Background information

US President Ronald Reagan delivered his “Evil Empire” speech to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in June 1982, as part of a European tour. During the tour, Reagan attended a NATO summit in Bonn and the G7’s summit in Versailles. 

Reagan’s speech was delivered during the Cold War, which was a state of ideological and political tension between the US and the Soviet Union. The Cold war is generally considered to have started after World War II and to have ended in 1991, with the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, both the US and the Soviet Union competed in a race for developing nuclear weapons – an issue which Reagan addresses in his speech: “it was the democracies who refused to use the threat of their nuclear mon...