# John Paul II and Ronald Reagan **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 12, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989 "2005-04-12T16:44:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/81 "2005-04-18T00:44:19Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > …Reagan’s participation in the USSR’s demise was entirely accidental, while the Pope’s involvement was entirely deliberate, as was Kirkland’s; the Pope had been and was until the day he died a staunch defender of worker’s rights. As for that turd Thatcher’s participation; her commitment to worker’s rights was shown when she hosted Pinochet on one of his visits to Britain. Extremely intriguing. If you didn’t support worker’s rights enough, you couldn’t be named an agent of destruction against SSSR. I gotta think this over. But a nitpick: didn’t RR cut his political teeth exposing Communist subjugation of Hollywood trade unions? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/82 "2005-04-18T01:51:58Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > Seems to me you are leading yourself out of discussion here. If we accept your assurances that Sandinistas were not going to transform Nicaragua into another Soviet satellite state like Cuba, then the case of Nicaragua becomes completely irrelevant to US-SSSR stand-off; if it didn’t change anything, if it didn’t influence any side one way or another: why bring it up at all in this particular debate? I didn’t bring it up. **Sam** brought it up as an example of what Reagan did right that we lefties foolishly and wrongly opposed. I will continue to contend that funding the Contras was wrong and immoral. That the Sandanistas might eventually have morphed into hardline communists is possible, but made relatively unlikely by the possibility of positive pressure brought to bear on them. Pressure to hold real elections, pressure to allow international observers to ensure they were fair, pressure to accept the results however they came out. All that was done, and was fine. It would have been even more effective if the US hadn’t focused on ostracizing the Sandinistas, basically forcing them to look to Cuba and the Soviets as there was nowhere else to turn. Funding the Contras, not fine. The Contras were terrorists by anyone’s definition, frequently targetting civilians. The tactics they used make the current insurgents in Iraq look like frigging saints. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/83 "2005-04-18T02:21:16Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > It’s as simple as that: either Sandinistas were drawn into Soviet orbit and creating Soviet satellite state in Nicaragua, and had to be treated as opponents in great struggle There is scant evidence to support that assertion, despite its being one of the underpinnings of Reagan’s vision. [quote, or they had no connection and support from USSR and Cuba, in which case they become irrelevant to present debate. [/quote] Already explained. Please read. > [@](#): > > As far as the claim that Sandinistas were not so bad, tough. Your point being what? That they were still worse than Somoza? > [@](#): > > Hungarian revolutionaries in 1956 or Chech revolutionaries in 1968 had very modest agendas: ‘socialism with a human face’. Remember what happened to them before you start crying over Sandinistas’ lot. Note that the Sandinistas eventually won, held elections, lost to a different group, and left power. Nicaragua still has its problems but a totalitarian regime hasn’t been one since the revolution. Remember what happened to Somoza? You could look it up. Now, can you explain in your own words why he deserved US support and the revolutionaries seeking to overthrow him did not? This should be interesting. > [@](#): > > But a nitpick: didn’t RR cut his political teeth exposing Communist subjugation of Hollywood trade unions? Claiming to, perhaps. Finding it and exposing it, no. You could look that up, too. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/84 "2005-04-18T02:46:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Reagan increased defense spending because of one simple, stupid reason: he was conservative. Nothing more, nothing less. I disagree. Building up the military required increased government spending, higher taxes, and a huge deficit - all things that many conservatives state they oppose. Reagan would not have betrayed his conservative base if he had decided on a different military/diplomatic strategy in the 1980’s - neo-isolationism. Suppose Reagan had decided to reduce the military, cut government spending, withdraw American commitments overseas, and basically return to the Conservative foreign policy platform of the 1930’s. Reagan could have had it all. Assuming the Soviet Union was due to collapse to its own inherent faults (and there’s been no real evidence offered to say otherwise) it would have gone down on schedule in 1991. Meanwhile Reagan would be looking like a genius for having foreseen the reduced military needs and would have been able to carry out his economic platform as well. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/85 "2005-04-18T02:49:38Z")
Wonderful what you can achieve by eliminating connections. SSSR has happily collapsed, Sandinistas happily allowed elections, and RR is happily a clueless idiot. Hunky-dory land. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/86 "2005-04-18T02:53:01Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > Wonderful what you can achieve by eliminating connections. SSSR has happily collapsed, Sandinistas happily allowed elections, and RR is happily a clueless idiot. Hunky-dory land. So you’re saying that you support the bombing of medical clinics? ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/87 "2005-04-18T19:00:51Z")
Ah, **New Iskander** , a clue: the world isn’t always painted in black and white. In the West Communists were responsible for organizing many a union. They may have had a longer-term agenda, as it were, but that doesn’t take away from their accomplishments. Now, as to Reagan: the better way of putting it is that he stood with the bosses and with organized crime against a more militant, and clean, union, and defeated it. He painted it in terms of communists vs the good folks, when in actuality it was more like genuine union versus sweetheart corruption: [We Must Keep the Labor Unions Clean](http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6458/) - see the summary at the top. For a far, far more detailed view, including his (Reagan’s) Mafia ties and his work against the interests of the union and for MCA, see the following: [Dark Victory: Chapter One](http://www.moldea.com/MCA.html) Reagan was a politician, and like most of that scummy breed, he betrayed people left and right to get to where he was. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2005, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/88 "2005-04-18T21:00:34Z")
Referring back to the OP, I’ll just reinsert this [link](http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040608-080515-6494r.htm) again for the latecomers. > [@](#): > > What is known is that when Reagan visited Pope John Paul II in June 1982, they found strong common ground in their assessment of the **Soviet empire as weak and vulnerable to pressure**. Contrary to what their advisers were telling them, they agreed that peaceful co-existence was not the only solution to East-West relations. **The Kremlin should be challenged, and it could be beaten**. Already noted in 1982 as weak and vulnerable…but still had to be challenged, not just allowed to exist as is. Weakened by previous administrations, Reagan was more than determined to deliver the knockout punch. Also, at the Pope’s funeral, Lech Walesa was quoted (second hand from CNN) that the fall of communism **in Poland** was attributed to the efforts of the Pope (50%), Solidarity (30%) and “other” world leaders (20%). I’ve been looking for this quote, but to no avail. The Pope may have gotten things rolling with the gutsy public support of Solidarity to start the dominos falling, and Reagan was only too happy to help the chain reaction along with methods. [Hey, I found the article!](http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050406/NEWS/504060370) > [@](#): > > Walesa, later president of a free Poland, said the pope was 50 percent responsible. Walesa credited the remaining 30 percent to his Solidarity union, **whose standing up to communism inspired the same in other Eastern Bloc countries** , and 20 percent to anti-communist international politics. > [@](#): > > The June 1979 trip Walesa referred to, arguably, was the beginning of the fall of the Iron Curtain. On that trip, for example, John Paul II said a Roman Catholic Mass with 1 million in attendance in Warsaw — in the capital of a country whose government backed atheism. > [@](#): > > In Poland, Solidarity’s labor battles forced the government to bargain with its opponents in 1989. This crumbling of communist power spread to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Romania. > > “People saw what they (the Poles) could do and they did the same thing,” said Zakrewski, speaking of the domino effect as communist regimes collapsed. “It just needed a start. The snowball got bigger and bigger.” > > Communism would have crumbled in Europe, eventually, Walesa believes. But he said the Polish pope’s words hastened it. > > “Communism would have fallen, but in some 50, 60 years,” Walesa said. “Communism did not fall because of the words, but the words helped.” ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2005, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/89 "2005-04-19T03:46:38Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > In the West Communists were responsible for organizing many a union. They may have had a longer-term agenda, as it were, but that doesn’t take away from their accomplishments. Their agenda was to take over, modeled on Lenin’s successful strategy of infiltrating and taking over local Soviets (people’s councils) in Russia just before the revolution. Now, who prevented them to do the same with US trade unions? > [@pantom](#): > > Now, as to Reagan: the better way of putting it is that he stood with the bosses and with organized crime against a more militant, and clean, union, and defeated it. He painted it in terms of communists vs the good folks, when in actuality it was more like genuine union versus sweetheart corruption Why do you excuse Kirkland for siding with Reagan against Communists in the 80-s but condemn Reagan for siding with the powers that were in the 40-s against Communists? He was a president of SAG, threatened with takeover by Communist front group and he fought them back. Why are you so biased against him? Here’s [just one cite](http://www.grimsociety.com/reader/grnine.html) (see ‘The War of Hollywood - Part 3: The Battle of Warner Bros.’): > [@](#): > > As if to pour gasoline on the fire in 1946 the real Central Committee of the Communist Party in clumsy Stalinist fashion urged greater central control and a hard line now that the war was over. This alienated traditional leftists like SAG presidents like George Murphy, Robert Montgomery and Ronald Reagan. Actor Sterling Hayden (Colonel Jack Ripper in Dr. Strangelove) admitted joining the Communist Party in June 1946 to help move SAG towards the CSU. … In a mass meeting at Hollywood Legion Stadium on Dec. 19, 1946 the actors gathered to debate. Edward G. Robinson, Katherine Hepburn and Paul Henried all argued to support the CSU strike. SAG President Ronald Reagan then got up and gave one of the best speeches of his career. Hedda Hopper called it a “flabbergasting performance”. He even convinced Sterling Hayden. SAG officially voted to condemn the CSU actions as communist inspired and led all the other neutral unions into the IATSE camp. Whoever you think Reagan was, he obviously believed in what he was doing even back then. Please note that I am not using the term ‘Communist’ in perjorative sense. Sorrell might have been much better man then any other union bosses. There were many outstanding people in Communist movement. The point is they were blindly working to create authoritarian, undemocratic societies and pave the way for the likes of Stalin. They had to be stopped before too late. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/90 "2005-04-20T19:07:32Z")
> [@Yeticus Rex](#): > > Already noted in 1982 as weak and vulnerable…but still had to be challenged, not just allowed to exist as is. As someone who remembers 1982, the Soviet Union was **not** widely regarded as weak and vulnerable in Europe. It was the pre-eminent danger of the time. In the U.K. the perception really changed after the defeat of the Soviet-funded (via Libya) strike by the National Union of Mineworkers. Let’s not forget that their leader, Arthur Scargill, addressed rallies in the Soviet Union. We (the British) had stood up for ourselves and defeated the Argentine Junta militarily abroad, and defeated Scargill’s fifth-columnists at home by the rule of law and order. Defeatism turned to optimism. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2005, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/91 "2005-04-20T21:06:20Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > Whoever you think Reagan was, he obviously believed in what he was doing even back then. This is the part I’m disputing. In the long term, his actions in defeating the communists were a good thing for Hollywood. That doesn’t mean he did it because he believed in it (anymore than those who sympathized or actually were communists were doing it because they believed in it). The record shows that he acted in the interests of others besides the union, possibly including the Mafia. As in most real-life disputes, there was plenty of ugliness to go around. Point being, there’s no evidence, to my mind, that he had in mind anyone’s interests but his own. It looked and looks good on his resume, but it stands in stark contrast to what he did for the rest of his life vis-a-vis the union movement. It’s like, when playing chess, I can make the same move as a grandmaster would in some situations. Wouldn’t mean that I would beat him though, because what I have in my mind is much different from what he would have in his mind. Ditto here. He may have acted in the same way that, say, a Lane Kirkland would have, on the surface, but not with the intention of following through for the rest of his life on it. It shows in the connections he made in fighting that fight, and in the actions he took for the rest of his political career. There was no follow-through as far as being pro-union, but there was as far as being pro-MCA, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/92 "2005-04-21T02:36:05Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > This is the part I’m disputing. In the long term, his actions in defeating the communists were a good thing for Hollywood. That doesn’t mean he did it because he believed in it (anymore than those who sympathized or actually were communists were doing it because they believed in it). The record shows that he acted in the interests of others besides the union, possibly including the Mafia. As in most real-life disputes, there was plenty of ugliness to go around. > Point being, there’s no evidence, to my mind, that he had in mind anyone’s interests but his own. It looked and looks good on his resume, but it stands in stark contrast to what he did for the rest of his life vis-a-vis the union movement. > It’s like, when playing chess, I can make the same move as a grandmaster would in some situations. Wouldn’t mean that I would beat him though, because what I have in my mind is much different from what he would have in his mind. > Ditto here. He may have acted in the same way that, say, a Lane Kirkland would have, on the surface, but not with the intention of following through for the rest of his life on it. It shows in the connections he made in fighting that fight, and in the actions he took for the rest of his political career. There was no follow-through as far as being pro-union, but there was as far as being pro-MCA, for instance. Of course, you can provide some cites for this? Cites for Reagan’s Mafia connection? And do you really think being an anti-communist looked good on an actor’s resume? In Hollywood? Reagan CLEARLY believed in the cause. To suggest otherwise is to believe that the man spent the last half of his life writing op-eds, giving radio addresses, giving speeches, and campaigning on issues he didn’t care about. That’s ridiculous. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. You got some? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/93 "2005-04-21T02:48:45Z")
I agree that Reagan was sincere - I just don’t see it as being an important issue. I know I’m in the minority in this, but I’ve never been real concerned about a President’s personal integrity. Apparently it’s part of this whole “character” and “leadership” thing other voters seem to find important. But me - I want a President who knows what the country needs and knows how to get it accomplished. I judge a President by the results he acheived in office. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2005, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989/94 "2005-04-21T23:46:24Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > He may have acted in the same way that, say, a Lane Kirkland would have, on the surface, but not with the intention of following through for the rest of his life on it. Naturally, Reagan makes an unlikely hero of union movement. He probably would be the first to chuckle at the suggestion. Yet he made a significant contribution, before moving on to Governorship and Presidency. And there is a world of difference between opposing the unions, like Reagan and Thatcher have done, and taking over the unions by force, like Communists were doing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-paul-ii-and-ronald-reagan/298989.md?page=4)