When Hell Froze Over

On December 31, 1991, across the enormous expanse of Russia, all flags of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were officially taken down. The daring experiment of ruling many millions of people in widely different societies under a communist central government, begun by the Bolshevik revolution in November, 1917, had come to an end.

One thing that was quite constant during those seventy-four years, as most Americans have been aware, was mutual suspicion and hostility between the USSR a...