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In this era of glasnost, I shouldn't have been so surprised to see a Soviet agent the other night.
He was not a spy, since he wore a schapska hat with a red star on its peak, spoke with a thick accent, and bought vodka by the pitcher. He introduced himself as Dmitri Legunov when I asked why he was celebrating.
Because the Cold War is over, and we have
triumphed.
Some triumph,
I argued. You're leaving
Afghanistan in defeat, your empire in eastern Europe is
crumbling, you can't afford a huge army any more, so
Premier Gorbachev is making a virtue out of
necessity.
Minor matters,
he conceded. The major thing is
that we have defeated the United States.
America is standing tall these days, thanks to
President Reagan,
I patriotically proclaimed. How
can you say that America has been defeated? Is that more
propaganda from Pravda?
Nyet. I learn from your free press and what I already
know. Right after the Great Patriotic War, certain geniuses
our Politburo devised a Forty-five Year Plan, and it is
coming to fruition even as we speak.
Russia was a mess after World War II,
I
commented. Millions of casualties from Hitler's
invasion, plus Stalin's butchery.
Correct, comrade. We knew we could present no real
threat to you capitalist swine in America. Still, we wanted
to defeat you. So we frightened you.
You didn't have the cards, but you were going to
bluff?
He brightened. Precisely. That way, you would give
your military a blank check in order to counter us.
Just how,
I demanded, does it benefit the
Soviet Union for the United States to spend extravagantly
on its defense?
Just look at the results, comrade. Your own land is
poisoned and millions of people face disease and early
death, because your nuclear bomb factories like Rocky Flats
are leaking. What about your Rocky Mountain Arsenal, with
its toxic residue? Did it not once cause earthquakes?
Comrade, our goal was to destroy America. Does it matter to
us who devastates your cities and your people, so long as
the job gets done?
You mean that America is busy destroying
itself?
Dmitri nodded. Your procurement scandals -- what is
becoming of your national moral character? You are now the
world's biggest debtor nation. Your industrialists can no
longer compete in the world markets because your taxes are
so high to pay for your military. America is falling
farther behind every day, and it will get worse.
If I understand this right, you're saying that our
defense policies are producing the sane result that an
enemy would, if that enemy wanted to destroy America. And
you say it will get worse?
Dmitri chugged his vodka. Da. It will get worse
because our Premier Gorbachev decides he will cut troops,
whether you do or not. And your soon vice-president, Mr.
Quayle, he says your military spending is a great thing,
and you Americans should increase it, even as it poisons
you and impoverishes you.
So you commies are coming out ahead,
I
lamented.
Then Dmitri began to wax eloquent. Every gun that is
made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies
in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world
in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the
sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the
houses of its children.
That isn't original with you,
I protested. It
must have been some firebrand revolutionary who first said
something so subversive. Was it Marx or Trotsky?
Dmitri summoned another round and patted my shoulder.
No, comrade. It was your Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. But
you Americans, your schooling must be as bad as they say,
because you do not heed his words, but those of J. Danforth
Quayle.
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