A Pope and a President: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Extraordinary Untold Story of the twentieth Century

A Singular Bond That Modified Historical past

Whilst historians credit score ­Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II with hastening the tip of the Chilly Struggle, they’ve failed to acknowledge the depth or significance of the bond that developed between the 2 leaders.

Acclaimed scholar and bestselling creator Paul Kengor modifications that. On this fascinating e book, he reveals a singular bond—which included a non secular connection between the Catholic pope and the Protestant president—that drove the 2 males to confront what they knew to be the nice evil of the 20th century: Soviet communism.

Reagan and John Paul II nearly didn’t have the chance to forge this relationship: simply six weeks aside within the spring of 1981, they took bullets from would-be assassins. However their strikingly related near-death experiences introduced them shut collectively—to Moscow’s dismay.

A Pope and a President is the product of years of analysis. Primarily based on Kengor’s tireless archival digging and his distinctive entry to Reagan insiders, the e book reveals:

• The within story on the 1982 assembly the place the president and the pope confided their conviction that God had spared their lives for the aim of defeating communism
• Charming new data on the try on John Paul II’s life, together with a ­beforehand unreported secret CIA investigation—was Moscow behind the plot?
• The numerous similarities and the non secular bond between the pope and the president—and the way Reagan privately spoke of the “DP”: the Divine Plan to take down communism
• New particulars about how the Protestant Reagan turned intensely within the “secrets and techniques of Fátima,” which date to the reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Fátima, Portugal, beginning on Might 13, 1917—­sixty-four years to the day earlier than John Paul II was shot
• A startling insider account of how the USSR might have been set to invade the pope’s native Poland in March 1981—solely to tug again when information broke that Reagan had been shot

Nancy Reagan known as John Paul II her husband’s “closest buddy”; Reagan himself instructed Polish guests that the pope was his “finest buddy.” While you learn this e book, you’ll perceive why. As kindred spirits, Ronald Reagan and John Paul II united in pursuit of a supreme goal—and in doing in order that they modified historical past.