June 7, 2004
THE PIVOT POINT
How they misjudged the Reagan I knew (Richard Perle, The Telegraph, 06/06/04)
In a hot, crowded room in a turn-of-the-century house overlooking Reykjavik harbour, the President of the United States listened intently to his advisers. A few hours earlier, after a day and a half of intense negotiation, Mikhail Gorbachev had agreed to accept American proposals to slash nuclear arsenals - but only if Ronald Reagan would confine his Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) to the laboratory, effectively killing any chance it could be built. The question was whether to accept Gorbachev's offer and abandon SDI, or reject it and return home without an agreement, leaving the US free to continue work on a defence against ballistic missiles.It is rare in history that we can identify a particular person, in a specific place, at the exact time to make a choice that makes all the difference, and then have that person make the hard decision that turns out to be the right decision. Any other president would have taken the deal offered in Reykjavik.
MORE: Remembering Ronald Reagan (Ken Adelman, Foxnews.com, 6/7/04)
Some dozen years later, when visiting the U.S., Mr. Gorbachev was asked how it happened. How he came into office ruling the communist Soviet Union, and left office with no Soviet Union and no communism. What was the turning point?Posted by David Cohen at June 7, 2004 12:44 PMWithout hesitation, he answered: "Oh, it's Reykjavik."
George Schultz tells the story of how they sat there with Gorbachev hammering on them to give up SDI and Reagan refusing until finally he passed a note to Schultz that asked: "Am I doing the right thing?" Schultz wrote back: "Yes"
The Soviet military had made abandonment of SDI a precondition for a deal, knowing that with it gone they could use agreements to maintain rough parity. Supposedly when the Icelandic PM was taking Gorby to the airport the Soviet leader told him: The Cold War ended here today.
Posted by: oj at June 7, 2004 4:00 PMAnd this was all made possible by the deployment of Pershing IIs in Europe thanks to American and British leadership, which is arguably another time/place that can be nailed down as an historical pivot point.
It is interesting to note that, at the time, SDI was basically vaporware. However, the destruction of the Syrian Air Force by the IAF and other American triumphs of military tech made it a credible intermediate term threat.
In effect, they envisioned a situation in the mid 1990s in which we could nuke Moscow with Pershings but largely defend NA (if not Europe) from a counterattack. We'd never have done it, but the Soviets would if they had the chance so they assumed we would.
My longwinded point is that the net effect was "nuclear blackmail" and Gorby's remark to the leader of Iceland was the Soviet capitulation to it.
It's wonderful to hear all of the leftists admit that Reagan 'won the cold war.' Unfortunately they will not step aside and let us handle islamism.
Posted by: JAB at June 7, 2004 6:55 PM