Location: The
Heritage Foundation's Allison Auditorium
Only four
archivists had viewed the 8 million documents classified as
"secret" or "top secret" in the Reagan Presidential Library until
Martin and Annelise Anderson began their analysis in 2004.
Using his own top-secret clearance, Martin Anderson was able to
review the documentary evidence of Ronald Reagan's most secret
exchanges with subordinates and world leaders, as well as the
tactical record of how Reagan fought to stop the Soviet Union in
its tracks and abolish nuclear weapons.
The most
revelatory of these documents were the minutes of 154
Reagan-chaired National Security Council meetings, the secret
letters sent by Reagan to world leaders, and the eyewitness notes
from three Reagan-Gorbachev summits. What emerged was
irrefutable evidence that Reagan intended from his first days in
office to bring down the Soviet Union, that he considered
eliminating nuclear weapons a paramount objective, and that he, and
he alone, was the principal architect of the policies that
ultimately brought about breath-taking global change.