Ronald Reagan: “Evil Empire” Speech

Impact

“Evil empire” was one of the most sensational phrases that Reagan ever used as president, and those words became a convenient way of summarizing the president's views about the Soviet Union. Reactions were powerful and polarized. Supporters applauded Reagan's use of blunt language to describe a dangerous adversary and a system of values—Communism—that they abhorred. Many commentators complained that Reagan had given a sermon, rather than a speech, that had alienated many Americans who did not share his religious convictions. Others worried that by using a reckless phrase to frame U.S.-Soviet differences as an irreconcilable moral conflict, he had undermined the chances that negotiations would produce agreements on such vital issues as arms control.

Only two years after he delivered the address in Orlando, “evil empire” became an inconvenient phrase that the president wanted to avoid. Reagan never repudiated his words; he confirmed that they expressed his views about the Soviet system. Nonetheless, he told reporters in November 1985 that Soviet and American leaders would make more progress in settling issues of common concern if they avoided such inflammatory language. He was right: Just days later, he had his first meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, with Mikhail Gorbachev, who had become the Soviet leader in March 1985. Reagan quickly concluded that Gorbachev was different from previous Soviet leaders. When Gorbachev visited the United States in December 1987, the two leaders signed a treaty to eliminate their intermediate-range nuclear forces. The agreement symbolized the rapid—and unexpected—improvement in Soviet-American relations during Reagan's second term as president. When Reagan journeyed to the Soviet Union in May 1988, he told reporters who asked about the memorable phrase that he had used five years earlier that “evil empire” was part of “another time, another era” (Reagan, Public Papers: 1988, p. 709).

Long after Reagan left the White House, the term evil empire continued to elicit strong and divided reactions. The cold war came to end in 1991, as the Soviet Union collapsed and divided into many independent republics. Many people credit Reagan with ending—and winning—the cold war by aiming for victory and applying pressure—diplomatic, military, and rhetorical—to bring about the Soviet demise. Others maintain that the cold war ended mainly because of changes in the Soviet Union and that the “Evil Empire” Speech had little, if anything, to do with those larger developments. These assessments, while fundamentally different, still show the power of Reagan's words and the ways that they affected public thinking while he was president and long afterward as well.