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.
“Cooper”9 pages
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
Document 2 of 2 AGAL Concatenated Database Page 4 Washington will give serious thought as to what the continuation there of the campaign hostile to the Soviet Union can lead and will take measures to stop it. 21. Soviet Minister of Defense Dmitriy Ustinov (PRAVDA, 21 Feb 81) 22. The new U.S. Administration is making increasingly clear attempts to adopt an absolutely futile "position of strength" with regard to the USSR. It is perfectly obvious that such an approach is fundamentally at variance with the interests of both the American and the Soviet peoples and with the interests of all mankind. 23. Brezhnev, speech to 26th CPSU Congress (PRAVDA, 24 Feb 81) 24. Unfortunately, the previous Washington Administration by no means considered the development of relations, mutual understanding. Attempting to exert pressure on us, it began to destroy all the positive results which had been scored with no little difficulty in Soviet-American relations over the preceding years. . . . 25. Even after the change of leadership in the White House, candidly bellicose calls and statements are being heard from Washington, calls and statements which seem to be specially intended to poison the atmosphere of relations between our countries. In any case, we would like to hope that those who now determine U.S. policy will ultimately be able to look at things more realistically. . . . 26. The present state of relations between us and the sharpness of international problems demanding solution dictate the need for dialogue at all levels and, what is more, an active dialogue. We are ready for dialogue. Experience shows that the decisive link here is meetings at the highest level. 27. Brezhnev, speech in Kiev (PRAVDA, 10 May 81) 28. There are quite a few sober-minded people among those who today shape the policy of capitalist countries. They understand that the emphasis on strength, the emphasis on war in relations with the socialist world is madness in our day and age, that there is only one reasonable road--peaceful coexistence, mutually advantageous cooperation. 29. But there are also such statesmen in the bourgeois world who, judging by everything, are accustomed to thinking only in terms of strength and diktat. They actually regard the attainment of military superiority over the Soviet Union as their main political credo. The solution of international problems by way of talks and mutually advantageous agreements appears to be way down their list of priorities, if they give serious thought to this at all.
Not linked to a story yet.
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.