Reagan vs. the Soviets: Tracing the Path to Victory on Film

By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
- WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 13, 2004; Page D18

America is at war. In every corner of the globe the threat to freedom is on
the march. The U.S. president terms it "evil," rejects advice from allies to
avoid provoking conflict and makes victory his mission. America is accused
of arrogance.

The year is 1983 and the battle has been joined: Ronald Reagan is squaring
off against Soviet domination.

Thanks to the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the coloring of
American life by orange alerts, 20th-century totalitarianism can seem like
ancient history. Yet with America under assault from a new freedom-loathing
force, we can ill afford to forget the commitment and courage it took to
defeat the Soviet Union.

"In the Face of Evil," director Stephen K. Bannon's documentary based on
Peter Schweizer's book "Reagan's War," bids us to remember not only the
courage and insight of Ronald Reagan but, as important, the cost of
appeasement. Reagan ended Soviet repression, but not before the "beast" --
as the film terms it -- claimed millions of lives and enslaved millions
more. Détente never freed anyone. Reagan freed a billion people.

From the grainy footage of Bolshevism, Stalinism and Nazism right up to the
late 1980s, when hard-line Soviet generals were pressing for a "first
strike," the film reminds us that evil is part of the human condition.
Reagan pursued his mission believing at his core that "Evil is powerless if
the good are unafraid."

Were it not for Lenin's view that "Of all the arts, the cinema is the most
important" and Reagan's startling good looks, communism might never have had
to tangle with the unyielding president. During a 1946 labor strike heavily
infiltrated by communists Reagan felt Marxism's heavy boot, an experience
that would permanently set him against tyranny. This was among the earliest
displays of the plain-spoken Reagan's unwavering public manner. Others
cowered, but he never did.

From this Hollywood experience Reagan understood that the Soviets were
strongest when they smelled fear. Later history, the film reminds us, bears
this out. When Kennedy "sought dialogue," Khrushchev "saw weakness." Castro
and the Soviets chased Kennedy out of the Bay of Pigs and, during the Cuban
missile crisis, extracted a U.S. pledge never to try to help free Cuba
again. To Reagan, accommodation of Soviet domination was dealmaking with
slave masters. In 1964, he warned that a showdown was inevitable. "You and I
have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the
last best hope of man on earth..." Yet two decades more would pass before he
would get his chance to stand up to Soviet tyranny.

"Détente," Reagan famously quipped, "is what a farmer has with his turkey
until Thanksgiving Day." And no leader better personified the West's policy
of appeasement than Jimmy Carter. He sought to "bring down tensions" and
reduce the "arrogance" of American power. The Soviets walked all over him --
in Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Africa, Afghanistan and Poland.

Two months after he took office, Reagan survived an assassination attempt.
He became convinced that God had spared him for a divine mission: to put an
end to the Soviet Union. Again, the film graphically fills in what pop
culture easily forgets: "The gloves came off" and a small dedicated inner
circle of trusted Reaganites put in play a four-part strategy of
intelligence, materiel, ideas and money designed to bring the Soviets to
their knees.

Among the milestones along Reagan's path to victory: a spiritual bond with
Polish Pope John Paul II, also badly wounded by a would-be assassin.
Solidarity was a promising crack in Soviet power and Reagan was "determined
to see it succeed."

Derision of the 40th president was a pastime of the American elite. But the
Russians weren't laughing. Then came the closer: the strategic defense
initiative. A clip of Carl Sagan mocking the president makes the point about
Reagan's status in establishment circles. But when the cameras switch to
former Soviets, we hear a far different view. Reagan's resolve and SDI set
off a crisis in the Kremlin. When Reagan met Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik,
the Soviet leader read off a litany of concessions he would offer in
exchange for the termination of Star Wars. Reagan refused, Mr. Gorbachev
threatened and Reagan famously stood up and ended the meeting.

The film frames that final showdown with the perfect biblical analogy: The
devil had taken Reagan to the mountaintop and offered a world of spoils,
from peace prizes to popular acclaim and a glamorous place in history. To
reject it took more than guts. It took a man who put freedom ahead of his
own glory.

This is not a biography but the story of a man who faced off against the
20th century's "heart of darkness" and won. As former KGB officer Oleg
Kalugin explains, "He overcame the culture of fear because he refused to
live by it."

Ms. O'Grady edits the Journal's Americas column.