44. Ronald Reagan, An American Life, 508., 508. 8890639.
46. Gorbachev, Memoirs, 457. He has made identical or near identical remarks in Gorbachev speaking on “Reagan,” The American Experience, PBS; and Gorbachev, July 1997 statement, in A Shining City: The Legacy of Ronald Reagan (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), 222.
47. Gorbachev speaking on “Reagan,” The American Experience, PBS.
48. “Ron and Gorby Remember the Good Old Days,” Reuters, September 18, 1990.
49. Jack Matlock, who attended the dinner, relays the exchange in Reagan and Gorbachev, 326.
50. Gorbachev speaking on “Ronald Reagan: A Legacy Remembered,” History Channel productions, 2002.
6. Thomas Mann, director of the Governmental Studies program at the Brookings Institution, agrees that a “success of the Reagan administration was the process of democratization—the march toward free governments around the world.” Thomas Mann in Berman, ed., Looking Back on the Reagan Presidency, 26. Professor Robert A. Pastor, a Latin America expert at Emory University and the Carter Center, who is stingy in his praise of Reagan administration policy, concedes that, “the 1980s saw an unprecedented wave of democratization in Latin America” in particular. Robert A. Pastor in Berman, ed., Looking Back on the Reagan Presidency, 33.
7. Gorbachev letter was posted at the Web site of the Reagan Library and Museum. 8. Vladimir Isachenkov and Jim Heintz, “Reagan Mourned in Former ‘Evil Empire,’” Moscow Times, June 7, 2004.
9. David E. Hoffman, “Hastening an End to the Cold War,” Washington Post, June 6, 2004. 10. Russert interviewed by Chris Jansing, MSNBC, June 6, 2004.
11. Ted Anthony, “U.S. and the World Mourn Reagan’s Death,” Associated Press, June
5, 2004. Kennedy’s statement was also posted on the Web site of the Reagan Library and Foundation.
12. Dan Pavel, “Superpower United States: From Reagan to Bush Jr.,” Bucharest Ziua, June 14, 2004. Published by FBIS as “Romanian Daily Praises Reagan Role in Ending Cold War, Rejects Anti-US Attitude.”
13. Alexei Pankin, “Revising Reagan’s Role in Soviet History,” The Moscow Times, June
15, 2004.
14. Statement from the Polish news agency PAP, “Former Polish President Says Reagan Helped to Overthrow Communism,” June 5, 2004. Published by FBIS as “Former Polish President Says Reagan Helped to Overthrow Communism.”
15. “A Salute to a Great President—And A Modest Proposal,” Budapest Business Journal, June 14, 2004.
16. Vladimir Isachenkov and Jim Heintz, “Reagan Mourned in Former ‘Evil Empire,’” Moscow Times, June 7, 2004.
17. Gillian Flaccus, “Immigrants from Former Soviet Union Mourn Reagan,” Associated Press, June 9, 2004.
18. Quoted in “Asia Remembers Former US President Reagan as Friend, Vanquisher of Communism,” Paris AFP (North European Service), June 6, 2004.
19. Mohammad Ashraf Azeem, “Ronald Reagan’s America,” Islamabad Khabrain, June 9,
2004. Translated and published by FBIS as “Pakistan Columnist Lauds Ronald Reagan’s Policies, Period,” June 9, 2004.
20. Those future generations can look back with thanks to a number of Cold War leaders: John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev stepped back from the abyss, and many more were dedicated to avoiding that fate, from Truman to Carter. But it was Reagan and Gorbachev who were there at the end—an end completely unforeseen when Reagan arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January 1981. Those two leaders deserve special gratitude for ending the Cold War peacefully, with no nuclear weapons launched.
21. In mid-September 1961, Reagan spoke to the Press Club of Orange County, California. “There can be only one end of the war we are in,” said Reagan firmly: “wars end in victory or defeat.” Schweizer, Reagan’s War, 35, in which he cites “Warns of Red Menace: Film Star Ronald Reagan to Speak,” Bakersfield Californian, September 16, 1961, 19–20; and Ronald Reagan, “Encroaching Control,” Vital Speeches of the Day, September 1961.
EPILOGUE
11. Gorbachev, Memoirs, 216.
12. Mikhail Gorbachev, On My Country and the World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 26.
13. Gorbachev, Memoirs, 177.
14. Ellman and Kontorovich, eds., The Disintegration of the Soviet Economic System, 2–3, 26.
CHAPTER 18
1. Reagan, “Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin,” June 12, 1987.
2. Ibid.
3. Interview with Peter Robinson, October 8, 2004.
4. Studio 9 Program, June 18, 1987, published as “Studio 9 Participants Discuss Reagan’s
Recent Speeches,” in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, FBIS-SOV-19-JUN-87, June 19,
1987, A1–10.
5. Gorbachev, Perestroika, 199.
6. This is almost verbatim what he had written in Perestroika. See Gorbachev, Perestroika,
200; and Brown, The Gorbachev Factor, 244–45. According to Brown, not until February 1990
did Gorbachev tell West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl that it was up to the Germans to
determine the kind of state they would have and on what timetable. At this point, of course,
the matter was well out of Gorbachev’s hands. To his credit, Gorbachev kept Soviet troops out
of the process, though, again, such a solution at that point would have been almost impossible.
CHAPTER 19
1. Barnes, “Victory in Afghanistan,” 91.
2. Tarasenko is quoted in Wohlforth, ed., Witnesses to the End of the Cold War, 141. 3. Barnes, “Victory in Afghanistan,” 87.
4. Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War.
5. John Lewis Gaddis, U.S. News & World Report, October 18, 1999, 43. 6. I’m indebted to the research of Stephen F. Knott, who identified these examples in his
“Reagan’s Critics,” The National Interest, Summer 1996, 72.
7. Russell Watson and others, “Inside Afghanistan,” Newsweek, June 11, 1984, 55.
8. Russell Watson and John Barry, “Insurgencies: Two of a Kind,” Newsweek, March 23, 1987, 32.
9. Richard Cohen, “Why Aid Afghanistan?” Washington Post, January 2, 1985, A15; and Richard Cohen, “The Soviets’ Vietnam,” Washington Post, April 22, 1988, A23.
10. Gorbachev, Memoirs, 171, 197, 365, 138.
11. Adelman, The Great Universal Embrace, 228.
12. I’m indebted to military historian Tod Reiser for this insight.
13. These are the words of Congressman Charlie Wilson. Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War, 522–23.
14. I found at least a half dozen clear wall calls before Reagan’s June 12, 1987 speech, including the three occasions prior to his presidency. Further, I found an additional nine wall calls or affirmations made publicly by
