[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 175 (Tuesday, November 7, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2118]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          WINNING THE COLD WAR

                                 ______


                        HON. GERALD B.H. SOLOMON

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 7, 1995

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, the revisionist drumbeat has been deafening 
lately, this time in an attempt to belittle the accomplishment of 
President Ronald Reagan in winning the cold war through his policy of 
peace through strength.
  We are being told that the Soviet Union fed us tainted information, 
causing us to overspend wildly on defense. The best response to this 
disinformation campaign came in today's Washington Times editorial, 
which points out that it is dubious, at best, that the former Soviet 
Union would want us to overspend on the defense buildup which 
contributed to winning the cold war.
  Mr. Speaker, I suspect that this entire campaign is inspired by those 
who want to unilaterally disarm this country and transfer Pentagon 
funds to their favorite social programs. Beyond that, I will be glad to 
let the times editorial speak for itself, and proudly place it in 
today's Record.

               [From the Washington Times, Nov. 7, 1995]

               Fighting the Cold War (With Some Success)

       ``[T]he tainted reports tended to overstate Soviet military 
     and economic strength, perhaps to deter America from 
     confrontation, perhaps to encourage excessive defense 
     spending.''--New York Times editorial, Nov. 2, 1995.
       ``Just as Ronald Reagan undertook (with some success) to 
     challenge the Soviets to a bankrupting economic and 
     technological competition, did the Kremlin then try to make 
     Americans waste their assets and energies too?'')--Washington 
     Post editorial, Nov. 3, 1995.
       Well, now we know. The revitalization of national defense 
     during the Reagan presidency, which led directly to victory 
     in the Cold War and contributed to the collapse of the Soviet 
     Union's Evil Empire, not only was a waste of money. But it 
     was a commie plot, too.
       The New York Times vigorously opposed both the Strategic 
     Defense Initiative (SDI) and President Reagan's indomitable 
     determination to rebuild U.S. national defenses in order to 
     avoid negotiating strategic and conventional arms reductions 
     from a position of weakness. History has confirmed the wisdom 
     of Mr. Reagan's policies. But with the perfect vision of 
     hindsight, the Times wants to nitpick about a fighter program 
     here or a radar system, there, even as defense spending is 
     plunging toward 2.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) 
     by 2000.
       Considering that the Soviets were keenly aware (even if the 
     CIA wasn't) of their growing economic weakness relative to 
     the economically reinvigorated United States, their double 
     agents might understandably have sought to deter 
     confrontation by providing tainted information. After all, 
     not only was the Soviet economy on the verge of collapsing 
     under the unsustainable weight of peacetime military spending 
     approaching 25 percent of GDP. But the entire world witnessed 
     the indisputable inferiority of Soviet conventional arms 
     (fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles and tanks) during 
     the 1982 Middle East war as the U.S.-equipped Israeli air 
     force destroyed the Soviet-supplied Syrian forces.
       What's harder to make sense of is the notion that the 
     gremlins of the Kremlin were providing tainted information 
     ``to encourage excessive defense spending'' or to ``try to 
     make Americans waste their assets and energies''? The Times 
     argues that these Soviet-supplied tainted assessments, which 
     the CIA forwarded to U.S. policymakers, ``may have 
     contributed to billions in misdirected [defense] spending.''
       But which weapons systems, exactly, was the Kremlin seeking 
     to promote? Why on earth would Moscow want us to develop a 
     new generation of stealth aircraft, from the strategic B-2 
     bomber to the Air Force's F-22 fighter or the Navy's carrier-
     deployed (since canceled) A-12 bomber? Stealth cruise 
     missiles? Indeed, as the F-117A stealth fighter-bomber 
     demonstrated over Baghdad in 1991, stealth technology 
     essentially rendered worthless the massive surface-to-air-
     missile defense systems that the Soviets had invested 
     hundreds of billions of dollars to deploy. Yet the Times 
     complained about this year's outlay for the F-22, and The 
     Post reported about possibly unnecessary expenditures for 
     aircraft radar systems. The Soviets tricked us into buying 
     weapons that would exploit their vulnerabilities? Very 
     clever.
       Despite the incessant catcalling of his opponents--
     including Bill Clinton's Oxford roommate and deputy secretary 
     of state, Strobe Talbott--Mr. Reagan relentlessly pursued his 
     ``peace through strength'' policy, eventually proving all the 
     naysayers wrong. Take another look, for example, at Mr. 
     Talbott's then widely acclaimed 1984 book, ``Deadly 
     Gambits,'' which attacked Mr. Reagan's strategy on 
     intermediate nuclear forces. In 1987, no less a personage 
     than Mikhail Gorbachev completely vindicated Mr. Reagan's 
     policies by agreeing to eliminate the SS-20 missiles--the so-
     called ``zero option'' that Mr. Talbott derided.
       Forced to acknowledge that Mr. Reagan met the Soviet 
     challenge--note the begrudging parentheses ``(with some 
     success)''--The Post and other revisionists still insist on 
     portraying his brilliant defense buildup strategy as extreme, 
     overblown and partly unnecessary. Here's some unsolicited 
     advice for them: Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. Deal with 
     it. Get over it. Get on with life.

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