ABSTRACT
President Reagan said he has changed his evaluation of the Soviet Union and he no longer believes it wants to spread Marxist-Leninism throughout the world. In an astonishing interview with four American newspaper columnists on the second day of the US-Soviet summit, the president whose career was built on aggressive anti-communism and who called the Soviet Union “the evil empire” said the view of the Soviet threat of “one-world Marxian domination” was out of date. “Possibly the fundamental change is that in the past, Soviet leaders have openly expressed their acceptance of the Marxian theory of the one-world communist state; that their obligation was to expand in the whole world,” the president said. “They no longer feel that way!” The dramatic changes in perception of the “evil” Russian empire and its historically transformed intent were revealed in the president’s only private interview during the summit meeting.
