One Topic, Multiple Perspectives, No Answers: Ending the Cold War

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One Topic, Multiple Perspectives, No Answers
Ending the Cold War

• Did Ronald Reagan end the Cold War?

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The claim of sole credit for Reagan is absolute
nonsense If anything, the Reagan military
build-up postponed the end of the Cold War

• Georgi Arbatov, Chicago Tribune, 1992

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Reagan the well-known super-hawk and Reagan the
lesser known nuclear abolitionist are both
responsible for the end of that era

• Fred Kaplan, Slate, 2004

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Also true, many conservative Republicans
exaggerated Soviet might and espoused
confrontations that could have provoked a war.

• The Advocate, Baton Rouge, LA, 1992

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a legend is growing that it was the increase in
U.S. defense spending under Reagan that finally
overwhelmed the Soviet economy

• R.C. Longworth, Chicago Tribune, 1992

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Unpardonable is their (Republicans) continuing
blindness to the principal lesson of the Cold War
the Soviet empire collapsed abroad because it
failed at home.

• The Advocate, Baton Rouge, LA

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Reagans Role in Ending the Cold War is being
Exaggerated.Did Reagan bring the USSR to its
knees? This question will be debated among
historians for a long time to come.

• Roger Chapman