Gary Lawson and I have just published an intellectual biography of former Attorney General Ed Meese, which argues that Ed Meese is the most influential person ever to hold the office of U.S. attorney general—but almost no one knows it. (The runners-up are: Homer S. Cummings (1933-1939) and Robert F. Kennedy (1961 to 1964), neither of whom helped to win the Cold War or to shape judicial selection for nearly forty years.) We explain why Ed Meese beats out Cummings and RFK in 401 pages of text. We think our book would be of great interest to many of the readers of this blog.
Ed Meese was at the center of virtually every major accomplishment of Ronald Reagan's transformational presidency, from winning the Cold War without firing a shot to the economic boom that by the end of the 1980s was the envy of the world. Meese served for nearly eight years on President Ronald Reagan's National Security Counsel, and when Meese and Secretary of State George P. Schulz disagreed, President Reagan always sided with Ed Meese. Meese also served as the Chairman of President Reagan's Domestic Policy Counsel. Ed Meese was in all matters of policy President Ronald Reagan's right hand man in waging the Reagan Revolution.
