10.2 The End of the Cold War

Notes

• Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire," built up the military and proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a missile-defense system nicknamed "Star Wars."
• Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (1985) tried to reform a struggling system with glasnost (openness) and perestroika (economic restructuring).
• Reagan and Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty (1987), eliminating an entire class of nuclear missiles.
• In 1987 in Berlin, Reagan challenged: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
• In 1989, revolutions swept Eastern Europe, and the Berlin Wall fell (November 1989). Germany reunited in 1990.
• The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, ending the Cold War.
• Historians debate the causes: U.S. pressure, the Soviet economy's weakness, Gorbachev's reforms and the courage of people in Eastern Europe all played a role.
• The Iran-Contra affair (revealed 1986): officials secretly sold arms to Iran and used the money to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua, against a ban by Congress.