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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the best of Coast to Coast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Insider to start listening. Now, here's a highlight from Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast AM on I Heart Radio. Welcome back Daniel

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Speaker 1: Kovalak with us, So we'll get to your calls as well. Daniel,

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Speaker 1: you were talking about Gorbachev and some other Russian story.

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Speaker 1: I'll let you finish that one up. Yes, So, when

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Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan and Mikao Gorchov ended the Cold War UM

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Speaker 1: and in the Berlin Wall was taken down, you might

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Speaker 1: recall Reagan's famous uh speech telling Gorchov to tear down

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Speaker 1: that wall. Well, Gorbachev said, okay, fine, I'll tear down

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Speaker 1: the wall. But the dealing made was NATO would not

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Speaker 1: move one inch east of Germany. And that was the

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Speaker 1: deal that Gorvichev made with then Secretary of State James Baker.

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Speaker 1: And guess what. Very shortly after that deal was made,

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Speaker 1: UH NATO UH started moving further east to the point

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Speaker 1: where NATO is now on the borders of Russia, you know.

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Speaker 1: And in Russia, Caesar, this is one a breach of

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Speaker 1: that agreement in two as UM is threatening to them.

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Speaker 1: And one can imagine if Russia or in the eastern

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Speaker 1: UH countries had troops up to the US Mexican border,

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Speaker 1: we might be concerned about that, right UM. And so

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Speaker 1: I just try to put these things into perspective in

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Speaker 1: my book, you know, just try to see things the

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Speaker 1: way the Russian seam and they see that we have

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Speaker 1: been um provocative in terms of our actions. You know,

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Speaker 1: we just admitted NATO member Macedonia. UM. And again the

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Speaker 1: Russians are scratching their heads why we need Western troops

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Speaker 1: up to their frontier. By the way, Russia itself said

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Speaker 1: it would be willing to be a member of NATO,

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Speaker 1: because again I think they want to be part of

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Speaker 1: the West, and we have rebuffed them on that. So

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Speaker 1: again I think these are things that people need to

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Speaker 1: keep it. Wasn't Daniel the Cuban missile crisis created because

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Speaker 1: of US, because of our missiles in Turkey. Exactly. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and again I mentioned that in the book. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: mean that is why crew show put missiles in Cuba.

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Speaker 1: And of course the deal that was struck to end

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Speaker 1: the Cuban missile crisis is that the US would take

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Speaker 1: out the missiles from Turkey, which we did several months later.

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Speaker 1: And so and again the US now has missile said

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Speaker 1: it's given to Poland and um in Romania that are

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Speaker 1: now being aimed towards Russia. Again, could you imagine if Russia,

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Speaker 1: you know, had missiles in Mexico or Cuba. Uh and

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Speaker 1: again you as you state, that happened once and we

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Speaker 1: almost came to almost had a nuclear war over and truth,

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Speaker 1: truth be known, with our submarines and their submarines, it's

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Speaker 1: like their next door. Anyway we've got, we've got, you know,

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Speaker 1: the nuclear equipped subs can hit any city in Russia

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Speaker 1: within ten minutes. They could do the same thing to us. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So I think it's that all just underscores how dangerous

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Speaker 1: this anti Russia hysteria, and it really is a hysteria

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Speaker 1: is you know, one I interviewed about a year and

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Speaker 1: a half ago one of the experts, US experts on

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Speaker 1: Russia who was a friend of Gorbachev, who was an

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Speaker 1: advisor to him, Stephen F. Cohen Um, you know, and

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Speaker 1: and Steve steven has been on the show before too.

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Speaker 1: He's a he's been a great guy. And he mentions that,

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Speaker 1: you know, he has never seen this type of vilification

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Speaker 1: of a sitting Russian leader. Even during the First Cold War,

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Speaker 1: you know, Kennedy ended up having a friendship of a

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Speaker 1: sort with with Krushoff, um Bresneff and Nixon got along,

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Speaker 1: you know, and and then and even the media would

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Speaker 1: not vilify a sitting sitting ahead of Russia in the

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Speaker 1: way they do now with Putin. And it's just really uh,

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Speaker 1: quite inappropriate and quite dangerous. I guess had he not

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Speaker 1: been in the KGB, he might have been able to

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Speaker 1: skate a little bit more. What do you think, Well, maybe,

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Speaker 1: although an interesting fact, you know he so first of all,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people in all kinds of countries go

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Speaker 1: into something like that because one, you know, they believe

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Speaker 1: in their country, they want to serve their country. It's

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Speaker 1: a way to get ahead. Do you know that Putin

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Speaker 1: quit the KGB in August when there was that coup.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember the cube by the so called hardliners

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Speaker 1: against Gorbachov when they kidnapped him, uh, the kind of

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Speaker 1: a last ditch effort to save the Soviet Union. That's

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Speaker 1: when they got him out right. Well, they he ends

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Speaker 1: up getting put back in because of street protests, remember

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Speaker 1: the Yeltsin had led and but that was kind of

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Speaker 1: the beginning of the end. But the point is that

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Speaker 1: Putin quit right after that, and why because he opposed

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Speaker 1: the coup against Gorbachov. You know, he did not like that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the point being that the fact that he

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Speaker 1: was in the KGB for a time I don't think

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Speaker 1: should should attaint him, certainly in the way that that

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Speaker 1: people uh here believing. Again, he quit when he thought

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Speaker 1: that the country was in a direction that frankly the

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Speaker 1: West thought it shouldn't be going in either. So that's

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Speaker 1: again something at least to think about. Good or bad

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Speaker 1: thing that the Soviet Union fell apart, leaving all these

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Speaker 1: splinter countries, I think, and again this may be controversial,

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Speaker 1: but I mentioned this in my book The Plots Escapegoat

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Speaker 1: Russia that I think it was a bad thing. And

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Speaker 1: in fact, I'm not the only one. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: of folks, frankly from the Reggae administration, including a guy

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Speaker 1: named Paul Craig Roberts who was Assistant Secretary Treasurer under Reagan,

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Speaker 1: who firmly believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: frankly was not good for the West one. Uh. The

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Speaker 1: immediate thing is that you still and this hasn't talked

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Speaker 1: about much though, you still have these unsecured nuclear weapons

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Speaker 1: and some of the you know, more remote part if

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Speaker 1: they haven't been sold off to some rogue country or

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Speaker 1: group exactly. So, when the Soviet Union existed, they had

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Speaker 1: you know, they had some control over that which has

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Speaker 1: now been lost. Um. The truth is it brought a

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Speaker 1: certain stability um to the world that we don't have now.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, you know, once the Soviet Union collapsed,

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Speaker 1: you very quickly had the War Yugoslavia, which was certainly

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Speaker 1: uh precipitated by that collapse. You had a lot of

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Speaker 1: these inter ethnic conflicts. Again in the former Soviet Union,

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Speaker 1: you had the wars in Chech which followed. Um. The

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Speaker 1: other thing, which folks don't think a lot about Again this,

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Speaker 1: Paul Craig Roberts, who worked for Reagan, notes, is that frankly,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't great for American workers either, because once the

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Speaker 1: Soviet you know, the Soviet Union was huge, and it

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Speaker 1: was a closed economic system. And the good thing for

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Speaker 1: for American workers was that, um it prevented a capital

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Speaker 1: flight to the East. Uh. And once the Soviet Union collapse,

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Speaker 1: the floodgates were open and a lot of jobs were

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Speaker 1: lost in the US due to that. And you had

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Speaker 1: actually a hundred and fifty million people in the world

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Speaker 1: who were who fell into poverty after that collapse. So

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Speaker 1: again I think while people romanticize the collapse of the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union, while the US has declared victory over the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union, I'm not sure that you know again that

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Speaker 1: that was something that was good. And again the Russians

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Speaker 1: don't see it that they somehow lost things were changed

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Speaker 1: for them, certainly, But again this crowing over somehow we

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Speaker 1: won the Cold War again, it's something that I think

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Speaker 1: it humiliates the Russia is in a way that that

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Speaker 1: that is quite unnecessary. The other thing I'll say again,

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Speaker 1: which I think folks don't think a lot about you know,

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Speaker 1: the US has strived after the collapse of the Soviet

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Speaker 1: Union to be the one superpower. Right we are the

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Speaker 1: one superpower right now. And that's the other thing to

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Speaker 1: keep in mind. You know, Russia is very weak now

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Speaker 1: posts so the Union. Their economy is about the size

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Speaker 1: of that of Portugal. I think China has surpassed them

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Speaker 1: in terms of strength, oh very much, very much, um.

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Speaker 1: But the UNIPOL world has not served us, um that well.

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Speaker 1: Again for because of the economic reasons I mentioned. The

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Speaker 1: other thing is, you know, this is a you know,

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Speaker 1: the US is a country that believes in competition, and

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Speaker 1: one thing that really helped this country was the competition

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Speaker 1: with the Soviet Union. You know, you had got us

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Speaker 1: to the moon. That's exactly right. And in fact, even

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Speaker 1: Obama said we need that Sputnik moment. Even he back

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Speaker 1: to Sputnik, which kind of suggests we don't get much

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Speaker 1: done in this country and less you know, we have

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Speaker 1: someone like the Soviet Union, you know, competing with us

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Speaker 1: and forcing us to do that. Um. It's it's well known.

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Speaker 1: And again I mentioned this in the book, that that

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Speaker 1: that the civil rights legislation was in part um um

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Speaker 1: came about due to some pressure by the very existence

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Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union. You know, in West Germany, the

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Speaker 1: unions there used to say when they bargained with the companies,

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Speaker 1: there was a third partner at the table, and that

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Speaker 1: was East Germany, which could come pressure on the West

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Speaker 1: to give concessions, you know. And that and that pressure

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Speaker 1: has gone now. And so you see the erosion of

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Speaker 1: the welfare states of social democracies again because there's a

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Speaker 1: certain lack of competition with this other great system. But again,

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Speaker 1: even if folks don't want to go that far with me,

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Speaker 1: the one thing that needs to be kept in mind

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Speaker 1: is that system doesn't exist anymore. The grand confrontation between

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Speaker 1: capitalism in communism doesn't exist anymore. So why this hatred

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Speaker 1: and fear of of of Russia which no longer is red.

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Speaker 1: As as I mentioned in my book, you have a

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Speaker 1: red scare without any weds. Listen to more Coast to

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Speaker 1: Coast a m every weeknight at one a m. Eastern

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Speaker 1: and go to Coast to Coast am dot com for

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Speaker 1: more