He has been cast as the arch-antagonist of arms control and Moscow's most ardent adversary in Washington. But for all his oft-quoted disparagement of the Soviet Union, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle had never been there. Last week Perle, as one of the key members of a seven-man U.S. mission to Moscow, finally found himself in the land that he, like President Reagan, considers to be the "evil empire," and talking about arms control to boot.
With his incisive mind, infighting skills and intense dedication to a hard- line ideology, Perle, 44, has emerged as the most influential Assistant Cabinet...