Free Republic

János HorváthThe 1956 Hungarian Revolution in the Eyes of Ronald Reagan* President Ronald Reagan had a great interest in and knowledge of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, and this knowledge helped to shape his world views and contributed to his morally firm statesmanship. Contrary to the conventional wisdom of his time, he understood that the Soviet Union was not the strong, stable superpower and the wave of the future that it pretended to be. Moreover, he was aware that the smaller nations that had been engulfed into its colonial empire strongly resented the yoke under which they were held. As President...

It's not too late for the United States to bring other countries in on an exit strategy for Iraq, former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev said while visiting Midland Tuesday, adding he felt the war was a mistake from the start. Gorbachev, 75, spoke through an interpreter to a nearly packed Chaparral Center on the Midland College campus as part of the John Ben Shepperd Public Leadership Institute Distinguished Lecture Series. JBS is housed at University of Texas of the Permian Basin. When the war in Iraq began, Gorbachev said he was on a Toyko subway being interviewed by a Russian...

Border Security: Mikhail Gorbachev stepped over the boundary of elder statesmanship by accusing the U.S. of erecting a Berlin Wall on its border. It shows the old Soviet still can't distinguish criminals from dissidents. Addressing a news conference Tuesday at the University of Texas, Midland, Gorbachev leveled his charge as if there were no difference between building a fence to keep foreign intruders out and erecting a vast prison wall to seal citizens in. "You remember President Reagan standing in Berlin and saying, 'This wall should be torn down'? Now the United States seems to be building almost the Wall...

Contrary to what these so-called news reporters lead their readers to believe, ex-Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbechev did NOT help us "end the cold war" in any other way but to LOSE it! He was not on the same level with Ronald Reagan who is really the one responsible for ending the Cold War. I have seen this many, many times, but it is always a good idea to continue pointing out this bias to keep people aware of just what Gorbachev's role was in the Cold War. "News" services like Reuters continue to uplift Gorby to the level of benevolent...

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who played a key role in ending the Cold War, said the United States had squandered an opportunity to improve global politics after the Cold War, a paper said on Friday. In comments that were among the harshest he has made about the United States, Gorbachev compared U.S. foreign policy to one of the deadliest diseases on the planet — AIDS. "Today our American friends are suffering from an illness worse than AIDS. And I would say this is the victor's complex," Gorbachev was quoted as saying in an interview with the Netzzeitung. Unable to...

Twenty years ago this very day, President Ronald Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union. On the morning of October 12, 1986, it seemed as if the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. were on the brink of sweeping reductions in their nuclear arsenal. President Reagan's refusal to abandon SDI caused the talks to collapse. This locked the Soviets into continuing an arms race that they could not afford, could not win, and could not abandon, dooming their empire to eventual collapse. The results of the SDI program President Reagan refused to abandon could well save our lives from North Korean aggression.

Today's Democrats are nothing like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, who with courage and decisive action kept on top of their jobs and aggressively confronted one national defense crisis after another .........

Today's Democrats are nothing like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, who with courage and decisive action kept on top of their jobs and aggressively confronted one national defense crisis after another. Jimmy Carter, elected during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and (1) believing Americans had an inordinate fear of communism, (2) lifted U.S. citizens' travel bans to Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia and (3) pardoned draft evaders. President Carter (4) also stopped B-1 bomber production, (5) gave away our strategically located Panama Canal and (6) made human rights the central focus of his foreign policy. That led...

Ronald Reagan Statue in Poland — What About Gorby? September 19, 2006 Vox Populi, Doug Powers It’s commonly said, especially among the intellectualoids, that the downfall of communism in Europe was due mainly to Mikhail Gorbachev. The Polish people aren’t buying it — at least not a group of them. From Newsmax: "Polish admirers of Ronald Reagan plan to raise a statue of the former U.S president in Warsaw, where he is revered for his role in the downfall of communism in Europe. The 3.5-metre (3.8-yard) stone-and-bronze statue will stand across from the U.S. Embassy, the head of the group...

Even if one rejects Golitsyn's overall thesis -- viz., that Gorbachev's changes comprised a long-term strategic deception -- one must still acknowledge that Golitsyn was the only analyst whose crystal ball was functioning during the key period of the late 20th century. When the Soviet Empire collapsed in 1989, the CIA was chastised for failing to foresee the change. "For a generation, the Central Intelligence Agency told successive presidents everything they needed to know about the Soviet Union," said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "except that it was about to fall apart." Sovietologists both inside and outside CIA were indeed baffled,...

My Enemy's Enemy: The Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History -- the Arming of the Mujahideen by the CIA In the early summer of 1980, Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson walked off the floor of the House of Representatives into the Speaker's Lobby, a rich, wood- paneled room that stretches along the full length of the House floor. A Teletype at one end spewed out stories from AP, UPI and Reuters. Wilson was a news junkie, and he reached down and began reading a story datelined from Kabul. The article described hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Afghanistan as...

Since we can't post from Bloomberg you can read the article here Gorbachev Praises Bush's Father and Clintons, Scolds McCain

THE nation's (Australia) two main political leaders have snubbed a top international security, energy and environment summit headed by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. Mr Gorbachev will co-chair the Earth Dialogues conference in Brisbane next week. But Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley had both declined invitations from conference organisers to attend, a spokeswoman for Earth Dialogues said today. World experts in energy, security, climate change, water resource management and sustainable development will attend Earth Dialogues, which runs July 22-24 and is part of this year's Brisbane Festival. Queensland Premier Peter Beattie will co-chair the summit with...

15 Years After Being Deposed From Power, Former Leader Discusses Russia, U.S. Mikhail Gorbachev is generally regarded as the man who broke down the "iron curtain" that separated the communist world from the West and thawed the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Now, 15 years after a coup removed him from power and the Soviet Union dissolved, he has some stern words for the United States, whose relationship with Russia has soured lately. "We have made some mistakes," he said, referring to recent attacks on Russia's democracy. "So what? Please don't put even more obstacles...

Gorbie is wagging his finger at that big, bad U.S.A. and ABC News is helping him do it. In a piece by Claire Shipman, Mikhail Gorbachev is claiming that we ”Americans Have a Severe Disease” because we see ourselves as “winners”, but that Russia’s attacks on democracy are just “some mistakes” made. And once again, Ronald Reagan -- the man who REALLY ended the Cold War -- is ignored by a fawning media falling all over itself to genuflect at the feet of failed leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. The pieces starts with this idiotic paragraph: “Mikhail Gorbachev is generally regarded as...

World News The Times June 26, 2006 Mikhail Gorbachev has told Western leaders that interference in his country could be counter-productive. "Why should foreign organisations be involved in the Russian political process?" he said (PHOTO: KIM JAE-HWAN/POOL) Don't meddle in our affairs, Gorbachev warns the West From Adam LeBor in Venice MIKHAIL GORBACHEV has called on Western countries to stop interfering in Russia’s domestic affairs. Putting pressure on President Putin over human rights at next month’s G8 summit in St Petersburg, to be chaired by Russia, would be counterproductive, the last leader of the Soviet Union told The Times in...

See for example this thread first. Ten'years back at the Brandenburg Gate "Dutch" sealed the Communists' fate A clarion call to "Tear Down This Wall" A speech that the lib'rals still hate!

TWENTY years after ushering in the era of Glasnost, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has jumped back into politics by bolstering his stake in one of Russia's few remaining independent media outlets.He has announced a major cash injection into the weekly Novaya Gazeta, one of only a handful of Russian newspapers not controlled by the state. "The press needs to be objective and independent," he said. The move comes amid mounting criticism of the Kremlin's domination of the media: as well as controlling most national papers, the government controls all national TV. Novaya Gazeta was founded with money Mr Gorbachev...

Dick Cheney charges Vladimir Putin with limiting freedom and intimidating former Soviet satellites. A sure sign he's right: Russia's last communist premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, cries "provocation." The most dishonest news story of the 20th century was the cover-up of the Soviet Union's forced famine in the Ukraine in the 1930s by New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. The Stalin sympathizer knew as many as 10 million Ukrainians died, yet he wrote that famine was not happening. Disgracefully, his Pulitzer Prize was never revoked and his photo still has a place of honor in the Times' offices. In a reminder...

National PR-ity // Moscow drafts a plan to influence the United States The Kremlin has taken up the promotion of Russian interests in the United States head-on. The key role will be given to the Russian-U.S. Council for Business Cooperation (RUCBC) whose supervisory board will include high-ranking officials from the Russian president’s administration, ministers and prominent public figures. The Russian government asked the Finance Ministry to find sources to finance the NGO. However, it has already been suggested that big business contribute for the council’s activities. The first donation is expected to amount to $50 million. Work has in progress...