The real end of the Cold War

U.S. figure skating champion Johnny Weir caused a stir at the Olympic Games in Turin last Thursday by wearing a Soviet-throwback warmup jacket. The skater wore the red, zippered jacket, emblazoned with "CCCP" across the chest, over a practice jersey with his name spelled out in Russian letters on the sleeve.

Weir said it was a gift from his friend, Russian skater Tatiana Totmianina. "It's just for fun," he said. "It would be the same as someone wearing a Madonna T-shirt."

Well, maybe not quite.

Nostalgia for the U.S.S.R. isn't all bad. It means it's over, it's gone, and it's never coming back. Like disco.

Imagine if you could have shown this news story to any of the U.S. presidents during the Cold War -- Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter or Reagan -- and told them that at the 2006 Winter Olympics a Russian skater would be hanging out with a U.S. skater and the American would be seen wearing a Soviet jacket. And the U.S. skater would say it was just like wearing a picture of a pop star and no one would remember why it wasn't.

What would those presidents have said?

They might have said, "I'll take it."

We have arrived at the end of the Cold War and this is what it looks like: Russian kids and American kids skating in circles together, happy as clams and just as bright.

Copyright 2006

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