantoms and mirages" of a program that was never destined to work. 28
According to Richard L. Garwin, a member of the Strategic Military Panel of the President's Science Advisory Committee under Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon, Fitzgerald's Way Out There In the Blue "documents the lack of an effective national security team, the primacy of appearance over substance, and the striking isolation Reagan achieved from the mechanisms and decisions of the government he headed." 29 Garwin praises Fitzgerald's book for its truth regarding the collapse of the Soviet empire and the benefit of the SDI program. Garwin argues that despite spending $60 billion dollars on the SDI, it "did not bring the Soviet Union to its knees and did not have anything to do with nuclear annihilation." 30
According to a more conservative source, The Naval College Review, a writer by the name of Roger W. Barnett criticizes Fitzgerald for her ineptitude at portraying the SDI as a beneficial instrument of power for the United States. Barnett argues that though Fitzgerald accuses the SDI to be act one of a movie, scripted by an actor whose imagination runs wild and whose conservative beliefs force him to believe that the world can be perfected, "ideology is a filter though which facts pass for interpretation." 31 Barnett accuses Fitzgerald of giving a distorted view on Reagan's SDI, contending that it "is not a balanced attempt to understand the policy and politics of the Reagan years but a savage skewering." 32
Fitzgerald's Way Out There in the Blue does not leave much of a margin for criticism, but the book did have some flaws, originating from the length of the book and the density of the syntax. Often, the only breaks in sentences were commas, making it difficult to recall the main purpose of the sentence when the sentence ended. The anecdotes provided both a negative and positive aspect to the text: on one hand they were nuisances, as they added to the length of the 500-page book. On the other hand, they provided comic relief and maintained my interest in the book; some history books inundate the reader with facts, dates, and unfamiliar names but Fitzgerald's book made it easier to remember facts with witty anecdotes. Fitzgerald unraveled Reagan's character and expounded every perspective of the SDI program using not only her own perspective, but also the perspectives of other historians. Utilizing different sources to qualify an argument establishes a writer's credentials and Fitzgerald's book is certainly no exception. However, Fitzgerald uses too many citations, often making the same point using different historians' or authors' perspectives. Though this certainly adds to the entertainment of the book, it also added to its length. Despite its weaknesses, the book had many positive aspects to it; it helped me improve my ability to identify irony by forcing me to use my "irony reader." Since the book was a satire as well as a serious analysis of Reagan's administration and his SDI, it was imperative that I was able to understand Fitzgerald's sense of humor. The book also alluded to certain events that were recently in our AP United States history course (notably, Populism), refreshing certain events in my mind, and clarifying others that were vague.
According to Fitzgerald, the SDI marked a watershed in United States history not because of its economic or technological successes, but because of its political successes and its longevity. Though it was not the main factor that brought about the downfall to the Soviet Union, the SDI talks and the collapse of the Soviet Union occurred simultaneously, prompting many in the United States to recognize the SDI as the main contributing factor to the Soviet Union's collapse. Today, the SDI could be used to counter threats of terrorist attacks, especially nuclear attacks on American soil. The Initiative could be used to combat such fundamentalist, extremist groups such as Al Quaeda and Taliban. Recently, the US began placing weapons and missiles in certain bases in Eastern and Western Europe, which prompted Cold War rhetoric from President Vladimir Putin; he warned the United States that if the missiles were not removed, the arms race would begin again. Though the United States claims that these missiles are intended as warnings to such countries as Iran, Russia has begun to worry, claiming that the missiles are clearly aimed at Russia since Iran does not have weapons of such magnitude. This Cold War rhetoric 每 at least on Putin's behalf 每 echoes the tones of Gorbachov and other Russian leaders during the era where Star Wars and the SDI dominated the thoughts of American foreign policy and the world's foreign policy.
Fitzgerald accurately analyzes and depicts the flaws of Reagan, his administration, and the supposed miracle, the SDI. From its humble beginnings in NORAD, Populism, religion, and the American Everyman, the SDI went on to capture millions of Americans' imaginations. Despite the fact that almost nothing was accomplished, Reagan and SDI have remained enigmas. An entire nation had been behind him, had been roused by him and had supported his defense program. What caused America to trust the mastermind of such an impractical and unattainable program? Was it Reagan's personality? Was it the fear of Russia and Communism? Was it the desire to stray from the normal and mundane to something surreal, almost Hollywood movie-like? Fitzgerald answers that it is a combination of all three that lead the American people to pursue such a program. She concludes that for the Republican "right, the goal was weapons in space 每 that is, weapons which, if they materialized, could contribute to an offense, as well as prove a defense for the United States." 33
Endnotes
1. Fitzgerald, Frances. Way Out There in the Blue. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000., 18
2. Fitzgerald, 36
3. Fitzgerald, 32
4. Fitzgerald, 31
5. Fitzgerald, 86
6. Fitzgerald, 87
7. Fitzgerald, 107
8. Fitzgerald, 25
9. Fitzgerald, 26
10. Fitzgerald, 264
11. Fitzgerald, 264
12. Fitzgerald, 17
13. Fitzgerald, 362, 364
14. Fitzgerald, 471
15. Fitzgerald, 263
16. Fitzgerald, 490
17. Fitzgerald, 490
18. Fitzgerald, 108
19. Fitzgerald, 491
20. Fitzgerald, 474
21. Fitzgerald, 474
22. Fitzgerald, 474
23. Fitzgerald, 475
24. Fitzgerald, 262
25. Fitzgerald, 146
26. Fitzgerald, 107
27. Fitzgerald, 474
28. Fitzgerald, 16
29. Garwin
30. Garwin
31. Barnett
32. Barnett
33. Fitzgerald, 499
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