Here’s another snip from the book “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism,” page 165-167. I think that LHO would have hated president Ronald Reagan…
The embodiment of Reagan’s thinking on U.S.–USSR coexistence, NSDD-75 was probably the most important document in Cold War strategy by the Reagan administration, and certainly the most significant and sweeping directive in terms of institutionalizing the Reagan intent and grand strategy. Predicated on Ronald Reagan’s belief that the Soviet Union was rotten to the core and should be broken, the document was fully committed to pursuing this end rather than maintaining the status quo that accepted Soviet existence.2
Norm Bailey would dub NSDD-75, “the strategic plan that won the Cold War.”3 His NSC colleague, Tom Reed, called it “the blueprint for the endgame” and “a confidential declaration of economic and political war.”4 One of the longest NSDDs, the directive covered nine pages, and took quite a while to craft. Its chief author, Richard Pipes, had been working on it since the spring of 1981, first under Richard Allen and then with the backing of Bill Clark and contributions from the likes of Roger Robinson—and against heavy obstruction by the State Department.5 Pipes called it “a clear break from the past. [NSDD-75] said our goal was no longer to coexist with the Soviet Union but to change the Soviet system. At its root was the belief that we had it in our power to alter the Soviet system through the use of external pressure.”6
Indeed, NSDD-75 was revolutionary, turning on its head the doctrine of containment that had formed the cornerstone of American foreign policy since George Kennan sent his famous “Long Telegram” from Moscow in February 1946.
As Bill Clark put it, NSDD-75’s search for “internal pressure” to bring to bear on the USSR represented a “new objective of U.S. policy.” “We worked hard,” said Clark, “on that new policy element of trying to turn the Soviet Union inside itself.” He notes that, under Reagan, for the first time U.S. policy went beyond containment and negotiations and toward encouraging “antitotalitarian changes within the USSR.” America, said Clark, would “seek to weaken Moscow’s hold on its empire.”7 Partly based on previous NSDDs like 32, 45, 54, and 66, NSDD-75 was tamely titled, “U.S. Relations with the USSR.” In the first paragraph, it declared that U.S. policy would focus on “external resistance to Soviet imperialism” and “internal pressure on the USSR to weaken the sources of Soviet imperialism.” Within that, it stated two core “U.S. tasks:” First, “To contain and over time reverse Soviet expansionism…. This will remain the primary focus of U.S. policy toward the USSR.” And, second, “To promote, within the narrow limits available to us, the process of change in the Soviet Union toward a more pluralistic political and economic system in which the power of the privileged ruling elite is gradually reduced.”8
It was this front-page language that reflected Pipes’ principle contribution. He wrote and fought for this language, insisting that the document articulate the central aim of striving to reform the Soviet Union. “The State Department vehemently objected to that,” recalled Pipes. “They saw it as meddling in Soviet internal affairs, as dangerous and futile in any event. We persisted and we got that in.”9
In the end, the inclusion of those lines which were at once impossible but prophetic proved to be the defining language of NSDD-75. And yet those lines, whose prescience is chilling, whose historical significance cannot be overstated, were nearly removed by the State Department, which urged they be struck from the text. In spite of the diplomatic obstacles, the language remained intact, a testament to Reagan who, said Pipes, “insisted” on the language; indeed, this was the core of everything Reagan had always wanted.10 It was the manifestation of his forty-year crusade and it would become the centerpiece of the flourishing effort to defeat Communism once and for all. It quietly signaled a new era in both presidential power and American foreign policy.
