It started with Stalin. It ended with a phone call. On Christmas morning 1991 Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev phoned President George H.W. Bush at Camp David and let him know that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and that the President could "enjoy a very quiet Christmas evening."
Thus, the long standoff came to a close. The specter of nuclear holocaust from the world's first two superpowers was vanquished.
As time ran out on the rest of the century and the millennium, historians engaged in spirited debate on the most significant events of both. The general consensus for the 20th century was not of a singular event but of a singular movement. The most important event of the 20th century was the triumph of democracy.
For the first half of the century, before the Allied victory in Europe and Japan, it was by no means certain democracy would prevail outside of America. In 1941, the unfolding of history we sometimes take for granted was an open ended question. The blitzkrieg of the Nazi war machine had swept over Europe. Democratic England stood alone in Europe. Japan's stunning surprise attack at Pearl Harbor found America outmanned, outgunned and out maneuvered. If U.S. aircraft carriers had been at Pearl Harbor instead of out on patrol, the intended Japanese knockout blow might have succeeded.
But the allies did win Word War II.
And then the two most important Allies broke up. The break up wasn't dramatic or forced. It was inevitable, however, and both sides knew it would happen. The two unlikeliest of World War II allies, the Communist Soviet Union and the representative democracy of the United States, had joined forces to defeat the foe that threatened both ideologies. With the defeat of Nazi Germany, our opposing ideologies turned us from allies to enemies.
The Cold War was on.
For the next 45 years, the U.S. and NATO would face off with the Soviets in the costliest and highest stakes game ever. The Cold War and the arms race would cost trillions and the proliferation of nuclear weapons would threaten our very existence. Words like "holocaust," "nuclear winter," and "mutually assured destruction" characterized the danger. Phrases like "red scare," "red menace," "Ban the Bomb," "pinko" and "McCarthyism" characterized the fear. Nine presidents would assume the helm as Commander In Chief to face down the threat: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush. The Soviet Union countered with Stalin, shoe-pounding Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
The fear was real. American schoolchildren practiced duck-and-cover drills, families built bomb shelters, American spy planes were shot down over the Soviet Union, people fleeing East Berlin were shot.
The posturing was real. International sports turned into a surrogate stage to prove the superiority of each ideology and its people. An Olympic hockey game would become the most iconic of Cold War sporting events.
The shadow of destruction was real. It flip-flopped in our consciousness. Sometimes in the forefront, other times not. But it was never far away. It was an ominous shadow.
The Cold War would also occasionally turn hot with proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. It would come perilously close to real nuclear action in our backyard during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Yet it all ended peacefully. The missiles never left the silos. Democracy triumphed.
Today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the end of the Cold War. The red and yellow Hammer and Sickle was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and the tricolor white, blue and red flag of the Russian Federation rose. A new era began. Russians would begin their own experiment in Democracy. An experiment in progress to be sure; nevertheless, it is another triumph of a people yearning to be free.
It all ended peacefully. And that is a Christmas miracle unto itself.
On Christmas Day 1991 there was peace on earth. The world received the second best Christmas present ever.
Jim Renkert is the director and one of the founders of Friends of Nike Site Summit, a Cold War Nike Hercules missile site that overlooks Anchorage atop Mount Gordon Lyon. The mission of FONSS is to preserve Site Summit and to educate present and future generations about the Cold War.