Where to get started

I wanted to send along a couple of more ideas on how to investigate this potentially lifetime project. I looked into just the first 2, since it may be long past your deadline.

1. Post Cold-War military spending

Alternative Press Index gets 17 hits for
(adding "bush" gets only GW Bush). Only 1 is pre 1993:

Title: "Pentagon's post Cold War black budget is alive."

Source: The St. Louis Journalism Review 22, no. 152 (Dec, 1992): 17 Journal Record

ISSN: 0036-2972 SUBJECT(S) Descriptor: u s military expenditures

Lexis Academic Guided News Search seems pretty clunky - the search {post cold war} and {military} and {spending} supposedly limited to World News / Middle East - Africa sources gets 42 hits from 1990-1992, but most look like US sources to me. There are several from Xinhua
News Agency (Middle East??...)

2. Where and why did the Reagan and Bush administrations support or carry out terrorist acts?

The trick here is that much of the information won't use the word "Terrorism", maybe even if it is a from a strongly anti-US Government source. Much more likely it will be under words like Geneva Conventions, International Law, etc. It seems best to start your search in library catalogs, for books about these 2 administrations. You would need to go for broad subjects like "Foreign Policy", combined with the names "Reagan" and "Bush". Most library catalogs now have a "Keywords anywhere" default search that sometimes is the best way to start.

For example, the University of Maryland catalog at catalog.umd.edu gets 21 hits for "words anywhere" {reagan bush foreign}, including books like:

Daugherty, William J. Executive secrets :covert action and the presidency. Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, c2004. xxvii, 298 p. CALL NO: JK468.I6 D38 2004. ("Covert action" might well include things that some people would consider "terrorism")

Another "words anywhere" search, {reagan bush cia} gets 3 hits, including:

Helgerson, John L. Getting to know the president: CIA briefings of presidential candidates, 1952-1992. Washington, D.C. : Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, [1996?]
xiv, 165 p. ONLINE:
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/briefing/. Chapter 6: Reagan and Bush: A Study in Contrasts, is about 12 pages, and mentions "covert operations", such as ..."a US program, undertaken with vital Pakistani cooperation, to expel Soviet forces from Afghanistan..."

Possibly you could search newspapers from Cuba or Nicaragua, or other countries known to oppose US foreign policy, to get samples of articles that would charge the Reagan and George H Bush governments with terrorism, or at least with support of right wing insurgents who used terror tactics. The Cuban Government has a "Relation of Some Terrorist Actions against Cuba from 1990 to 2000" site at http://www.ain.cubaweb.cu/patriotas2/escalaing/terroring1.htm

Actually documenting facts and checking the accuracy of charges - and the accuracy of US Government statements denying them - will no doubt be a job for historians for many generations to come. For now, you may only be able to compile an interesting outline of what various governments and groups are saying.

Thanks for the question. RR