"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 07:31:57 -0500, "Bert Robbins"
wrote:

~~ snippage ~~

In terms of who deserves the most credit it is unmistakenly
Gorbatsjov. Why is it there is such a need to blow up the part Reagan
played? Don't you think any president with a smart advisor would have
done not exactly the same but would have added in the same amount?

No, Reagan was the drivinig force in tearing down the iron curtain.

Actually, history was on both their sides. The borders were already
porous as a screened hatch in a submarine, the economies of the
various Baltic states were becoming more Westernized with a healthy
open black market fueled by some really good smugglers (a story of
whom has never been written but I wish would be), Poland and Hungary
had already become democratized - the forces of history.

They were in the right place in the right time for it all to come
crashing down. The fact that Reganites took credit for it is an
accident of that same history.

I suspect that the Pope deserves a big chunk of the credit for motivating
people. Some of his comments on Communism during that period were very
similar to Martin Luther King's on racism here.