Former Nixon advisor Chuck Colson offers some good insight into why President Reagan was successful against the communists where previous presidents had failed. The key, according to Colson, was the way Reagan changed the issue from politics to morality. Instead of trying to contain communism by playing political games (trying to drive a wedge between the USSR and China, for instance), Reagan simply called it evil and tried to eradicate it. “Good” and “evil” were seen as archaic and simplistic terms, even then, and the strategy was widely condemned. (Colson himself wrote an editorial against Reagan’s policy. He now says “I was wrong and Reagan was right.”) But it worked, and it worked because Reagan’s words were true! Good and evil may be simplistic terms in a world without a God, but because we do not live in such a world, the words carry great meaning. It’s a good thing for all of us that Reagan understood that.
