“Contradictions existed—but in a way that was the point, even if it made us enemies on both sides,” writes Martin Peretz in his new book.

Lessons in Controversy

During his years as publisher of The New Republic, Martin Peretz held sway over Washington. In a memoir, he attempts to make sense of the fall from grace that followed

By Ash Carter

In the March 24, 1986, issue of The New Republic, an unsigned editorial by Charles Krauthammer made “The Case for the Contras,” endorsing Ronald Reagan’s plan to aid the anti-Communist group battling the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. For the opposing view, uncommitted readers had only to turn to the preceding page, which carried a pseudonymous TRB column by the magazine’s editor, Michael Kinsley, calling the president’s arguments “preposterous.” It was like opening the mail and finding two letters from the same charity: one urging you to donate to a particular cause, the other explaining why it’s a scam.

T.N.R. staff writer Jefferson Morley piled on in the next issue with “The Contra Delusion.” A pro-Contra dispatch by Fred Barnes appeared the following week, along with a second Contra-skeptical TRB column, and a back-page Diarist, by the magazine’s publisher, Martin Peretz, who made it clear that he shared Krauthammer’s views, even if his colleagues at Harvard, his wife, and “at least one” of his two children did not.