17. For the record, Pipes did not learn of the Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya article until over twenty years after its publication, and was perplexed how a Soviet journalist had learned of the highly classified NSDD-75. Pipes told me: “Are you sure of this? NSDD-75 was highly classified—how would a Soviet journalist hear about it?” Correspondence with Richard Pipes, December 24, 2005.
18. Reagan, “Remarks at the National Leadership Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Georgetown University,” April 6, 1984.
19. He revisited this “economy first” point throughout 1984–85. Among others, see Reagan, “Address to the Nation and Other Countries on United States-Soviet Relations,” January 16, 1984; “Interview With Lou Cannon, David Hoffman, and Juan Williams of the Washington Post on Foreign and Domestic Issues,” January 16, 1984; “Remarks at the National Leadership Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Georgetown University,” April 6, 1984; and “State of the Union Address,” February 6, 1985.
20. Reagan, “Remarks at the Annual Washington Conference of the American Legion,” February 22, 1983.
21. V. Bolshakov wrote: “When the present U.S. Administration took office in 1981, wholesale ideological sabotage against the socialist countries was openly elevated to the rank of U.S. state policy.” The aim, said the Pravda analysis, was to “destabilize the existing system in the socialist community.” V. Bolshakov, “Washington ‘Crusaders’ on the March,” Pravda, January 31, 1983, 6, published as “Pravda Accuses U.S. of ‘Ideological Aggression,’” in FBISSOV-9-FEB-83, February 9, 1983, A1–4.
22. Talk of an anti-Communist “crusade” was heard again at the time on Moscow’s “Studio 9” program, a popular television broadcast blessed by the benefits of a monopoly on both opinion and the airwaves. Moscow TV’s “Studio 9” program, February 26, 1983. Transcript published as “U.S. Anti-Communist ‘Crusade,’” in FBIS-SOV-28-FEB-83, February 28, 1983, CC11.
23. February 19, 1983 TASS statement. Text is published as “Leader Speeches Show ‘Crusade Against Communism,’” in FBIS-SOV-22-FEB-83, February 22, 1983, A5.
24. For a lengthy discussion, including sources on Reagan’s thinking, see chapter 16 of God and Ronald Reagan.
25. Reagan, “Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals,” Orlando, Florida, March 8, 1983.
26. Clark in Schweizer, Fall of the Berlin Wall, 76.
27. Spencer shared this story with Tom Reed. Reed, At the Abyss, 240.
28. A marked-up draft of the speech on file at the Reagan Library, specifically in Folder 155, Box 9, of the Presidential Speeches section of the Presidential Handwriting File.
29. On this, Ed Meese is especially informative. Meese, With Reagan, 101–16. George Keyworth said that on the Saturday before the speech that Wednesday evening, “the only people who were knowledgeable, the only people who knew what was going on,” were Reagan, McFarlane, Poindexter, Clark, and himself. That was it. Only those five. “A day or so later,” Ray Pollock was “involved.” Closer to the time of the speech, Gil Rye also became involved. Rye wasn’t involved until the time came to write the necessary messages to various embassies. He confirmed that “it is true that not many people in the Defense Department had any idea that the President was going to make the speech.” He said Cap Weinberger and Richard Perle were both in Portugal for a NATO conference. “They knew something was happening,” said Keyworth, “but only on Sunday or Monday.” “It was most definitely a surprise,” summed Keyworth. Keyworth interviewed by Baucom, September 28, 1987, RRL, OHT, Folder 37, Box 8, 27–29.
30. Interview with Edward Teller, July 15, 2003. Also see transcript of Edward Teller interviewed by Donald Baucom, July 6, 1987, RRL, OHT, Folder 35, Box 8, 7–9. 31. I have discussed this with Bill Clark many times. Also see: Meese, With Reagan, 101–16.
32. Keyworth interviewed by Baucom, September 28, 1987, RRL, OHT, Folder 37, Box 8, 25.
33. Ibid., 25–26, 35.
34. Bill Clark, “President Reagan and the Wall,” Address to the Council of National Policy, San Francisco, California, March 2000, 8–9.
35. George Shultz said, “SDI was entirely the president’s idea.” George Keyworth added: “There was never any single initiative by the Reagan administration that was so thoroughly created and invented in Ronald Reagan’s own mind and experience. It was his decision. It was his creation.” For quotes, see D’Souza, Ronald Reagan, 175 and Ken Adelman, The Great Universal Embrace (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 298. That said, there were a handful of men who were influential in Reagan’s thinking on missile defense, including Martin Anderson, Daniel O. Graham, Malcolm Wallop, Karl Bendetsen, James D. Watkins, Harrison H. Schmitt, Angelo Codevilla, and Edward Teller, among others. Especially important was a February 11, 1983 meeting between Reagan and his joint chiefs of staff. Among other sources, see William Broad, Teller’s War (Simon & Schuster, 1992), 96–120, 136.
36. Reagan once remarked that “it kind of amuses me that everybody is so sure I must have heard about it [SDI], that I never thought about it myself. And the truth is, I did.” Reagan, “Interview With Morton Kondracke and Richard H. Smith of Newsweek Magazine,” March 4, 1985. George Keyworth stated: “I don’t know of anything that was more clearly Ronald Reagan’s than SDI was. There is absolutely no question that SDI originated with the president.” George A. Keyworth interviewed by Donald Baucom, September 28, 1987, RRL, OHT, Folder 37, Box 8, 28.
37. See the important findings from Schweizer’s Reagan’s War, 84–85, where he talks of earlier Reagan meetings with another Californian involved in defense technology. 38. Interview with Edward Teller, July 15, 2003. See Edward Teller with Judith Shoolery, Memoirs (Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2001), 508–9; and Edward Teller interviewed by Donald Baucom, July 6, 1987, RRL, OHT, Folder 35, Box 8, 1–2.
39. Edward Teller interviewed by Donald Baucom, July 6, 1987, RRL, OHT, Folder 35, Box 8, 1–2.
40. Interview with Edward Teller, July 15, 2003.
41. Among the examples of Reagan deploying Teller, in August 1982 he dispatched Teller to Sicily for the ERICE Conference on preventing nuclear war. Teller was thrilled with the assignment. “I was deeply honored by your asking me to present your message to the conference,” Teller told Reagan, “and I did so with great pleasure and feeling of pride which I do not often experience.” Teller wrote this in an August 25, 1982 letter, to which Reagan responded with an October 25 letter to Teller. The letters are filed at the Reagan Library in the presidential letters section, Folder 54, Box 4.
42. “Memorandum to the President, Subject: Letter from Edward Teller,” from Jay Keyworth to President Reagan, July 29, 1982. The memo, printed on White House letterhead, is on file at the Reagan Library in the PHF:PR section, Folder 48, Box 4.
43. On this, see, among others, Anderson, Revolution, 80–85, 99; Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 261–63; and Lou Cannon testimony at University of Virginia’s Miller Center is published in Thompson, ed., Leadership in the Reagan Presidency, Pt II: Eleven Intimate Perspectives, 61.
44. Reagan, An American Life, 550. See Reed, At the Abyss, 254–57.
45. At last, a solid work has been devoted to Reagan’s hatred of nuclear weapons and desire to eliminate them. See Paul Lettow, Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (New York: Random House, 2005); Oberdorfer, The Turn, 26; and Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 700.
46. Reagan, “Remarks at a Ceremony Marking the Annual Observance of Captive Nations Week,” July 19, 1983.
47. Reagan, “Remarks to Private Sector Leaders During a White House Briefing on the MX Missile,” March 6, 1985.