I hate to sound like a Pro-Russia troll, but the leaders weren't replaced in the West; the author of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the initial evangelist of the "Missile Gap" nonsense that sped us towards armageddon, Kennedy, is still Baby-Boomer Democrat Jesus. We're still having a debate as Americans on how perfect Reagan was - was he our great warrior-king that stopped the forces of collectivism from infecting our workforce, or was he just a lovable, charming, everyman's dad who was the optimistic, spiritual cure for the cynical unrest of the 60s and 70s?
America's government systematically destroyed the careers of every person in the media who had ever signed a petition, attended a meeting, or campaigned for an issue with any of the dozens of Soviet front groups OR communist groups, OR socialist groups, OR groups campaigning against state racism, or for the sake of any discriminated against group through the blacklist, and imprisoned people for peaceful speech. American propaganda was so pervasive that it renders some of the media from the period unwatchable without considering how heavily saturated every permissible theme was with the Cold War and Anti-Communism.
This just sounds like so much Russia is bad and inherently weak (in exactly the same way it was declared to be philosophically when it was Soviet, although it's governance is now comparatively unrecognisable) and America will defeat them for freedom's sake, but with a lot of words.
edit: Also, in the 25 odd years since the fall of the Soviet Union, the hegemon has had Father-Son Presidents, and is about to have a Husband-Wife pair. That will make 4 out of 5 post-Soviet Presidents a member of the nuclear family of another President. People are already discussing how to get Chelsea Clinton into Congress, as they have been since she started university.