Now: “Reagan’s admirers contend that his costly re-armament program caused the Soviet collapse. Maybe so; but surely the thing that did in the Russians was that time had proved communism an economic, political and moral disaster.”
In 1982: “I found more goods in the shops, more food in the markets, more cars on the street — more of almost everything . . . . [T]hose in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready with one small push to go over the brink are wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves.”
(Thanks to Dinesh D’Souza for the quotes, to this site for more on the 1982 quote, and to Dan Gifford for passing along the pointer. I have not checked the context of the quotes; if they are materially out of context, please let me know.)
Now these statements are not entirely inconsistent: Perhaps time proved it after 1982, or time proved it before 1982 but the 1982 Schlesinger hadn’t read the proof yet. Or perhaps Schlesinger might point out that he was simply saying that it wasn’t ready with one small push to go over the brink (it would take a medium-sized push), and it wasn’t quite on the verge of collapse (it was a bit away from the verge); that, though, hardly seems to be the tone of the quote.
But even if the statements may be consistent, the 1982 one — especially read together with the 2004 one — does undermine to some extent Schlesinger’s credibility, no?
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