"Reagan and the Gorbachev Revolution: Perceiving the End of Threat" by Barbara Farnham, in Political Science Quarterly (Summer 2001), The Academy of Political Science, 475 Riverside Dr., Ste. 1274, New York, N.Y. 10115–1274.

Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency ened America. He was expected to be in 1981with a fiercely held conviction that unyielding in his approach to dealing with communism and the Soviet Union threat-the Soviet threat, and yet by the end of his second term he had come to see the conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States not in absolutist terms—as a confrontation with an "evil empire"—but, in Farnham’s words, "in terms of mutual misperception. He was hopeful about the possibility of substantial change."

Farnham, a senior associate at the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, notes that the evolution is all the more intriguing "in view of the numerous criticisms that have been leveled at Reagan’s cognitive abilities." Why was he able to overcome his predispositions so successfully and to perceive and respond to the adjustments that were occurring in Soviet policy in the 1980s?

Farnham credits a combination of Reagan’s personal qualities and a belief system more complex than he has usually been given credit for. He was convinced that communism would change because it had no choice—it was doomed by history. Personal experience counted for everything with him, and strong personalities, in his view, could alter the world. So he looked for change in the Soviet Union over the course of his dealings with the Soviet leadership both because it was bound to occur and because he believed that he could make it happen.

"What does the success of Reagan’s approach to the Soviet Union tell us about his abilities as a leader?" Farnham asks. She acknowledges that "good outcomes can be the result of any number of factors, including luck," and she cites qualities in Reagan—he could be "passive, incurious, uninterested in detail, ignorant of the nuances of policy, and stubborn"—that sometimes worked against his effectiveness as a leader. But he had people skills, negotiating skills, and powers of persuasion, and "he was more flexible, pragmatic, and willing to compromise than his ideological orientation led many to expect." He was open-minded and optimistic, he accepted criticism, and he did his homework when the subject interested him—as it did when his core beliefs were involved. Farnham quotes French president François Mitterand’s assessment of Reagan: "What he does not perceive with his intelligence, he feels by nature."

"What stands out," according to Farnham, "is how context-dependent Reagan’s performance was. When the nature of the problem played to his particular strengths"—as it did in the dealings with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, when openness, insight, persuasion, and negotiation were the qualities most required—"it could be quite good. But in other situations"—such as the Irancontra affair, when a detailed understanding of policy was required, and he was detached and at the mercy of others—"these skills could not compensate for Reagan’s failings, and some of his strengths became weaknesses."

Reagan believed that the Soviet Union would respond to changes in U.S. behavior, and many former Soviet officials, including Anatoly Dobrynin, long-time ambassador to the United States, agree that that was precisely what happened. "Reagan’s conciliatory policies toward the Soviet Union," writes Farnham, "enabled Gorbachev to forge ahead in his domestic and international initiatives."