Writing about the national and international reaction to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Winston Churchill wrote, “Great, judicious and well-considered steps are thus sometimes at first received with public incomprehension.” In recent history this has been perfectly exemplified by what happened after Ronald Reagan gave the March 1983 speech in which he launched the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars to its detractors). Except for a few true believers the general attitude in Washington was that it was typical Reaganite foolishness and that nothing would ever come of it. Paul Lettow’s recent book Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons clears...