Lecture 10 MAD mutual assured destruction Renewed tensions in 1983 In 1983 flight 007 strayed off course on routine commercial flight from NY to alaska to Seoul Korea o Flew over Soviet territory when it wasn t supposed to and was shot down o Conspiracy theories o Breakdown in relations between superpowers NATO operation Able Archer 83 and The Day After The soviets did the equivalent of what the US had done in the Cuban missile crisis They placed all of their forward bases on alert The Soviets apparently believed that a Western attack A KGB soviet secret please agent really working for the US a double agent Oleg Gordievsky passed on a message about the soviet anxiety to contacts of Reagan o Told them that the Soviets thought the US would attack first people in Moscow were just as afraid as the people in the US of an attack couldn t believe soviets thought the US was evil o Gordiesvskys report had a BIG affect on Reagan and future speeches Ivan and Ania speech about soviet relations the day after early 1980s o depicted what would have in Missouri if there was an attack o kids had to go to therapy in school after o Missouri is picked because ideas that there was a base there with nuclear weapons o Watched clip saw explosions actual test footage and after effects of radiation AH o Had huge impact on Ronald Reagan former actor who had seen an advanced screening o Time to change the way the US dealt with soviets Mikhail Gorbachev in his 50s was a baby by soviet standards and Reagan started to deal with Gorbachev who seemed to have good intentions risky Man of the Year in Time Magazine Born in 1931 and was inspired by the 60s Firm believer in communism didn t hope to turn soviets into democrat but he thought that he could find a positive form of communism Soviets were spending 30 40 of GDP on defense Gorachev realized rightly that this couldn t continue standard of living was that of a developing country even thought it was an economic super power Now 3 4 seems like a large amount for defense euro countries spend less than 2 of GDP on defense Realized that to cut back on defense soviets would need US help luckily Reagan had just changed his way of thinking towards soviets at the same tiem Gorbachev came into office Reagan wanted to meet and they hit it off personally Reagan had never met a Russian up to this point The four Gorbachev Reagan summits o 1 Geneva Nov 1985 o Introductory meeting talking for 5 hours really hit it off o Chemobyl accident worse than Hiroshima Emphasized need to reduce nuclear arsenals in both countries o 2 Reykjavik Oct 1986 Iceland considered to be neutral Discussed eliminating all nuclear weapons o 3 Washington Dec 1987 signed intermidiate Range Nuclear forces INF Gorbechev was named man of the year in Time mag he was a rockstar in the US Huge success o 4 Moscow May 1988 no more evil empire he was photographed holding a baby Reagans turn around was not popular with his own cabinet Didn t believe Gorbechev was for real Bush admin thought everyone working for Reagan had mush for brains and that they were too optimistic about Soviets and they hadn t taken into account they still had a huge nuclear arsinal Bush admin Thank god the Grown ups are back in charge o Once Bush admin takes over Gorbechev started getting frustrated because Bush didn t trust Gorbechev and the soviets like Reagan had grown to George HW Bush 41st president 1 term president Born 1924 Father was NY banker Republican congressman 1966 Ambassador to the UN 1971 2 Envoy to China 1974 5 o US mission China to regain relations after relations were cut when they became communist Director of CIA 1976 7 Great deal of difference between HW Bush and W bush had great foreign policy background o First gulf war Old Bush called everyone to get on board and war lasted couple hours o Second gulf war young bush launched war and spent 4 years trying to get everyone on board George W Bush had only left the country twice before presidency Bush came into power highly critical of Reagan admin basically fired all Reagan people in office Solidarity movement Solidarity was helped greatly by pope john paul 2nd who was polish Semi free elections In USSR in march 1989 created congress of people deputies 80 of seats given to Communists Chink by chink improvement by Gorbechev In Poland in June 1989 solidarity won 99 100 seats parliamentary seats it was allowed to context Gorbechev loses control Theoretically at the height of his authority Gorb began to realize that he had let a genie out of a bottle His reform measures which originally seemed breath taking only emboldened the people of the USSR to demand more Border Openings Summer 1989 Hungary decides to allow Hungarians to cross into Austria begins taking down border fortifications sept 1989 Hungary starts allowing East Germans out as well 16 11 2011 03 35 00 16 11 2011 03 35 00