Editorial: Reagan legacy still strong

Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States at a low ebb for his country and the Western world. The US had retreated from Vietnam not long before and Watergate had driven the last elected republican from the White House. Then the presidency of Jimmy Carter came to grief in a bungled military operation in Iran. Nevertheless, the pundits were surprised in November 1980 when Americans elected Reagan.

The former movie star had been a divisive figure as Governor of California in the 1960s, a blunt defender of the war in Vietnam and opponent of the social trends of that era. His election, like that of Margaret Thatcher in Britain the previous year, marked the end of a centre-left consensus in societies such as ours and a new faith in free markets, limited government and private enterprise as sources of national prosperity.

Reagan's appeal crossed partisan lines, eating into the conservative Democratic vote in the South. In the White House he proved to be one of the most popular of presidents. The hard-edged conservative of the 1960s had become, at the age of 70, a genial, avuncular figure. He adopted a detached style of government, content to espouse generalities and leave the minutiae of policy to a new breed of defence strategists and economic theorists.

The Reagan Government set out to rebuild American military superiority over the Soviet Union, cut taxes and boost the economy with the increased revenue "supply siders" believed would result from tax cuts. The military programme was a good deal more successful than the economic policy, which left the US with a crippling legacy of Budget deficits that lasted until the Clinton years.

The military build-up turned out to be Ronald Reagan's most significant contribution to history. It meant the US finally "won" the arms race and with it the Cold War. But not before the nuclear elements had heightened tensions with the Soviet Union and brought renewed campaigns for disarmament from Greenham Common to far-off New Zealand. The new Lange Labour Government found no tolerance in the Reagan White House for a ban on nuclear-armed ships.

Five years into the Reagan era, a new spirit emerged in the Kremlin. Leadership had passed to Mikhail Gorbachev who was more interested in rejuvenating socialism than continuing the Cold War. He invited open public debate in the hope that it would purge the communist system of laziness, inefficiency and incompetence. But once free speech was permitted the Soviet system was shattered and Russians would not be denied their release.

Ronald Reagan was quick to respond to Gorbachev's wish for a thaw in the Cold War. Arms reduction talks soon resumed. When communism finally collapsed throughout Eastern Europe and the Berlin Wall came down Reagan's two terms had expired, but he was credited with the victory. In all likelihood the Soviet collapse owed more to its penetration by Western popular culture than Reagan's military spending. But his resolve, reinforced by Thatcher, probably ended any misapprehension in the Kremlin that Western will was weak.

Reagan moved the fulcrum of American politics. The Republican Party still lives by his legacy and only a southern Democrat has been nationally elected since. A more aggressive foreign policy has reached full flowering under George W. Bush, who is much more the political son of Reagan than of his own father.

Reagan Administration figures criticised the elder Bush for not pursuing Saddam Hussein to Baghdad in 1991. The younger Bush has fulfilled their wish and now the US is reaping the consequences. Iraq is shaping up to be the graveyard of belligerent American unilateralism. If Bush is defeated at the election this November it may mark the end of a Reagan legacy that has changed the world for good.