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.
“Cooper”12 pages
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## UNCLASSIFIED FOUO 10. This pattern of leadership and media comment continued until Brezhnev's death in November 1982. It was broken only by a month-long interlude of more moderate comment late in 1981, after agreement was reached to begin talks on limiting intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) and before U.S. sanctions were adopted in response to the imposition of martial law in Poland. 11. A second, more tentative Soviet effort to promote improved U.S.-Soviet relations came after Andropov's accession to power. Soviet leaders and specialists on the United States muted their anti-U.S. rhetoric, which had become particularly harsh in the last months of the Brezhnev regime, and expressed receptivity to any U.S. gestures for improved relations. This selective restraint on criticism--routine Soviet propaganda was little affected--lasted only from November 1982 until early spring 1983, when contention over INF and other issues took its toll. 12. In the aftermath of the shooting down of a South Korean airliner last September, Soviet leadership statements and media commentary on the President became more abusive than at any time in the last two decades. This harsh rhetoric continued into 1984. Only in the final days of the Andropov regime did Soviet leaders appear to indicate a desire to lower the decibel level of their polemics against the President. The usual strident invective was missing from Andropov's 25 January Pravda interview in response to President Reagan's 16 January speech expressing interest in U.S.-Soviet dialogue, and routine Soviet propaganda became marginally less sharp in its criticism of the President. 13. Although Chernenko's accession to power in February 1984 brought a brief period of moderation in Soviet leadership polemics against the President and his Administration, this restraint disappeared more quickly than had been the case after Brezhnev's death. As early as 23 February a Pravda article by Defense Minister Ustinov excoriated "U.S. leaders" for pushing mankind "toward a nuclear catastrophe." By late March, even Chernenko, the Soviet leader who had been least critical of the United States in February and early March, began attacking the Administration in harsh terms. Routine Soviet propaganda also became more strident, and in the last two months some commentary has approached the level of abusiveness that was common last fall. ## 14. Different Voices 15. Soviet statements about the Administration are made at three levels of authority: the top political leadership, midlevel officials with ties to the leadership, and routine media commentators. The behavior pattern of each of these groups has distinguishing features:
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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.