Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency report, dated 1 June 1984 and marked unclassified for official use only, reviews how Soviet leaders and media treated President Reagan from November 1980 through May 1984. It finds that Moscow twice moderated its rhetoric to test prospects for better relations, and that attacks became the most abusive in two decades after the South Korean airliner shootdown. The report compiles authoritative Soviet statements and midlevel and routine media commentary as a baseline for analysts.
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154. There is no need to convince us of the usefulness and expedition of dialogue. This is our policy. But the dialogue should be conducted on an equal footing and not from a position of strength, as it is proposed by Ronald Reagan. The dialogue should not be conducted for the sake of dialogue. It should be directed at the attainment of concrete accords. It should be conducted honestly and no attempts should be made to use it for selfish aims. 155. The American leadership, as all signs indicate, has not given up its intentions to conduct talks with us from positions of strength, from positions of threats and pressure. 156. General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko, Central Committee plenum speech (Pravda, 14 Feb 84) 157. Nowadays, in the age of nuclear weapons and super-accurate missiles, people need [peaceful coexistence] as never before. Deplorably, some leaders of the capitalist countries, to all appearances, do not clearly realize, or do not wish to realize that. 158. We can very well see the threat created today to humankind by the reckless, adventurist actions of imperialism's aggressive forces--and we speak up about it, drawing to that danger the attention of the peoples of the whole earth. We need no military superiority. We do not intend to dictate our will to others. But we will not permit the military equilibrium that has been achieved to be upset. And let nobody have even the slightest doubt about that: We will further see to it that our country's defense capacity be strengthened, that we should have enough means to cool the hot heads of militant adventurists. 159. Gromyko, speech delivered at Andropov's funeral (Pravda, 15 Feb 84) 160. Our country has put forward a series of major initiatives of principled importance. Their aim is to strengthen peace. For this it is necessary first and foremost that the attempts to tip the existing military-strategic equilibrium be renounced, that the nuclear arms buildup be stopped and that efforts be made to limit and reduce these weapons. Those who are pursuing a policy of militarism, the mad arms race, and interference in the internal affairs of other countries should renounce this policy and substitute for it a policy of peace and cooperation. 161. Ustinov, article for Armed Forces Day (Pravda, 23 Feb 84) 162. Mankind's development along the path of democracy and socialism does not suit the most reactionary imperialist circles. They are
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 56 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.