Peter – I am always willing to bow to Robert Conquest (I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!) but in fairness to, you know, me I think it’s worth pointing out that I pretty much agreed with everyone else that it would be very hard indeed to rollback the Soviets in 1946. Here’s what I wrote in that first paragraph:

I agree with most everyone else who says that it would have been very hard indeed to rollback the Soviet Union in the late 1940s, before they had an atomic bomb (though certainly easier than it would have been after they got the atomic bomb).

Your latest post just below makes it sound as if Conquest is refuting an assertion I, in fact, did not make.