By DRG
FJRP Correspondent
Novgorod the Great, Russian Federation—”The evil empire” or “the root of all evil in the world” are a few of some of the quotes the gipper used to desribe the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the early 1980s. Who could argue in those days? The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan in ‘79, supported communist uprisings in Nicaragura and El Salvador and shot down a Korean Airlines 747 flying astray over Sakhlain Island in Soviet airspace.
Then came the deaths of 3 Russian leaders over a 2 1/2 year period – 1982 Brezhnev, 1984 Andropov, 1985 Chernenko….and then came Mikhail Gorbachev and the new policy of Glasnost (Political “openess”) and Peristroika (economic “restructuring”) Peace treaties, such as the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Treaty were signed as the two most powerful people in the world came closer together.
But Reagan was relentless in his denunciation of the communist system as being fundamentally evil. It was his policy, throughout the 80s, to not contain socialism but to roll it back. Reagan stood at the Brandenburg gate in Berlin and demanded, with the whole German populace watching, that Gorbachev remove the facade that so well depicted the evils of the ideology.
Without Reagan, the Soviet Union may have lingered into the 90s – possible into the Clinton administration – a scary notion indeed!
The reaction to his funeral has been amazingly posative throughout Russian television. I assumed that old cold war wounds would re-open, but it has been exactly the oppostie. Based on the TV coverage one would think that most of today’s Russians liked the man?
But why? I asked a few Russians about this. Their answer: “He seems like a nice guy, someone you like.” And that, my friends was the magic of the gipper. He wasn’t a kneiving politician or an egghead academic, but a real person. I only wish that more people in politics, especially pin heads like Gore or Kerry, could be as real of an individual as he was.
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