Jacob Heilbrunn, an LA Times editorial writer and author of a forthcoming book on neoconservatism, calls “young scholar” Lettow’s revisionist work on Reagan “provocative, informative and largely persuasive.” Reagan, according to Lettow, was a leader and not easily manipulated by his handlers. Reagan was appalled at the prospect of nuclear war and before he turned conservative was “an early and ardent proponent of the abolition of atomic weapons and the internationalization of atomic energy.” As a conservative, Lettow believes Reagan never shed many of those beliefs even while he backed super hawk Edward Teller’s vision of a missile defense system. Reagan kept his views from his hawkish advisors. When he decided to negotiate arms-control pacts with Mikhail Gorbachev, his hawkish staff turned pale. To which Reagan responded: “I have a dream of a world without nuclear weapons. I want our children and grandchildren particularly to be free of these weapons.”

Heilbrunn wonders how this revisionist interpretation squares with Reagan’s embrace of the ballistic missile defense system, which, despite wasting of billions of dollars has proved to be “just about a total bust.” He also adds, “At most, as Lettow asserts but does not prove, Reagan’s arms buildup forced the Soviet Union to cry uncle.” Still, he concludes: If as has been said Marx was no Marxist then perhaps “so it can be argued, Reagan was not a Reaganite.”

New York Times Book Review, February 13, 2005