One Man Can Change History
One Man Can Change History by Newt Gingrich (more by this author) Posted 03/11/2008 ETUpdated 03/11/2008 ET On Wednesday, March 12, I am delivering a lecture at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington based on a simple proposition: "What if Reagan had not run for President and the Soviet Union still existed?" As you know, I write active history in which we change key decisions to see how they would have affected actual history. ( Pearl Harbor and the soon-to-be-released Days of Infamy are novels I coauthored with William Forstchen about the Second World War that use this approach.) And because this month marks the 25th anniversary of some of the most consequential speeches that led to the end of the former Soviet Union, I thought it would be interesting to apply this technique to the Cold War. The Only Leader Who Understood the Change Needed Was Ronald Reagan In 1980, the United States was losing the Cold War. Under President Jimmy Carter, the American economy had ...