8 March 1983
On this day in 1983 the world came a step closer to the cold war turning hot when Ronald Reagan, then US President, referred to the Soviet Union as ‘…the evil empire.‘
In a speech given by President Reagan at the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida on 8 March 1983 the term evil empire was first used by him in reference to the USSR.
Reagan’s speech contained the following passage:
…in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil…