Historical Perspective - The Bush Senior Years

America was again respected in the World. Americans again had Pride in the Nation. And America elected one of the "most qualified" Presidents to replace him, despite his lack of charisma. Bush Senior was a World War II fighter pilot, a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, a Vice-President, and had a host of other things on his resume to demonstrate he could do the job. He soon reaped the rewards of Reagan's Arms Race. In his first year, the Iron Curtain crumbled, to the disbelief of the world. The Berlin Wall fell, the Velvet Revolution succeeded in Czechoslovakia, the Romanians hunted down and hung their brutal Communist Dictator, and the rhetoric of Perestroika and Glasnost overpowered the Soviet Union itself.

Those who had grown up in the Cold War, that remembered the brutal crackdowns of the past, waited with baited breath, expecting another, but the Soviet Army was demoralized, hungry, and tired of substituting anti-freeze for vodka. The floodgates to West Germany were opened by the Czechoslovakians and East Germans packed into their cardboard cars and took the Southern route into the West. The Autobahns of West Germany turned into traffic jams of the oppressed in cars that could barely do 60mph on roads where 120mph was the norm.

Soviet Troops were selling everything for nothing, as the Communists could no longer afford their paychecks. There's more than one report of a Soviet Soldier selling a T-72 for a case of vodka or two. The number one currency in Moscow became Marlboro cigarettes, followed by Levi Jeans, and the US Dollar. A new world of peace was being ushered in.