REVIEW RSS FEED
RECOVERED HISTORY: THE BERLIN WALL MYTH
Peter Beinart, Daily Beast - Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell. And as soon as it did, a myth began to arise: that it was Ronald Reagan's uncompromising anti-communism that brought the Soviet Union to its knees. The myth's consequences have been immense: Again and again, post-Cold War hawks have invoked Reagan to oppose negotiations with America's enemies, and to justify the threat-if not the actual use-of force. There's just one problem: The myth is almost entirely false. Two decades later, it's high time ordinary Americans learn what most serious historians already know: that Reagan didn't end the Cold War because he was a hawk. He ended it because he turned into a dove.
To be sure, Reagan began his presidency as a hawk: He jacked up defense spending, created "Star Wars," and called the Soviet Union an "evil empire." That's the Reagan conservatives know and love today. What they conveniently forget is that Reagan began to ditch that hard line in early 1984-more than a year before Mikhail Gorbachev took power. In a dramatic January 1984 speech, Reagan abandoned his previous hostility to negotiations, declaring that "the fact that neither of us likes the other's system is no reason not to talk." And not only did he call for reducing nuclear weapons, he announced that "my dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the earth." From that moment until the end of his presidency, as Beth Fischer and other historians have documented, Reagan talked less about the Soviet threat than about the threat of nuclear war, and he never called the USSR an evil empire again.
Why the shift? Firstly, because Reagan's advisers feared that if he stuck to his hard line, Americans would not reelect him. By 1984, the American public had turned sharply against Reagan's military buildup, largely because after three years of no negotiations and lots of bellicose rhetoric, they were terrified by the prospect of nuclear war. The second reason for the shift was that Reagan was terrified of nuclear war, too. A movie-obsessive who often had trouble distinguishing reality from celluloid, he was deeply disturbed by the 1983 made-for-TV film The Day After, which depicted Lawrence, Kansas, in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. And late that year, when a U.S. military exercise called Able Archer briefly convinced the Soviets that America was planning a nuclear strike, he realized that things were getting out of hand. Thirdly, Reagan believed that because of his military buildup, the U.S. could finally negotiate from a position of strength.
To be sure, Reagan began his presidency as a hawk: He jacked up defense spending, created "Star Wars," and called the Soviet Union an "evil empire." That's the Reagan conservatives know and love today. What they conveniently forget is that Reagan began to ditch that hard line in early 1984-more than a year before Mikhail Gorbachev took power. In a dramatic January 1984 speech, Reagan abandoned his previous hostility to negotiations, declaring that "the fact that neither of us likes the other's system is no reason not to talk." And not only did he call for reducing nuclear weapons, he announced that "my dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the earth." From that moment until the end of his presidency, as Beth Fischer and other historians have documented, Reagan talked less about the Soviet threat than about the threat of nuclear war, and he never called the USSR an evil empire again.
Why the shift? Firstly, because Reagan's advisers feared that if he stuck to his hard line, Americans would not reelect him. By 1984, the American public had turned sharply against Reagan's military buildup, largely because after three years of no negotiations and lots of bellicose rhetoric, they were terrified by the prospect of nuclear war. The second reason for the shift was that Reagan was terrified of nuclear war, too. A movie-obsessive who often had trouble distinguishing reality from celluloid, he was deeply disturbed by the 1983 made-for-TV film The Day After, which depicted Lawrence, Kansas, in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. And late that year, when a U.S. military exercise called Able Archer briefly convinced the Soviets that America was planning a nuclear strike, he realized that things were getting out of hand. Thirdly, Reagan believed that because of his military buildup, the U.S. could finally negotiate from a position of strength.
1 Comments:
The Berlin wall fell because the USSR was rotting from within and could no longer credibly mount an offensive of ideas. Sure, at one time communism actually sounded good, especially to those in the world who had nothing and had been the victims of plutocracies. But, as time progressed, it couldn't justify itself. At one time, like it or not, the USSR held the high ground. They were for the working class, for the real producers. That resonated with a lot of people around the world. But eventually it became a sham. A myth. It became an Orwellian Animal Farm, where all people were created equal but some more equal than others. Economically, it could not sustain itself. So it collapsed. Down came all its trappings of power, including the Berlin wall. Sound familiar? It should. The same thing is happening here. Does capitalism of the recent wall street variety deserve adulation and emulation? At one time capitalism could actually rightfully claim it was the avenue for bounty for all. Does that seem true now? Take a gander at the Israeli wall. Is that a symbol of Western democracy? Is that a symbol of free market capitalistic ideals? Hardly. And when it falls, which it ultimately will, it will not be because of a single Israeli or American politician. It will be because the US and Israel will have finally dissipated whatever moral high ground they had - and run out of money too. Are we not already well on the way to that outcome? We are going the way of the Soviets. And I haven't even mentioned Afghanistan.
Post a Comment
<< Home