The End of an Era: The Cold War Ends (Part 1) EQ: What events led to the end of the Cold War and how did it impact the countries involved?

July, 1975: Apollo-Suyez Test Project This was a joint venture between the USA and USSR. The Apollo (American) and Soviet (Soviet) space vehicles merged in space for 5 days and the crewmen of both ships worked together This effectively ended the Space Race and eventually led to future cooperation between NASA and the Soviet Space Program and both countries in general

1980 and 1984: The Olympic Boycotts In 1980, President Jimmy Carter refused to send the Olympic team to Moscow for the Olympics in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan In 1984, Soviet Premier Chernenko refuses to send the Olympic team to Los Angeles in protest of the boycott 4 years earlier. This was a major blow to American- Soviet Relationships

January, 1981: Ronald Reagan becomes President Reagan ran on a strong anti-Soviet platform and deeply criticized their invasion of Afghanistan, their nuclear program, and their aggressive He and Soviet Premier, Leonid Brezhnev (a hardline communist), had a very difficult relationship In 1983, he gave his famous “Evil Empire” speech criticizing the Soviet Union and the their suppression of civil rights Unfortunately, this did little to help US-Soviet Relations, but did resonate with future leader Mikhail Gorbachev

1983: Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) In 1983, the United States started a program called SDI The goal of this program was to place satellites with laser beams in space to shoot down Soviet nuclear missiles It was affectionately called “Star Wars” This was a violation of SALT I and caused a new arms race to commence between the Soviet Union and the United States This placed pressure on the Soviet Union and caused their already troubled economy to get worse

1985: Mikhail Gorbachev Becomes Soviet Premier From the time he took office, Gorbachev vowed to reform the Soviet economy and rebuild the relationship with the United States Within his first year, “Gorby” instituted two new policies… Glasnost: This policy gave increased freedom of the press and freedom of speech and religion within the Soviet Union Perestroika: This policy attempted to allow some capitalism within the Soviet Union and get rid of the food lines within the Soviet Union

1986: the Reykjavik Summit Reagan and Gorbachev met in Iceland to discuss the relationship between the two countries and Star Wars While Reagan was initially skeptical of Gorbachev, the two men formed an immediate bond They agreed to remove all Intermediate range missiles from Europe The issue of eliminating all nuclear weapons came up but was not resolved This summit paved the way for the end of the Cold War

1987: Gorbachev Calls for Demokratizatsiya Under this policy, the Soviet Union would institute some democratic reforms within the Soviet Union Initially, the only party would be the Communist Party and people would elect their favorite Communist In 1989, the Communists lost 13% of their seats in Congress of People's Deputies (CPD) In the election of 1990, the Communists lost their majority in the CPD and the presidency A year later, the USSR collapsed