Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency report, dated 3 February 1984, reviews how Soviet leaders, well-connected commentators and routine media treated President Reagan from November 1980 onward. It finds that Moscow twice softened its line: once after the 1980 election and again when Andropov came to power. After the Korean airliner was shot down, Soviet treatment of Reagan became the most abusive in years. Attached excerpts include a Yakovlev article claiming Reagan believes in flying saucers.
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## UNCLASSIFIED FOUO Document 2 of 2 AGAL Concatenated Database seems to me, in general, that a harder line U.S. policy is at hand, particularly where it concerns, for example, the problems of disarmament and military detente. It seems to me that soon we will have to confront a harder line of this kind and preparations for this should be made, although in general I do not exclude the possibility that after a while everything may return to the beaten track, as we say. 159. Georgiy Arbatov, director of the USA and Canada Institute (Soviet television, 29 Nov 80) 160. It has become clear in any case that both Reagan and many in his entourage have come to some serious conclusions during the course of this campaign. The shift to the center has begun. This is generally typical of U.S. political life. Whichever candidate stands away from the center will shift. If he is left of center, he will drift to the right. If he is right of center, he will drift slightly to the left remaining at some distance, but even so will approach the center. Reagan is a rather experienced man in this respect. I would like to say that I have heard and read in the foreign press that as a film actor he is a man without much experience. However, it is difficult to judge from the past. There were excellent presidents who were former loggers... 161. The fact itself that moderate statements are made seems important to me, because quite a few obstacles were left over from the election campaign. This certainly does not mean that we will be rancorous and will not let anything pass, including what was said in the heat of the election struggle. We have already said publicly that we will not act like that. However, even words are deeds to a certain extent at present, because they influence atmosphere and climate. Atmosphere and climate are rather important in politics and any beginnings depend on them. 162. Vitaliy Kobysh, CPSU Central Committee official (LITERATURNAYA GAZETA, 1Jan 81) 163. Reagan, with his reputation for being a politician belonging to the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, has formed his cabinet from people of basically moderate views. . . . 164. "When taking over," every new administrator strives to show that it is different from the previous one and that its policy will meet the country's interests to a greater degree. Statements by Reagan and some of his closest assistants indicate that they consider the status to which the Carter-Brzezinski administration has reduced Soviet-U.S. relations to be abnormal and that they see the normalization of these relations as the next U.S. Government's foremost priority. At the same time they stress that they will
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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. 36 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.