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JimFlat6 said:
Well, there you go again Crash....
If we applied your spin test to all US presidents, Lincoln would have been impeached for corruption, destruction of private property, a illegal draft and suspending habeous corpus.
Ronnie did something substantially different than his predecessors, something wich no one can ever second guess.
He called BS on "peaceful coexistence" and the status quo between the USSR and the West. Then he out spent them defense wise until they collapsed from trying to keep up.
JFK might have gone to Berlin and slagged off a cute phrase, but thats all he did. JFK allowed the Russians to construct the Berlin Wall in violation of the existing Four Power Treaty. It was Reagan whose policies finally got it removed.
Well, since Lincoln did not applaud the cast in that theatre enough, they dealt with him in that most American of manners - gunned him down
. Who knows what were to happen if he lived. But then again, he had a perfect cover: his criminal actions probably went unnoticed. Now who else in VERY recent history has used war as an excuse? Dubya for his oil exploits and Billy for his cigar handling (remember Sudan?)
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Ronnies actions were idiotic. Granted, they did result in a pleasant ending, but it could have been worse. Btw, the Soviet Union was already in deep trouble by the end of the '70s and various nations inside the Union, such as the Ukranians and the Belarussians were bound to get out sooner or later. Reagan MAY have accelerated the process, but he sure didn't cause it.
Regarding JFK, with thousands of Soviet tanks surrounding Berlin, I really don't think there was much he could do. They were lucky enough to keep West Berlin under allied control. Admittedly though, there was an option put forth by Stalin in 1952 to make Germany a tampon zone of sorts, making it a neutral state. Truman denied. So Kennedy isn't really the one to blame, is he?
P.S.: Does anyone else get the feeling that we might have veered a bit off topic?