Rob Moll interviews Paul Kengor, author of God and Ronald Reagan.
From the interview:
Who was Rev. Cleveland Kleihauer, and how did he encourage Reagan's opposition to communism?Reagan was an after-dinner speaker, and he would give this speech blasting Nazism. This has always been a problem with the left, they're fantastic about going after racism and Nazism and fascism, but then when they come to communism, that other totalitarianism, they're just not as tough on it. Reagan changed that speech at the suggestion of Rev. Kleihauer, and he started saying that if communism ever becomes a similar threat, he's going to condemn it just as strongly. And he left the stage to dead silence, when typically he left to shouts and cheers. Reagan had stumbled upon that fault line of the Hollywood left naiveté to communism and in some cases even sympathy.
That was an awakening for Reagan, and he got it from a minister. His crusade begins there. Reagan's crusade begins in a house of God when a man of God alerts him to the communist threat.