Reply #5: I visited the Russian war memorial in Leningrad in the '70s. The Russians take their [View All]

[Peace Patriot]

honor toward the dead heroes of WW II very seriously. Their losses were immense. I was very impressed by the vast sweep of that memorial and its somber tone--and the numerous Russians visiting it, more than twenty-five years after the war was over.

And we owe them, we really do. It is arguable that we would have lost to Hitler if the Russians hadn't fought so hard and taken so many deaths. It is probable, too, that Hitler's decision to open a Russian front was the fatal decision that lost the war.

I think it is one of the greatest tragedies of our history that we could not reconcile ourselves to a friendly, non-military competition of the two economic systems, after WW II.

After the Stalinist dictatorship was overcome, and Nikita Kruschev became premier, that's what Russia wanted. They wanted to demobilize, as we should have done. They also wanted to ban nuclear weapons. Krushchev negotiated the first limit on nuclear weapons--the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty--with JFK, against the vociferous objections of the both military establishments. Krushchev and Kennedy's goal was to END the "Cold War" including the proxy wars like Vietnam.

Recommended reading: "JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died And Why It Matters," by James Douglass.

It makes you weep.