The Cowboy Who Came in From the Cold

Robert Service knows his subject. Assessing the Soviet Union's demise in The End of the Cold War: 1985-1991, he starts by outlining Ronald Reagan's fundamental change in U.S. policy. "[T]he assumption since the end of the Second World War," he writes, "had been that the West should only try to contain the USSR; no US President had ever truly endeavored to reverse the expansion of Soviet influence around the world. Ronald Wilson Reagan was determined to change things." Reagan's desire to advance human freedom under peace is the key theme of this extraordinary book. We learn why Reagan was so passionate in this endeavor: with reference to studies that projected an existential threat to human life post-nuclear conflict, we see how Reagan saw ending the Cold War as a moral cause as much as a strategic one. But it wasn't an easy path. Nor were Reagan's challengers solely located abroad: many in Reagan's cabinet and close allies such as Margaret Thatcher were skeptical of his approach to diplomacy. They feared that Reagan was being manipulated by Soviet leaders under the pretense of reform. Simultaneously, we see how Soviet leaders were equally paranoid that the United States was planning a pre-emptive nuclear strike against them. In the early 1980s, trust was in short supply.

Service pays balanced attention to both the U.S. and Soviet administrations. Stepping inside the Kremlin's halls, we learn how Gorbachev rose to power with a reputation for energetic reforms. The need for reform had become urgent due to decades of Soviet economic mismanagement and poor leadership. Prior to Gorbachev, the Soviet Union was crumbling under the physically frail and ideologically inflexible leadership of Andropov and Chernenko. Unwilling to confront the fundamental structural failings of their system, they had instead retrenched that system and its citizens further behind the Iron Curtain. The Soviet leadership also lacked sufficient resources to support their interests in critical frontier states such as Poland.

But then came the break. With Gorbachev at the table, Reagan decided to roll the dice. Pushing often hesitant Western European nations especially France and bucking against a European press supplicant to Soviet propaganda, Reagan built support for his strategy of negotiation alongside military strength. We learn that many of Reagan's political and diplomatic triumphs were rooted in his own deeply original thinking. In seeking to undercut Soviet authoritarianism, for example, he hired a Hollywood director, Charles Wick, to head the U.S. Information Agency. With a boosted budget, the agency funded pro-American media efforts across Europe and Russia. Far from the handsome wisecracking cowboy buffoon of much popular history, Reagan, was a keen and able strategist. Service notes that as negotiations proceeded and Gorbachev's government began to make concessions, Regan "sensibly avoided humbling them in private. It was better to prevent the flow of concessions by the Soviet side from stagnating." While Service identifies Reagan as the diplomatic linchpin that ended the Cold War, he also pays close attention to Gorbachev's unique personality. In Gorbachev we see a leader faced with the threat of total social collapse genuinely committed to radical economic and political reforms. We also learn how Gorbachev consolidated his leadership by surrounding himself with supporters.

The End of the Cold War is, necessarily, a long book a long masterpiece. By the book's conclusion, we have come to understand how two good men in the right positions at the right time forged a remarkable history. As Service puts it, "the impossible had turned into the probable and finally into the real."

That’s what I was wondering! How about The Shooting of Dan McGraw?

I had to look him up and was surprised to realized that he died in 1958. I thought he was a lot older than that. Iloved his poems when I was in high school. I had a friend who used to hold us enthralled by standing on the school retaining wall (under the street light after dark) and reciting Service poems by memory with dramatic flair. I hven’t thought of that for years.

Speaking of pomes, and cowboys, and cold...

Cowboy Poetry

by Bill Jones

Jake, the rancher, went one day
to fix a distant fence.
The wind was cold and gusty
and the clouds rolled gray and dense.

As he pounded the last staples in
and gathered tools to go,
The temperature had fallen,
the wind and snow began to blow.

When he finally reached his pickup,
he felt a heavy heart.
From the sound of that ignition,
he knew it wouldn't start.

So Jake did what most of us
would do if we had been there.
He humbly bowed his balding head
and sent aloft a prayer.

As he turned the key for the last time,
he softly cursed his luck.
They found him three days later,
frozen stiff in that old truck.

Now Jake had been around in life
and done his share of roaming.
But when he saw Heaven, he was shocked --
it looked just like Wyoming!

Of all the saints in Heaven,
his favorite was St. Peter.
(Now, this line ain't needed
but it helps with rhyme and meter)

So they set and talked a minute or two,
or maybe it was three.
Nobody was keeping' score --
in Heaven time is free.

"I've always heard," Jake said to Pete,
"that God will answer prayer,
But one time I asked for help,
well, he just plain wasn't there."

"Does God answer prayers of some,
and ignore the prayers of others?
That don't seem exactly square --
I know all men are brothers."

"Or does he randomly reply,
without good rhyme or reason?
Maybe, it's the time of day,
the weather or the season."

"Now I ain't trying to act smart,
it's just the way I feel.
And I was wondering', could you tell me --
what the heck's the deal?!"

Peter listened very patiently
and when Jake was done,
There were smiles of recognition,
and he said, "So, you're the one!!"

"That day your truck, it wouldn't start,
and you sent your prayer a flying,
You gave us all a real bad time,
with hundreds of us trying."

"A thousand angels rushed,
to check the status of your file,
But you know, Jake, we hadn't heard
from you in quite a long while."

"And though all prayers are answered,
and God ain't got no quota,
He didn't recognize your voice,
and started a truck in Minnesota."

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