Former President Ronald Reagan

Richard M. Abrams
Professor of history, associate dean of International and Area Studies
Phone: (510) 517- 0462
Expertise: Teaches modern U.S. history and can comment on Reagan as governor and president.

Alan J. Auerbach
Professor of economics and law, director of UC Berkeley's Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance
Office phone: (510) 643-0711
E-mail: auerbach@econ.berkeley.edu
Expertise: Reagan's impact on federal budget deficits. Auerbach says Reagan's most lasting contribution was changing the perspective on federal budget deficits so that politicians no longer fear them or consider them wrong. "Our current mess couldn't have occurred without the Reagan presidency," he says.

George Breslauer
Professor of political science specializing in Soviet and post-Soviet leaders. Dean of the Division of Social Sciences
Phone: (510) 642-5195
E-mail: bresl@socrates.Berkeley.edu
Expertise: The Reagan-Gorbachev relationship and how it made possible the quick end of the Cold War. He contends that Reagan and Gorbachev were made for each other, that each was a romantic who thought outside the box and dreamed big dreams and that this created the chemistry between them. Breslauer believes the Cold War would not have ended as quickly as it did were either of these two men not in office.

Bruce Cain
Professor of political science and director of the campus's Institute of Governmental Studies
Phone: (510) 642-1739
Expertise: Reagan's policies and their influence on California, the nation and the world.

David Kirp
Professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy
Office phone: (510) 642-7531
E-mail: kirp@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Expertise: Sociology, political science and education. He is author of several books, including, "Learning by Heart: AIDS and Schoolchildren in America's Communities" (Rutgers University Press, 1994). Kirp says that "the Great Communicator literally never mentioned the word AIDS until 1987; his administration took a too little, too late policy. The United States was slow off the mark in financing research on HIV causes, treatments and vaccines, and that affected the spread of the disease at home and internationally. In terms of political symbolism, denial at the highest levels made it easier for others to minimize the impact of the epidemic and/or treat AIDS as a moral, not a public policy, concern."

Gerald Lubenow
Publications director, Institute of Governmental Studies
Phone: (510) 642-5158
Expertise: Former reporter for Newsweek, covered Reagan as governor from 1969 to 1974; his 1976 and 1980 presidential campaigns; and his 1980 transition to the White House.

Michael Nacht
Aaron Wildavsky Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy, professor of public policy
Phone: (510) 643-4038
E-mail: mnacht@socrates.berkeley.edu
Expertise: U.S. national security and foreign policy, management strategies for public organizations. Chairs the counter proliferation panel of the Threat Reduction Advisory Committee of the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense. From 1994-1997 was assistant director for Strategic and Eurasian Affairs at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in D.C., leading its work on nuclear arms reduction negotiations with Russia and initiating nuclear arms control talks with China. Participated in five summit meetings with President Clinton — four with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and one with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Nacht says that Reagan was a major contributor to the collapse of the Soviet Union and to the end of the Cold War. In Reagan’s first term, he adopted a very tough policy to constrain, challenge and outspend the Soviet Union, and then turned around in his second term to be more conciliatory and push for an arms control pact, Nacht says.