ABSTRACT
The popular notion of Ronald Reagan as a lazy bungler has long been questioned; but only now, with the publication of his diaries, it encounters a shrewd and watchful president determined to have his own way. Reagan's outlook was ideological, not strategic. He wasn't just anti-Soviet power but anti-Communist, and therefore would not abandon Taiwan. He also firmly believed in firmness. When State Department officials came to brief his transition officials on policy towards the Soviet Union, they did it by listing the inter-agency issues that would have to be resolved to prepare for the next "ministerial with Gromyko". Reagan wrote of the "China Lobby" and the State Department and even of moles, but it was the Secretary of State himself who wanted Taiwan to wither away, to better implement the Reagan strategy. Having lived most of his life in the only American community where anti-Semitism was a career killer and racism was unacceptable, Reagan was if anything an anti-racist.
