Yesterday, Rich, you write, “Long before he took office Reagan intuited the weakness of the Soviet Union (its economy) and a way to exploit it (the arms race) that was dismissed as nuts by the experts.” Careful there. I know you don’t mean it this way, but to say that Reagan “intuited” those matters is to suggest that he was a sort of idiot savant.

Take a look at Reagan’s pre-presidential radio addresses and speeches. What you’ll see is that Reagan spent more than two decades reading and writing about the Soviet Union incessantly. Reagan may not have used the language of the academy, but he did use its principal tool: intellect.