Here's what I remember [given a little joggling via Soviet history]:
A). Brezhnev [a hard@ss] had just died [some wondered if his successor, Andropov, had assassinated him];
B). We weren't very clear on what sort of guy Andropov was [esp. as an ex-head of the KGB];
C). Lech Walesa was bravely thumbing Poland's nose at the weakening USSR, causing US intel people to think that some sort of gesture of support for such a crumbling of the USSR should be made;
D). The Defense Department decided upon a plan, not secret so Andropov et al knew about it, to deploy nuclear warhead Pershing missiles in Europe --- did not make Andropov happy;
E). USSR didn't want the grief especially as they were fighting what was by then viewed as a stupid mistaken war in Afghanistan which was draining them for no gain [which is why much later Russia thought WE were crazy];
F). Reagan then decided to throw two turds in the punchbowl: 1]. he called the Soviet Union "The Evil Empire", which would have been "OK" [sticks and stones and all that] if he had not followed it up with "G"; "G" made the idea of a US first strike on the USSR feasible;
G).2]. Reagan then announced his Strategic Defense Initiative. The SDI or "Star Wars" was clearly a violation of the nuclear agreement between the superpowers. Reagan of course didn't care. The rest of the world was nearly entirely against this, as if the USA could create an effective missile shield in space, then the tactical nukes being imagined in Europe could more easily be decided to be used. Not only was Andropov terrorized by this [he knew that the USSR could not match us in space either technically or economically], but the Europeans were at least as terrorized as they would be unshielded and on the front lines. People in the US tended to adore Reagan as tough on commies, whereas he in fact almost brought us to war far in advance of the SDI being able to be built.
What we paeans in the real world knew [if we were paying attention] were Walesa's movement, the USSRs nervousness, and the risky dice-rolling of the SDI idea, which many technical people [myself included as a sideline bystander] realized was many years off and several breakthroughs away from being workable. This collection of developments made most of us in academia believe that our beloved President was insane on this one, or some very persuasive advisors were. We were all for supporting Lech Walesa some way, but not via tactical nukes nor Star Wars fantasies. We all hated MADD as a policy, but it had at least worked by making throwing nukes unthinkable. SDI would eliminate MADD [good] but do so by making nuclear war easier to decide to launch [very bad].
