3 - The ‘SDI’ speech

Summary

On 23 March 1983, President Reagan startled nearly everyone with a speech which, if taken literally, signalled his intention to overturn the entire basis of official US nuclear strategy. The bulk (four-fifths) of the address was the familiar ‘threat speech’, given by many presidents. The sting was in the tail, when Reagan spoke of his ‘vision of the future which offers hope’. His actual formulation was quite careful: ‘I am directing a comprehensive and intensive effort to define a long-term research and development program to begin to achieve our ultimate goal of eliminating the threat posed by strategic nuclear missiles’. But what captured the public imagination and scandalised the arms controllers was the memorable style: the talk about ‘changing the course of human history’, ‘the cause of mankind and world peace’ and ‘rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete’. Who could not be moved by the President's resonant rhetorical questions? ‘Would it not be better to save lives than to avenge them? Are we not capable of demonstrating our peaceful intentions by applying all our abilities and our ingenuity to achieving a truly lasting stability?’ ‘But what if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant US retaliation to deter a Soviet attack; that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?’