Best Cold War President

[qwerty]

I say the man who ended it all...

[opebo]

Nixon, Eisenhower, Reagan, so many great ones to choose from.  But I chose Truman.  Why?  Because he used nuclear weapons.

Btw, the worst were LBJ and Carter.

[Niles Caulder]

Tough choice; but my finger clicked on Nixon first so I'll try to make that case:

He inhereted the absolute worst state of affairs during the Cold War and transformed the world around it into a strategy for success where time was on our side.  He was a most competant executor of foreign policy at the time we needed it the most, and despite problems (some self-inflicted) he ended the Vietnam quagmire in the sanest possible fashion, undeterred by controversy, all the while having built a box around the Soviets with the help of the Chinese.

Make no mistake, Watergate is a serious detraction from the quality of his administration's foreign policy, too.  The crisis rippled throughout the world, including sealing the doom of South Vietnam.  The malaise that followed until Reagan was a direct fallout of Watergate as well.  If Cater was a step backwards, it was Nixon's fault he could ever conceivably have been elected.

But the fact that Reagan could STILL deliver the knockout blow is a testemant to Nixon's accomplishment despite the problems that weighed it down.  Even in this troubled time of change, we're still living on some major geopolitical tectonic plates that Nixon forged under next-to-impossible conditions.

Really, though, I could convince myself the greater Cold War titan was Truman.  But despite the importance of the bomb decisively ending the war sooner, by far his greatest accomplishment was the Security-by-Fusion of Western Europe.  No single feat can compare in its importance to our security or standing in the world.

Ike was no slouch, either--but the devestation we helped inflict upon Central and South America is seriously bad karma we'll still have to pay off.

[Keystone Phil]

The Gipper

[Schmitz in 1972]

Who voted for Carter???

[PBrunsel]

Nixon.

He's detente with China and the Soviets began to thaw the Cold War.

[ATFFL]

Nixon and Reagan tied.  

Nixon let up on the pressure when the pressure of teh 60s threatened to blow up into a war.  At that point the Soviet economy was not yet thuroughly ruined.  It was the right move at teh right time.

In 1980 things were ready to change.  The Soviet economy had expanded all it could.  A push against the SOviet economy could topple the country.  In a desperate bid for expansion they had invaded Afganistan.

Reagan pushed until the whole system threatened to collapse.  When Gorbachev made some free market reforms, Reagan let up the pressure.  Free market economics took their course and the whole thing fell apart.

[Gustaf]

Hm, lots of great choices. Carter, LBJ and Ford are the only ones who are really out.

I voted for Reagan, but I could also have voted Truman.

[ijohn57s]

Reagan. No question in my mind.

[MarkDel]

Anyone who voted for anyone other than Reagan or Truman has rocks in his head the size of Gibraltar...LOL

[dazzleman]

I'd say Reagan and Truman.

The only really bad Cold War president, in my opinion, was Jimmy Carter.  But even he made a contribution, albeit inadvertently, through his human rights programs.  Few in the west realized at the time how vulnerable to Soviets were to discontent within their empire, and how internally weak the Soviets were, and Carter added to their internal problems with his push for human rights.

Nixon and Ford also made a contribution by getting the Soviets to open up just a little bit.  This proved very dangerous for them, more than they imagined.  The Helsinki Accords, signed by President Ford against the wishes of conservatives, dealt a major blow to the Soviets by legitimizing movements for basic rights, first within the captive nations and then within the Soviet Union itself.  When they signed it, the Soviets obviously had no intention of abiding by it, but they effectively let the genie out of the bottle.

[minionofmidas]

Okay
Anyone who further escalated that war, supported highly dodgy regimes just because they didn't like the Russians either etc is ruled out.
That leaves nobody, except FDR.
Anyone who pretended it wasn't that important, that America had more important business, is ruled out.
So, a second indictment against Jerry and Jimmy.
My choice isn't in the poll!

[angus]

I say the man who ended it all...

I agree.  Truman is a close second.

Jimmy was the kindest and most honest, but also the worst president.

Laloo, FDR supported that dodgy Stalin regime, in a way, so I guess you'll have to rule him out as well.

Not sure why LBJ, probably the only true leftist in our lifetimes, hasn't done better with the great society crowd in this poll.  Liberalism becoming unfashionable?  Let's hope.

[Brambila]

1. Reagan (duh)
2. Nixon
3. Kennedy

[MarkDel]

I say the man who ended it all...

Laloo, FDR supported that dodgy Stalin regime, in a way, so I guess you'll have to rule him out as well.

Angus,

What you don't understand about Laloo is that FDR's support of a Marxist regime is precisely WHY Laloo thinks FDR was the best Cold War President.

[angus]

I say the man who ended it all...

Laloo, FDR supported that dodgy Stalin regime, in a way, so I guess you'll have to rule him out as well.

Angus,

What you don't understand about Laloo is that FDR's support of a Marxist regime is precisely WHY Laloo thinks FDR was the best Cold War President.

Ha!  That's funny.

I understand that German Leftism is motivated predominantly by Guilt.  That nation needs to figure out that it was they who gave us quantum mechanics and classical music, and sustained a war against the rest of the world for six years!  No mean feat, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of.  As for anti-US sentiment among germans, I suppose that has more to do with consternation and frustration at their own economic dire straits.  The only shame the Germans should feel is the shame of backing down to French demands that the DeutschZentralBank get down on its knees and support the whole of the european economy.  They could learn a thing or two from the Swedes and the English.

[MasterJedi]

Reagan!

[Bogart]

Reagan. Again, because he won it.

[Niles Caulder]

Is the relief pitcher who came in at the 9th inning to finish the game necessarilly the one who one it?

That's the argument of causality most of you "duh...Reagan!" voters are making.

[angus]

Is the relief pitcher who came in at the 9th inning to finish the game necessarilly the one who one it?

That's the argument of causality most of you "duh...Reagan!" voters are making.

well, you can say that about the hostage situation I think.  Maybe.  But I'm not sure it's fair to say that about the "cold war"  In the spirit of keeping up with the joneses, they spent more than they could afford and lost their empire.  It was Reagan whose agenda was to have congress run up massive deficits to force the USSR into that situation.  We can argue about whether the deficits were worth it, but I don't think we can argue about who we should credit for that deficit spending.

[Niles Caulder]

Now that's a rational argument!

I don't discount Reagan's enourmous hand in the Cold War.  I sincerely believe it probably would have drug on for a decade without him.  But the situation he inherited was complete Nixon.  (You know...I never remember Reagan calling China "The Other Evil Empire....")  The Soviets had long lost their uneasy cooperation with the Chinese...their Middle East games were in retreat, and even given our economic malaise of the 70s...their situation had no competitive future.  It truly was a matter of time by the time Reagan got the chair.

[Defarge]

Truman, the man who constructed the base

[minionofmidas]

I say the man who ended it all...

I agree.  Truman is a close second.

Jimmy was the kindest and most honest, but also the worst president.

Laloo, FDR supported that dodgy Stalin regime, in a way, so I guess you'll have to rule him out as well.

Not sure why LBJ, probably the only true leftist in our lifetimes, hasn't done better with the great society crowd in this poll.  Liberalism becoming unfashionable?  Let's hope.

They blame him for Viet Nam. Maybe they'd better blame John Foster Dulles...
Really, it was the immoral, macchiavellian Nixon administration that broke with that way-too-ideological - full-of-inherent-contradictions - not-ready-to-believe-what-was-obvious-to-see (namely that the "Communists" were by now means united) school of Western foreign policy thought. So maybe my vote should go to him, except I hold him directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of dead Cambodians and Loatians...

[minionofmidas]

I say the man who ended it all...

Laloo, FDR supported that dodgy Stalin regime, in a way, so I guess you'll have to rule him out as well.

Angus,

What you don't understand about Laloo is that FDR's support of a Marxist regime is precisely WHY Laloo thinks FDR was the best Cold War President.

Ha!  That's funny.

I understand that German Leftism is motivated predominantly by Guilt.  That nation needs to figure out that it was they who gave us quantum mechanics and classical music, and sustained a war against the rest of the world for six years!  No mean feat, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of.  As for anti-US sentiment among germans, I suppose that has more to do with consternation and frustration at their own economic dire straits.  The only shame the Germans should feel is the shame of backing down to French demands that the DeutschZentralBank get down on its knees and support the whole of the european economy.  They could learn a thing or two from the Swedes and the English.

Western Classical music is bad enough to be ashamed about, yes.
Our geographic position and our major trading partners etc are a bit different from Britain's...they don't profit from staying out of the Euro either, but in Germany that would've been catastrophic.
As to the Second World War, I'd still rather it hadn't been. Although in the long run, West Germany has profited from it. Very much.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I voted for Carter because he didn't support evil right wing regimes like South Vietnam, Pinochet's Chile and Suharto in Indonesia or lowlife civilian terrorizing scum like the Contras.

but after him, I'd vote Truman because I would've also supported Kai-chek over Mao, while he was extremely corrupt he wasn't the utter monster Mao was, and when you compare South Korea to North Korea you can see that the Korean War wasn't worthless in the end. The Berlin Air Lift was a good thing too. Hmmm, I would probably change my vote to him now.