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- [Narrator] In the designs of Providence

there are no mere coincidences.

And we should start from this.

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

It was a perfect timing, perfect moment, perfect situation.

(Contemporary music)

- [Peter] All the world's a stage,

and had Shakespeare lived in the late 20th century,

he would have been intrigued by two men

who starred on the grandest stage of all.

- Both men began their careers as actors.

Both understand that a good script

contains three essential elements:

Introduction, conflict and resolution.

- They were working in the realm of the human spirit.

- [Peter] The actors were a president and a pope

who starred in a real life drama.

- Political office is a kind of dramatic role.

Ronald Reagan knew this very, he'd been an actor.

And what he understood was to be a successful president,

you have to know how to perform the presidency.

- When you go to the Vatican, of course,

St. Peter's and all that was built, it's a stage set.

It's built for processions and for speeches

and for public displays,

and boy, did he know how to inhabit that space.

- You know, you're playing to the crowd.

Politics is the biggest performance stage of all.

- [Monika] They kind of knew about the drama of the world,

and the drama of the theater, and how to use it.

- [Peter] John Paul ii and Ronald Reagan,

two unlikely characters,

made their final appearances early in the 21st century,

yet the roles they played lived on in our memory.

- They saw themselves as actors on the world stage

affecting a change, bringing freedom to people.

- That in my very carriage, in my very expression,

in the acts that I perform that always have didactic meaning

and portray something.

- [Man] They want to take what is on the stage

and make it real for the people in the world.

- [Peter] But was it a design of their own making

or was it the work of a divine plan?

(Contemporary music)

- [Man] There was love, there was expectation of a miracle,

and a miracle came.

(Crowd cheers)

- [Peter] And for nine days rapturous crowds cheered

and church bells rang as he traveled the country.

- [Man] And what I saw was a million strong crowd.

The best behaved, the best self-policed

mass of human beings I have ever encountered.

- [Peter] The pent up religious feelings

of a people living for decades

under the rule of a repressive atheist regime exploded.

The church bells were tolling the beginning

of the end of the Soviet empire.

(Church bells tolling)

- The most important impact that the pope had

when he first came to Poland in 1979

was the fact that he brought so many people together.

Because one of the things that communism did

was it isolated people.

- Dictatorships always have to create in you

the fear that you're alone,

no one will come to your assistance,

but that cannot be the case

if you have John Paul ii addressing huge crowds.

- [Anne] Suddenly, there were hundreds of thousands,

if not millions of people,

and suddenly, everybody saw one another.

- [John] People know that they're not alone.

- [Man] The pope came and emboldened the freedom fighter

by preaching love, human dignity, and strength.

(Contemporary music)

- [Peter] A continent away, another man took notice.

Ronald Reagan watched footage of the pope's visit.

With him was foreign policy expert Richard v. Allen

who later became President Reagan's

national security advisor.

- They were talking foreign policy

all day at Reagan's home in California,

and at one point, they decided to turn on the evening news,

and they saw footage of John Paul ii's visit to Poland.

- [Peter] Allen reported that Reagan

was astounded by the crowd size, and was deeply moved

by the unexpected outpouring of emotion.

- I saw a tear in rr's eye.

It was a really interesting moment for me.

- [Peter] Reagan leaned forward,

peered into the TV screen--

- then he said dick, that's it, that's it, that's it,

the pope is the key, the pope is the key,

the pope is the key.

- [Peter] He immediately wanted to reach out

to the new pope and the Vatican, and make them an ally.

- He was a beacon of light,

that he was somebody who has a positive force

operating in a zone of darkness.

- [Peter] Reagan knew Poland would be the linchpin

in the dissolution of Russia.

- We've got to find a way to get elected,

and we've got to reach out to this new Polish pope

and Vatican and make them an ally.

- Reagan, for the first time in history,

an American president is sharing

classified CIA documents with the pope.

Reagan appoints an envoy to the Vatican,

the first time in American history,

and later an ambassador to the Vatican,

again first time in American history.

He's making an ally of pope John Paul ii.

- [Peter] Few others understood

that the pope's visit was key

to the first act in a groundbreaking play.

The New York times, for instance,

said in a June 5th, 1979 editorial

"as much as the visit of pope John Paul ii

"to Poland must reinvigorate and re-inspire

"the Roman catholic church in Poland,

"it does not threaten the political order

"of the nation or of Eastern Europe."

- So they're missing the truth,

they're missing the overwhelming evidence

of the Soviet state versus American freedom.

- The Soviets are beside themselves.

I mean they know that this is a game-changer.

This is the linchpin that could take down

the whole communist block.

So one day, November 13th, 1979, nine of them get together,

members of Soviet central committee.

One of them, by the way, is a young member

of the central committee named mikhail gorbachev,

and they got together and they issued this chilling edict

where they called for additional measures

beyond discreditation and disinformation

to attack this new pope.

- [Peter] The pope and the president

would not meet face-to-face until June 1982 at the Vatican

when they confided in one another

what they had only thought in private.

Their greatest roles still awaiting.

(Dramatic music)

- [Man] Ronald Reagan had this very strong sense

of divine Providence.

- Ronald Reagan would have gotten it from his mother.

He was very quick to say that that view of the world

that everything is in god's hands,

and obviously, John Paul ii got it

from his deep catholic faith.

- [Man] Ronnie, everything that happens in your life,

good or bad, and including the bad things,

happen according to a divine plan by a loving god.

- [Peter] Reagan was born in 1911

to nelle and Jack Reagan.

By all accounts, nelle was an earthly Saint,

a faith leader in the household.

- I think that his mother's faith

and her upbringing of her children,

especially in conditions of extreme duress

with the drinking problem his father had.

- [Peter] He was Jack Reagan,

a shoe salesman who chased rainbows and alcohol.

- Reagan's childhood was difficult for a young boy.

Reagan did sort of build this wall around himself

because Jack Reagan, who one day,

was the best buddy his son, Dutch, ever had,

the next day he was drunk, he was unreliable.

Reagan couldn't count on him.

- [Peter] An enduring memory for Reagan

was coming home at age 11

to find his father passed out on the front porch,

exposed and freezing in the snow.

- And this 11 year old kid has this moment

when he has to decide well, what do I do?

- [Peter] Jack's hair was soaked with melted snow,

matted unevenly against the side of his reddened face.

- And apparently, he thought

well, maybe I'll just walk on by and ignore my dad here.

The very fact that an 11 year old kid

could think for a minute my life might be better

if my father were dead.

I mean that's a pretty heavy thing.

(Soft music)

- [Peter] Four months later after the incident,

Reagan asked to be baptized.

He started life anew as a child of god,

the son of an infinitely more reliable father.

Karol jozef wojtyla was was born in 1920.

His mother, Emilia, died when he was eight.

Although he didn't hold many clear memories of her,

he kept his parents' wedding portrait by his bed always.

His father, karol senior, a military man,

became his spiritual guide.

He would take his son to shrines to the virgin Mary

saying this now is your mother.

(Soft music)

As young men, karol wojtyla and Ronald Reagan

shared a common mission: To protect, even save others.

Reagan became a lifeguard at 15

on rock river in Dixon, Illinois,

and in the seven years that follow,

he saved the lives of 77 people.

- Reagan, you know, you are a good-looking young guy,

and certainly, those pretty girls

who were thrashing around in the water,

they probably weren't gonna die.

He didn't see the humor in that.

- [Peter] Wojtyla already had established himself

as a well-respected actor/playwright.

He acted in plays with themes of Polish pride

to defy the authorities.

- And he and a few friends

formed this famous rhapsodic theater where they,

you know, behind shuttered windows and locked doors,

they recited the great poetry and drama

of Polish literature.

- Underground theater help him

to go through the most important words

and problems and experiences

to reach people, their hearts, and confront the evil.

- [Peter] It was not until 1941

that he would enter the seminary,

a secret underground seminary.

- He's coming of age at one of the worst moments

of the 20th century.

- [Peter] Wojtyla witnessed first time the Nazi terror,

the liquidation of Poland's Jewish population

as tens of thousands were marched off to Auschwitz.

He watched as many of his friends

as well as defiant priests were sent to the same fate.

(Solemn music)

- If a German soldier or an ss guy or a gestapo guy

doesn't like the way you looked at him in the street,

he can shoot you down and nothing will happen to him.

- [Peter] Poland would lose 20% of its population

in world war ii, the highest percentage of any country.

A personal tragedy added to the sorrow.

On February 18th, 1941,

wojtyla's father died of a heart attack.

- For the rest of his life,

every day would recite to himself a prayer

that his father had written for him when he was a child.

The bereaved son told friends,

"I am alone at 20 years old,

"I have already lost all the people I've loved."

At nearly the same moment,

thousands of miles away,

Reagan's father who had finally redeemed his life

and at a job answering his son's fan mail,

also succumbed to heart failure.

Reagan said he felt desolate and empty,

but he assured his mother with his well-known optimism,

"Jack is okay and where he is he's very happy."

By war's end, it was clear to both Reagan and wojtyla

that Russia, one of the allies who helped defeat Hitler

was about to unleash new atrocities

on a depleted, helpless Eastern Europe.

The Soviets fought not only against western values

of freedom and democracy, but also religion.

With that battle came the spiritual oppression

of millions of souls in Eastern Europe.

From 1947 through 1959,

Reagan starring role was that of president

of the screen actors guild.

- He was responsible for the policy and position

of the actors regarding the big issues of the time,

including the possibility that communism

might be infiltrating Hollywood.

To Reagan, there was sort of a hard reality to this

because Reagan was involved in a very controversial strike

in which he was personally threatened.

- [Peter] When he attempted to break a picket line,

his bus was pelted with rocks

violently shattering the glass windows.

He was warned that acid would be splashed

in his movie star face.

There were so many threats

that he began sleeping with a Smith & Wesson.

- And the strike was instigated

by communists within this new upstart union.

And so Reagan felt it in his responsibility

as basically one of the key players in Hollywood

to keep the movie industry going,

but increasingly, Reagan felt it in the form

of a challenge to the United States.

- [Peter] Throughout the 50s,

as host of television's ge theater,

Reagan had a new stage to work from,

and the script would become increasingly political.

- As Reagan tasted politics,

and he realized, you know, there's something out there,

Reagan realized that he was smart,

he realized that he could be good at politics.

There was a taste of politics in his mouth,

and at this point, I think he begins thinking beyond

what's my next career, what's my next role?

- [Peter] By 1964, he had changed

from democrat to republican,

and began acting in the political arena.

While campaigning for Barry goldwater,

he delivered what would become known as

the a time for choosing speech, or more simply the speech.

- You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.

We'll preserve for our children

this the last best hope of man on earth

or will sentence them to take the last step

into a thousand years of darkness.

- So he's saying this transcends partisan politics,

but we must preserve, we must honor, we must know,

and we must live up to the principles

that are a part of that vision of a shining city on a hill.

- [Peter] By 1979 after eight years as governor,

Reagan through his rousing broadcasts and speeches,

had amassed a solid anticommunist following.

In a radio broadcast, Reagan noted

that Stalin had once mockingly asked

how many divisions does the pope have?

Reagan responded well, that question has been answered

when the people of Poland came forth

in unbelievable numbers.

Now fear was giving way to faith.

- Both of them achieved these positions of power

toward the last quarter of their lives,

the last fifth of their lives.

Is that there are no more political battles to win.

Now it's just about the mission.

(Suspenseful music)

- [Peter] St. Peter's square, may 13th, 1981,

just past five o'clock in the afternoon.

John Paul ii rides in a small open-air vehicle

dubbed the popemobile.

(Crowd cheers)

He greets a crowd of thousands

who have come to the Vatican to cheer.

One man, later identified as a Turkish national,

lifts a pistol and aims it an the pontiff.

(Gun shot)

Six weeks earlier on may 30th, 1981,

another assassination attempt had taken place.

In this scene, it was president Reagan in the crosshairs.

- So if there's a way to look at all this

in the divine scheme of things, the divine plan,

think about six weeks in 1981,

march 30th, 1981 to may 13th, 1981.

March 30th, 1981 was the day that Ronald Reagan was shot

outside the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC.

(Gun shot)

- The kremlin feared no other man

in the 1970s and 1980s in the west

like they feared Ronald Reagan.

The Soviets hated Ronald Reagan.

- Both of these men shared a conviction

that communism in Europe could be defeated,

and could be defeated without massive violence.

(Contemporary music)

- [Peter] From the moment he became John Paul ii,

forces were at work within Russia

to vanquish this charismatic pope.

Like Reagan, he had the ability

to turn complex information

into simple understandable words and to deliver these words

with an actors skill that could move nations.

In 1984, prime minister Margaret Thatcher,

who played an important role in the cold war drama,

also survived a bombing.

(Bomb blast)

Her reaction, though, differed in tone.

- She felt it would be vainglorious

to think of herself as having be protected

from the assassination attempt on her by god.

The idea that god would intervene directly for her,

she's thought well, that's boasting, really.

- I think part of her religion factored into it,

because methodism doesn't reject

that god directs all things,

but it believes the greater self-determination of man

than, say, catholics do.

(Soft music)

- [Peter] In the weeks before the assassination attempt,

the communist press was full of vitriol

directed at the pontiff.

They cast him in the role of Nazi remnant.

Cunning and dangerous ideological enemy.

Malicious, lowly, toady of American militarists,

seeking to undermine communism

with his new boss in the white house.

- So on may 13th, 1881, the feast day of our lady of Fatima,

John Paul ii is riding through St. Peter's square

in his white fiat popemobile, and the top is down,

he's driving around with an open roof,

and as he's driving by, this shooter,

this assigned shooter, this assassin,

he has his nine millimeter Browning semi-automatic weapon,

and as the pope gets closer, and closer, and closer,

finally, mehmet Ali agca,

lifts that gun up in the air and fires

(gun shot)

And he hit the pope twice.

Hit him once in the hand, and once in the stomach.

He immediately went down,

collapsed into the arms of his aides,

father dziwisz and another aide,

said it's very painful, it hurts, I was hit in the stomach.

They immediately got him in an ambulance,

and rushed him off to gemelli clinic,

and he got there and they found out

that he was bleeding very, very severely.

- [Peter] As for Ronald Reagan,

he reacted to the shooting of the pope

with a diary entry that day:

Sent a message to the Vatican and prayed.

Could it have been mere coincidence

that an attempt on Reagan's life

had happened not long before?

The timing was coincidental

(gun shot)

(Contemporary music)

As were the motives.

The pope's assailant was a political hired gun.

Reagan's would-be assassin was a disturbed young man

whose motive was to impress the movie star Jodie foster.

It was a random act of violence,

not part of any plot or conspiracy.

But did these events fit into a heavenly scheme?

Could such indiscretion turn out

to be part of a divine plan?

Even if it wasn't, Reagan believed

that all things happened for a reason.

- Reagan saw that he and John Paul

were basically reading from the same book.

- [Man] The storyline of both the pope and Reagan

coincided very, very nicely together.

- Bits and pieces are making sense to US,

but how precisely it plays out?

I don't know, and that's part of the fun of it,

that's part of the drama

'cause I'm living it, not reading it.

- [Peter] But the two events have in common was clear,

the true condition of both men

was down played to the public.

The official word in Washington

was that Reagan was in stable condition.

- I decided to sneak away for the university club

for a 40 minute swim, and get back to the office

and have a sandwich.

And so my driver pulled me out of the pool by my hair,

and said we've got to get back to the white house,

something terrible has happened.

- The surprise was that the president himself had been shot.

He very nearly bled to death.

He probably should have bled to death.

It was very, very close.

If that bullet was even a few centimeters over

closer to his heart, he wouldn't have gotten out of the car,

he would have died on the way

to George Washington university hospital.

- When it became clear

that Reagan had been taken to the emergency room,

and that he passed out walking into the hospital,

and that he was in the operating room,

then Americans began to get nervous.

- [Peter] There are no alert measures

that are necessary at this time or contemplated.

In truth, both men were closer to death

than was acknowledged at a time.

John Paul ii underwent a five-hour operation,

and lost 60% of his blood.

(Crowd screams)

- John Paul would have read it

as he read everything else, as part of the divine plan,

and he would have seen it according to the template

of the cross and resurrection of Jesus,

so he would've read it that way.

Did it give him a heightened sense of his mission

to struggle against what he saw, quite correctly,

as the supreme evil in the world of his time?

I say yes, absolutely.

And that again brings him close to Ronald Reagan.

(Soft music)

- [Peter] Reagan lost half of his blood.

On that harrowing day in Washington,

vice president George hw bush was on an airplane

flying back to Washington, DC from Texas.

For a brief time, with the bleeding president

on the operating table, confusion gripped the white house.

- [Richard] And one of the young women

working in the press office

said they want to know who's running the government,

and al said oh well, I'll take care of it.

I said wait, wait.

- [Alexander] As of right now,

I am in control here in the white house.

- [Richard] And he lunged up behind the podium,

and I stood next to him.

- [Alexander] Constitutionally, gentlemen,

you have the president--

- the doctors didn't tell Reagan how close he was to dying

and so okay, I'm awake, I'm alive,

I've got this audience around me, I can tell a joke,

and he's joking as he goes into the operating room

hoping that all the doctors there are Republicans,

and that's when the head surgeon says

well, today Mr. President, we are all Republicans.

Reagan had sufficient self-possession

to realize okay, if I can convey

that I've still got my sense of humor,

I've got my wits about me, that will have a calming effect.

- And Reagan would later say he would call John hinckley

this mixed up young man,

and he said isn't that the meaning of the lost sheep?

We are all god's children, we are all lost sheep,

and Reagan said I immediately prayed for him

to find his way back to the fold.

(Soft music)

- And one of the first things he wrote in his diaries

when he woke up from his surgery

is I'm going to dedicate my life to peace.

I'm going to work hard to become a,

make the world a better and safer place.

Hence his determination to rid whole classes

of nuclear armaments to put a big thaw

in the us/soviet cold war.

(Soft music)

- John Paul ii came away from that ordeal

just like Ronald Reagan

came away from his shooting, thinking--

- what god has in store for them now,

that he obviously was sparing them for a higher purpose.

- And the fact that they both saw it,

they both understood that.

I don't think you'll understand either one of them,

without understanding that.

- Both Reagan and John Paul ii

shared the belief of optimism.

- [Peter] After their ordeals,

both men made strong recoveries and returned to work.

Reagan, a vibrant 70 year old, was back in the oval office,

and John Paul ii return to the Vatican.

- I have this power, I have this ability,

I have these resources to assemble

to achieve what it is I've made it my life's goal to do

which is to defeat Soviet communism.

(Contemporary music)

- Ronald Reagan for his first public speech

after the shooting of John Paul ii

just happens to be a commencement address

that have been previously scheduled weeks in advance

of at all places, america's most famous catholic university,

notre dame university.

(Audience cheers)

- [Peter] Reagan made a pivotal speech

at the university of notre dame,

announcing his grand mission.

He spoke with his new catholic partner in mind.

In the speech Reagan quoted John Paul ii.

- Certain economic theories

that use the rhetoric of class struggle

to justify injustice.

He said in the name of an alleged justice,

the neighbor is sometimes destroyed, killed,

or deprived of Liberty

or stripped the fundamental human rights.

- [Peter] Reagan continued with his own observations.

- The years ahead are great ones for this country,

for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization.

The west won't contain communism, it'll transcend communism.

(Audience applauds)

- And it was there, after he said that in particular,

that he started to talk about the shooting of John Paul ii.

I think looking back in retrospect,

that might have been one of Ronald Reagan's

first public indications that he was very much suspecting

a possible Soviet communist hand

in the shooting of pope John Paul ii.

- The first step in the destruction of evil

is to name it, to call it out

because it doesn't like that.

- Another absolutely crucial player in this was bill Casey,

the head of the CIA, Irish catholic,

like bill Clark he was an Irish catholic,

and he had been almost plucked out of retirement

by Ronald Reagan and his closest aide,

herb meyer said that Casey felt

that when Ronald Reagan called him to head the CIA,

that god was giving Casey one more shot

to do something really, really significant.

And Casey too felt this divine plan sense

that he was being tasked, that he was being called

to do battle against this beast in the Soviet union.

- I didn't know bill Casey well, but I knew him.

This was a brilliant, unappreciated cold warrior.

- May 13th, 1981, very next day may 14th, 1981,

bill Casey immediately called a special session

of the national foreign intelligence board

in Washington, DC on f street

to talk about what exactly the Soviets were up to,

and he wanted to know, from the very beginning he suspected

that maybe they might have had something to do

with the shooting of the pope.

- [Peter] They regarded the us/vatican relationship

as a holy alliance.

The moral force of the pope

and the teachings of their church

combined with fierce anticommunism,

and their notion of an American democracy.

(Suspenseful music)

- Reagan took the moral aspect of the cold war

more seriously than other American presidents had.

Other American presidents tried to figure out

how to manage the cold war.

Reagan wanted to win the cold war.

- Reagan was determined to restore dynamism

to the United States economy,

and he was determined to confront

Soviet power around the world.

- [H.w.] My policy in the cold war is very simple,

we win, they lose.

- [Peter] John Paul ii after returning to the Vatican,

his voice still week after surgery,

addressed to group of Polish pilgrims.

He declared the future was beginning to look grim

for an empire that paraded strength with troop movements,

but was weakening from within.

- President Reagan and John Paul ii's

parallel critique of communism

was that it misread human beings.

It did not realize, would not acknowledge

the inherent dignity and god-given value

of every individual human life,

and if you don't get that right, if you don't get,

if you will the anthropology right,

if you don't get the idea of the human person right,

you're gonna make a big mess out of your politics,

out of your society, out of your economy,

out of your culture.

- [Peter] Russia responded to the assassination attempt

on the pope as expected, they attempted to deflect blame.

Pravda, the official newspaper

of the communist party of the Soviet union,

referred to the pope's would-be assassin,

mehmet Ali agca, as a Neo-fascist

with ties to Turkey's Neo-fascist national movement party.

The publication and the party kept emphasizing

that agca was a turk.

When britain's guardian newspaper

speculated on Moscow's involvement,

izvestia, another Soviet organ

called the assertion a vile concoction and ravings.

Moscow tried pointing the finger at the CIA.

The kremlin, already on shaky ground,

would put on its own show,

desperately trying to disguise it's oppressive regime

now slowly rotting from within.

- Well now they better really be fearful

of an alliance between these two

because this shooting, which they helped precipitate,

which they took part in,

made that alliance even tighter.

- [Man] The most important story to tell here

is that Reagan and the pope

were operating on the same level of spirituality,

the same level of confidence in a divine power.

(Soft music)

- [Peter] Reagan and the pope would meet

five times in eight years.

- I think being in the room

when the pope and the president met,

you could see there was a delight on both faces.

They were in this place where it was appointed of them

by a divine power.

- People have to understand that John Paul ii

spoke English, it was excellent.

So there wasn't an interpreter to slow down the discussion

between Ronald Reagan and John Paul ii.

So there were many times

when they went for a walk in the woods,

or a walk in the gardens of the Vatican,

just the two of them, talking about the Soviet union,

talking to them about CIA analysis of Soviet intentions,

talking about the growth

of the solidarity movement in Poland.

- A simple yet sincere trust in divine Providence

brought them together,

and boy, I think there was a bond,

a simpatico, as the Italians would say,

that developed because of that.

(Soft music)

- [H.w.] There was constant correspondence

going on between the two.

So many letters, so many telegrams,

so much electronic communication, hard-copy letters.

- [Peter] Unfortunately, most of the contents

are still unknown.

- The Vatican letters have been sealed for 50 years,

so nobody knows the content

of pope John Paul ii's letters to Ronald Reagan,

and won't know for another 20 somet odd years,

they were sealed, which makes it fascinating too,

is the full story of the relationship

between John Paul ii and Ronald Reagan

for many years to come.

- By the end of 1981, Ronald Reagan and John Paul ii

had already exchanged about a dozen or so letters

between the two of them.

- [Peter] Reagan and the philosopher pope

were more alike than they appeared.

They both, as trained actors,

believed in the power of the symbolic act,

and they shared this important sentiment.

Reagan: "Every person is a res sacra,

a sacred reality."

John Paul ii: "Every person is a unique

and unrepeatable gift of god."

(Soft music)

- With Reagan, where the motivation comes from,

where the values come from,

it's a combination of what he felt, what he observed,

what he saw worked for him, what played politically well.

And I don't think this makes his beliefs any less sincere.

Reagan believed quite seriously

in the need for the United States

to stand for individual freedom,

freedom of conscience, freedom of elective politics.

- He believed in a very ideals of freedom

that he was trying to uphold at home and abroad.

And that belief is not trivial,

and it's not beside the point, and it's not play acting.

- [Peter] Both Reagan and John Paul ii

believed in the connection between faith and freedom

and were compelled to speak out

boldly and unequivocally against evil.

- [Man] There was a personal relationship

between pope John Paul ii and Ronald Reagan.

- [Peter] They confided in each other

their conviction that god had spared their lives

a year earlier for the divine purpose

of defeating the communist empire.

- God draws our freedom, he lures our freedom,

so he has a plan, but he wants US cooperating with it.

So the main point is it's not a zero-sum game,

like the more god does, the less we do

or the more we're involved, the less god's involved.

No, on the contrary.

- [Peter] During these years,

the formidable British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher,

joined forces with the pope and the president,

also forging a special bond with Reagan.

As bill Clark, the once chief of staff

turned national security advisor reported,

Reagan and John Paul ii agree

that the key to translating their lofty mission

into a real world strategy to defeat Soviet aggression

was to sustain solidarity.

- Look, there's another civilization out there

that wants to help you,

so we are the west, we are part of that alternative

that the pope is describing.

- [Peter] Almost from its inception,

Reagan believed that solidarity was a crack of light

in the iron curtain.

- Reagan got advice from his diplomats,

don't do this kind of thing, don't provoke the Soviet union.

The Poles will be better off

if we can treat this on a low-key basis.

Reagan rejected that view.

He said it's very important to take a moral stand,

to make a moral statement even when you cannot

do everything that you want

to accomplish your goal immediately

because change comes in small steps.

- [Peter] From 1982

through the June 1989 election in Poland,

when communists did not win a single seat,

the US funneled 50 million dollars to solidarity.

It turned out to be a sound investment.

- [Man] The money's going for hand bills,

it's going for later fax machines.

I remember speaking to a group of Polish journalists,

and I said what was it, what impelled you forward?

What kept you going, what inspired you?

And to a person they said the words of Ronald Reagan

and the words of John Paul ii.

- [Peter] During those years,

a third man was moving into a starring role

in the unfolding drama.

Lech walesa an electrician

who worked in the shipyard at gdansk

began to gain strength

and influence with his union, solidarity.

- He's a charismatic shipyard worker in gdansk,

and they were striking over various things

as small as getting an allocation of toilet paper

to bigger things about food and rights

and privileges and all this is, is that Poland is cracking,

the western ideas are coming in

and the Soviet union cracks down even more.

- [Peter] While the Polish government

could not obliterate the solidarity movement,

it could impose martial law on the country.

As a result, walesa was arrested, the clergy was persecuted.

- [Craig] The harder the Soviets and jaruzelski

cracked down on Poland,

the more solidarity grows,

the more important walesa becomes,

the more important the freedom,

the need for freedom, to desire for freedom,

the want for freedom becomes in Poland.

- [Peter] It was clear

that Moscow had a stranglehold on the Polish government.

As brezhnev fumed, the pope stood with his people.

It was said that brezhnev was one of those bolsheviks

who imbibed atheism and anti-church attitude

with their mother's milk.

The Soviet leader was worried about

the growing strength of solidarity,

and even more about the unshakable hold

the catholic church had on Poland's people.

Contact between Washington and John Paul ii

had actually begun during Jimmy Carter's presidency.

Zbigniew brzezinski, then national security advisor.

- [Brzezinski] Through his great diplomacy

and personal skills to create a very good and excellent

and outstanding relationship with pope John Paul ii.

- [Peter] When Reagan was sworn into office in 1981--

- I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear

that I will faithfully execute

the office of president of the United States.

- [Peter] The contact with the Vatican intensified.

Reagan asked to be informed of everything

that occurred in Poland,

and told Richard Allen, his security aide,

and CIA director, William Casey,

to keep the subject front and center.

Brzezinski was kept on as a consultant

which meant continued contact with John Paul ii.

Brzezinski said, "we involved the pope directly.

"I can't go into details, Casey ran it.

"If something needed to be done it was done.

"To sustain an underground effort takes a lot of effort."

- [Peter] The CIA, under Casey's leadership,

monitored the situation on the ground in Eastern Europe.

Bill Clark, meanwhile, was tapped to act

as a clandestine messenger to the pope

in an ongoing mission codenamed cappuccino.

The moniker came from the coffee

prepared by archbishop pio laghi,

who was the Vatican's ambassador to the US,

and was designated secret contact for Clark.

- They were meeting constantly.

Clark thinks that it might have been

as often as maybe even once a week,

and Clark said that he and Casey,

when they would talk on the phone,

sometimes afraid that the phones might be bugged,

that there might be listening devices in the phones,

when they felt the need to get in touch with laghi,

to get in touch with the Vatican,

Clark or Casey would say to the other

I think it's time we get a cappuccino break.

And they had a very strict policy of no notes,

no cameras and no media whatsoever.

- It was the Reagan administration

that gave full diplomatic status to the Vatican.

- [Peter] Casey flew missions around the world

in a c-141 windowless black jet

and made a point to visit Rome to share intelligence

and to urge the pope at Reagan's behest

to keep up the pressure.

He wanted the pontiff to understand america's position

that the Soviets pose threats not just in Eastern Europe

but around the globe.

- So now you have the two sides really working together

at the level of say, Poland.

Previously, this pope had gone into Poland,

met with people, talked to people,

really saw on the ground

what the solidarity movement was,

what religious belief was in the country.

- [Richard] I shared some satellite photos with bill Casey

and I know that he took some of those to Rome

to show to the holy father.

- [Peter] Vernon Walters,

deputy director of central intelligence,

was dispatched to Rome in 1981

with something to show the pope.

- One of the most important outreaches here

liaisons was bill Casey.

Bill Casey and Vernon Walters,

an extraordinary man, Vernon Walters,

an ambassador who spoke a bunch of different languages,

fluent in multi languages.

And they would fly often back and forth to the Vatican.

And they would brief the holy father in person.

- [Peter] During his visit,

Walters placed an envelope on the table

in front of the pope.

Inside were satellite photographs.

The pope immediately recognized the gdansk Lenin shipyard

where solidarity had been born.

What is this, asked the vicar of Christ,

pointing to a circle.

Walter replied, heavy equipment

for use by Polish security forces.

Then they looked at other images that showed missiles

programmed to reach Western Europe in minutes.

- So Casey would share with the holy father

pictures of Soviet troop movements in Poland,

of missile locations in czechoslovakia,

and the pope would look at the minute details

of these different satellite images,

and he was just blown away, impressed by this.

- [Peter] Walters was much more interested

in what they knew about the internal situation in Poland.

He had with Walters called

the oldest intelligence service in the world.

Walters, like Reagan, was convinced

the real power in Poland was wojtyla.

(Music)

The images Walters had shared made John Paul ii believe he,

in fact, might have been a target

of communist bad intentions.

Since the attempt on the pope's life in 1981,

questions of blame swirled around intelligence circles.

- From the very beginning,

Ronald Reagan, bill Casey, bill Clark,

they suspected a possible Soviet hand

in the shooting of the pope from the very beginning,

and then as they started to learn

of a possible Bulgarian connection

to the shooter, mehmet Ali agca.

- [Peter] Few people aware of the ways of the kremlin,

believed the Bulgarians, who were dutiful stooges of Moscow,

acted on their own.

- In that period and at that time,

the secret services of all of those countries

were very much under the kgb's roof,

and it would have been a kgb decision to use the Bulgarians

to carry something like that out.

- The Bulgarian communist leadership

didn't get up in the morning and put their pants on

without getting kgb approval.

So as this became clear a Bulgarian connection,

as mehmet Ali agca himself named the kgb in one moment

when he was being led out of an Italian prison

to an Italian courthouse in 1983,

all of this for Ronald Reagan and bill Casey and bill Clark

only further fueled what they had already suspected

from the beginning.

- [Peter] At the time of the assassination attempt,

the Italian press raised questions

about who might have masterminded the plot.

The distinguished American journalist, Clara sterling,

who was based in Rome,

also reported on the attempted murder.

- CIA director, Casey,

was impressed by sterling's level of detail,

particularly her ability to detect discrepancies

in the stories the gunman, agca, was telling.

In her front-page article in the New York times,

sterling strongly suggested a Soviet hand at work,

although she did not present any evidence.

The CIA continued to investigate sterling's theory.

Supposedly, a document existed that said

nine comrades from the central committee should disorder.

Use all possibilities of the Soviet union

to prevent the course of policies

initiated by the Polish pope,

if necessary, with additional measures

beyond disinformation and discreditization.

(Gun shot)

(Gun shot)

(Gun shot)

- I think everybody is trying to find

the smoking memorandum here.

No one would have written down go shoot the pope.

That's not the way that game worked.

- But a number of people have read that document

including the Italian secret service sisde, s-i-s-d-e,

and they believe that that document was an actual call

for the physical elimination of John Paul ii.

- There's one thing about a bureaucracy

that people need to understand is that they are committed

to committing everything to writing.

Bureaucrats love to see their name in writing,

bureaucrats love to commit things to paper.

And it doesn't matter whether it's a bureaucrat

in the kremlin, or a bureaucrat in the Soviet union,

or a bureaucrat in Washington.

- This speculation is absolutely warranted.

We use deductive logic,

we collect

shreds and pieces

to restore a picture because the kremlin

does not allow US into its archives.

- Well, put it like this, there's no way

that Bulgarian secret service is going to murder the,

attempt to murder the pope, any pope,

but particularly this pope,

without clearing it with the Soviet union.

- But it was done so with the blessing,

the go-ahead, the approval, the green light

of the head of the kgb, a guy named Yuri andropov.

(Suspenseful music)

- [Peter] Though the exact date of the meeting

was never fully confirmed, Casey met with Reagan

in the spring of 1985.

Casey and the president that the Soviets

had ordered the assassination attempt on the pope.

There were more convincing clues.

(Soft music)

In 2006, Paul kengor met with bill Clarke,

long retired from his post

as national security adviser to President Reagan,

at Clark's California ranch.

Kengor discovered a piece of paper

with a rare public statement Clark had made

in Las Vegas in 1984

at a reunion of army counterintelligence veterans.

The statement made clear that Clark suspected the Soviets

were behind the assassination attempt of the pope.

It even had a penciled-in note suggesting a Bulgarian,

and therefore, Soviet connection.

But was there enough proof?

- Something that's obviously very intriguing about this

is that working in the kgb in the 1980s at the time,

was a lower ranking lieutenant colonel named Vladimir putin.

Now, to be clear, there's no way that putin would've known

anything about this at the time, the shooting of the pope,

there's no way he would have been involved.

This was the tightest thing that the Soviets ever did

in their 3/4 of a century of murder and mayhem.

Very, very few people knew about this.

However, I think it's,

I can't imagine that today, Vladimir putin,

who's been in charge of the former Soviet union, of Russia,

since the year 2000.

He surely now knows today what exactly happened,

and what exactly the role the kgb and the gru was.

- [Peter] All these years later,

the report is still under wraps.

Why?

Is the US government worried about offending today's Russia?

Is it sensitive to the concerns of Vladimir putin

who might want to protect his former boss,

one time Soviet secretary-general, Yuri andropov?

And his former employee the kgb?

Or is the US government being sensitive

to the concerns of the Vatican,

which still doesn't want to see international division?

Those are questions still unanswered,

but in real time, and in the course of the divine plan,

there would be no more hiding the truth

even the pope himself would come to conceived,

albeit privately, that he also knew

who was behind his assassination.

(Soft music)

The pope suspected early on that Soviet intelligence

had ordered the assassination,

but ultimately, he did not want the subject exposed.

- John Paul ii's response I'm told was I know,

I figured this, this doesn't surprise me at all,

but he didn't want the United States

to make a big deal out of it,

didn't want the United States to release that information.

- [Peter] What was done was done,

and he did not want to derail the crucial dialogue

that it opened up between the Vatican and the new

and very different Soviet leader, mikhail gorbachev.

(Soft music)

Gorbachev's star, like Reagan's and the pope's,

had risen steadily.

He ascended through the ranks of the Porter bureau

to become president of the ussr.

To friends and colleagues, the pope refer to gorbachev

as the providential man.

- [Man] That somehow, that he was part of a kind of

cosmic realignment that was going on,

that the moment was right for change in the world

because gorbachev was willing to recognize

what was heinous and wrong with not just stalinism,

but you know, the kgb and brezhnev,

and that there was this hope.

(Solemn music)

- [Peter] With gorbachev, the pope and the president

found a new cast member introduced to this historical drama,

one that had the power to transform.

- If you wanted to set the scene

for the late 70s, early 80s,

a dramatic moment in time,

you would have been very hard-pressed

to think up these four characters,

and moreover, these four characters at the same time.

- [Peter] The communist creed

that dominated Russian politics since the revolution of 1917

would no longer hold.

It was time to pull back the iron curtain

and shine the new light of glasnost and perestroika.

Glasnost, reform and restructuring.

Perestroika, a promised new opening in the Soviet union.

- Glasnost was really a radical change

because this was, glasnost, was initially meant to be

part of an economic reform,

it was the Soviet union was going to,

people were going to speak honestly about problems,

our factories don't work,

our distribution system is terrible,

we have all these shortages, we have these disasters,

let's talk about them honestly,

because that's the prerequisite to fixing them,

so let's have open and positive conversations.

- [Peter] Gorbachev was nothing if not a realist,

and he began loosening some of the chains

that had constricted Russian life

including those that ruled religion.

- Ironically, it was western liberalism,

classical liberalism which gorbachev instituted

with glasnost and perestroika,

which are basically western liberal ideas

that were his undoing.

Gorbachev was actually unintentionally

hollowing out the Soviet union

by admitting everything they stood for

for the past 77 years, had been wrong.

(Soft music)

- [Peter] It was obvious to anyone paying attention

that the empire was crumbling.

Meanwhile, the western liberal press

began to treat gorbachev as a hero

with his promised new era of glasnost.

Reagan and the pope for more cautious,

but they hoped a dawn of peace would come

with a help with this new Soviet leader.

- [Man] Unlike his three predecessors,

konstantin chernenko, Yuri andropov and leonid brezhnev,

gorbachev did not see his closest friends

dragged down into the basement of lubyanka prison in Moscow

and assassinated with a bullet in the back of the head.

(Gun shot)

He didn't have that cold, almost reptilian look

that the others had.

- He set out to do something that was unachievable,

namely to save the Soviet union from its own sclerosis.

- You can't reform something that's fundamentally mistaken

in its basic ideas.

- Once you began speaking honestly about the way things are,

people immediately began to want to speak honestly

about everything including the past.

What had really happened under Stalin?

What was the gulag?

Why did all those people disappear into nowhere?

(Suspenseful music)

- Of all the freedoms in the Soviet union

that were among the most repressed

and that most bothered Ronald Reagan and John Paul ii

was the repression of religious freedom.

And to the two of them, when mikhail gorbachev came in

with his glasnost, allowed for freedom of press,

freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, those are all great,

but not where as important as a freedom of religion

that gorbachev allowed.

- [Peter] Reagan said, "freedom is like a genie.

" Gorbachev learned this.

"When you let that genie out of the bottle,

"you can't put it back in."

- It became such a widespread movement in Russia

that they didn't know how to control or contain it.

And so he, in many ways, gorbachev became

popular in the United States, popular with conservatives

in the US and Western Europe,

and a man without a home in Russia.

- In Russia, he is not remembered as a hero.

On the contrary, he's remembered as the man

who brought down the Soviet empire,

and is the man who triggered a decade's worth

of economic catastrophe.

(Soft music)

- Once a totalitarian state begins to acknowledge

an elementary human right,

it's like tugging on a thread in a tapestry.

If you tug hard enough on that one thread,

the whole thing is going to unravel.

- [Peter] The stage was set for the end of the cold war.

What would be the final breaking point

if indeed there was a divine plan?

A key element would be stopping the madness

of the nuclear arms race between the two global superpowers.

Reagan and gorbachev met five times between 1985 and 1988.

The first meeting was in Geneva.

- The president and I were sitting in front of this fire

waiting for the gorbachev motorcade to arrive.

And it was just the two of US

and I said how are we gonna get rid of it forever?

And he looked at me and without skipping a beat said

oh Jim, that's only gonna happen

because of the people's desire to know god.

- [Peter] Reagan had faith in the process.

- And Reagan recognized that tough rhetoric mattered,

and that, you know, his most famous saying

about the Soviets is trust but verify.

Basically, we don't trust you, and nobody should trust you.

That you're a kingdom of lies and secrecy,

that the kgb is corrupt.

- [Peter] Finally, it appeared that a door

in the negotiations had opened.

It was October 11th, 1986.

A summit between Reagan and gorbachev

was hastily arranged in Reykjavik, Iceland.

When they met, Reagan noticed that gorbachev

often invoked god in the conversation.

The one thing that always angered Reagan

was that in the Soviet union, you couldn't have a Bible,

that you couldn't have freedom of worship,

at dinner during the toast, gorbachev quoted ecclesiastes,

ending with a time to throw away the stones

and a time to gather the stones together.

- This mattered to him and I think gave him fortitude

in his anticommunist policies in the 1980s.

- [Peter] In fact, gorbachev admitted later

to a top aide of John Paul ii

that his mother and three of his grandparents

had been christians,

and that he was secretly baptized

in the Russian orthodox church.

Later in November 1989, he would make a speech

in which he affirmed the need for spirituality in the world

and it called for, "a revolution in men's souls.

"Religion helps perestroika.

"We have given up pretending

"to have a monopoly on the truth."

- But Reagan's thoughts and pope John Paul ii's thoughts

had penetrated the Soviet state

to allow a new way of thinking.

Even more astonishing than that admission,

was the sight the next day in 1989

of a limousine bearing the flag with a hammer and sickle,

motoring down the Avenue to the Vatican.

In that visit, a communist and a pope

would meet for the first time.

Back in Reykjavik, Reagan and gorbachev

continued the negotiations

hoping to strike a deal

to control intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

The stage was set for progress.

They already shared with one another

their intense desire to abolish nuclear weapons.

Reagan's arms control director, Ken adelman,

described the meeting as intense.

Reagan and gorbachev talked for 10 1/2 hours.

- [H.w.] With Reagan, he was patient, he was pragmatic.

You don't have to win it all at once, Reagan used to say.

I would rather get 80% of what I want,

than go over the cliff with my flags flying.

Because Reagan understood, maybe you get 80% today,

you come back tomorrow, you get a bit more.

- [Peter] There was no knowledge gap

between the two leaders.

They came within sight of an incredible agreement

theretofore unimaginable.

Until gorbachev demanded that Reagan give up his dream

of sdi, the strategic defense initiative,

the missile program popularly known as star wars.

- [Craig] Sti was an idea, but it was Reagan's idea,

and it terrified gorbachev and the Soviet generals.

- After all, we did put Neil Armstrong on the moon

in the summer of 1969.

We won the space race,

and the Soviets couldn't believe that we did feat,

and then when we said we're now creating

a strategic defense initiative,

a protective shield for nuclear weapons

that will make US never vulnerable to Soviet missiles,

they believed we had that technology.

- [Peter] Reagan was adamant.

There would be no capitulation on sdi.

Gorbachev would not budge either.

He complained and not just once,

I am making all the concessions.

Each time Reagan said nothing.

He never answered.

According to adelman on the plane going home,

gorbachev complained to his staff, I give away things.

The two left Reykjavik at an impasse,

although Reagan clearly have the upper hand.

They both faced the hard truth

that nuclear war was a continuing threat,

and agreed to meet again in Washington

which would take place 14 months later.

This was December 1987.

(Solemn music)

In a speech a week before Reykjavik,

Reagan began to pressure gorbachev on religious freedom.

- How can we help but doubt a government

that mistrusts its own people

and holds them against their will?

- [Peter] Despite some loosening of restrictions,

the ussr continued to suppress

and even jail Russian Jews for practicing their faith,

and would not let them emigrate.

Reagan badly wanted a treaty

that would eliminate intermediate

and short-range nuclear missiles,

but he could not remain silent about human rights.

The state department worried that his outspokenness

would jeopardize a treaty

that was so close to being a fait accompli.

Reagan also demanded the legalization

of the Ukrainian catholic church

which must have resonated with John Paul ii

while enraging the Soviets.

But gorbachev was ready to finalize

the intermediate-range nuclear forces inf treaty.

He stated, I am convinced it is god's will

that we should cooperate.

- They went head to head on a number of occasions,

especially at Reykjavik,

and Reagan is just kind of trying to figure,

why can't you come to an agreement?

Gorbachev is saying why can't you agree with US?

We're so close.

But they do form this personal relationship.

And in his last meeting with,

one of his last meetings with gorbachev,

Reagan is asked if he still believes something

that he said back in 1983,

is the Soviet union an evil empire?

And Reagan doesn't repeat that.

He says those were different days.

Reagan finally came to the belief

that reform is possible in the Soviet union.

- [Peter] The nuclear freeze

was made official on December 8th, 1987

with the signing of the inf treaty

in the east room of the white house.

The date was also the feast day

of the immaculate conception of the blessed virgin Mary

to whom the pope is consecrated his life and papacy.

At this moment John Paul ii was behind the iron curtain

on his third trip to Poland.

This time you traveled to gdansk and met with lech walesa,

giving as a story in Robert's service would characterize,

an ecclesiastical benediction to solidarity.

- So one of the things that clearly happened

at the end of the 1980s,

is that some members of some of the Soviet elite,

and obviously gorbachev is one of them,

stopped seeing the west as an evil demon, as a threat.

- [Peter] President Reagan was besieged

not just from the left.

Conservatives were furious

that dealing with the gorbachev

was betraying his long-held cold war principles.

And before he spoke in Berlin,

officials from the state department

repeatedly tried to cut a line from his speech.

It would be the line that would reverberate

across the globe.

- General secretary gorbachev, if you seek peace,

if you seek prosperity for the Soviet union

and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization,

come here to this gate.

Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.

(Crowd cheers)

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

(Crowd cheers)

- [Peter] There was no turning back

for the Soviet regime.

The only question was the speed of its fall.

- Toward the end, gorbachev is out of power.

He's had the wisdom to get down on his knees

ensue for peace and beg the west for mercy.

And Reagan takes his cowboy appeal,

and puts it on the neck of Soviet communism,

crushes the life out of it.

And gorbachev says shortly thereafter,

he said the future is clear

and the future points to freedom.

- [Peter] John Paul ii

would pick up the torch of summitry,

meeting one-on-one with gorbachev at the Vatican

in that truly historic meeting in 1989.

Even the New York times would write,

"for the first time ever

"the leader of atheistic Soviet communism

"meets the vicar of Christ."

Change had come so dramatically in such a short time,

and without a gun being fired.

One could only wonder whether this was all part

of the divine plan.

Faith, though subjugated for decades,

had shown the power to change the world.

The election in Poland in 1989 was the first confirmation

that the Soviet empire was on its way to oblivion.

On November 9th, 1989, the Berlin wall came down.

The final act against the Soviet empire drew to a close.

- They were both instruments of peace,

they were instruments of god in this larger divine plan.

- I think we won the cold war,

but it may have just been round one,

and alas you're seeing a cold war ii emerging under putin.

- [Man] He's very dangerous, he's a throwback.

He wants to reassemble the old Soviet state.

He's a former kgb officer

who specialized in intelligence.

This is that putin knows the Russian people mourn the past.

- He is projecting himself as somebody

who will bring back some kind of glory,

whether it's not quite the Soviet empire,

maybe it's the Russian empire.

Certainly it's Russia playing role on the world stage again

and having some kind of influence again.

(Suspenseful music)

(Soft music)

- At the end of almost every speech,

Reagan invokes these words from Thomas paine,

"remember we have it within our ability

"to begin the world over again."

Reagan felt that we did have that ability,

and he gives his audience not only a charge

to go out and do that,

but the confidence he has in them

that they will go out and begin the world over again.

- [Peter] Were John Paul ii and Ronald Reagan

directly responsible for the fall of communism?

(Soft music)

- When people talk about the pope being involved

in the fall of communism,

they don't mean that the pope

was literally on the barricades.

What they mean is that the pope,

the pope gave people an alternative world view.

- [Peter] In comments at westminster palace

in London in 1982,

Reagan said that the Soviet union

was gripped by a great revolutionary crisis

in which Poland magnificently

unreconciled to repression was the pivot.

- There has been and will continue to be

repeated explosions against repression and dictatorships.

The Soviet union itself is not immune to this reality.

- The 20th century was a pretty

awful period in human history.

Between the beginning of the first world war in 1914

and the end of the cold war in 1991,

something on the order of 70 to 80 million human beings

were killed not in war, but by political violence.

This is a pretty awful record,

and yet the fact that the 20th century as an era

ended with the victory of freedom in the cold war,

and that at the root of that victory of freedom

was a revolution of conscience.

(Soft music)

- If you really look at the grand scope of this,

you have Ronald Reagan born in 1911,

the bolshevik revolution breaks out in October 1917,

karol wojtyla was born in 1920,

and by the end of their lives, of Reagan's presidency,

about halfway through John Paul ii papacy,

bolshevik communism, atheistic Soviet communism collapse,

which these two men tried to force that to happen.

And so they would see all of this

as a big, long battle of the 20th century

within the divine plan, the divine scheme of things.

- [Peter] And those under the totalitarian states

still held at gunpoint would gain strength

in the light of the western promise of freedom.

(Soft music)

- [Peter] Together Ronald Reagan and John Paul ii

acted to fight what they considered evil.

They met last at the Vatican in September 1990

near castel gandolfo.

It was to be their last meeting

which Nancy Reagan described as warm and wonderful.

Reagan was already slipping

into the dim world of Alzheimer's.

Finally, not even remembering

that he had been president of the United States.

The pope began declining from Parkinson's disease.

But a certain stage presence was still evident

in these two former actors,

even is human frailty would slowly take over,

they had to lean on others

as they continued to depend on their faith.

- From the first, then, our nation embraced the belief

that the individual is sacred

and that as god himself respects human Liberty,

so, too, must the state.

- From the beginning of america, freedom was directed

to forming a well-ordered society

and to promoting its peaceful life.

Freedom was channeled to the fullness of human life,

to the preservation of human dignity

and the safeguarding of human rights.

- God wants to draw, awaken, and enhance freedom

in such a way that his grace

can operate more fully in the world.

That's the discernment of the divine plan,

I think as both John Paul and Ronald Reagan saw it.

- God is intimately involved in human history

and one of the ways that he most brings about his will,

often imperceptibly, and always taking a long period of time

would be in the cultivation of wise leaders.

- Which is good for the world,

and it's good for those whom god raises up

because the more they surrender to him,

the more they become themselves.

- [Peter] In 2004, president George w bush

presented the pope with the presidential medal of freedom.

Barely able to speak, John Paul ii thanked president bush

and asked him to send my regards

to President Reagan and Mrs. Reagan.

Reagan died the next day on June 5th.

(Soft music)

- I can put it no better than Mrs. Thatcher

in her eulogy to Ronald Reagan which she said,

we have one advantage

that Ronald Reagan never had.

We have his example.

(Soft music)

- [Peter] Less than a year later in April, the pope died.

(Soft music)

- All of those lessons and teachings

and homilies of John Paul ii,

they really matters, his words matters,

his uniqueness matters.

I feel by heart that people are really hungry of wisdom,

of words, of presence, of gestures,

of smile of John Paul ii.

- They both symbolized, they both represented,

they both worked for this single set of beliefs

that greater freedom,

greater acknowledgement of human dignity

is really important.

It turns out that their side won,

at least as of the early 1990s,

but it's an ongoing struggle.

- [Peter] On June 27th, 2011,

in a Thanksgiving mass for blessed John Paul ii

and for the late President Ronald Reagan,

cardinal stanislaw dziwisz,

who in 1981 held the wounded pope in his arms said,

"this world is a battlefield of good and evil,

"truth and falsehood.

"Each of US faces a choice.

"Today we recall two great men

"who stood before this very choice,

"and how their decision shaped the world in which we live."

- [Peter] It was a reminder that the two leaders,

overcoming fears and doubts, made hard choices

that reflected their deepest convictions and beliefs.

- But whether you're Christian or not,

John Paul ii thought you could understand the notion

that there is divine purpose at work in human affairs.

The task of conscience is to determine

what that divine purpose is,

and then to live it out irrespective of the cost.

(Soft music)

- I think of Walt Whitman's poem, you know,

and the lines about the powerful play goes on,

and you might contribute a verse.

And so you think of these two figures

and the powerful verse they contributed was

to speak this truth and then actively

to engage in the struggle.

And that's no small thing.

- [Peter] Shakespeare would conclude

all the world's a stage

and all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances

and one man in his time plays many parts.

- [Man] In the famous words of pope Saint John Paul ii,

"a coincidence is what a believer calls divine Providence."

- [Peter] O me, o life?

That you are here - that life exists and identity,

that the powerful play goes on,

and you may contribute a verse.

Walt Whitman, o me! O life!

(Soft music)

(Contemporary music)