Reflecting on Cold Wars

I talked to my mom about the cold war.  From what she said it seems like she had an interesting view of it because she was a child while it was going on, and got to watch it resolve itself.  It seems like the things that she remembers from her childhood is basically the epitome of the cold war.  As a child she had a very simplistic view of the russians and thought of them as evil and threatening.  Overall she saw them as bad people, but once they became a capitalist country under Gorbachev, people began to see them in an unbiased light and realized that they weren't terrible people at all.  My mom also remembers the whole race to space and to the moon as a big part of the cold war.  This is probably because its one of the few things, that weren't political, where Russia and America seemed like direct enemies.  Also my dad when he butted in towards the end of my interview, said that he felt Regan took credit for "tearing down the wall" even though it was Gorbachev who was the one who was trying to turn russia into a capitalist country, and as a result, there wouldnt need to be a divide in germany.