or in jean-paul sartre's play, with the characters of no exit. you strived as your goal to have the situation as least intolerable as you could make it. this mindset led to the liberal's view of u.s.-soviet accommodation, or to the nixon-kissinger view of hard, tough-minded detente. yet on the other hand, if you adopted the distinct mental construct that the u.s.-soviet competition was temporary, that it would end soon with their losing and our winning, since their system contradicted human nature and therefore was illegitimate and our system complemented human nature, allowing the flowering of the human being and therefore was legitimate, then you took a radically different view. this approach, stemming as i say from a different mindset than ronald reagan had, broke with previous presidents, especially nixon-kissinger who felt they had to adopt a realistic foreign policy, one that accepted soviet power forever more, one which would legitimize this predicament and legitimize the soviet government. in contrast with reagan's mindset and policy stem