"Consider the way things were when he came into office and the way things were when he left — totally different," Gaddis added. "The Berlin Wall came down less than a year after he left. That fact alone means we have to get over our preconceptions about this guy and acknowledge that something substantive occurred."

The New York Times Sunday echoed a similar theme in its coverage of Reagan's passing.

The Times cited Michael R. Beschloss, the presidential historian, who said the Cold War ended more quickly because of Reagan's leadership.

"With Reagan," Mr. Beschloss said, "the Soviets could no longer con themselves into thinking they would prevail in the cold war because the American people had lost their will and strength and lost their taste for confronting Soviet aggression. They were sufficiently convinced that Reagan meant business."

Some researchers are citing the recent surfacing of documents that show Reagan wrote almost all of his daily radio and weekly newspaper commentaries over a period of six years. These documents have been published in the book "Reagan In His Own Hand,” edited by Martin and Annelise Anderson and Kiron Skinner.

"They were very impressive," LaFeber said. "I wasn't ready for something like this." The radio scripts "surprised a lot of people," Gaddis told the Times. "Whatever you think of the level of sophistication of the ideas, it's a remarkable performance for someone who was thought to rely heavily on speechwriters."

Editor's note: