I don't know if people have speculated about this previously, but as an alternate history, what if Reagan had beaten Ford for the nomination in 1976? Would he have beaten Carter then, or did we have to live with him for four years to realize what a lousy president he was?

It's not clear to what extent Ford lost because of general backlash over Watergate, or because of the Nixon pardon, or because of the debate gaffe, in which he said that Poland wasn't under the thumb of the Soviets. Reagan would have likely suffered only from the first factor. If he did lose to Carter, would he have gotten the nomination again in 1980 and beaten him then (I suppose the answer to that depends partially on how close the race was in '76)?

And if he'd won, would the Cold War have ended that much sooner as well? Would we have avoided the stagflation, the sky-high interest rates? Would we have avoided the Iran hostage crisis, which was arguably our first of many acts of irresolution toward Islamic aggression, which ultimately led to September 11?

One more thought--one wonders how much different things might have gone if he hadn't been shot. That was what gave him the political momentum to get much of his agenda passed in his first term. Ironically, while Reagan didn't fire a single shot to win the Cold War, perhaps John Hinckley's single shot was responsible...

I don't think electing Reagan four years earlier would do much. The main drivers of the end of the Cold War were all on USSR's side. The USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1981, and Gorbachev and his backers started the breakup of the USSR in the late 80's.

That's another interesting question. Would there have been an Afghanistan invasion in 1979 during a Reagan presidency?

1976 was too soon for Reagan. I suspect he would have lost going up against Carter in 1976. Carter in 1976 looked like a centrist with an appealing character. The right was still very scary.

I have vague memories of the 1976 election. I do remember being torn between Ford and Carter. This, in itself, was a major change from 1972 when I worked for McGovern. For those of you too young to remember those years, Nixon won in a landslide in 1972 -- but by the fall of 1973 McGovern had more support than Nixon. Watergate profoundly affected the nation. Even Barry Goldwater eventually opposed Nixon.

Carter looked like a fine, upstanding Southern governor. It took some time to figure out he was incompetent.

As for the Soviet Union, it was collapsing when Stalin ruled. It just took decades for people to realize that. Reagan helped enormously in ending Soviet communism by saying aloud what most of us thought. By taking actions of various types, he also helped bring about the demise of the Soviet Union. But he certainly did not do it by himself.

And if he'd won, would the Cold War have ended that much sooner as well?
The Soviet old guard had to die off for a non-catastropic end to the Cold War. A couple of other contributers to the fall of the Soviet Union were Chernobyl and the brown-shorts panic in late 1983.

I give Reagan credit for turning off the Cold War - so far as the end of the Soviet Union is concerned I'm not so sure.

Would we have avoided the stagflation, the sky-high interest rates?
Nixon's folly with the printing presses had to play out. Would Reagan have appointed Paul Volcker - and subjected himself sort of deliberate recession that killed off Carter and Bush I?

Would we have avoided the Iran hostage crisis, which was arguably our first of many acts of irresolution toward Islamic aggression, which ultimately led to September 11?

Well, Carter tried everything short of war. Rhetoric, and the occasional Airbus, aside, Reagan was pretty accommodating to the Islamic Republic, and helped fire up the Sunni jihad Carter started in Afganistan.

Sounds like superb alternate history novel storyline.
If Harry Turtledove doesn't want to do it, maybe one of Transterrestrials' contributors or commenters will take on this project.

Anybody remember Frank Pohl's Return of The Quantum Cats ?

Alternate interacting timelines, one of which included Reagan as a bon vivant cultural liberal and rebel in a Saudi-dominated United States.

..Nixon's folly with the printing presses had to play out. Would Reagan have appointed Paul Volcker - and subjected himself sort of deliberate recession that killed off Carter and Bush I?

I should add the caveat "late-term" as Volcker did nuke the economy in '82. If the ressesion of '82 had gone on to '84, we would be reflecting on the Mondale Adminstration now.

Correction: it was The Coming of the Quantum Cats by Fredrick Pohl (1986).
Beginning with his classic novels of the '50s, Pohl has shown a talent for constructing different scenarios and rushing his heroes through their mazes, which he repeats in this novel, an alternate-worlds adventure. The central action is an invasion of one America where Nancy Reagan presides by another where Jerry Brown is president. Throughout the work Pohl toys with an infinity of such warped mirror images of our own world. If the protagonists remain sketchy, short story characters, their proliferating number and rapid shuffling make such brevity acceptable. Particularly satisfying is for Pohl the unusually somber and challenging ending. At once zany and thought-provoking, this is one of Pohl's best in recent years.

Duncan, how did Chernobyl contribute to the end of the cold war?

The USSR bled themselves white attempting to keep up with our military. More and more of their economy was being devoted to that, also they couldn't keep up with our technology, even with stealing. It was worse than most of us knew, but I firmly believe that the Reagan policy kept the pressure on and accelerated the process, both ending the cold war and the USSR. I agree it couldn't have happened much earlier without a war, but it certainly could have lasted longer, or gone down much worse.

"Duncan, how did Chernobyl contribute to the end of the cold war?
Chernobyl blew a hole in the Soviet ideology of secrecy; it represented something that was hugely embarrassing, yet couldn't be covered up. It hurt Soviet claims of technological superiority. The roots of glasnost lie in Gorbachev's response to the accident, and the failure to cover it up.
It also had another effect - it made Gorbachev, not a technically minded individual, paranoid about nuclear technology in general.

A good review, based on released Soviet documents, can be found here.

I think it is important to differentiate between the end of the nuclear stalemate, and the fall of the Soviet Union. They are not completely independent (the obvious value of a garrison mentality in maintaining a police state), but one did not guarantee the other.

Here's the problem I have with the "arms-race-broke-the-Reds" thesis (which may apply to the end of the Cold War): the Soviet Union fell after a massive reduction in arms. And of course, the "zero-option" was part of the standing U. S. proposal from the first years of the Reagan Administration.

How would have Reagan responded to the fall of the Shah of Iran? Is there any reason to believe the hostages would not have been taken?

I don't know how he would have responded to the fall of the Shah, but the reason to think that the hostages might not have been taken is the fact that they were released the day he took the oath of office...

Rand,
I dont think it was the case that the Iranians were somehow afraid of (or specificaly approved of) Reagan. They were paid off to the tune of $8 billion (and that is a "billion"), and given full immunity after the U. S. election. The Shah was dead and there was a war with Saddam on. The Iranians got to claim credit for bringing down a President, and moved on.

There's little doubt that they didn't approve of him...

Out of curiosity, what books can people recommend on the end of the Cold War?

With apologies for being a bit late to the party ...

1. I believe Reagan would have lost to Carter in 1976. Living where I do, I had a bit of a ringside seat (while not actually being inside the building) during the GOP convention. It was extraordinarily hard-fought. Polls at the time indicated that over one-third of each of Ford's and Reagan's supporters intended to vote for Carter if their man did not get the nomination.



2. A Reagan nomination and victory in 1980 would have been likely in any event.



3. Stagflation et al were brought under control by Carter appointee Paul Volcker and by numerous deregulatory initiatives (airlines, trucking, oil) begun during the Carter administration -- all too late to save Carter himself.



4. The microprocessor revolution that helped bring down the Soviets may have been as dependent on Nixon's ending of the draft as any other event. Had the US taken Heinlein's advice and ended the draft in, say, 1960, the freedom of bright college dropouts to create technological advances could have moved the timeline up by at least a few years.



5. While the root causes of 9/11 may be endlessly debated, any attempt to trace them to American action (or inaction) presumes a degree of rationality on the part of Bin Laden and his ilk which is simply not warranted by any close reading of their pronouncements. We're talking about people who want Spain back and who accused us of devastating the Arabian peninsula. If our actions had been different, they'd just think up some other reason to attack.



6. While I concur that the assassination attempt generated enormous sympathy for Reagan, what strikes me about what happened next is how little the opportunity was exploited. There were simply no significant reductions in Federal spending during those years, and the 1983 Social Security bailout more than erased the earlier "tax cut."

With apologies for being a bit late to the party ...

1. I believe Reagan would have lost to Carter in 1976. Living where I do, I had a bit of a ringside seat (while not actually being inside the building) during the GOP convention. It was extraordinarily hard-fought. Polls at the time indicated that over one-third of each of Ford's and Reagan's supporters intended to vote for Carter if their man did not get the nomination.



2. A Reagan nomination and victory in 1980 would have been likely in any event.



3. Stagflation et al were brought under control by Carter appointee Paul Volcker and by numerous deregulatory initiatives (airlines, trucking, oil) begun during the Carter administration -- all too late to save Carter himself.



4. The microprocessor revolution that helped bring down the Soviets may have been as dependent on Nixon's ending of the draft as any other event. Had the US taken Heinlein's advice and ended the draft in, say, 1960, the freedom of bright college dropouts to create technological advances could have moved the timeline up by at least a few years.



5. While the root causes of 9/11 may be endlessly debated, any attempt to trace them to American action (or inaction) presumes a degree of rationality on the part of Bin Laden and his ilk which is simply not warranted by any close reading of their pronouncements. We're talking about people who want Spain back and who accused us of devastating the Arabian peninsula. If our actions had been different, they'd just think up some other reason to attack.



6. While I concur that the assassination attempt generated enormous sympathy for Reagan, what strikes me about what happened next is how little the opportunity was exploited. There were simply no significant reductions in Federal spending during those years, and the 1983 Social Security bailout more than erased the earlier "tax cut."

Reagan could have defeated Carter in 1976. Despite his many disadvantages--the political fallout from Watergate and the Nixon pardon, a troubled economy, and his debate gaffe about Poland--Gerald Ford came very close to doing so.

Ford won 48% of the popular vote and carried 27 states, totaling 241 electoral votes. Carter won 50% of the popular vote and carried 23 states (plus the District of Columbia), totaling 297 electoral votes. Carter won by sweeping all of the southern and border states, except Virginia. It is doubtful that Reagan, who was more conservative than Ford and lacked Ford's liabilities, would have lost so decisively in the South.

If we assume that Reagan would not have carried Ford's home state of Michigan (21 electoral votes), but would have instead carried his own running mate Senator Richard Schweicker's Pennsylvania (27 electoral votes), then Reagan would only have had to win either Texas (26 electoral votes) or Ohio (25 electoral votes) to beat Carter. Even if Reagan could not win Pennsylvania, he would have likely carried enough southern and border states to make up those 27 electoral votes.