History

During the Reagan / Bush years there were many changes in America. Pick two from the list and discuss how America would be different if these events or people had not occurred or existed, or had events happened differently.

•Reagan and the “Evil Empire”

•"Operation Cyclone"

•Reaganomics

•John Hinckley

•The Religious Right

•Iran-Contra Affair

•End of the Cold War

•“Read My Lips”

•Anita Hill

•NAFTA

•Technological Revolution

•First Gulf War

President Reagan and the “Evil Empire” is a reference to a speech made to the National Association of Evangelicals in which Reagan refers to the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire”. This most likely was the starting point for the Star Wars. Shortly after that the United States began developing a missile defense system. Reagan wanted to defend the population from long range Soviet missiles. This development overturned the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty created to prevent and arms race and stated “mutual assured destruction”. This was to keep both the Soviet Union and the United States from firing any missiles because the other would equally fire back. Reagan began a research and development plan to make Soviet missiles obsolete. The president wanted laser and particle beam weapons that worked in space to protect the United States. No one paid much attention to this plan until the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which became known as the Star Wars.

Reagan’s idea that the Soviet Union was an “Evil Empire” did not sit well with the Soviet Union. He began the increase in defense spending because the 1983 peaceable relations meeting with the Soviet Union seemed to be too far away. By 1986 the