KGB Director Vladimir Kryuchkov: "Reagan is a cowboy, that is for sure, but our intelligence confirms that he would never risk conflict with us on that scale, nor is there any support in Europe or even America for such a war. The Yanks have left us in place in Eastern Europe for fifty years. They will do so for another five hundred if necessary. May I remind the Comrade President that whatever else one can say about the state of this country, we still possess over twenty thousand strategic nuclear warheads aimed at the United States?"
Gorbachev: "It doesn’t matter. You’re not seeing the big picture here. We can’t keep up with these guys."
Yazov: "So let us match them, then. If we spend less on housing and food and healthcare, we can afford all the expensive hardware Reagan is buying – just like they’re doing. Do not forget, Mikhail Sergeyevich, that our people are patriots capable of sustaining the worst deprivations in order to support the motherland. We are Russians! That is what we do! Twenty million of us died in World War Two alone. If every one of us just turned down the heat in winter by two degrees, we could match the capitalists ruble for dollar."
Gorbachev: "Still, comrades, you don’t get it. The game is over. We must throw in the towel."
Orlov: "You keep using that phrase. Just what does that mean?"
Gorbachev: "Everything. The entire piroshki."
Kryuchkov: "My goodness, you can’t be serious! Are you saying that just because the Americans are spending themselves into penury for weapons they really cannot and dare not use against us, we must not only give up our outposts in the Third World and let our Eastern European empire go, but also retire from the Cold War and cease being a superpower?"
Gorbachev: "No, actually it’s worse than that, comrade. We must also cease to exist as a country. Because of Reagan’s build-up, we will henceforth be breaking the Soviet Union into fifteen separate countries. And we, my friends, no longer have our jobs, because the country we serve no longer exists."
Entire cabinet: Gasps, sighs, general consternation. "But why?!?!"
Gorbachev: "Because, my short-sighted former comrades, there are important myths to be served for the American right, and that, of course, is and must be our first priority."
Cabinet: "Ohhhhh... well, yes, of course. Now that you put it that way..."
And that’s the true story, improbable as it may seem, of how Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. The meeting was adjourned. The Soviet Union was demolished. And the heroic story of Reagan the Savior was preserved. Almost as if it came out of some B-rate Hollywood western...
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