Who coined the phrase evil empire for Ronald Reagan's 1983 speech?
Anthony R. Dolan, Ronald Reagan's chief speechwriter in 1983, coined the phrase evil empire for the president to use.
Anthony R. Dolan, Ronald Reagan's chief speechwriter in 1983, coined the phrase evil empire for the president to use.
Reagan spoke at the 41st annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals on the 8th of March 1983, in the Citrus Crown Ballroom of the Sheraton Twin Towers Hotel in Orlando, Florida.
White House staffers who saw drafts of the speech repeatedly struck the evil empire portion because they concluded the event would be minor and unlikely to attract attention.
In Moscow, the Soviet state-run press agency TASS said the words demonstrated the administration could think only in terms of confrontation and labeled it bellicose lunatic anti-communism.
During his second term in office in May June 1988 more than five years after using the term evil empire Reagan responded that he no longer thought the Soviet Union was an evil empire when asked by a reporter.