Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech
The Event President Ronald Reagan identifies
the Soviet Union as an “evil empire”
Author Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), reading text
written by speechwriter Anthony R. Dolan
(1948- )
Date March 8, 1983
Place Orlando, Florida
Reagan’s speech was intended to answer his critics by indi-
cating that the Soviet Union was so unacceptable a regime
that extraordinar y measures should be taken to defeat it.
President Ronald Reagan proposed increases in the
military budget to deploy Cruise and Pershing II
intermediate-range missiles in Europe in order to
match the Soviet Union’s SS-20 missiles, thus raising
suspicions that he might launch nuclear war against
the Soviet Union and frightening many interna-
tional observers into calling for a freeze on the de-
ployment, development, and manufacture of nu-
clear weapons.
Speaking at a convention of the National Associa-
tion of Evangelicals in the Sheraton Twin Towers
Hotel, Orlando, Florida, Reagan sought to justify his
position by emphasizing the nature of the enemy as
an “evil empire” that must be stopped at all costs.
The media and the public largely supported this as-
sertion. As a result, the nuclear freeze campaign lost
momentum: A congressional committee had just ap-
proved a resolution advocating a nuclear freeze, but
the proposal was subsequently dropped.
The policy of merely deterring the Soviet Union
was questioned as an unproductive continuation of
the Cold War stalemate between the capitalist West
and the communist East. Dissidents in the Soviet
Union and under Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe
were emboldened to organize resistance against com-
munist regimes in their countries.
In response, the Soviet Union wanted to matchThe Eighties in America Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech 813
The following excerpts are taken from President Ronald Reagan’s speech to the National Association of Evangelicals,
delivered on March 8, 1983:During my first press conference as president, in answer to a direct question, I point[ed] out that, as
good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they
recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I should point out I was
only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds
from supernatural ideas—that’s their name for religion—or ideas that are outside class conceptions.
Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for
the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.
Well, I think the refusal of many influential people to accept this elementary fact of Soviet doctrine il-
lustrates a historical reluctance to see totalitarian powers for what they are....
This doesn’t mean we should isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an understanding with them. I in-
tend to do everything I can to persuade them of our peaceful intent, to remind them that it was the West
that refused to use its nuclear monopoly in the forties and fifties for territorial gain and which now pro-
poses a 50-percent cut in strategic ballistic missiles and the elimination of an entire class of land-based,
intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
At the same time, however, they must be made to understand we will never compromise our princi-
ples and standards. We will never give away our freedom. We will never abandon our belief in God. And
we will never stop searching for a genuine peace. But we can assure none of these things America stands
for through the so-called nuclear freeze solutions proposed by some....
So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—
the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore
the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant
misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good
and evil.The “Evil Empire” Speech