Commentary: The Cowboy Who Roped In Russia

Ronald Reagan really got under the Soviets' skin. When he took on the "Evil Empire" during his first term, his rhetoric made even the Russians' florid propaganda look wimpy. As a reporter in Moscow during the 1980s, I could see the loathing -- and the fear -- that Reagan provoked. After years of détente, the arduous Soviet-American effort to find common ground, along came this new President ordering up space weapons, arming anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan, and launching a blistering new phase of the Cold War. The Soviets blustered back, but their sclerotic system wasn't up for another fight. The image that sticks in my mind is one elderly guard at a lonely train station deep in Ukraine. "Why is your President Reagan creating this Star Wars?" he asked plaintively. "Pochemu?" -- Why?

It was always fascinating to watch Ronald Reagan work his wonders on the Soviets, hectoring them as "the focus of evil in the modern world" in his first term, then pushing for arms control and befriending Mikhail Gorbachev in his second. Some argue that Reagan made Gorbachev possible: The renewed resolve in Washington convinced the Politburo that the country needed a reformer to revive the system. But the Soviets didn't need Reagan to show them the spreading rot in their own backyard. In the end, of course, Gorbachev's insistence on genuine reform ended up destroying the system from within -- while Reagan smiled and winked his encouragement from Gorbachev's side.