I'm Leaving This Galaxy For One Less Complicated

Brad DeLong presents a timeline detailing President Reagan's fascination with the potential threat posed by an alien invasion and rather or not the Soviet Union and the United States would join forces in repelling said invasion. Among other items in the timeline, this:

4 Dec 1985
Anticipating arms control discussions with his Soviet counterpart, President Reagan draws on an extraterrestrial analogy: "[H]ow easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from some other species from another planet outside in the universe. We'd forget all the little local differences that we have between our countries ..."

In examining this aspect of Reagan's personality, Brad makes no mention of one key detail: Reagan's vision of Cold War Russia and America becoming allies in order to defeat an alien invasion was central to the theme of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen. One must wonder, what part did the Gipper play in the creation of what is perhaps the greatest piece of comic fiction in the history of all mankind?

Moore, Gibbons, Reagan. Visionaries.