Primary Sources
Browse Items: Geneva Summit
President Reagan's Radio Address to the Soviet Union Before the Geneva Summit
Ten days before the Geneva summit that marked his first meeting with new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, President Ronald Reagan delivered this radio address to Soviet citizens. The New York Times characterized the speech as a “folksy but firm presentation of his views” and noted a “marked difference in tone” from Reagan’s earlier rhetoric. During his first three years in….
President Reagan Addresses Congress Following the US-Soviet Summit in Geneva
Ronald Reagan began his presidency in 1981 confident that the policy of détente with the Soviet Union—initiated by Richard Nixon in May 1972 and terminated in January 1980 by Jimmy Carter as a response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan—was misguided. During his first three years in office, Reagan substituted a confrontational approach that he mediated occasionally with pragmatic….