US Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War w/ Jack Matlock
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For half a century, the US-Soviet rivalry pitted the two most powerful nations in human history against one another other in a conflict that had the potential to end civilization. The fact that the Cold War ended without the doomsday scenarios so many had predicted is testament to the power of good diplomacy, and good diplomacy only happens when you have good diplomats.
In this episode we speak with Jack Matlock, a diplomat whose 35 years in the State Department culminated in his selection by Ronald Reagan to serve as US Ambassador to the Soviet Union in the final years of the Cold War, where he played a key role in transforming US-Soviet relations.
Last week, the Trump Administration cut over 1,350 positions in the US State Department, many of them held by dedicated, knowledgeable and experienced foreign service experts who have sacrificed a great deal to serve our country abroad. We hope that by sharing our conversation with Ambassador Matlock, you'll better appreciate the crucial work done by our diplomatic corp and why we'd all be better off if the Trump administration reconsidered its drastic cuts to the state department.
This is an abridged version of RTN episode #50, which was recorded live at Middle Tennessee State University and originally aired on March 28, 2017. An unabridged video version of this episode is available on our YouTube page by clicking here. This reair was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the road to now. |
| 0:07.8 | Last week, another random decision coming from the Trump administration. |
| 0:13.7 | I just cut over 1,300 employees at the State Department. |
| 0:20.0 | Many of them incredibly seasoned, incredibly dedicated diplomats. |
| 0:24.5 | Folks who are out there learning languages, living away from family, when you go into the |
| 0:29.9 | Foreign Service, they move you all over the place. People who have sacrificed for this country |
| 0:34.5 | and have the types of experience that you just can't replicate. |
| 0:40.9 | So today on the show, I don't know, sometimes I hope that we can convince people by using |
| 0:46.1 | good examples instead of, you know, getting into the, you know, the negative of it all. |
| 0:50.5 | I hope that this example, at least somebody who's skeptical of these folks, will listen to this |
| 0:57.2 | episode and walk away from it with some appreciation for what we're losing here. And, you know, |
| 1:07.0 | it's not too late. Hopefully, maybe we can get them back. I don't know. I just feel like |
| 1:12.2 | this is a great loss. Our guest in this one is Ambassador Jack Matlock. He was a foreign service |
| 1:20.7 | representative for this country in the State Department for 35 years. His last few years, |
| 1:26.1 | he served as ambassador to the Soviet Union. He was appointed by |
| 1:31.3 | Ronald Reagan, then served for a while under Bush. The man helped bring an end to the Cold War. |
| 1:37.8 | And as you listen to this, you will hear how valuable his time in the State Department was. |
| 1:45.1 | The wisdom, and I don't know, I think we've lost some sense of what wisdom is. |
| 1:50.0 | Wisdom is having seen things, experienced things, been there. |
| 1:54.5 | It's just irreplaceable. |
| 1:56.9 | And we recorded this conversation in 2017. |
| 2:01.2 | This originally aired as episode number 50. |
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