Three Days in Moscow ― Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire

The #1 bestselling author of Three Days in January and Anchor of the #1 rated Special Report with Bret Baier on Fox News Channel reveals as never before President Ronald Reagan’s battle to end the Cold War, framed around the historic, three-day 1988 Moscow Summit.

In his acclaimed #1 national bestseller Three Days in January, Bret Baier illuminated the extraordinary leadership of President Dwight Eisenhower at the dawn of the Cold War. Now in his highly anticipated new history, Three Days in Moscow, Baier explores the endgame of the Cold War and President Ronald Reagan’s dramatic role in bringing down the Soviet Union and establishing the world order we live in today.

On May 31, 1988, Reagan addressed a packed audience at Moscow State University with an extraordinary speech that capped his first visit to the Soviet capital. This fourth in a series of summits between Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, was the climactic breakthrough in their joint nuclear disarmament agreements. But it was far more than that. For Reagan, it was an opportunity to light a path for the Soviet people—toward freedom, human rights, and a future he told them they could embrace if they chose. It was the first time an American president gave a speech about human rights on Russian soil. Reagan had once called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” Now, saying that depiction was from “another time,” he beckoned the Soviets to join him in a new vision. The success of the Moscow summit, which Reagan called “a grand historical moment,” was captured in the eager faces of university students listening to the president of the United States deliver his transformational speech about the promise that awaited them. The importance of Reagan’s Moscow speech was largely overlooked at the time, but the new world he spoke of was fast approaching; the following year, in November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union began to disintegrate, leaving the United States the sole superpower on the world stage.

Today, the end of the Cold War is perhaps the defining historical moment of the past half century, and must be understood if we are to make sense of America’s current place in the world, the re-emergence of US-Russian tensions during Vladimir Putin’s tenure, and hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan. Using Reagan’s three days in Moscow to tell the larger story of the president’s critical and often misunderstood role in orchestrating a successful, peaceful ending to the Cold War, Baier illuminates the character of one of America’s most remarkable leaders—and the unique qualities that allowed him to succeed with America’s most dangerous enemy, when his predecessors had fallen short.

Three Days in Moscow includes a photo insert featuring approximately 25 images.