By the time Reagan was elected President I was learning more about history and I was travelling more to learn about the history of science and of politics in other countries and cultures. I traveled to the Soviet Union (and to Czechoslovakia) in the cold war days of Leonard Brezhnev. Twice later I visited the Soviet Union with my wife Jane and son Andrew (a specialist in Russian language and culture). On one our trips in the middle of an icy winter we watched the Soviet flag come down and the Russian flag go up over the Kremlin. That was New Years Eve, 1991.
We did a lot of traveling outside this country in the 80s and the 90s to get information and video for new programs in science and social studies. Included were short, and some longer visits to Tanzania, Mali, Morocco, South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Costa Rico, Panama, Cuba, Mexico, Canada, Turkey, Greece, Scotland, Ireland, England a well as many countries in Eastern and Western Europe.
At the turn of the century Jane and I took a three-month trip around the world. We stopped for three weeks in China (Shenzhen and Yunnan Province). We also had enlightening stops in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Finland, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Russia and England. Video from this trip now highlight our new programs on Democracy as well as our science programs. Some highlights of our science-oriented trips were: Darwin’s home in Down, England; Louis Pasteur’s laboratory in Arbois, France; Mendel’s monastery in Brno, Czech Republic; John Dalton’s school and home in England’s lake country; Marie Curie’s laboratory in Paris; and the Tilt River in Scotland where James Hutton first discovered that the earth had slowly changed over millennia from natural forces.
We learned from these foreign trips a new understanding and respect for people everywhere. Contrary to what many say, we never experienced anti-American sentiment, even in Muslim countries like Mali, Morocco and Turkey. On the contrary, the ordinary people we met in all of these varied countries went out of their way to be helpful to us “ugly” Americans.
Part 7: “We Win, They Lose.”
The Cold War took still another turn when Carter was succeeded by a popular former actor, union-activist, governor of California, and outspoken anti-communist politician, Ronald Reagan. Reagan had always been ambivalent about the “containment” policy and lukewarm about “détente.” He especially hated “MAD” and set as a goal for his administration abolishing all nuclear weapons. When asked by a reporter what his theory of the cold war was, he said, “We win, they lose.”
A few years after Reagan came to power in the U.S., the Soviet Union also had a new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev came from a different mold for a Soviet premier. He was relatively young. He realized that the command economy of the Soviets was not working and they were falling further and further behind the western democracies. He also was aware that the severe restrictions on freedom of speech, publication and openness were severely handicapping their economic and political progress.
To repair these defects he pushed a two-part program of reform called “perestroika” and “glasnost.” The first was supposed to reform the economy by introducing more incentives for production and the second was supposed to soften the repression by introducing more openness. In the end neither perestroika nor glasnost worked as planned but instead probably contributed to the failure and then to the final collapse of the communist world movement.
Reagan and Gorbachev met three times to attempt breakthroughs in the cold war competition. Reagan championed what some called a “star wars” concept. The idea was that the US would pioneer in anti-missile rockets that in theory could shoot down any nuclear armed missiles before they arrived at their targets. This, Reagan felt, would make the MAD strategy obsolete. He even offered to share the technology with the Soviets and hoped that this would make all nuclear arms obsolete.
Gorbachev did not agree. (Nor did many experts in the U.S. and Western Europe.) Nevertheless some think the very threat of anti-missile technology along with a U.S. military build-up was an important key to the final winding down of the cold war and the virtual demise of communism on the world stage.
I traveled to Russia in the communist days and saw for myself the dreariness, the empty grocery shelves, the ugly apartments without a single flower on their decrepit balconies, the extreme dearth of stores and restaurants, the churlish behavior of clerks and the despair and alcoholism of so many ordinary citizens. What I could not see, of course, were the still crowded and still viciously inhuman slave-labor camps (gulags) that writers like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Isaac Babel told the world about in first-person accounts of their imprisonments. These gulags were common not only in the Soviet Union but also in China, in Vietnam, in Korea, in Cuba and indeed in all Communist nations then and now. (I travelled to communist Cuba a few years ago and got the same impressions that I did in Russia of communist days. Walking in Havana, for instance, I noticed not only the extreme decay of most buildings but in every block I saw an armed soldier keeping watch over the population. They say one fourth of Cuban men are in the military services!)
In 1987 Reagan travelled to Germany and gave a speech in front of the Berlin Wall that contained a challenge most of his advisors thought inadvisable:
“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Two years later to the surprise of almost everyone in the world the East Germans did just that. They tore down the Berlin Wall. Some of it with bare hands! And just two years after that to the further astonishment of all, the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist.
During this same time in the late 80s and early 90s all of the formerly satellite communist countries overthrew their communist governments and became either free-market democracies or non-communist authoritarian states with more freedom than they had under their communist tyrants.
The cold war was over. The West had won.
Astonishment indeed! For most of the 20th century many people east and west believed that communism was the wave of the future. Ten years after the Second World War ended between one-third and one-half of the world’s people lived under communist rule. Most people in the western democracies, including myself, thought it highly unlikely that the cold war would end in any of our lifetimes. And yet it did end. Suddenly and unexpectedly!
And not only in Russia! In different ways before the 20th century ended Marxist-Leninist Communism as well as socialist-dominated economic systems were also on the way out in China, in Vietnam, in India and in South America (Venezuela, going the other direction, seems to be an exception today). Some, like China and Vietnam, still cling to the name “communist” for their government, while dramatically changing their economic base to a free-market capitalist one. After controlling over one-third of the human population in the middle of the 20th century, the only true communist states left in the 21st century are two small countries with less than one-half of one percent of the world’s population, Cuba and North Vietnam.
Stay tuned for Part 8: How and Why the Cold War Ended.
There follows excerpts from reviews in educational journals of some of the programs that came out of our trips in the late 20th and early 21st century:
“GLOBAL WARMING helps science teachers bring complicated issues involved in science, technology and society into the classroom. Arousing curiosity and exploration of controversial views, the interviews provide controversy, wisdom and some surprises. We found GLOBAL WARMING to be an excellent introduction to the nature of science and scientists, and recommend it as a valuable addition to science courses.” FOCUS, Journal of the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA.
“THE GENE presents a stimulating history of genetics from Mendel through recombinant DNA. The video does not make the error of trying to teach too much in too brief a time. Part one, ‘Monsters to Mendel to DNA’ presents genetics in a historical context, and part two, ‘What Is a Gene and How Does It Work’ conveys some of the current excitement in molecular genetics. The technical information (simple Mendelian genetics, the structure and replication of DNA, the function of RNA, and a strategy for cloning DNA) is clearly laid out. … the lively narration conveys much excitement, and the music by Michael Stonebarger is both interesting and pleasing … The teacher’s guide’s suggestions for investigation and discussion are unusually intelligent.” John B. Ferguson, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY in AAAS Science Books and Films.
“This video is well done and informative (EVOLUTION) …It would be a good introduction for a high school biology class. The producers have done an excellent job of describing evolutionary theory. They trace the development of natural history from the time of the ancient Greeks to that of Charles Darwin, and quite a bit of the video is devoted to Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle.” Douglas Vonderheld, The Science Teacher.
“THE ATOM traces man’s search for the ultimate unit of matter, from Greek philosophers to the present concept of the atom. The series strength lies in just the right combination of history, science and application. The choice in historical portraits, notebooks sketches and historical laboratories sets the scene for the explanation of scientific discoveries. These discoveries are then shown in applications from genetics to nuclear physics to video games. The series is current and fast moving. It can be used in group or individual instruction. Libraries would find THE ATOM a useful resource for science literacy, resource for review material. In addition, science classes would find the video appropriate as either introduction or review material.” Nancy Moreau, Physics Dept. Roy C. Ketcham High School. Wappingers, NY in Library Journal.
”I am writing to tell you of my appreciation of your video THE ATOM. I have used it in classes ranging from lower level introductory science through chemistry. It is well received at all levels.” Greg Presnall, Princeton High School, Princeton, WI.
Bill Stonebarger, Hawkhill Owner/President
P.S. Once gain, don’t forget our huge 2010 sale: 70% discount on all DVD programs. 90% discount on all VHS tapes. See our web site: www.hawkhill.com
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