Certainly we can say that Bjarne will insist he was right decades later. We can't necessarily guess - at the time - what it is he will have "always" believed decades later though.
But in fairness, when was D&E first published? Argued for auto there, long before their acceptance. Argued for implicit template instantiation - thank god the "everything-must-be-explicit" curmudgeons were vanquished there, too.
He's got a pretty good batting average - certainly better than Herb Sutter.