if leonid brezhnev, for example, had lived another six years, i think reagan would have gone out of office, and there wouldn't have been any change. it required somebody on the soviet side to say we need to change some stuff. and when they sort of started remodeling the house, they realized how rotten it was. one of the reasons reagan gets credit is because he's the one who said, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. now, it's important to note that when reagan left office, the wall was still securely standing. and it wasn't until the end of 1989 that the wall, metaphorically, was breached. but it is worth note, and this is where i think reagan's influence was at least as great as putting the spending pressure on the russians. so if when people who talked to the folks who actually did bring down the wall, those east germans who demanded an opening of the gates, the ones who actually put their lives on the line, asked about this afterwards, you know, they said that they thought in some cases almost literally had heard but certainly metaphorically had heard reagan say tear down this wall. and