183. Editorial Note
On the afternoon of January 16, 1984, President Ronald Reagan took part in an interview with Washington Post reporters Lou Cannon, David Hoffman, and Juan Williams. The interview took place in the Oval Office, beginning at 2:37 p.m. Cannon began the interview by explaining that the Post planned to run a story in its January 22 edition examining the accomplishments and future goals of the Reagan administration. After the President noted several accomplishments and answered questions about the conduct of foreign policy, Cannon then referenced the President’s earlier characterizations of the Soviet Union [Page 759] and the language the President used in his address that day on U.S.-Soviet relations (see Document 182), asking: “You said in a recent interview that you would not use the phrase now ‘focus of evil’ to apply to the Soviet Union. Your language today in this speech was obviously very careful. Do you think that some of your own rhetoric, phrases like ‘evil empire’ and so forth have—whether or not those are accurate descriptions, do you think those phrases have contributed to the difficulty of negotiating, dealing with the Soviets?”
The President replied: “No. And really, I think they have been overplayed and overexaggerated in much of the talk about the present international situation. We are not in greater danger. We are not closer to a war than we were a few years ago. The rhetoric—and all you have to do is look back at the pattern of Soviet rhetoric, no matter who is in the White House, and what has been going on for years, that we’re ‘imperialists,’ we’re ‘aggressors,’ we’re all of these things that they’ve been saying about us. No, I’m not repeating some of those things simply because I said them, and what I felt was necessary was for the Soviet Union to know that we were facing reality and that there was some realism on our part with regard to them and their style.
“Lou, let me take advantage of this to straighten something out, that ever since the first press conference, there has been a distortion of an answer of mine to a question there that has become just accepted, and that is that I called the Soviets a lot of names, gave an answer to a question about dealing with the Soviets. And everyone seems to have forgotten that I was quoting them with regard to lying, cheating, and so forth. I didn’t say that, that that was my opinion of them. I made it very plain that they themselves, in their writing and speaking over the years, have said that anything of this kind that furthers socialism is moral. They do not view it as immoral if it furthers their cause. Lenin’s famous line that ‘Treaties are like pie crusts. They’re made to be broken.’ So—”
Cannon asked: “Well, even if they said it, do you think it was wise of you to bring it up?”
Reagan answered: “Yes. I thought that it was necessary that they know. Now, I did not volunteer that as a statement. It was an answer to a question. But I think it was necessary for them to know that we were looking at them realistically from here. There was an end to what, I think, maybe has been prevalent in some dealings for several years, and that is the idea that, well, they were just a mirror image of ourselves, and you could shake hands on someone’s word and walk away confident that a deal had been made. That, no, we were aware of the differences between our two societies in our approach to things, and we intended to deal with that realism.”
[Page 760]Cannon stated: “You said—you touched on this today in your speech—and you said today that we’re safer than we were when, I think, when you took office,” to which Reagan replied: “Yes.”
Cannon replied: “With the negotiations broken off and a pretty good stream of rhetoric from the other side, what’s the evidence that we’re safer and that this defense buildup which you advocated and achieved has made this country safer than it was?”
Reagan retorted: “Because—with realism on their part—we have a deterrent capacity we didn’t have 3 years ago. Now, you are in danger if a possible adversary thinks that an action of his would not lead to unacceptable punishment. And I think the very fact that we have proceeded on this path would require them, with their realism, to say, this, it would be unacceptable, the damage to ourselves.”
Williams then said: “Excuse me, can I just interject here to ask you if you think that the American people haven’t heard that message from you, and do you really think that they feel safer today than they did when you were elected?”
Reagan responded: “I have to say that, from all the reports that I’m getting, and from all the contact that I, myself, have—whether it’s through mail or personal meetings or meeting new people, as well as old friends—that, yes, there is a new feeling on the part of the American people. They have a confidence that they didn’t have just a short time ago when they knew that the Soviet Union had engaged in this massive arms buildup and they saw evidences that we hadn’t.
“Not only the decline in quality, as well as in quantity, the restiveness of our NATO allies about whether we were dependable as an ally—I think there’s a great change in the feeling of our people now. I think a little evidence of that—granted, this wasn’t any great military operation, but I think the reaction of our people to the success of our rescue mission in Grenada was an indication.” (Public Papers: Reagan, 1984, Book I, pages 61–64)
The full interview is printed ibid., pages 61–69. The resulting Washington Post story is Lou Cannon, “Reagan’s Presidency: Past and Prospect,” January 22, 1984, pages A1, A8.