[speaker001:] Well, what is your view, do you consider the Soviet Union a threat?
[speaker002:] I don't know that it's so much a military threat anymore as a, [LAUGHTER], well, you know, it's, it's real confusing right now to know what kind of a, of, of a threat it is, I guess,
[speaker001:] Sure.
[speaker002:] it, it takes awhile to, to get used to something, you know, if, if they have completely chain-, on the, place has completely turned that much around to where they're not, you know, not what they used to be,
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] uh [LAUGHTER].
[speaker001:] It's, it's hard to, to know anymore if it's a, a threat one way or another because, uh, it used to be s-, so, f-, much in the past that whatever the top said the rest fell, you know, rank and file in behind it.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] And now that with Gorbachev is introducing more, I guess, freedoms or expressions of freedom, it doesn't look as though, you know, everybody's following the same pattern.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] And, those, the people who are, you know, the staunch military conservative people, you never know, well, Gorbachev's future is like whereas,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] whereas in the past it was seen as, you know, whoever was the head of the, the communist party was seen as, you know, untouchable.
[speaker002:] Yeah. I thi-, yeah, the thing that keeps happening is happening so fast and so, uh, dramatic that you almost think, now wait a minute, you know, we're getting stuck into something here, you know, if,
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] if somebody's about to, to clobber you, the first thing they do is sort of say, well, you know, we're, we're ashamed, we're not going to do that anymore.
[speaker001:] Exactly.
[speaker002:] And, uh, [throat clearing], um, you know, I'd, I'd like to think that that isn't true but I, I, you know, the evidence is that, uh, you know, he's, he's let some, some stuff go, you know, the east German situation.
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] It's just the whole thing is so incomprehensible, you know, if I'd have been asleep for five years,
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] and read it in a book, I said, no, no, no, that didn't, couldn't have happened that way.
[speaker001:] Right. Well, it's amazing just because of the drain that's been on, you know, both economies that our economy is, of course, been able to, uh, withstand that a little better,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] but, uh, the Russian economy they, you know, they, I don't know what the percentages are, but I heard it one time, it's just some ungodly number just to support the military machine.
[speaker002:] [Very faint] Uh-huh, uh-huh.
[speaker001:] And finally, you know, who knows maybe they're finally waking up and saying, you know, we can't afford this. Uh, the U S isn't the threat that we've always made them out to be,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] you know, even if they're saying that beneath the doors. But it's hard to thing that just one person can bring that much of a radical change in that short of period.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Even if it is, you know, the best thing in the long run, it just steps on too many people's toes,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] who are comfortable with the way the situation is.
[speaker002:] Yeah, I, I think, you know, what I'd have to, I, I gues-, I guess to answer the question directly, I'm still just a, a little bit, you know, leery of the whole thing.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] What I haven't seen is the, uh, you know, a great stepping back in the military,
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] situation. You know, it's, it's one thing, you know, to let us go ahead and sort of disarm and, you know, I even had a thought once that the whole Iraqi thing might have been just a, a deal to go ahead and let us, uh, you know,
[speaker001:] Expend?
[speaker002:] expend some, some military hardware. Of course, it didn't turn out that way.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And, uh, uh, that, that may have been a, a, a kind of far out way of thinking about it I don't know.
[speaker001:] Well, it's interesting, anymore the world's getting so small that it doesn't seem to tolerate anymore any kind of the expansionism,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] philosophy that, that was here in,
[speaker002:] [Very faint] Yeah.
[speaker001:] you know, twenty years ago. Uh, but, of course, the people who have challenged that or tried to do, on-, have cor-, have not been world powers. So, it's easier for us to say, you know, to an Iraq, you know,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] uh, you can't do this, get back, you know, or we're going to force you.
[speaker002:] Yeah, or, or we can do something about it. Yeah.
[speaker001:] Whereas, you know, if the Soviet Union would have, who knows what taking over Mongolia or, or something like that, who is really, will we have been more just rhetoric,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] uh, rather than going in there officially or, you know,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] physically and try to, to remove them.
[speaker002:] Well, the, the China situation, you know, the when, it looked like that thing was, was turning around and all of a sudden it was like somebody in the, in the Red Square or wherever said, okay, and that's enough.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And the tanks came in and,
[speaker001:] Exactly.
[speaker002:] you know, pretty much took care of that. And,
[speaker001:] Yeah, uh, that, personally I don't see as Gorbachev as being maybe a threat, and I think he's actually, honestly trying to do some change.
[speaker002:] [Very faint] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] But I don't believe that he, in this first pass around, you know, being the first one to really turn things around or attempt to is going to be allowed to get away with it either.
[speaker002:] Yeah. Well, this would be like if somebody was elected president of the United States and suddenly took off toward, you know, just some pretty hard by the socialism,
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] and, uh, you know, the, the reaction, uh, [throat clearing] you know, the, the economic, well, the, uh, the social structure of the Soviet Union, you know, it, it's, it's coming apart at the seams.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] You know, and I've heard people say, well, you know, it's just like the American Civil War, will there be a union or not? Well, no, it's not the same sort of a thing at all because that, the whole Soviet system was put together under total force, you know, there was no, as, as we are seeing now with a lot of those,
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] areas wanting out of it,
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] you know, they, uh, nobody vo-, you know, a lot man, those people didn't vote to become part of the Soviet Union, they had no choice.
[speaker001:] Yeah, that was always kind of interesting, people, you know, a lot of my friends have a taken us down, the stance of, you know, these people are just trying to be free and trying to get away and I'm thinking more of it from a nationalistic, you know, if I'm a Soviet and if part of, you know, south, let's say South Dakota wanted to succ-, you know, succeed, am I going to stand for that.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] Now I realize that the origins are, are different and that we all joined under a common direction and a common bond to begin with,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] and that they may have been forced, I'm not that familiar with their future, but I, you know, I, it's easy to believe that they were probably more forced into a pact than, uh, a volunteer or willingness to join.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] But,
[speaker002:] There, there was the whole thing was put together, you know, by force. There's, there's no, no real question about that.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And some of the countries that were forced in at th-, later dates is the three Baltic countries, you know, came in, in the forties,
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] and, uh, it's, well, it's not that they came in, it's they were conquered by the Germans,
[speaker001:] And then,
[speaker002:] and then the Russians even,
[speaker001:] just never given back.
[speaker002:] took it back from the Germans and never bothered to give it back,
[speaker001:] Yep.
[speaker002:] you know, so. That's a,
[speaker001:] Well, that whole a,
[speaker002:] a little different situation.
[speaker001:] the whole i-, idea if you look at the Russian history and I guess all countries the way it used to be is, the only way to truly protect your borders was to have a buffer.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] And that was the whole idea why they had so many buffers and maybe, you know, more and more people are seeing, oh, countries hopefully are seeing that that buffer isn't going to help you, you can, well, I guess like,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] with, uh, Israel is a perfect example. The reason they have the Angolan Heights and the, the, uh, all their buffer area is between Jordan and the, the Sinai and, and Lebanon was just as a buffer but, you know, as you can see with the, the scuds go right over there.
[speaker002:] Uh-huh. Yeah, they don't really pay a whole lot of attention to buffers.
[speaker001:] Yeah, there's, there's very little that, that binds you anymore in today's technology.
[speaker002:] I knew a lot of guys in the service when they were sent to Germany they said that's the safest place in the world because if a war starts, all the bombs are going to go right over Germany and they're going to land in other places,
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] you know, that's going to be the safest place to be.
[speaker001:] That's probably very true. Ve-, that's very interesting, never thought of that.
[speaker002:] Yeah, well, uh, I, I guess, what they'd have to do to, I really don't know, you know, in, in the, in, you know, I hope that what's happening is exactly the way it appears.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] You know, some reason or other, you know, is, uh, it's kind of a strange thing we've been trying to make something like this happen for so long that when it finally happens you say,
[speaker001:] Nobody knows what to do.
[speaker002:] whoa, wait a minute, you know. What's, uh,
[speaker001:] Is it real?
[speaker002:] what's, what's really happening here.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] But you wonder how, well, this thing, w-, who, was it Boris Yeltsin, the guy that's running the, uh, or evidently was elected president of the Soviet,
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] for the Russian republic,
[speaker001:] Exactly.
[speaker002:] which is, I guess, the, uh, the biggest,
[speaker001:] I get confused between all the, which is the Soviet provinces versus which are the, the Russian provinces,
[speaker002:] Uh-huh.
[speaker001:] versus what are,
[speaker002:] Well, in the center but you got a, the, the great big area that's just, was traditionally known as Russia and then all these little nationality groups,
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] around it, you know, that were, you know, was there nineteen of them or, or whatever, you know, and these were all the Soviet economists, us you know, they had some real fancy names for them.
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] Matter of fact when the, uh, [throat clearing] yeah, what I read when the, uh, lee-, uh, United Nations was setup in, in San Francisco, one of the first things the Russians wanted to do was bring in each one of the, uh, of these, you know, republics,
[speaker001:] Oh, as a,
[speaker002:] as a separate country, you know,
[speaker001:] as a vote.
[speaker002:] so there would be, there would be nineteen,
[speaker001:] Sure.
[speaker002:] rather than one.
[speaker001:] Sure.
[speaker002:] And, uh, the United States said, well, that mean we get to bring in forty-eight, you know.
[speaker001:] [LAUGHTER].
[speaker002:] And, uh, that sort of, you know, they backed down on that.
[speaker001:] Died down on that. I thought it was interesting that recently here the Warsaw Pact no longer exists as a militor-, military force, but it's merely an economic now.
[speaker002:] Yeah, well, wonder if that [LAUGHTER],
[speaker001:] Well, I mean at,
[speaker002:] wh-, uh, w-,
[speaker001:] Yeah, exactly.
[speaker002:] what do you get shot by something that's called a, an economic force or what is called a military pact, you know, it's all, you can change the name of something but I wonder if it's still, exists.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] Although, I've seen some evidence that, you know, the, uh, the Russian soldiers are, well, you, the funny thing there is they're not particularly welcome back home because there's, they're having housing shortages now. What do you do with all these troops that have been taken care of by, uh, Bulgaria and,
[speaker001:] Exactly and, and all the,
[speaker002:] and Czechoslovakia and now all of a sudden they're going home and somebody's got to pay for their,
[speaker001:] Well, that's what they're saying the whole problem, you know, with, if we were to demilitarize Europe, [cough], what are we going to do with all the soldiers over there?
[speaker002:] Yeah. Well, that's not,
[speaker001:] What's going to happen to the economies that are no longer have a, a million plus people in the indu-, you know,
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[speaker001:] in each country from the U S...