IT IS AN ARTICLE of faith among most liberals that Ronald Reagan, while evidently a great politician, really doesn't have many more than those needed for a role in Bedtome for Bonzo. The Great Communicator, they will tell you, is also the Great Sleeper, a man who dozes off during cabinet meetings, wanders off during national debates, and takes off for his ranch rather than sit around the White House to deal with issues of global import.

These liberals--the Eastern media establishment in particular--have had it in for our President for a long time. Not only does Ron have a limited attention span, but, they add, when he does focus what little attention he has, he comes up with crazy harebrained schemes. A prime example is his Star Wars proposal--the lunatic concept that we could protect ourselves from unclear missiles simply by zapping them out of the sky with laser beams and the like.

Unknown to the public, these liberals are presently eating crow. Chances are they may soon be eating vast amounts of crow. The Star Wars idea, it seems, far from being lunatic, gives every indication of being the most brilliant negotiating ploy of the decade. And, even failing that, it could conceivably become a device to save tens of millions of American lives. It all depends how Reagan decides to proceed.

The Establishment scorn heaped on Reagan's proposal for antiballistic missile defense could easily a mountain range. A year after Reagan proposed the Star Wars concept, the New York Times derided the system in any form as patently useless: "Since even minor holes in any defense would risk millions of deaths, no system is worth having unless it works almost perfectly. And since it could never be fully tested, perfection is unattainable."

The Congressional Office of Technology Assessment took an official look into the President's proposal and could barely restrain its bureaucratic laughter: "...the prospect for success of a space-based antimissile system is so remote that it should not serve as the basis of public expectation or national policy." Tom Wicker of the Times noted snidely that soon "people might get the idea the President doesn't know what he's talking about."

To put it simply: the Star Wars idea is wacko. It should never have been advanced by anyone, let alone the President of the United States. He must really be crazy or stupid or both.

THE WORLD, LUCKILY, is not so simple, and neither is our President a simpleton. One huge and glaring fact proves this, and it is a fact with which the media has yet to come to terms. If indeed the Star Wars system is such an idiotic concept, if it is truly as unworkable as its critics make it out to be, if it really is no more than a black hole for vast national resources, then why has Reagan's threat to develop the system driven> the Russians back to the negotiating table at Geneva? Why has the desire to stop antimissile defenses become crucial to Russian negotiating strategy, and, in fact, caused the Russians to hint at a willingness to be flexible in other areas, such as intermediate range missiles, where previously they had threatened only five and brimstone, or worse?

That the Russians are close to drooling in their desire to prevent the development of Star Wars becomes evident merely by glancing at the front page articles last month covering the start of the Geneva conference. The Christian Science Monitor noted about Reagan's idea: "It has brought the Soviets back to the negotiating table--with the clear aim of stopping the program." The New York Times itself has reported on the importance the Russians attach to Star Wars: "The Russians have said agreements to reduce the arsenals of nuclear bombs and missiles will depend on American willingness to limit the Strategic Defense Initiative."

So why are the Russians worried? Surely it is not out of concern that the United States might waste valuable national treasure constructing an unworkable weapon. And surely not out of some sentimental desire to maintain outer space as a lake of peace. The reason the Russians are worried should be obvious: they think the Star Wars program might actually work, thereby conferring significant military advantages on the United States. And that is a far cry from the snide put-downs of the concept offered its by the media.

THE REASON FOR THE RUSSIANS' fear stems from little appreciated facts recently made clear in two New Yorker articles dealing with nuclear strategy. The articles discussed American and Russian war-fighting plans, and concluded that given the vulnerability of command and control systems to preemptive nuclear attack both sides have put reliance on a hair-trigger strategy.

In other words if there is a serious crisis, both sides will seek to strike first in order to suffer comparatively less devastation. The New Yorker put it succintly: "The primary emergency plan-the one that seems more likely it be executed if the Pentagon was convinced that a Soviet nuclear strike was inevitable-involves a preemptive attack on military targets in the Soviet Union One of its principal aims would be to kil Soviet leaders ad thereby prevent their from launching their missiles."

Neither side will openly admit that he who strikes first strikes best. But bot believe it. And in this context, Star war takes on critical importance. Because is the United States is ever forces preemptively to knock out the Russian nuclear force, even a half-way decen Star Wars system would go a long was towards cutting down the retaliatory damage we suffer.

Most assume that the Star War system would have to deal with an all out Russian assault. Yes neither the Pentagon nor the Kremlin share this assumption. They know that given the present state of "nuke first ask questions later." the antimissile defense would have a mop-up role. And the prospect of taking out the United States in an area of American technological predominance makes she leaders in the Kremlin shiver.

So the next time the Media big wigs call Reagan's idea lunatic, or, like the new Soviet leader Gorbachey, characterize "as fantastic the arguments used to substantiate the militarization of outer space," they might want to think, twice. Having spent," they might want to think twice. "Ron the Retard" has gotten the Soviets in Geneva ready to cry "uncle." The Russian desire for concessions in space can easily translate into American leverage with already-deployed weapons--on the cheap.

And if Reagan decides to proceed with the Star Wars system, he just might be doing us all a favor should one day Russia and the United States find themselves deep in crisis. It's not pleasant to think that force stand on a hair-trigger, but in an age of precision technology, when one side can wipe out the other's command systems in a matter of minutes, that's just reality. Anything that minutes this reality less painful on the "day of reckoning" should be welcomed