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Article: The President and the Pope.(Ronald Reagan)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- June 28, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THEY may have seemed, at first blush, an unlikely pair: the American B-movie actor turned conservative politician, and the mystical, philosophical, poetically inclined Polish priest turned Pope. Yet historical coincidences that both would describe as providential led them to become the chief figures in the collapse of European Communism. Moreover, the dynamics of the relationship between Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II teach us something important about how history actually works.
Journalistic fantasists like Carl Bernstein notwithstanding, there was no "holy alliance," no conspiracy between President Reagan and Pope John Paul to bring down the Soviet empire. ...