Reagan and nuclear weapons reduction

I believe I mentioned, in discussing the trip I and most of the rest of the Register's editorial board took to the Hoover Institution at Stanford in December to interview Thomas Sowell about his new book, "Intellectuals and Society," that we spent some time with Hoover senior fellow Martin Anderson, who was Reagan's chief domestic policy adviser during most of his first term. Martin and his wife Anneliese have just put together a book called "Reagan's Secret War," assembled from newly declassified minutes of the National Security Council and other documents. The thesis, which they document with cvonsiderable detail, is that one of Reagan's goals throughout his presidency (besides policies designed to weaken --or expose the weakness of -- the Soviet Union), was to take concrete steps toward banning all nuclear weapons from government possession.

I read the book and was mostly convinced. Of course Reagan didn't accomplish that goal, but he did sign START-I, under which both the US and the USSR seriously reduced their nuclear stockpiles. Here's the review I did for the Register's Sunday Commentary section today. And there's little question who was in charge of policy during the Reagan administration.

Talking with Thomas Sowell

Yesterday was a red-letter one. Almost our whole editorial board went up to the Hoover Institution at Stanford to talk with Thomas Sowell. He has a new book coming out in January, "Intellectuals and Society," so the normally fairly reclusive one has agreed to do some publicity work, and he agreed to have us be the first group to interview him. I figure he must have enjoyed the editorial board meeting he had with us at our office seven or eight years ago -- he acted as if he did -- and he acted as if he enjoyed this session too.

There will be video on the Register opinion page around midnight Saturday, for Sunday, along with pieces Mark Landsbaum and I wrote, which will also be in the Sunday Commentary print edition. So I'll leave details for later.

We also had a substantial talk with Martin Anderson, who with his wife Anneliese has just put out "Reagan's Secret War." Fascinating. And more on that later.

Lunch with Bill Evers

Had a very pleasant lunch yesterday with Bill Evers, an old friend who has been at Hoover forever except for a recent stint with the government as an Education undersecretary, including five months in Iraq. Good to rekindle an old friendship and catch up. And that's really what it was -- no agenda, just two old friends, though I think one upshot will be another stint as a Hoover Media Fellow. Since his wife is in Orange County we should be able to see a bit more of one another. For better or worse we reinforced one another's basic presumption that the smaller government is the better.