Customer Reviews

Architects Of Victory: Six Heroes of the Cold War

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Excellent book. Engaging, informative and a quick read. Tells you more about Reagan in 60 pages than Edmund Morris did in 600. And Shattan gets it right, too. Every one of these six portraits is beautifully crafted: scholarly without being pedantic (telling you exactly as much as you need to know without a lot of extraneous information), and reads like a novel. A history that's a real page-turner! Read it.

This book reminded me of the great historic drama that was the Cold War, and the leaders who battled to win against the forces of totalitarianism. The mini-biographies of these great leaders brought into focus the lives of enormously important figures. Unfortunately, some of these heroes are nearly forgotten now, and their roles in these historic events belittled. This is an important and informative work.

This book is a must-read for Cold War history buffs. With so much misinformation and biased commentary on the winners and losers of the Cold War, it was essential that such a book as Shattan's be written to set the record straight.

With Western leftist intellectuals still infatuated with Communism, it was inevitable that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union would be followed by books praising Communist leaders and ignoring those that contributed to the system's collapse.

This book is a breath of fresh air. It's wonderful to finally read something that gives the champions of Freedom their due credit for crushing Communism and tossing it onto the ash heap of history. I don't expect Liberals, and others prone to blame America, will find much refuge in this book.

But for one looking for a fair and honest assessment of those that fought publicly and privately for Freedom and Human Dignity, you will find in this book an accounting of those individuals that challenged the morality and legitimacy of Communism and dared to oppose it. While many were content to co-exist with the Evil Empire, the six heroes described in this book challenged its right to exist and pushed for its demise.

In retrospect, one cannot help but be in awe of the near prophetic insight and wisdom that these individuals showed in dealing with the Soviet Union. For instance, Ronald Reagan ignored virtually all public opinion and expert advice when he put Pershing II missiles in West Germany. And he had few defenders when he refused to discontinue SDI as part of a disarmament treaty.

Of course, we now know that both of these events were critical turning points in the Cold War. It's hard to imagine anyone else doing what Reagan did. He was a man of firm and unshakable convictions and did not budge no matter what voters were saying or what Sovietologists were telling him. His wisdom and persistence provided a solid foundation for implementing policies aimed at rolling back the Evil Empire.

As a Conservative, Reagan understood Human Nature. He understood that Freedom and Human Dignity were given to each by their Creator. He knew that Communism was morally illegitimate since it suppressed Human Nature and denied the existence of the Creator. His constant derision and challenge to the Soviet Union and its leaders caused a crisis of Faith in the Kremlin. American leaders up to that point had accommodated and played nice with Soviet leaders. Reagan did not. Driven by a spiritual insight of the system's wickedness, he called a spade a spade (much to the chagrin of the State Department!) and demoralized the Politburo that had until then believed itself ideologically superior.

Of course, Reagan wasn't the only hero of the Cold War. In fact, Reagan followed the course set out by Winston Churchill (and Barry Goldwater) many decades before. Churchill, like Reagan, was incredibly insightful and had uncommon wisdom. In fact, if Churchill's first utterances of wisdom had been heeded, World War II probably would never have occurred. Also, if Roosevelt had listened to Churchill instead of appeasing Uncle Joe Stalin, the Yalta Betrayal that enslaved Eastern Europe would not have occurred. And if post-WWII leaders had heeded Churchill's "Iron Curtain" wisdom, Communism and the Soviet Union could have been held in check and Korea, Vietnam, etc. would not have happened.

But as they say, better late than never. It took a leader like Reagan to realize Churchill's plan for dealing with the Soviet Union from a position of military strength and moral superiority. And as both Churchill and Reagan knew, with such an approach, Communism would collapse upon itself. They knew that Human Freedom would prevail if the defenders of Human Freedom rose up to challenge the oppressors of Human Freedom.

I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed that Shattan included Truman as a hero. After all, Truman was the Vice President in an administration that betrayed American interests and sacrificed millions of human lives in order to befriend and appease Stalin after World War II. But I suppose Truman does deserve credit for finally abandoning the go-easy-on-Uncle-Joe policy that his predecessor (FDR) had engaged in. Without the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, and the Truman Doctrine, Western Europe may have also found itself behind the Iron Curtain.

Before reading this book, I was unaware of the role Pope John Paul II had in rolling back Communism in Poland. I now have great respect for His Holiness. Alexander Solzhenitsyn deserves credit for his courage in bringing attention to the evils of the Communist system, especially in his work "The Gulag Archipelago" which described to the West the barbarity and cruelty that was happening behind the Iron Curtain. His revelations renewed the moral struggle against the Evil Empire. Konrad Adenauer, like Reagan, did many things despite the abundance of naysayers. His firmness and dedication to Freedom contributed greatly to keeping West Germany from falling under the control of Communism.

Naturally, this book doesn't discuss all of the heroes of the Cold War. For instance, the French (Francois Mitterrand) and German (Helmut Kohl) leaders during the Reagan years deserve credit for their support of the Reagan Doctrine which aimed not to contain Communism, but to roll it back and crush it. Of course, Reagan and the 1980s would be incomplete without recognizing the role England's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher played in crushing the Evil Empire.

Naturally, the Left will never recognize any of the leaders described in this book as heroes because they crushed the very system that the Left admires. But as Ronald Reagan has said: "There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't mind who gets the credit." The Truth of history will ultimately prevail, notwithstanding modern historic revisionism that seeks to glorify Communism and attack those who opposed it and contributed to its demise.

This is a much needed corrective to the conventional wisdom of the past fifteen years, which praises Gorbachev for dismantling his own empire. It never would have happened without Reagan and his predecessors. The chapters on Konrad Adenauer and Alexander Solzhenitsyn were especially valuable because I didn't know them as well as the other four. Definitely a Christmas gift for my many brothers-in-law.

This book is a very impressive piece of work. Shattan is very fair when he writes about each and every person, no matter what their political stripe. From Churchill's prescient knowledge of what must be done to Truman's acknowledgement of the danger that Communism posed to Adenauer's firm and unwavering alignment with the West to Solzihentisyn(sp?) showing how the Cold War was really a moral struggle to Pope John Paul II's unwavering determination to free Poland to Ronald Reagan who ultimately caused the end of the Cold War; even though it came under Bush's administration; Shattan demonstrates a keen eye for details and an excellent sense of analysis. This is well worth reading for anyone interested in the Cold War.

Excellent book. Engaging, informative and a quick read. Tells you more about Reagan in 60 pages than Edmund Morris did in 600. And Shattan gets it right, too. Every one of these six portraits is beautifully crafted: scholarly without being pedantic (telling you exactly as much as you need to know without a lot of extraneous information), and reads like a novel. A history that's a real page-turner! Read it.

This is an excellent book, especially for anyone who wants to get a quick understanding of the greatest conflict of the century from a single book, in an easily accessible and compelling format. I was amazed at how much I did not know about all of the characters involved, especially Churchill, Solzhenitsyn, Pope John Paul II, and Reagan. The only part of the book that did not flow quickly was that on Truman. I think the authors really struggled with writing a biography of him that lived up to the title of the book. I can understand why they wanted to include him, but he doesn't really fit the mold of "hero" as all of the others do. Still, compared with FDR and Eisenhower, he comes pretty close!

This book's objectivity is suspect due to the fact that it was published by the conservative Heritage Foundation; however, Joseph Shattan does a good job in making his case for these six men who did so much to alter the course of late 20th century history. It is remarkable that his list includes two American presidents (one Democrat, one Republican), a German chancellor, England's greatest prime minister, a pope, and a Russian writer. Such a disparate group makes this more than an essay on politics, it is a rich analysis of fifty years of world history. You can disagree with Shattan (as other reviewers have done), but you cannot deny that he has offered good reasoning for his heroic choices. It is enlightening to read about the contributions of Solzhenitsyn, Adenaur, and John Paul II, which are not well known. It is extremely satisfying to read a concise analysis of what Truman, Churchill, and Reagan brought to the mix. I believe that conservatives give Reagan too much credit for "winning" the Cold War, however I also believe that history will bear them out to a very large degree. Churchill is a giant, truly the Man of the Century (despite what TIME magazine thinks), and get his credit here. Truman obviously had a strong grasp on "the big picture" even as he grew into his role. It is interesting to apply what Shattan teaches us to the study of governments, economies, and social progress in this same time period. Joseph Shattan has done us all a favor by publishing this book; maybe efforts like this will finally begin to reduce the luster from Mikhail Gorbachev. Buy this book and read it. Then donate it to your kids' school library.

This Heritage Foundation "media production," by Dan Quayle's speechwriter. While not exactly a fawning or flaming propaganda piece (even with its obligatory bow to rightwing ideology) offers nothing new that has not been said better elsewhere (for instance Strobe Talbott's "Deadly Gambits" to name just one). Thus, it is in the end, little more than a platform pre-arranged to elevate and exaggerate Ronald Reagan's meager contributions to ending the Cold War.

Arguably, any honest reading of history would suggest that towards the end of his rather lackluster, inattentive and corruption-ridden Presidency, Reagan had come under the sway of the same Neocon cabal that just recently ran GW Bush's administration into the ground. Many of the same people (Richard Perl, Doug Feith, Eliot Abrams, etc.) came back for a second chance to get it all wrong.

Speaking of Ronald Reagan in the same breathe with the genuine hero and great Cold Warrior, Sir Winston Churchill is almost sacrosanct. But more importantly, to imply that he was merely "Reagan's precursor," not only is not very good history, but backhandedly diminishes the reputation of the most distinguished Lion of the Cold War.


Indeed where are Reagan's matching accomplishments? The case is being made here for NSSD-75 as well as Reagan's speech at Westminster Palace. But both were singularly unremarkable events. To elevate them to the status of a "clarion call" to end the Cold War is either a loose revisionist reading of their historical importance, or somewhat disingenuous (or both).

There are many of us who lived on the front lines of the Cold War who would beg to differ with this author's characterization of Reagan's contributions to ending it as being significant, let alone as being weighty. Certainly a much stronger case can be made that Gorbachev ought to be placed in this august list if Reagan is admitted? For, if for no more reason than that he saw the handwriting on the wall and decided to step aside and allow history to take its preordained course, Gorbachev deserves equal billing.

At least from deep within the bowels of the State Department where this reader spent nearly 30 years, Reagan all too often seemed diffident, under-motivated, incurious, if not most of the time entirely asleep at the switch. In point of fact, according to Talbot's analysis, he may have defaulted on the only real claim he had to historical greatness and becoming one of the saviors of the Cold War, when he allowed Richard Perl (an unelected Pentagon official) single-handedly countermand the agreement he had initialed with Gorbachev in Iceland. Had he not reneged on this incredible agreement to get rid of ICBM's and then eventually nuclear weapons altogether, he could have merged as a true hero of not just the Cold War, but arguably, of all times. After Perl had explained to him the implications of what he had just done, Reagan simply said, "Oh, okay?" and the agreement of the Century was summarily withdrawn.

Thus, without any accomplishments to point to -- at least beyond rightwing spin and revisionist historical mythmaking - Reagan has gotten a pass: He has been puffed up to hero status entirely by default and then lionized by fiat. It seems that the conservative crowd were bent on getting themselves a hero one way or another.

Yes, it is true that the Cold War finally "petered out" on Reagan's watch, but this had been in the making for the better part of three decades. Reagan had virtually nothing at all to do with its final denouement. What happened on his watch was that the procession of terminal events simply played themselves out in an organic process that included, not insignificantly, the final implosion of the Soviet economy. The CIA had been predicting the collapse of the Soviet economy as early as 1980, even before Reagan entered office. A minor claim can be made that the phony SDI initiative may have played a minor role. But it also could have just as easily backfired on us.

Thus rewriting history to produce a faux Cold War hero by padding Reagan's exceedingly meager accomplishments does a disservice to the others in this book, who did indeed earn their heroism and recognition the hard way, and that includes Reagan's primary nemesis, Mikhail Gorbachev. Two stars.

Joseph Shattan has assembled a series of short, but informative profiles of six leaders who played central roles in the Cold War. His roster of heroes includes:

-- President Truman. After initially toeing the accommodationist line of FDR, Truman soon recognized the expansionist ambitions of the Soviet Union and reacted accordingly. His Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Greece and Turkey aid package stopped the spread of Marxist hegemony in its tracks and set the contours for the four-decade struggle that was to come.

-- Winston Churchill. In and out of office, he warned early and often of the rising Bolshevik threat. But like his earlier forebodings about Hitler, his alarms fell largely on deaf ears. It was not until the 1980s that the West pursued Cold War strategies that can truly be called Churchillian -- with predictable results.

-- Konrad Adenauer. As the first Chancellor of the Republic of Germany, he planted the vital country squarely in the Western camp. West Germany was the crucible of the Cold War. Lacking a leader of Adenauer's resolve and conviction, that country could have easily fallen under the Soviet orbit, or, as Stalin designed, opted for a feckless, hollow "neutrality."

-- Solzhenitsyn. In Shattan's words, he "re-moralized the struggle" after Viet Nam and other setbacks cast doubt on the West's Containment policies. His seminal writings, especially "The Gulag Archipealgo," laid bare the repressive underpinnings of the Soviet system, while his public outrage at detente opened many eyes in the West.

-- Pope John Paul II -- The first non-Italian Pontiff in some 400 years came around at a most propitious moment. (Andropov and other Soviet paranoids contended that the Pope's selection was engineered by the U.S.) Lech Walesa credits Pope John Paul II with "saving Solidarity" -- the counter-revolutionary movement that administered the first schisms in the Soviet armor --and in inspiring his fellow Poles in their stuggle to shake off the yoke of Communist domination.

-- President Reagan. He foresaw the demise of the Soviet Union at a time when many saw history moving inexorably away from the West. Beginning in the 1970s, he called Communism a failed and failing system that would ultimately be trumped by the West -- heretic words to Western leaders who thought befriending the Soviets was the best way to change their behavior. As President, he pursued policies (Churchill's) expressly designed to exacerbate the tensions within the Soviet system. The Berlin Wall was toppled (it did not "fall"; it was pushed) less than 10 months after he left office.

Shattan's work is required reading for anyone interested in learning how the Cold War began -- and ended.