The

The Ronald Reagan rose to the presidency as America's foremost anti-communist.

In 1964, he referred to communism as, quote, the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars.

In his first term as president, he called the Soviet Union the evil empire, and his buildup and hardline policy led people around the world to fear that he would provoke a third world war.

And yet, on March 31, 1988, the world was greeted with an unlikely image, Ronald Reagan giving a speech in Moscow State University,

directly underneath a bust of communist icon Vladimir Lenin.

Several months earlier, Reagan had signed the INF Treaty with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev,

eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons. And now here he was, at the heart of the Soviet

Union, speaking directly to those from whom he described as the evil empire.

For Reagan, the Soviet Union was changing, and it was no longer evil,

but a country shedding its authoritarian past and embracing the possibilities of the future,

the possibilities of freedom.

In this speech, Reagan was less than a year away from the end of his future, the possibilities of freedom. In this speech, Reagan was less than a year away

from the end of his presidency, and leaving with a sense of accomplishment, a sense that his

partnership with Gorbachev was ending the Cold War. And this was a precious opportunity.

It was a chance to speak with students at one of the Soviet Union's major universities,

a chance to influence future generations of Russian leaders. As he listened to the speech,

note how Reagan spoke of the incredible opportunities technology presented. It's easy to forget

that Reagan had lived through incredible change. During his lifetime, he saw

scientists and engineers split the atom and land men on the moon. Notice how he discusses technological

progress and how he believed that this was intertwined with freedom.

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