I think words were Reagan's greatest weapon - and more powerful than the Strategic Defense Initiative, which did not come to fruition in his lifetime.

I see in [George H. W.] Bush a striving to be Reagan-like in the sense of having a big vision, and eschewing small details.

I do not think he [Reagan] put names and faces together but for a small group of people. There were a few, perhaps half a dozen reporters, that Reagan recognized, including my colleague Lou Cannon, and some from television and the wire services. The rest of us were faces.

Presidents make history but are also a product of it. And there are two kinds: transforming and transactional. Reagan was a transforming president. He made history.

Today, we've got what seems to me to be binary-choice politics: black and white, ones and zeros, either you are with me or against me. How did we get here?

I think his [Reagan's] policy toward the Soviet Union was more risky than most people realize, and it was risky because of the paranoia and fear among the isolated old guard in Moscow.