> The west squandered a chance to implement a “Marshall plan” and make a strong ally out of the Soviets. We definitely made this particular mistake much later

> The west squandered a chance to implement a “Marshall plan” and make a strong ally out of the Soviets. We definitely made this particular mistake much later on, in the 1990s; I'll give you that. But what you're saying wrt. the Brezhnev era requires some evidence if it is to be plausible. If perestrojka was Brezhnev's idea, it sure seems weird that it would only be implemented with Gorbachev.