What if Ronald Reagan was assassinated?

[Brilliantlight]

I don't see how Gorbachev's rise to power had anything to do with Reagan, and I think you misunderstand Gorbachev's objectives if you think he intended the Soviet empire to split up.

Whatever you think of GHW Bush, he knew what he was doing in foreign policy, and I doubt the Cold War would have lasted longer with him in charge - if anything, the opposite, without Reagan's Hollywood macho posturing.

True, Gorbochev did not try to break up the Soviet Empire but he was largely chosen because the Soviet economy was running out of gas. Even to the most dimwitted in Russia it was clear that the only direction the Soviet economy was going was straight down. Part of that reason was an expensive arms race with the US. It may have caused the Soviet Union to waste more money on arms then they otherwise would. The US wasted more money as well but since it had an economy at least 3 times larger (The CIA estimates at the time were way off) it could easily afford to. So some type of reformer was probably inevitible sooner or later but without the arms build up it would probably be later.

 

[Tom_B]

SNL

This thread reminds me of a pretty good skit SNL put on a few months after the attempted assassination. In it there are a bunch of analysts discussing some of President Bush's decision with the refrain that President Reagan would never have done that--things like busting the air traffic controllers union, etc. Of they were all thing Reagan actually did.

Tom