Preventing Nuclear Annihilation: Addresses by Ronald Reagan for the Strategic Defense Initiative (Abridged)

On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan gave an address to the nation from the Oval Office challenging “the scientific community ... to turn their great talents ... to the cause of mankind and world peace, [and] to give us the means of rendering ... nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative to protect America from nuclear annihilation was derided by critics as an unworkable Star Wars program, and the Clinton Administration ended the Strategic Defense I...