INDEED, HE MAY HAVE HATED THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR WAR MORE THAN HE HATED COMMUNISM:

Ronald Reagan’s “Secret” Crusade: A review of Martin Anderson and Annelise Anderson’s Reagan’s Secret War: The Untold Story of His Fight to Save the World from Nuclear Disaster (Lee Edwards - 03/02/10, First Principles)

Over the past decade, the Andersons (with the initial assistance of political scientist Kiron Skinner) have published three thick volumes documenting Reagan’s core contributions and ideas: Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America (2001); Reagan: A Life in Letters (2003); and now their latest, Reagan’s Secret War: The Untold Story of His Fight to Save the World from Nuclear Disaster.

Reagan’s Secret War is a model of archival research and clear writing, characterized by a welcome willingness to let the principals tell their sorry without unnecessary commentary by the authors. It is an indispensable addition to the literature about one of the most consequential presidents in American history.

In his foreword,former secretary of state George P. Shultz reveals that while President Reagan was as firm an anti-Communist as could be found on the planet and was resolved to end the Cold War by winning it, he was also convinced that all nuclear weapons should be abolished. He loathed the policy of MAD—Mutual Assured Destruction—saying, “What’s so good about a peace kept by the threat of destroying each other?” His solution was the elimination of U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons, coupled with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which would keep America safe in the event of a nuclear attack by rogue governments.
Reagan and Gorbachev

The true test of a presidency, Shultz writes, is whether the ideas promulgated have “staying power.” Reagan’s idea of abolishing nuclear weapons in conjunction with SDI, although questioned and even opposed by experts within his administration and by skeptical conservatives such as William F. Buckley Jr., continues to attract support at home and abroad.