What’s Right: A Perle Before …

IT’S 1974. U.S. presidents are clinking champagne glasses with the masters of the Kremlin—and =. foreign-policy realists are quietly urging Americans to take whatever deals they can get from the Soviets: Our side is losing the Cold War, and the next deal will be much, much worse. There aren’t many people around who still think the United States might actually win the Cold War. One of them is a then-young aide on the staff of Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson. The aide’s name is Richard Perle—and that very year, he and his boss would astonish just about everyone by passing a law, the Jackson-Vanik amendment, denying access to the U.S. market to Communist countries that prevented their people from emigrating.

It’s 1979. The world situation seems, if possible, even worse than in 1974. President Jimmy Carter has just sent the Senate a new arms-control treaty that would lock in forever the nuclear advantages the Soviets grabbed during the 1970s. The treaty looks unstoppable: When has a Democratic Senate ever rejected a treaty sent up by a Democratic president? But Jackson and Perle organize the opposition—and early the following year, Carter has to surrender and withdraw the treaty.

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David Frum

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IT’S 1974. U.S. presidents are clinking champagne glasses with the masters of the Kremlin—and =. foreign-policy realists are quietly urging Americans to take whatever deals they can get from the Soviets: Our side is losing the Cold War, and the next deal will be much, much worse. There aren’t many people around who still think the United States might actually win the Cold War. One of them is a then-young aide on the staff of Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson. The aide’s name is Richard Perle—and that very year, he and his boss would astonish just about everyone by passing a law, the Jackson-Vanik amendment, denying access to the U.S. market to Communist countries that prevented their people from emigrating.

It’s 1979. The world situation seems, if possible, even worse than in 1974. President Jimmy Carter has just sent the Senate a new arms-control treaty that would lock in forever the nuclear advantages the Soviets grabbed during the 1970s. The treaty looks unstoppable: When has a Democratic Senate ever rejected a treaty sent up by a Democratic president? But Jackson and Perle organize the opposition—and early the following year, Carter has to surrender and withdraw the treaty.