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 Page 8 56. It is well known that the whole of this disgraceful farce has been initiated by the U.S. Administration. Its style is felt both in the impudent distortion of facts, the high-handed tones, and excessive political ambitions. 57. Yes, Washington makes no little effort to try to bring abut a turnaround in international politics from detente to confrontation between blocs. Why is it done? It is not too difficult to answer this question. 58. What it amounts to is above all an attempt at crowding socialism and impairing the positions of the USSR and other socialist countries on the European and world scene. Certain figures of the imperialist camp are day and night beset by nightmares because socialism is growing stronger. The international positions of socialism rely on the existing balance of forces in Europe and in the world, and are guaranteed by the might of the socialist community. 59. Marshal Nikolay Ogarkov, First Deputy Minister of Defense and Chief of the General Staff (ALWAYS IN READINESS TO DEFEND THE HOMELAND, Moscow: Voenizdat, approved for publication 26 Jan 82) 60. World imperialism, and particularly U.S. imperialism, is seeking to extend its tentacles into every part of the world. Militant U.S. circles have openly adopted a course of policy aimed at undermining detente, engagement in a massive arms race, and vigorous [aktivnuyu] preparations for nuclear war. The various actions and acts of sabotage against the USSR and the other nations of the socialist community and against progressive forces throughout the world which they are presently conducting are of a coordinated nature and are joined together by a common scheme. The main goal which the U.S. imperialists have set for themselves is gradually and sequentially to weaken and undermine socialism as a system, using any and all methods and means, and ultimately to establish their world domination. 61. This is not a new phenomenon. History has seen many claimants to world domination. Napoleon persistently sought to achieve world domination, as did Hitler at a later time. The outcome of their ambitions is well known. An even harsher outcome may await these latter-day claimants. 62. Brezhnev, Soviet Trade Union Congress speech (PRAVDA, 17 Mar 82) 63. The newly fledged devotees of cold war and dangerous balancing on the brink of a real war would like nothing better than to tear up the legal and ethical norms of relations between states that have taken shape over the centuries and to cancel their independence and sovereignty. They are trying to retailer the political map of the world, and have declared large regions on all continents as zones of
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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.