Rosanne Klass A Cold Warrior Who Helped Afghanistan Expel the Soviets R.I.P.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/rosanne-klass-1438300360
The Cold War almost seems a forgotten era these days, but its stalwarts deserve recognition as they now pass from American public life. One of them was Rosanne Klass, an American who led the fight to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets and who died this week at age 86.
Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Klass joined her husband to teach English in rural Afghanistan in the 1950s, among the first Western women to do so. She became an authority on Afghan culture and politics and wrote a well received account of her experiences in that country, “Land of the High Flags.”
After the Soviet invasion in 1979, she became an advocate of U.S. support for the Afghan insurgents and chronicled the many Soviet depredations. She joined Freedom House, that great advocate of human liberty in authoritarian states, and wrote books and op-eds, including for these pages.
The ouster of the Soviets from Afghanistan was a crucial moment in the Cold War, showing that the Communist march could be repelled and imposing enormous costs on the Kremlin. Victory in that war required tenacity and confidence in American principles, and Rosanne Klass had quantities of both.
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