52 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
left the Ambassador said “this could be an historic moment”.’^42 This
was the first meeting between the President and anybody from the
USSR since he took office. Though Dobrynin still felt perplexed about
Reagan’s true motives, he appreciated the overture as a step towards an
unfreezing of relations.^43 But then Reagan gave his speeches on the
‘evil empire’ and the Strategic Defense Initiative and to sanction
the Able Archer exercise; and Soviet forces downed the Korean
airliner. Tensions were worse than before the President met the
Ambassador.
Both sides could see the dangers of the situation. Andropov had
lived through weeks of intense agitation; Reagan was horrified by the
thought that his actions could have started a nuclear war. They under-
stood that mutual reassurance was in the interests of everybody, but
they failed to find a way to attain it.