Today, Rudy Giuliani celebrates* the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall recalling how Ronald Reagan’s principled approach changed the course of history:
Reagan is one such person, one of history’s causers, and a force for good in the world. Had he never been born, the great good that he wrought might never have happened. And most certainly, it would have taken much longer with much more damage and pain for the oppressed. And the world would be a sadder, poorer place.
But his greatest achievement, and the one that surely made him one of the great Presidents of his century, is the way in which he liberated – literally from slavery – millions and millions of people outside of the United States, and therefore helped to produce a world that is safer for Americans and for everyone else, as well.
I would add, however, that the slavery of many of those millions — those outside of Russia itself, in then Soviet satellite states like the Czech Republic, East Germany, Poland and the Baltics — was the foreseeable result of foolish war-time policies pursued by Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt which empowered Josef Stalin by destroying Germany’s ability to counterbalance Russia. Reagan was undeniably a hero. But the stage on which Reagan played the hero was built by two fools or villains named Churchill and Roosevelt.
* In contrast, Barack Obama — devoted ally of Fidel Castro that he is — has pointedly declined to celebrate the Wall’s fall and resulting liberation of millions of human beings.
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I’ve read widely on the period you discuss here, Kurt, and traveled considerably in the areas mentioned — meeting with locals involved in politics extensively –and I would have to agree that 1) Reagan was the central cause of the wall coming down and all that went with it, with considerable assistance from Pope John Paul in Poland, and from Maggie Thatcher. And 2) you are right on about the roles of Churchill and Roosevelt. Churchill was less the cause than Roosevelt, whose hubris and indifference to human suffering knew no end. But they both bear much of the responsibility for the horrible suffering extending through WWII to the fall of the wall forty-four years later.
Stalin of course is a more direct cause, and he also gets far less credit than he deserves. The loss of life and horrible suffering of all kinds that he caused, in sheer numbers overshadows even Hitler.
It’s probably safe to say that Obama adores FDR because he came so close to ending the American republic. He’d like to do him one better, and finish the job.