My memory of & experience with President Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev - Russian Ukrainian Belarus Travel Music Woman Dating News

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My memory of & experience with President Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev
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Posted by: Khashyar

Hi Everyone,

You probably have heard that former President Ronald Reagan died today.

When I was studying at Baldwin-Wallace College in Cleveland, Ohio in 1998 before Reagan's last Presidential term was over, Reagan came to speak in the college gymnasium.

Security was of course very high, with sharpshooters on the roof, and secret service everywhere. Everyone who wanted to enter the gymnasium to hear him speak had to go through a metal detector.

My girlfriend at the time was a passionate Democract and very anti-Reagan, and she snuck in a pro-Democrat campaign sign to the gym.

Since we were one of the first people to arrive hear him speak, my girlfriend and I were standing about 12 feet away from Reagan as he spoke to the audience.

My ex-girlfriend was a sometimes very passionate person, and as Reagan was speaking, she waved the sign enthusiastically in his field of vision, which actually startled him a bit, though he kept on speaking.

I remembered thinking that he seemed older and not as tall as he appeared on television. He seemed like an old man, and almost but not quite frail.

Later that year, I was in Washington D.C. staying with my parents, and I saw Soviet Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev during his first visit to the United States. Gorbachev was riding in a convertible limousine down a street in Washington D.C. waving to the admiring onlookers who had gathered to stand on the sidewalks. By the appreciative look on Gorbachev's face, it was clear that he was enjoying and bathing in his popularity here in the U.S. as opposed to his dwindling popularity in the chaotic and newly de-Sovietized Soviet Union.

I talked to my dad about an hour ago about Ronald Reagan's death, and my father said that Ronald Reagan was responsible for Lena and I getting together.

I was about to laugh, and then I realized that what my father said was probably true. It was largely through Ronald Reagan's passionate dislike of Communism and the Soviet System, and through his political efforts that ended the Cold War that dissolved the Soviet Union and allowed Lena and I to be able to first communicate and meet in a "free"

Belarus.

As an aside, in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for President, and I was a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Hillary Clinton was meeting with groups of students at a campaign rally and she came to me and shook my hand. I told her in an un-starstruck way: "I wish you good luck and success." She paused and looked at me (I think that most students there were in the celebrity frenzy of the moment) and said "thank you" and then continued shaking hands with students and well-wishers.

Ironically, Reagan died in the Los Angeles area (where Lena and I live). His body is now at a mortuary in Santa Monica (near the beach West of L.A.). Crowds are gathering there to wish his presence goodbye.

I injured a couple of muscles in my leg on Friday in a softball game, and Lena is working, so although I would like to be a part of the moment there, I don't think that I will go.

An old era has passed, opening the way for new paths of the future and history.

Khashyar

Posted by: Jutman

I really don't like that you see the end of the cold war as something these two persons did.

Its was the technology who had the main reason for this.

Reagan will be most rember for the Reagomics, at least in Japan. For the World he was the ancher man for teaching the world how important it is with low inflation.

Posted by: RollingT

My memories date back to 1980 when he was running for his first term. It was the night he was making a campaign appearance at Purdue University where I was a attending school. I always had an interest in politics and have made up my mind to support Reagan. My father imigated to the United States from the Ukraine and became a US citizen. He always instilled in me a passion to vote and cherished the freedom given to him in the US. Reagan got out of his car and starting to the crowd shaking hands right in front of me. I shook his hand and he made a point to say a comment to every person. He got distracted talking with one of his handlers and come back to me and I shook his hand a second time. Of course he won the election and became one of our greatest presidents in our history. I also feel that it was the inital desire to free the world of communism that will allow me to visit Omsk to meet a very nice woman next week in a free Russia. It was his passion to make everyone believe in the positives of the United States again that got the world to follow in his passion.

Posted by: Khashyar

Thank you, RollingT, for sharing your interesting experience with Reagan.

Hi Brian... those two men are credited for spearheading the end of the Cold War, but of course the social climate was also responsible.

Posted by: Khashyar

Here is what Gorbachev said about Reagan in a statement released after Reagan's death:

The news about Reagan's death "upset me very much," Gorbachev said.

"Reagan and I were involved in very important events concerning the relationship between our countries and the situation in the world," Gorbachev said.

"I deem Ronald Reagan a great president, with whom the Soviet leadership was able to launch a very difficult but important dialogue," he said.

"Reagan was a statesman who, despite all disagreements that existed between our countries at the time, displayed foresight and determination to meet our proposals halfway and change our relations for the better, stop the nuclear race, start scrapping nuclear weapons, and arrange normal relations between our countries," Gorbachev said.

"I do not know how other statesmen would have acted at that moment, because the situation was too difficult. Reagan, whom many considered extremely rightist, dared to make these steps, and this is his most important deed," he said.

Posted by: Khashyar

Here is a statement by Gennady Gerasimov, who served as top spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry during the 1980s.

"Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal."

Posted by: Jutman

Khas

I don't disagree with that. What he did was to run the Sovjet in technology miltary. But again he could only have done if that if the innovation and evolution of certain technology.

He got his honour with the airport in DC. A fair honour to a a great actor an President who wanted good things.

Posted by: rattlesnake6979

Reagan was a great president and as an actor he imbued the post with the imagery of that role. Regan and Gorbachev were great actors and they were actors in a stage of history for which both knew the stakes were very high . Reagan achieved his aims with the luck of having on his side good technology, a large army and the role of the Polish who started the gradual slipping away of the communist system in eastern europe.

Posted by: Jutman

aqua

You are of course right. There must be several conditions in place before it was possible to overrun the Sovjet in production.

Like the influence of Estonian watching finnish TV. The Hungarian who actually had a open border to Austria, and there learned about the West.
The impact of tourism and of course the desire and will of the people. Without the last, it would not have matter.

---

At Univeristy I was taught that the Sovjet used the weight as a succes criteria and not units.
This meant a huge difference. In example:

A car production plant were giving 1.2 million tons of material a week. If we take a Lada its weight is 1200 kg. Then every week they could manufacture 1000 cars.
If they had used units ans with R&D ended at a typical Western Euopean car at between 900 kg to 1000 kg, they would have got 1200 to 1333 cars instead of 1000. With that increase Sovjet would have meet the demand and Western producton capacity.

I think this lack of R&D and capacity was what Reagan and advisors saw and had succes with the plan to overrun them.

Posted by: RollingT

auqa

It is pretty short sighted to judge Reagan on increasing deficits and military budgets. Considering the ecomony and world situation he inherited from Carter, the United States gained international prestige. He dropped the top icome tax bracket from 70% to 28% and the ecomomy boomed and interest rates dropped. Though this expansion those deficits disappeared. The defense build-up forced other countries to change their military strategy and was needed due to Carters weak stance to negotiate everything. Very few bullets were fired to cause this much change in the world. I remember how Reagan could make everyone feel pride in the United States and he was there at the right time in history to make the nation unite.

Walk tall and carry a big stick.

Posted by: mria

Quote:

Originally posted by aqua
Jutman, I believe that the Soviet Union collapsed mainly due the internal structural problems. Of course, outside influence played its role but I don�t think it was enough to knock down such a giant. I mean the Soviet Union recovered even after the devastation of the world war although the country was in ruins.
I�m not a political analyst though, so these are just my guesses.

Thats exactly what happened (studied Soviet politics in my bachelor's

) Gorbachev was an avid believer in communism, and was quite a nice guy really because he simply wanted to get rid of the rottenness and corruption. He hoped that if he could just clean everything up a bit, then the soviet union could just continue with its quest for real communism, not the inept, fundamentalist version that was existing. Basically, the FSU was already collapsing because at this stage it was so badly organised. For example farms,-Stalin really did a lot for Russia's development (evil though he was), but by the late 80s, the centralised system that Stalin set up was just not working anymore. The leaders at the top who were making decisions about farming, knew nothing about farming, so people had to be really innovative (and use blat ) to keep the country running.
Gorbachev fed into the propaganda that the state was all powerful, when in fact the only thing that was keeping the soviet union running was the creativity of the people (e.g. aquiring goods through barter--some of the stories are quite amazing to read).
He launched policies of 'glasnost'(openess) and 'perestroika' (turning point) in order to try to get everything into order, (and continue towards true communism) but the internal structures were already so weak, that when he did so, the inadequacies in the centralised state were revealed. The state imploded from the inside, shocking Gorbachev himself and the rest of the world.

Then capitalism prevailed

(but thats another discussion

)

Posted by: Jutman

Aqua

Its a complex answer. Yes, its was domestically has a high influence, but why? And what?.

When we talk politics and so important issues as change of systems its impossible to say to a single reason cause the change.

Posted by: Khashyar

Hi Everyone,

I did not support Reagan and his policies when he was in office, and did not vote for him in 1984 in the first election that I was able to vote. And there are definitely some things that I do not agree with regarding his policies.

That being said, I do believe that Reagan had a large impact on the United States, and really launched the neo-conservative movement. He is the inspiration for one or more generations of Repulicans and Conservatives.

Yes, there were international and technological influences that contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the economy of the U.S.S.R. was not strong before it's collapse.

Many scholars and political thinkers do give Gorbachev and Reagan credit for the fall of the U.S.S.R. and the end of the Cold War.

Many Americans feel that Reagan had an influence on their lives.

I didn't agree with many of his Conservative ideas, and didn't like his administration's dealings in the Iran-Contra Scandal, as well as his invasion on Granada and some of his south America policies, but many prominent thinkers would agree that he had a large influence on American politics and the American psyche.

Khashyar

Posted by: Khashyar

Hello Everyone,

I think that it would be interesting to open a new thread regarding what was the reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I think it would be very interesting to hear the views of both Russians and Westerners on how they have been educated in their countries as to the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Khashyar

Posted by: Khashyar

Hi Everyone,

Let's continue our discussion about the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union in this newly created thread specifically about that topic:

http://www.russianmeetingplace.com/...?&threadid=2429

Khashyar

Posted by: Jutman

Quote:

his invasion on Granada

I did not know he invade Spain.

But perhaps you meant GRENADA.

Sorry !! As a International Business teacher, I could'nt resist.

Posted by: ubermacht003

Reagan On The American $50.00 Bill - Would Be A Good Start - Reagan Tied His Damn Horse Up Where He Pleased A Global Hero And A Real Cowboy -