Reagan

In 1980, Ronald Reagan became president of the USA. Reagan had been famous as an actor in Hollywood before turning to politics.
As a strong anti-communist, he called the Soviet Union the "evil empire" and increased spending on arms.
He felt that the decade long detente was a plot by the USSR to take advantage of being able to gain ground in the arms race against the USA.
This is why he did not sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II.
He felt the USA should be more prepared from attack from the USSR so spent more on defence budget. This changed when Gorbachev became leader of the USSR in 1985.
The US military developed the neutron bomb, cruise missiles and a Star Wars defence system using space satellites.
Star Wars' estimated price tag totaled nearly $1 trillion dollars, a figure that concerned many Democrats and American citizens during a decade of recession.

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For the first time since the beginning of the Cold War, a Soviet leader approached the United States to seriously discuss a possible peace.
This initiative took the Reagan administration completely by surprise, but Reagan quickly responded in kind.
Numerous summits between top Soviet and American officials were held during Reagan's second term.
Eventually, even Gorbachev and President Reagan themselves sat together in both Washington and Moscow on a number of occasions to hammer out agreements. Many concessions were made on both sides:
In 1987 Gorbachev agreed to withdraw most of its nuclear arsenal and troops from the Soviet-controlled states in Eastern Europe and to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Reagan eventually abandoned his Star Wars plans and agreed to reduce the number of American nuclear weapons.

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