The corner was finally turned when Pakistani officers traveled to the United States in June 1986 for special Stinger training—the same month that Reagan met with Afghan resistance leaders.39 Days later, a clandestine training center was set up in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, featuring an advanced electronic simulator developed in the United States. Rebels fired mock missiles at a large screen that highlighted a hit or miss.40 Shortly thereafter, the first shipment of Stingers finally arrived in Pakistan that summer.41 The hard work of the administration would soon payoff as the missiles would reverse the course of the war.
Even before the first Stinger was fired in September 1986, Gorbachev had been frustrated by the war. In his opening speech to the twenty-seventh CPSU Congress, held February 25 to March 6, 1986, he called the war a “running sore.”42 Despite his efforts of the previous year, it was clear that his military initiatives with General Zaitsev and the KGB were not having the desired effect on the campaign.
Ultimately, the Stingers would prove to be a nail in the Soviet coffin, singlehandedly eliminating the air superiority which had accounted for much of the success of the Red Army. While the war continued to rage, the bells began tolling for the Soviet Union’s military effort in Afghanistan on that day in September 1986 when the first helicopter exploded.
REYKJAVIK
As the fall of 1986 progressed, Reagan received yet more evidence that the Soviet economy was in dire shape. “It made me believe that, if nothing else, the Soviet economic tailspin would force Mikhail Gorbachev to come around on an arms reduction agreement we both could live with,” said Reagan. “If we didn’t deviate from our policies, I was convinced it would happen.” Now more than ever, said Reagan, “the Soviet economy was a basket case.”
He tried looking at the situation from Gorbachev’s viewpoint: “I knew he had to be giving high priority to reducing the vast amounts of rubles the Soviets were spending on weapons. He had to be losing some sleep over the vitality of our economy… and he must have realized more than ever that we could outspend him as long as the Soviets insisted on prolonging the arms race.”43 More accurately, it was Reagan who was prolonging the arms race. Gorbachev was “prolonging” it by not tossing in the towel. When Reagan saw Gorbachev at the Reykjavik summit in October 1986, he warned him “to join in arms reductions or face an arms race he couldn’t win.”44
A few days after Reykjavik, Gorbachev shared his fears with Soviet citizens in a nationally televised address. “The United States wants to exhaust the Soviet Union economically through a race in the most up-to-date and expensive space weapons,” he explained. “It wants to create various kinds of difficulties for the Soviet leadership to wreck its plans, including the social sphere, in the sphere of improving the standard of living of our people, thus arousing dissatisfaction among the people with their leadership.”45
Two excellent high-level sources on Gorbachev’s desperation at this moment were foreign ministers Eduard Shevardnadze and Alexander Bessmertnykh. Shevardnadze noted: “It was invariably argued that there was no reason why we should reduce our armaments, by, say, 10 or 16 items more than the other side. Yet the point was to stop the arms race…. Our country could not remain a militarized state.”46
Bessmertnykh, who had been a member of the Soviet National Security Council and one of only five members of the Defense Council, acknowledged that Reagan’s buildup, particularly the threat of SDI, did in fact prompt the Soviets to furiously counterspend: “We thought that the only way we could respond to the threat of SDI, especially, was to develop the ICBM program as much as possible. It was with that in mind… that we started to develop two modern ICBMs, which were the SS-24 and SS-25.” And yet, the Soviets realized they had to relent. In long-range missiles in particular, Bessmertnykh said that Gorbachev “understood that we did not have a chance of catching up with the United States.”47
It had been apparent to the Soviet government, said Bessmertnykh, that “Reagan decided to change the course of defense policy and start an enormous buildup,” and “that the United States was serious about overwhelming the Soviet Union in one basic strategic effort.” Quite significantly, Bessmertnykh states unequivocally that it was the “economic side of the arms race” that “was very much on Gorbachev’s mind,” and that, in turn, drove Gorbachev to propose arms reductions.48 In other words, the Soviet leadership had reacted precisely the way that Ronald Reagan had long ago predicted.
But to what extent? From 1985 to 1986, the USSR may have spent an added $15–20 billion annually, strictly on military spending, in an attempt to match Reagan’s hikes.49 To the United States, an extra $15–20 billion would be exorbitant; to the USSR at this time, it was a silver bullet. According to a Soviet estimate, 62–63 percent of the money devoted to machine-building in the USSR in 1986 was for military purposes.50 This was at a time when, as Marshal Akhromeev put it, “the USSR was not able to continue… the military confrontation with the USA and NATO. The economic possibilities for such a policy was exhausted.”51 Nonetheless, Mikhail Gorbachev was trying. And, in responding to the Reagan challenge, the USSR was in the process of bankrupting itself.
18. Calling for Liberation: 1987
ON JUNE 12, 1987, NINE YEARS AFTER HIS FIRST, FORMATIVE trip to East Berlin, Ronald Reagan returned to the Berlin Wall. Now, he voiced a number of opinions that he had wanted to say since his first visit, and this time with the power of the world’s media behind him.
It was a clear but breezy day at the Brandenburg Gate, and likewise Reagan’s unambiguous words flew off the page as he delivered one of the most notable speeches of his career, appealing directly to Mikhail Gorbachev to effect change in this city that was literally cut in half. “There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace,” said the president. “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!”1
The crowd roared in approval. Reagan’s words placed the onus squarely on Mikhail Gorbachev, who indeed was the one man who held the power to tear down the wall. And if Gorbachev was truly the near saintly figure depicted by Western liberals, then he ought to do one simple, right thing: order the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.
It was a remarkable moment, one that rippled across the world. At once a call to arms and a direct challenge to the man in Moscow, the line shuddered with the intensity and hopes of millions that were trapped behind the Berlin Wall, none of whom dared say what Reagan could and did.
While historians have noted the significance of Reagan’s command to Gorbachev, the words that came after that famous line, at the conclusion of the speech, have not been discussed with the same fervor, but nevertheless should be, since they contained a rather prophetic prediction. As he was finishing his speech, Reagan looked out on the crowd, and from the Reichstag, he noticed the words “This wall will fall” crudely spray painted upon the wall. Pondering them for a moment, Reagan faced the crowd and asserted: “Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall.”2