Without Firing a Shot — Review: 'Three Days in Moscow: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire' by Bret Baier and Catherine Whitney

When liberal historian John Patrick Diggins informed Arthur Schlesinger Jr. that he was writing a biography of Ronald Reagan, Schlesinger urged him not to make Reagan "look too good."

But unlike Schlesinger, who made "his" president—John F. Kennedy—look too good (i.e., an Arthurian king who would have ended the Cold War had he dodged Lee Harvey Oswald's bullets), Diggins was an old-fashioned historian, the kind who followed the evidence no matter where it led.

And the evidence—Reagan's diaries, declassified papers, and above all the speeches—led Diggins into declaring Reagan one of the three greatest presidents, alongside Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

But Diggins was an apostate among liberals who have then and now sought to deny Reagan credit for winning the Cold War. Some have proclaimed Mikhail Gorbachev the true hero who ended the conflict rather than the "lightweight" and "mentally challenged" Reagan. For those who think America did win, they have credited the victory as the result of Harry Truman’s containment policy, the purpose of which was to destroy the faulty Soviet economy by hemming the Russians in.

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