The president, the Pope, and the prime minister : three who changed the world / John O'Sullivan.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [337]-352) and index.

"They were three "middle managers" no one imagined could reach the top." "Ronald Reagan was too old to be president - and too conservative anyway. Margaret Thatcher was not only too conservative - she was a woman, and not on anyone's short list to lead Britain's Conservative Party. And the idea of a Polish pope - that was truly absurd, especially when the cardinal in question was a strong anti-Communist and defender of orthodoxy when many in the Church and throughout the world believed the future belonged to detente with the Soviets and social liberalism in the West." "Not only did Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Karol Wojtyla (the future John Paul II) rise to the top, but all three of them also survived assassination attempts, collaborated in the miraculous peaceful liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet Communism, and reinvigorated their respective countries and the West. They were beacons of optimism cutting through the malaise and despair that afflicted 1970s America, strike-ridden and economically moribund post-imperial Britain, and a Catholic Church rocked by social and sexual revolutions."--BOOK JACKET.