Even as historians credit ­Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II with hastening the end of the Cold War, they have failed to recognize the depth or significance of the bond that developed between the two leaders.
Acclaimed scholar and bestselling author Paul Kengor changes that. In this fascinating book, he reveals a singular bond-which included a spiritual connection between the Catholic pope and the Protestant president-that drove the two men to confront what they knew to be the great evil of the twentieth century: Soviet communism.
Reagan and John Paul II almost didn’t have the opportunity to forge this relationship: just six weeks apart in the spring of 1981, they took bullets from would-be assassins. But their strikingly similar near-death experiences brought them close together-to Moscow’s dismay.
A Pope and a President is the product of years of research. Based on Kengor’s tireless archival digging and his unique access to Reagan insiders, this book reveals captivating new details on a relationship that changed history.

“In this startling, intensively researched book, bestselling historian Paul Kengor shines light on a deeply troubling aspect of American history: the prominent role of the “dupe.” From the Bolshevik Revolution through the Cold War and right up to the present, many progressives have unwittingly aided some of America’s most dangerous opponents.

Based on never-before-published FBI files, Soviet archives, and other primary sources, Dupes reveals

* Shocking reports on how Senator Ted Kennedy secretly approached the Soviet leadership to undermine not one but two American presidents
* Stunning new evidence that Frank Marshall Davis–mentor to a young Barack Obama–had extensive Communist ties and demonized Democrats
* Jimmy Carter’s woeful record dealing with America’s two chief foes of the past century, Communism and Islamism
* Today’s dupes, including the congressmen whose overseas anti-American propaganda trip was allegedly financed by foreign intelligence
* How Franklin Roosevelt was duped by “Uncle Joe” Stalin–and by a top adviser who may have been a Soviet agent–despite clear warnings from fellow Democrats
* How John Kerry’s accusations that American soldiers committed war crimes in Vietnam may have been the product of Soviet disinformation
* The many Hollywood stars who were duped, including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Gene Kelly–and even Ronald Reagan”

Ronald Reagan is hailed today for a presidency that restored optimism to America, engendered years of economic prosperity, and helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet until now little attention has been paid to the role Reagan’s personal spirituality played in his political career, shaping his ideas, bolstering his resolve, and ultimately compelling him to confront the brutal-and, not coincidentally, atheistic-Soviet empire.
In this groundbreaking book, political historian Paul Kengor draws upon Reagan’s legacy of speeches and correspondence, and the memories of those who knew him well, to reveal a man whose Christian faith remained deep and consistent throughout his more than six decades in public life. Raised in the Disciples of Christ Church by a devout mother with a passionate missionary streak, Reagan embraced the church after reading a Christian novel at the age of eleven. A devoted Sunday-school teacher, he absorbed the church’s model of “practical Christianity” and strived to achieve it in every stage of his life.

In his memoir, Barack Obama omits the full name of his mentor, simply calling him “Frank.” Now, the truth is out: Never has a figure as deeply troubling and controversial as Frank Marshall Davis had such an impact on the development of an American president.Although other radical influences on Obama-from Jeremiah Wright to Bill Ayers-have been scrutinized, the public knows little about Davis, a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA, cited by the Associated Press as an “important influence” on Obama, one whom he “looked to” not merely for “advice on living” but as a “father” figure.While the Left has willingly dismissed Davis (with good reason), here are the indisputable, eye-opening facts: Frank Marshall Davis was a pro-Soviet, pro-Red China communist. His Communist Party USA card number, revealed in FBI files, was CP number 47544. He was a prototype of the loyal Soviet patriot, so radical that the FBI placed him on the federal government’s Security Index. In the early 1950s, Davis opposed U.S. attempts to slow Stalin and Mao. He favored Red Army takeovers of Central and Eastern Europe, and communist control in Korea and Vietnam. Dutifully serving the cause, he edited and wrote for communist newspapers in both Chicago and Honolulu, courting contributors who were Soviet agents. In the 1970s, amid this dangerous political theater, Frank Marshall Davis came into Barack Obama’s life.Aided by access to explosive declassified FBI files, Soviet archives, and Davis’s original newspaper columns, Paul Kengor explores how Obama sought out Davis and how Davis found in Obama an impressionable young man, one susceptible to Davis’s worldview that opposed American policy and traditional values while praising communist regimes. Kengor sees remnants of this worldview in Obama’s early life and even, ultimately, his presidency.Kengor charts with definitive accuracy the progression of Davis’s communist ideas from Chicago to Hawaii. He explores how certain elements of the Obama administration’s agenda reflect Davis’s columns advocating wealth redistribution, government stimulus for “public works projects,” taxpayer-funding of universal health care, and nationalizing General Motors. Davis’s writings excoriated the “tentacles of big business,” blasted Wall Street and “greedy” millionaires, lambasted GOP tax cuts that “spare the rich,” attacked “excess profits” and oil companies, and perceived the Catholic Church as an obstacle to his vision for the state-all the while echoing Davis’s often repeated mantra for transformational and fundamental “change.”And yet, The Communist is not unsympathetic to Davis, revealing him as something of a victim, an African American who suffered devastating racial persecution in the Jim Crow era, steering this justly angered young man on a misguided political track. That Davis supported violent and heartless communist regimes over his own country is impossible to defend. That he was a source of inspiration to President Barack Obama is impossible to ignore.Is Obama working to fulfill the dreams of Frank Marshall Davis? That question has been impossible to answer, since Davis’s writings and relationship with Obama have either been deliberately obscured or dismissed as irrelevant. With Kengor’s The Communist, Americans can finally weigh the evidence and decide for themselves.

Based on extraordinary research: a major reassessment of Ronald Reagan’s lifelong crusade to dismantle the Soviet Empire–including shocking revelations about the liberal American politician who tried to collude with USSR to counter Reagan’s efforts

Paul Kengor’s God and Ronald Reagan made presidential historian Paul Kengor’s name as one of the premier chroniclers of the life and career of the 40th president. Now, with The Crusader, Kengor returns with the one book about Reagan that has not been written: The story of his lifelong crusade against communism, and of his dogged–and ultimately triumphant–effort to overthrow the Soviet Union.

Drawing upon reams of newly declassified presidential papers, as well as untapped Soviet media archives and new interviews with key players, Kengor traces Reagan’s efforts to target the Soviet Union from his days as governor of California to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of what he famously dubbed the “Evil Empire.” The result is a major revision and enhancement of what historians are only beginning to realize: That Reagan not only wished for the collapse of communism, but had a deep and specific understanding of what it would take––and effected dozens of policy shifts that brought the USSR to its heels within a decade of his presidency.

The Crusader makes use of key sources from behind the Iron Curtain, including one key memo that implicates a major American liberal politician–still in office today–in a scheme to enlist Soviet premier Yuri Andropov to help defeat Reagan’s 1984 reelection bid. Such new finds make The Crusader not just a work of extraordinary history, but a work of explosive revelation that will be debated as hotly in 2006 as Reagan’s policies were in the 1980s.

Just six weeks apart in the spring of 1981, Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan took bullets from would-be assassins.

Few realized at the time how close both men came to dying.

Surviving these near-death experiences created a singular bond between the pope and the president that historians have failed to appreciate.

When John Paul II and Reagan met only a year later, they confided to each other a shared conviction: that God had spared their lives for a reason. That reason? To defeat Communism. In private, Reagan had a name for this: “The DP”–the Divine Plan.

It has become fashionable to see the collapse of the Soviet empire as inevitable. Hardly.

In this riveting book, bestselling author Paul Kengor and writer-director Robert Orlando show what it took to end the Cold War: leaders who refused to accept that hundreds of millions must suffer under totalitarian Communism.

And no leaders proved more important than the pope and the president.

Two men who seemed to have little in common developed an extraordinary bond–including a spiritual bond between the Catholic pope and Protestant president. And their shared core convictions drove them to confront Communism.

To tell the full story of the dramatic closing act of the Cold War, Kengor and Orlando draw on their exhaustive research and exclusive interviews with more than a dozen experts, including well-known historians Douglas Brinkley; H. W. Brands; Anne Applebaum; Stephen Kotkin; John O’Sullivan; Craig Shirley, the leading biographer of John Paul II; George Weigel; close Reagan advisers Richard V. Allen and James Rosebush; and Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron.

You can’t understand Pope John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan–or how the Cold War came to such a swift and peaceful end–without understanding how much faith they put in the Divine Plan.

The worst idea in history is back!

Communism has wrecked national economies, enslaved whole peoples, and killed more than a hundred million men and women. What’s not to like?

Too many young Americans are supporting communism. Millennials prefer socialism to capitalism, and 25 percent have a positive view of Lenin. One in four Americans believe that George W. Bush killed more people than Joseph Stalin. And 69 percent of Millennials would vote for a socialist for president.

They ought to know better. Communism is the most dangerous idea in world history, producing dire poverty, repression, and carnage wherever it has been tried. And no wonder–because communism flatly denies morality, human nature, and basic facts. But it’s always going to be different this time.

Renowned scholar and bestselling author Paul Kengor unmasks communism, exposing its blood-drenched history and the strange sway it has long exercised over much of American media and education. He reveals:

Stalin alone killed six times as many people as HitlerThe Khmer Rouge slaughtered more than a third of the population of CambodiaCommunists in Eastern Europe and worldwide tortured ChristiansCommunist Party USA (CPUSA) was directly controlled by the SovietsObama’s CIA director voted for the CPUSA candidate for president in 1980Unrepentant sixties-era communists are educating American teachers today

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism debunks the world’s worst ideology, sounds the alarm about its disturbing popular resurgence, and arms you with facts you need to refute its appeal.