|quote=Many of our cultural elite were uncomfortable when on March 8, 1983 he called the Soviet Union an “Evil Empire.” Anthony Lewis of the New York Times said the speech was “primitive...simplistic theology” and Henry Steele Commager of Columbia University called it “the worst speech ever given by an American president.” But when news of the speech reached Natan Sharansky, confined to an eight-by-ten foot cell on the Siberian border, the reaction was different: “Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan’s ‘provocation’ quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth — a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.”}}</ref> | |quote=Many of our cultural elite were uncomfortable when on March 8, 1983 he called the Soviet Union an “Evil Empire.” Anthony Lewis of the New York Times said the speech was “primitive...simplistic theology” and Henry Steele Commager of Columbia University called it “the worst speech ever given by an American president.” But when news of the speech reached Natan Sharansky, confined to an eight-by-ten foot cell on the Siberian border, the reaction was different: “Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan’s ‘provocation’ quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth — a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.”}}</ref> |