Even though Reagan's "Star Wars" never led to the deployment of an actual missile shield, it drew the Soviets into a costly effort to mount a response. Many analysts agree that the race drained Soviet coffers and triggered the economic difficulties that sped up the Soviet collapse in 1991.
"Reagan's SDI was a very successful blackmail," Gerasimov told The Associated Press. "The Soviet Union tried to keep up pace with the U.S. military buildup, but the Soviet economy couldn't endure such competition."
Yelena Bonner, the widow of Soviet dissident Nobel Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, praised Reagan for his tough course toward the Soviet Union.
"I consider Ronald Reagan one of the greatest U.S. presidents since the World War II because of his staunch resistance to Communism and his efforts to defend human rights," Bonner said in a telephone interview from her home in Boston. "Reagan's policy was consistent and precise, and he had a great talent of choosing the right people for his administration."
Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, 61, remembered Reagan fondly for his humor and his toughness.
"His phrase, 'evil empire,' became a household word in Russia," said Bukovsky, who now lives in Cambridge, England. "Russians like a staightforward person, be he enemy or friend. They despise a wishy-washy person."
Retired Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin said that trying to field a response to Reagan's Star Wars had "certainly contributed" to Soviet economic demise but argued it didn't play the decisive role.
"The Soviet economy was extremely inefficient and nothing could save it," said Dvorkin, a senior Soviet arms control negotiator during the 1980s.
But Bonner said her husband -- who had played a key role in designing Soviet nuclear weapons -- believed that deploying U.S. missiles in Europe was necessary to bring the Soviet rulers back to the arms control talks
This was great .
