Reagan's Change toward Dtente When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, he held a firm belief that dtente should be abandoned and the problems of Communism be faced head on by his foreign policy. By the end of his second term as president, Reagan and his term in office would be remembered for furthering dtente and influencing the peaceful collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991. Reagan's diplomatic strategy ultimately led to this end, but it was not inevitable. Tensions as they were throughout the Eighties could, at any time, prove too completely disrupt the groundwork for the fall of the Soviet Union. Reagan was not known for his academic ability or historical knowledge. Kissinger himself has been quoted doubting Reagan's ability. Nevertheless, this man, of admitted limited intellectual abilities when it came to the nuance of history would come to form a foreign policy of extraordinary consistency and relevance. Reagan possessed a few core ideas, which enabled him to move through the diplomatic arena skillfully. In the American system, the foreign policy emerges from presidential pronouncements. In his speeches, Reagan put forward a doctrine of great coherence and considerable intellectual power (Kissinger 765).Although Reagan lacked a historical knowledge, he was a very intelligent president. A prime example of his intellect came in 1973, while serving as governor of California, he had suggested to Kissinger in the National Security briefing sessions that the United States should give Israeli troops the number of planes the Arabs said they shot down. This tactic would both fulfill a promise made by the United States and exact punishment on the Arabs using their own propaganda against itself (Kissinger 766). Reagan was a president who had significant creative power and a plan set in mind that he would carry out to fruition.Reagan's policies can be compared to Wilson's policies in the first part of th...
