What's Right.

A Perle Before . . .

It's 1974. U.S. presidents are clinking champagne glasses with the masters of the Kremlin -- and foreign-policy realists are quietly urging Americans to take whatever deals they can get from the Soviets: Our side is losing the Cold War, and the next deal will be much, much worse. There aren't many people around who still think the United States might actually win the Cold War. One of them is a then-young aide on the staff of Sen. Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson. The aide's name is Richard Perle -- and that very year, he and his boss would astonish just about everyone by passing a law, the Jackson-Vanik amendment, denying access to the U.S. market to Communist countries that prevented their people from emigrating.

It's 1979. The world situation seems, if possible, even worse than in 1974. President Jimmy Carter has just sent the Senate a new arms- control treaty that would lock in forever the nuclear advantages the Soviets grabbed during the 1970s. The treaty looks unstoppable: When has a Democratic Senate ever rejected a treaty sent up by a Democratic president? But Jackson and Perle organize the opposition -- and early the following year, Carter has to surrender and withdraw the treaty.

It's 1983. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans are protesting Ronald Reagan's decision to deploy Pershing missiles. A nervous State Department is desperately trying to placate the protesters by offering the Soviets one deal after another. Perle, now an assistant secretary of defense, scuppers one concession after another. The Soviets, he consistently points out, are already cheating on every existing agreement -- there should be no new agreements until the old ones are honored.

It's 1986. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev are meeting at Reykjavik, Iceland. Gorbachev startles the American delegation by offering up just about everything that U.S. arms controllers had ever wished for in the 1980s -- in exchange for Reagan's surrendering on the Strategic Defense Initiative. In a hasty conference, Reagan tallies the opinions of his top defense aides. Almost everyone present urges Reagan to say yes. Perle argues for a no. And no is the answer Reagan gives.

These are only four moments from a long career of public service. Over three decades, few Americans have contributed more to the nation's security and the freedom of the world than Richard Perle. He fought to halt the transfer of military technology, first to the Soviets, then later to the Chinese. He spoke up for Communism's victims when they might otherwise have been forgotten. He warned early of the danger of Middle Eastern terrorism.

Perle left government service in 1987. He went into business as a consultant and adviser. He was successful in his work and made some money -- but nothing like the gigantic fortunes earned by his onetime colleagues, former secretary of defense Frank Carlucci and former ...