I first heard of Constantine Menges recently when I read VEIL, Bob Woodward's book about the CIA under Bill Casey. The book itself has not stood the test of time very well but the Menges Doctrine, aka the Reagan Doctrine, certainly has.
Here is an excerpt from a Menges eulogy on Michelle Malkin's site:
He was an early supporter of the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, a co-founder of the Demcoracy International (1978), and played a major coordinating role in countering Soviet front activities and coalitions for over 30 years -- having been present helping people to escape when the Berlin Wall was being built. (He was on the line similarly in Mississippi during the height of the voter rights struggles in the "long hot summer" of 1963.)...
...While he served three Presidents, his service in the Reagan years was, both at CIA and the NSC, was the most vital -- especially in Latin America. While many take credit after the fact for what became known as the "Reagan Doctrine" -- it was Constantine who, in 1968, wrote the original RAND paper that became the Reagan Doctrine, "Democratic Revolutionary Insurgency as an Alternative Strategy" -- arguing that "Communist regimes are very vulnerable to a democratic national revolution that is conducted with skill and the determination to succeed." He knew there had to be a military component to match the political work; neither alone would be sufficient.
...It is not to much to say that millions of people around the world, but particularly in Latin America, owe their freedom in some measure to the tireless efforts of Constantine Menges. Bill Buckley wrote, "Constantine Menges is among the wisest and ablest of those who have sought to realize Ronald Reagan's foreign policy goals."
R.I.P.
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