Gorby had the lead role, not Gipper

"It was his arms buildup, Republican admirers say, and his menacing rhetoric that brought the Soviets to their knees and changed the world forever. He was a pleasant man, the 40th president, which makes this fairy tale easier to swallow than some of history's other canards. Truth be known, however, the Iron Curtain's collapse was hardly Ronald Reagan's doing.
It was Mikhail Gorbachev, who with a sweeping democratic revolution at home and one peace initiative after another abroad, backed the Gipper into a corner, leaving him little choice -- actors don't like to be upstaged -- but to concede there was a whole new world opening up over there.
As a journalist based first in Washington, then in Moscow, I was fortunate to witness the intriguing drama from both ends. . . .
The recasting of the story now suggests that President Reagan's defence-spending hikes -- as if there hadn't been American military buildups before -- somehow intimidated the Kremlin into its vast reform campaign. Or that America's economic strength -- as if the Soviets hadn't always been witheringly weak by comparison -- made the Soviet leader do it. . . .
But [Gorbachev] had decided that the continuing clash of East-West ideologies was senseless, that his sick and obsolescent society was desperate for democratic air. His historic campaign that followed wasn't about Ronald Reagan. It would have happened with or without this president. Rather, it was about him, Mikhail Gorbachev: his will, his inner strength, his human spirit. As for the Gipper, he was bold and wise enough, to shed his long-held preconceptions and become the Russian's admirable companion in the process."