A millimeter or so's deviation in the path of two pistol bullets allowed Reagan and John Paul II to survive. Thatcher was a hotel room away from an Irish terrorist bomb. O'Sullivan agrees with the pope's judgment that his escape was miraculous, and thinks the same applies to the president and the prime minister. Mystical thinking of this sort is not likely to impress the mandarins of the academy, but indicates the right frame of mind to judge the events of 1979-89. Faith drove the actions of the great risk-takers of the West; it was faith that enabled them to take risks. Strangely, he does not mention some truly decisive events, such as the 1982 Israeli turkey-shoot of Syria's Russian-built air force over the Bekaa Valley in 1982, which demonstrated the vast superiority of US avionics, and convinced the Russians that they could not win an air war against the United States.

O'Sullivan emphasizes Reagan's moral commitment to nuclear disarmament, stemming from his conviction that it was immoral to threaten the destruction of Russian civilians as a penalty for the adventures of their leaders. SDI ultimately became a way to push for disarmament. The United States was the great winner in the Cold War. In an important respect the Vatican lost.