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 AP Reagan and Gorbachev saying farewell after talks in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986. |
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He stunned the Soviet Union with his tough rhetoric, calling it an "evil empire" whose leaders gave themselves the "right to commit any crime." His famed "Star Wars" program drew the Soviets into a costly arms race they couldn't afford. His 1987 declaration to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the Berlin Wall -- "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" -- was the ultimate challenge of the Cold War.
Ronald Reagan's determination to destroy communism and the Soviet Union was a hallmark of his eight-year presidency, carried out through a harsh nuclear policy toward Moscow that softened only slightly when Gorbachev came to office.
Reagan, who died Saturday at the age of 93, is vividly remembered in Russia today as the force that precipitated the Soviet collapse.
"Reagan bolstered the U.S. military might to ruin the Soviet economy, and he achieved his goal," said Gennady Gerasimov, who served as top spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry during the 1980s.
Reagan's agenda toward Moscow started shortly after the start of his first term -- and marked a major departure from the mild detente of the Jimmy Carter administration.
In 1981, Reagan backed his rhetoric with a trillion dollar defense buildup. U.S.-Soviet arms control talks collapsed, and the two nations targeted intermediate-range nuclear missiles at each other across the Iron Curtain in Europe.
The deployment of the U.S. missiles in Europe rattled the Kremlin's nerves, because of the shorter time they needed to reach targets in the Soviet Union compared to intercontinental missiles deployed in the United States.
In an even bigger shock to the Kremlin, Reagan in 1983 launched an effort to build a shield against intercontinental ballistic missiles involving space-based weapons.
The Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, dubbed "Star Wars," dumped the previous doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction that assumed that neither side would start a nuclear war because it would not be able to avoid imminent destruction.
Even though Reagan's "Star Wars" never led to the deployment of an actual missile shield, it drew the Soviets into a costly effort to mount a response. Many analysts agree that the race drained Soviet coffers and triggered the economic difficulties that sped up the Soviet collapse in 1991.
"Reagan's SDI was a very successful blackmail," Gerasimov said in an interview. "The Soviet Union tried to keep up pace with the U.S. military buildup, but the Soviet economy couldn't endure such competition."
Gorbachev said Sunday he was distressed by Reagan's death.
"I take very hard the death of Ronald Reagan, a man whom by fate sat with me in perhaps the most difficult years at the end of the 20th century," Gorbachev told reporters at the Gorbachev Foundation, a non-governmental analytical institute that he has run since 1992.
Despite Reagan's often-forceful statements against the Soviet Union, Gorbachev said he also had a personal warmth that bolstered their relations. "In terms of human qualities, he and I had, you would say, communicativeness, and this helped us carry on normally," Gorbachev said.
"But when you talk about friendly relations in politics, it's not the friendship of schoolmates, of the Arbat," he said.
"I deem Ronald Reagan a great president, with whom the Soviet leadership was able to launch a very difficult but important dialogue," Gorbachev said earlier Sunday on Ekho Moskvy radio, Interfax reported.
Gorbachev was quoted as calling Reagan "a statesman who, despite all disagreements that existed between our countries at the time, displayed foresight and determination to meet our proposals halfway and change our relations for the better."
Gorbachev listed Reagan's accomplishments as helping to "stop the nuclear race, start scrapping nuclear weapons, and arrange normal relations between our countries."
"I do not know how other statesmen would have acted at that moment, because the situation was too difficult. Reagan, whom many considered extremely rightist, dared to make these steps, and this is his most important deed," he was quoted as saying.
Yelena Bonner, the widow of Soviet dissident Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, praised Reagan for his tough course toward the Soviet Union.
"I consider Ronald Reagan one of the greatest U.S. presidents since the World War II because of his staunch resistance to communism and his efforts to defend human rights," Bonner said in a telephone interview from her home in Boston. "Reagan's policy was consistent and precise, and he had a great talent of choosing the right people for his administration." Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, 61, remembered Reagan fondly for his humor and his toughness. "His phrase, 'evil empire,' became a household word in Russia," said Bukovsky, who now lives in Cambridge, England. "Russians like a straightforward person, be he enemy or friend. They despise a wishy-washy person."
Retired General Vladimir Dvorkin said that trying to field a response to Reagan's Star Wars had "certainly contributed" to the Soviet economic demise but argued it didn't play the decisive role.
"The Soviet economy was extremely inefficient and nothing could save it," said Dvorkin, a senior Soviet arms control negotiator during the 1980s.
But Bonner said her husband -- who had played a key role in designing Soviet nuclear weapons -- believed that deploying U.S. missiles in Europe was necessary to bring the Soviet rulers back to the arms control talks. In December 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev signed a treaty that for the first time eliminated the entire class of intermediate-range missiles.
"Reagan and Gorbachev helped end the Cold War," Gerasimov said.
Associated Press writer Gerald Nadler in New York contributed to this report.