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

Some people there are by far more willing to speak not on detente, but on confrontation; not on peaceful mutually beneficial cooperation, but on the use of trade to military-strategic ends; not on agreements on the basis of equality and equal security, but on diktat from the positions of military supremacy; not on the elimination by joint efforts of seats of conflicts, but on the creation of ever new military bases, on the buildup of their military presence in various parts of the world; not on curbing the arms race, but on "rearmament"; not on a limitation or prohibition of some or other types of weapons, but on the creation of ever new, even more destructive means of mass annihilation of people.

55. This way, unfortunately, they not only speak, but also act in practice. You, certainly, understand that I have in mind, above all, the policy of the present U.S. Administration, the way it was manifest both in statements by high-ranking statesmen of that country and, which is even more important, in their practical deeds.

56. All of it is actually an opposite to detente, blunt disregard for the striving of all peoples for lasting peace. And it is, certainly, profoundly deplorable that the leaders of one of the world's biggest powers have deemed it possible to build their policy on such a basis. . . .

57. President Reagan has recently expressed the readiness of the United States to discuss with the Soviet Union also other problems, which cause differences between the two countries. We welcome such readiness, as we have always considered talks to be the most appropriate method of resolving international problems. The main thing, of course, is that appropriate practical deeds should be matched to correct words.

58. And it would be better to abandon dreams of ensuring military supremacy over the USSR.

59. Ustinov, October Revolution anniversary speech (Pravda, 7 Nov 81)

60. The Washington Administration is with increasing frequency resorting to frankly inflammatory language. High-ranking U.S. representatives, with cynical disregard for the fate of the peoples, state that there are allegedly some things more important than peace.

61. The preservation of peace is inseparable from the curbing of the arms race--from stage-by-stage disarmament. Important steps in that direction were taken in the seventies. But the present U.S. Administration is intent on casting doubt on all the positive things that have been jointly achieved in the field of Soviet-U.S.

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About this file

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.