The End of the Cold War: Ambassador Jack Matlock’s Inside Story

More than three decades after the breakup of the Soviet Union, many people today fear a return to a Cold War with Russia. So it’s important to understand how the first one ended.

Today we’re going back 20 years , to a conversation with the longtime foreign service officer, and one-time U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock.

His 2004 book was called Reagan and Gorbachev: How The Cold War Ended.

Get your copy of Jack Matlock’s book

As a top ranking career diplomat, Matlock was at the very center of the U.S.-Soviet relationship. He was there for everything from the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 to the Breakup of the Soviet Union almost 30 years later.

His book was packed with the kind of details and insight that only a key insider would have.

So here now, from 2004, Ambassador Jack Matlock.

Jack Matlock is 94 now, and lives in New Jersey.

Maureen Reagan

Photo by John Mathew Smith

Born in 1941, Maureen was the eldest child of Reagan and his first wife, actress Jane Wyman.
By her late teens, Maureen was becoming active in politics. She later played roles in her father’s presidential campaigns, and ran for Congress herself.

President Ronald W. Reagan

In 1989, just a few months after Ronald Reagan left office, Maureen wrote an admiring book called First Father, First Daughter. That’s when I met her.

So here now, from 1989, Maureen Reagan.

Maureen Reagan died of cancer in 2001. She was 60.

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Oliver North

In the 1980s, the presidency of Ronald Reagan was facing two distinct foreign policy challenges.

Members of Hezbollah had taken several Americans hostage in Beirut, Lebanon.

And in Central America, a rebel group known as the Contras was trying to overthrow the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

To free the hostages, the Reagan administration undertook a secret plan to sell military missiles to Iran, in hopes that the Iranian government would persuade Hezbollah to release the hostages.

In Nicaragua, meanwhile, the U.S. was funding, arming, and training the Contras. That is, until Congress abruptly cut off the entire funding.

Oliver North with Bill Thompson’s daughter Jennifer

That’s when someone had the idea to take the money that Iran was paying secretly for those missiles and hand it secretly to the Contras. The plan became known later as the Iran-Contra affair.

When this plan became public in 1986, Congress was outraged. Hearings into the Iran. Contra affair began 35 years ago this week, May 5th, 1987.

And witness testimony quickly pointed to one man who seemed to have all the answers to the scandal.

Oliver North was on assignment to the National Security Council, and became the central figure in the Iran Contra scandal.

In July 1987, North appeared before I congressional committee, offering testimony that was at once defensive and defiant.

North was convicted on three felony charges but his convictions were vacated, and the criminal case against him was dropped in 1991.

And a short time later, North published a book called Under Fire. And that’s when he and I had the first of what would be several conversations over the next few years.

So here now from 1991 Lr. Col. Oliver North

Oliver North is 78 now. He lives in Virginia, just outside Washington, DC.


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Alexander Haig

Today is March 30th, and it was 41 years ago today that a young man tried to kill President Ronald Reagan.

And one of the most controversial things that happened that day happened to a man with a long and distinguished military and public service career, general. Alexander Haig.

Haig was a graduate of West point m. He served in Korea, served in Vietnam, earned the silver Star and the purple heart. And by 1973 was the youngest four-star general ever in the US army.

In 1973, Haig became President Richard Nixon’s, Chief of staff just as the Watergate scandal was turning up to full boil.

In fact, many say that Haig was instrumental in persuading Nixon to resign the presidency in 1974.

In 1980, after being elected president in a landslide, Ronald Reagan chose Haig as his secretary of State. And it was the following March 30th, the day. John Hinckley Jr. Tried to assassinate the president, that Haig made a comment that will haunt him.

In 1992, Haig wrote a book called inner circles. And that’s when I have the chance to meet him. So here now, from 1992, general Alexander Haig.

Alexander Haig died in 2010. He was 85.


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Peggy Noonan

In the mid-1980s one of President Ronald Reagan’s favorite speechwriters was the talented wordsmith Peggy Noonan.

She crafted some of Reagan’s most impressive speeches, including the one he delivered on the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, as well as his televised message to the nation after the Challenger disaster in 1986.

And then, working with the presidential campaign of Vice President George HW Bush, Noonan came up with even more phrases that have stuck in our memories.

Along the way, Noonan became an accomplished speaker in her own right, and in 1998, wrote a book to help others facing the prospect of speaking in public.

She and I had many conversations over the years, of which this was one. So here now, from 1998, Peggy Noonan.

Peggy Noonan is 71 now, and still writes, speaks, and is often seen on TV. And, I suspect, she still gets butterflies or stomach.

George Shultz

George Shulz served in various positions under three U.S. presidents — in fact Shultz held four different cabinet-level posts over the years.

An economist by training, Shultz came to Washington as Richard Nixon’s first Labor Secretary. He became Director of the Office of Management and Budget a year later, and a year after that Nixon appointed him Treasury Secretary.

Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980. and in 1982 chose Shultz as his Secretary of State. Shultz became a key shaper of foreign policy during the Reagan’s administration.

I met him in the spring of 1993, when he wrote a long memoir of his years at the State Department.

So here now, from 1993, George Shultz.

George Shultz died this past February at the age of 100.

Jerry Parr

Photo: KDT Mom

40 years ago this week, a young would-be assassin put a bullet in President Ronald Reagan.

The man whose quick thinking likely saved the president’s life was Jerry Parr, a member of Mr. Reagan’s Secret Service detail that day outside the Washington Hilton Hotel.

Before anyone was aware that one of John Hinckley jr. shots had actually hit the president, Jerry Parr recognized something was seriously wrong, and he ordered the president’s driver to head straight to the hospital.

The president arrived at the hospital just in time. He collapsed inside the door, and was rushed into surgery.

Jerry Parr, 2nd from left, on March 30,1981

I met Jerry Parr in 2013. He and his wife Carolyn had written a book about that day, and about their lives before and after the assassination attempt.

And as you’re about to hear, Carolyn Parr made what I guess Hollywood would call a cameo appearance at the Reagan shooting scen

So here now, from 2013, Jerry Parr.

Jerry Parr died just two years after our interview. He was 85.

Roger Ailes

Tomorrow night, September 29th, is the first debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

So today on Now I’ve Heard Everything, I wanted to revisit an interview I did over 30 years ago with a man who played a key role in the 1984 presidential debates between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.

Years before he became head of Fox News — way before there even was a Fox News — Roger Ailes was a media consultant. Most prominent among his many clients, perhaps, was President Ronald Reagan. Ailes was an adviser to the President in his 1984 reelection bid, and was indrectly responsible for one of that campaign’s most memorable, and decisive, moments.

I met Roger Ailes in the fall of 1987. He’d written a book to help coach people in the art of public speaking and dealing with the media. The book promised to reveal the “secrets of the master communicators.”

So here now, from 1987, Roger Ailes:

Roger Ailes went on to become CEO of the fledgling Fox News in 1996. He held that post until 2016 when allegations of sexual harassment forced him out.

Roger Ailes died in 2017, three days after his 77th birthday.

Sam Donaldson

If Donald Trump thinks he’s getting a rough time from the journalist who cover him at the White House, he’s never met Sam Donaldson.

From 1977 to 1989 — the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan years — Donaldson was was Chief White House correspondent for ABC News.

During those twelve years, Donaldson proved to be a relentless, aggressive reporter, never letting the president get away with a vague, evasive, or unsatisfactory answer to a question.

Ironically, the title of Donaldson’s 1987 book was a phrase he never actually said. The book was called
“Hold On, Mr. President.”

But listen to this interview that’s more than 30 years old and see if it doesn’t have a lot of relevance to what we see going on right now today.

So here now, from 1987, Sam Donaldson.

Sam Donaldson retired from ABC News in 2009. He is 86 now. and serves on the Board of New Mexico First, a bipartisan booster organization.

Roger Ailes

Years before he became head of Fox News — way before there even was a Fox News — Roger Ailes was a media consultant. Most prominent among his many clients, perhaps, was President Ronald Reagan. Ailes was an adviser to the President in his 1984 reelection bid, and was indirectly responsible for one of that campaign’s most memorable, and decisive, moments.

I met Roger Ailes in the fall of 1987. He’d written a book to help coach people in the art of public speaking and dealing with the media. The books promised to reveal the “secrets of the master communicators.”

So here now, from 1987, Roger Ailes:

Roger Ailes went on to become CEO of the fledgling Fox News in 1996. He held that post until 2016 when allegations of sexual harassment forced him out.

Roger Ailes died in 2017, thee days after his 77th birthday.