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.