April 2 Notes

The Reagan Agenda

April 2, 2008

I. The Carter Years
1. Carter and the Middle East Peace Process (Sadat and Begin; nature of settlement; limited political benefits)

2. The Iranian Revolution (US intelligence failure; death of regime; hostages and “rescue mission”; crisis and its effects)

3. The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (Brezhnev Doctrine and invasion; origins of mujahadin)

II. Documents of U.S. Foreign Policy

1. FRUS (Seward and government openness; development of 30-year rule; post-WWII bureaucratization and State Dept. Historian’s Office; pre-1961: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/; post-1961: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/)

2. Other Sources (FDR and development of presidential library system; Watergate and presidential papers; FOIA and foreign policy; National Security Archive: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/)

3. Approaches to Field (journalists and independent scholars; diplomatic history; theory, public policy, and political science)

III. Reagan and the Middle East

1. The Reagan Team (election of 1980 and altered American political culture; growth of defense budget; importance of William Casey, Haig, Kirkpatrick; nomination of Lefever; Weinberger; increasing importance of NSC)

2. AWACS (Big Oil and Saudi alliance; altered strategic situation—Iran/Iraq war; Yemen, Ethiopia, Sadat assassination; Reagan and confronting Congress; Israel Lobby and House rejection; significance of Jepsen; final Senate vote)

IV. Iran-Contra

1. Lebanon and Iran (Reagan and international terrorism; Israeli invasion of Lebanon; US troops to Lebanon: War Powers Act and Hezbollah terrorist attack; hostages and US response; search for the Iran “moderates”; role of NSC; diversion of funds to contras)

2. The Scandal Breaks (Hasenfus and crash; from Lebanon to Washington; Meese investigation; Tower Committee; what was Reagan’s role? Bush’s; Inouye Committee and North as GOP folk hero)

Year	Defense budget	Year	Defense budget
1977	$97.2B	1979	$116.3B
1980	$134.0B	1981	$157.5B
1982	$185.3B	1983	$209.9B
1984	$227.4B	1985	$252.8B