44. Dinesh D'Souza, Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader (New York: Free Press, 1997), 81.

45. See Benjamin Friedman, "Learning from the Reagan Deficits," American Economic Review 83, no. 2 (May 1992): 299304; and Paul Pierson, Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

46. Syndicated columnist Robert Samuelson has described Kennedy's tax cut as an economic "disaster" which spawned runaway inflation in the 1970s and 1980s and a permanent "loss of budgetary discipline" in Washington. Samuelson is right about one thing: JFK and his economic advisers set a fiscal precedent that later was misused and led to massive deficits. But the columnist overlooks key root causes of inflation and other economic problems, such as LBJ's "guns and butter" spending in the 1960s and the oil shocks of the 1970s. See Robert Samuelson, "How JFK's Mistake Led to the Sequester Mess," Washington Post, March 3, 2013,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-samuelson-how-jfks-mistake-led-to-the-sequester-mess/2013/03/03/ca4ba654-82bf-ne2-a350-49866afab584_story.html

[accessed March 5, 2013].

47. Ronald Reagan, "Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session with Regional Editors and Broadcasters," April 18, 1985, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=38498

[accessed December 28, 2011], and "Address to the Nation on the Federal Budget and Deficit Reduction," April 24, 1985, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=38536

[accessed December 28, 2011].

48. "10 Things You Don't Know About," season 1, episode 3, "John F. Kennedy," History Channel 2, original airdate March 5, 2012.

49. Khrushchev made this chilling statement in the presence of Western diplomats during a November 1956 reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow. See "Foreign News: We Will Bury You!" Time, November 26, 1956,

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867329,00.html

[accessed April 6, 2012]. Sergei Khrushchev, son of the Soviet chairman, believes that his father's words have been widely misunderstood in the West: "[T]his was a metaphor ... Father meant the burial of the outmoded capitalist structure and its replacement by a socialism that would benefit the people. He believed faithfully that the day was not far off when everyone, even the Americans, would ask to enter our paradise. He believed, he held the doors open, but wasn't prepared to chase anyone in by force." Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 133.

50. Ronald Reagan, "Address Before a Joint Session of the Tennessee State Legislature in Nashville," March 15, 1982, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, American Presidency Project,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=42270

[accessed December 28, 2011].

51. Ronald Reagan, "Address to the Nation on Strategic Arms Reduction and Nuclear Deterrence," November 22, 1982, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=42030

[accessed December 28, 2011].

52. Ronald Reagan, "Remarks at the National Leadership Forum of the Center for International and Strategic Studies of Georgetown University," April 6, 1984, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=39731

[accessed December 28, 2011]. The Kennedy reference is a paraphrase of JFK's inaugural assertion, "For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed."

53. Office of Management and Budget, Fiscal Year 2012 Historical Tables, Budget of the United States, Table 3.1, "Outlays by Superfunction and Function, 19402016," 4951,

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2012-TAB/pdf/BUDGET-2012-TAB.pdf

[accessed May 1, 2012]. When measured in 2012 dollars, one could argue that defense expenditures declined slightly from $400 billion in 1963 to $373 billion by 1980.

54. Reagan went on active duty with the army shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but his poor eyesight prevented him from receiving an overseas assignment. "His first assignment was at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, Fort Mason, Calif., as Liaison Officer of the Port and Transportation Office." Reagan was later reassigned to "the 1st Motion Picture Unit in Culver City." See "President Ronald Reagan," National Museum of the US Air Force, September 18, 2009,

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1660

[accessed May 1, 2012].

55. Ronald Reagan, "Remarks on Presenting the Presidential Citizens Medal to Raymond Weeks at a Veterans Day Ceremony," November 11, 1982, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=41978

[accessed December 28, 2011].

56. Ronald Reagan, "Address to the Nation on United States Policy in Central America," May 9, 1984, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=39901

[accessed December 28, 2011].

57. Some of Reagan's top officials sold arms to Iran as part of a secret deal to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon, and they funneled the profits from these sales to anticommunist forces in Nicaragua (known as the "Contras"). This clandestine arrangement directly violated a federal ban on U.S. military aid to the Contras that had been enacted by Congress months earlier. Reagan famously claimed that he could not remember the details of the Iran-Contra plan or whether he had discussed it with aides. See "Reagan: The Iran-Contra Affair," American Experience, PBS.org,