Documents / FOIA release

Soviet Public Treatment of President Reagan

Central Intelligence Agency · 1984-06-01 · 56 pages · text by GLM-OCR

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.

  • p. 3 …in Soviet expectations regarding U.S.-Soviet cooperation. 18. + Routine media commentary has been the least…
  • p. 5 …one reasonable road--peaceful coexistence, mutually advantageous cooperation. 41. But there are also such statesmen in…
  • p. 7 …on confrontation; not on peaceful mutually beneficial cooperation, but on the use of trade to military…
  • p. 11 …They wish lasting peace and mutually beneficial cooperation. 91. Andropov, speech at CPSU Central Committee plenum…
  • p. 18 …to a policy of peace and international cooperation. 151. Andropov, interview (Pravda, 25 Jan 84) 152…
  • p. 19 …for it a policy of peace and cooperation. 161. Ustinov, article for Armed Forces Day (Pravda…
  • p. 26 …the arms race, and development of international cooperation. . . 209. President Konstantin Chernenko, speech at dinner for…
  • p. 38 …agreements in trade and scientific-technical cooperation, agreements signed by the Government of the United States…
  • p. 41 …Are we not overestimating our own strength? Can international security and international cooperation seriously be expected…
  • p. 42 …The Soviet Union is always ready for honest, equal, and mutually advantageous cooperation with any state…
  • p. 44 …climate of mutual trust, mutual understanding and cooperation in the world. 345. Valentin Zorin, Soviet television…
  • p. 46 …rapid demolition of the structure of international cooperation built by the efforts of many countries on…

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Document 1 of 2 AGAL Concatenated Database

unsophisticated guy like himself. . .

391. In my opinion, conservatism in the United States has already peaked. Reagan's mass base is starting to contract. In an attempt to get control of the situation the President is moving away from conservative rhetoric increasingly often and toward political pragmatism.

392. Georgiy Shakhnazarov, president of the Soviet Association of Political Science (Soviet domestic radio, 23 Mar 84)

393. In the words of a Canadian journalist, the people in European countries believe in the majority that under Reagan the threat of war is no less than under Genghis Khan.

394. Anatoliy Krasikov, commentator (TASS, 5 Apr 84)

395. Nowadays the entire huge military machine of the United States prepares to repeat what was done by Hitler and his Wehrmacht. Only the scope of this preparation is immeasurably greater. Washington opens up new fronts of the arms race one after another and dreams of war going beyond our planet and out into space. Like Nazi Germany's leaders at their time, the White House leaders nowadays accompany preparations for war by stirring up hatred for the Soviet Union.

396. TASS report on President Reagan's press conference (TASS, 6 Apr 84)

397. It is noted by observers . . . that since the times of Hitler's Reich no government has so openly set the task of liquidating lawful regimes in other sovereign states and so cynically declared its intention to use the force of arms, armed intervention and blockade for subversive purposes.

398. Sergey Kulik, TASS commentator (TASS, 11 Apr 84)

399. In one day, Ronald Reagan signed two documents. In one . . . the President, in the bombastic style which is all his own, laid himself out to lend credibility to his Administration's alleged commitment to the rule of law and democracy. In the second document, circulated in the form of a U.S. State Department statement "On the International Court in The Hague," he refused downright to recognize international law.

400. Many mass media organs and prominent U.S. politicians note that by its posture vis-a-vis the International Court in The Hague, Washington had actually admitted pursuing subversion against the lawful government of a sovereign nation, mining its ports and sinking vessels with peaceful cargo, subversion authorized, according to an

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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.