Reagan Roundtable:The Cold War Ends by Joseph Fouche
Joseph Fouche at the Ronald Reagan Roundtable at Chicago Boyz.
Reagan Roundtable: The Cold War Ends
….Some observers (kind according to their own lights) take a more moderate course. They’ll concede that Reagan had something to do with the end of the Cold War. Perhaps mesmerized by the sight of his own reflection looking back at him from Gorby’s shiny bald head, the senile old dinosaur was stunned into a quiescence sufficient to allow Gorby to let peace break out without the hurdle of Reagan’s habitual warmongering. Under other circumstances, Reagan would wake up, eat his Wheaties, break out a map, and plan which bastion of worker’s solidarity he would besiege that day. Gorby’s charm and skill in handling this wild rampaging elephant of imperialist plutocracy was only just enough to overcome even the power of the Breakfast of Champions and end the Cold War.
Others concede that Reagan was more than a patsy skillfully played by a smooth talking Commie. Instead, he was a patsy skillfully played by a smooth talking State Department. In this version, George Schultz and other enlightened diplomats slowly weaned Reagan away from the Precambrian depths of his native Birchery and convinced him that speaking softly was more constructive than his unthinking waving of a big stick. The mandarins of Foggy Bottom supplied the script and Reagan, secretly yearning the direction of Hollywood days of yore, performed his role with all the aplomb a B-movie actor could summon. Reagan was convinced that the diminutive Gorby was Bonzo. It was his job to put the little bald chimp to bed with all the tender care a leading man could devote to an expensive studio prop. If Gorbachev happened to outshine him, it was all in good fun. Reagan understood in the light of the timeless wisdom of W.C. Fields: “Never work with animals or children”.
The heroic story that Reagan arose like a bronzed colossus from the hills above Los Angeles and not only consigned but personally muscled Marxism and Leninism on to the ash heap of history takes various forms. The most popular variant holds that Reagan won in spite of the serial arch-appeasers in State. His dedication to confidently waving around the DoD-forged mace of martial virtue in the face of Useful Idiot naysayers pushed the Soviets over the edge. The evil Commies strove to forge their own mace of martial virtue only to stumble over the inefficiencies of GOSPLAN. Gorby was simply playing for time by appealing over Reagan’s head to the useful idiots and fellow travelers in the West as the coils of Reagan’s grand strategy gradually squeezed the last breaths from the dying Bear. Faced with the unstoppable force of Truth, Justice, and the American Way, it wouldn’t have mattered who was leader of the USSR. Their place in the ash heap was prepared and furnished with all the trimmings of dread inevitability.