Chapter 5 covers the second year of the Reagan administration, and the growing public concern over nuclear war. It discusses the rise of a major grassroots movement, which called for a freeze in the production, deployment, and testing of nuclear weapons by the US and the Soviet Union. The nuclear freeze campaign soon morphed into the largest peacetime peace movement in American history. The force of the movement would make foreign policy the political liability of the Reagan administration. Public demands for a “freeze” on nuclear weapons began to elicit support from within the Democratic Party. The freeze campaign, and a broader “peace movement,” became the Democrats’ most potent political weapon against Reagan’s conservative revolution. The chapter analyzes the administration’s struggle to combat the movement, and persuade the public of the benefits of its own strategy for reducing nuclear weapons. Among other aspects, it discusses Reagan unveiling of a START initiative. By late 1982, Reagan’s policies had raised tensions with Moscow, upset NATO allies, weakened support for his arms buildup, and generated antinuclear movements across America and Western Europe.

Chapter 7 covers the remainder of 1983, widely regarded as the most dangerous year of the second half of the Cold War. A series of events raised US–Soviet tensions and public fears of nuclear war: Reagan’s SDI announcement; the Soviet destruction of a Korean airliner, which cost the lives of 62 Americans; the US invasion of Grenada; antinuclear protests across Western Europe and America; the US deployment of INF missiles in Europe; and the Able Archer “war scare.” But these events obscure a development quite as significant: Reagan’s growing awareness of the political context (at home and abroad), and signs of a readiness to depart from the hard-liners’ position. With Shultz’s prompting, the president sought to initiate a dialogue with Moscow and became receptive to the idea of modifying the US approach to arms control. He reacted with restraint to the KAL disaster, and toned down the anti-Soviet rhetoric. Even before the Able Archer crisis there had been a change in Reagan’s attitude. It reflected his own moderate views, a desire to improve relations, and an increased sense of his domestic imperatives. As his election campaign began, Reagan was pragmatist was emerging.