How Evangelicals Saved Reagan's Star Wars

On March 23, 1983 President Reagan delivered his famous “Star Wars” speech urging that the USA pivot away from a nuclear policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) towards a missile defense that would both deter and protect. Of course his proposal was widely denounced for supposedly militarizing the heavens, for expanding the arms race, and for pursuing technologically unattainable defensive systems costing hundreds of billions. Opponents and skeptics included much of the Pentagon establishment, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff, national security realists, arms control mavens, peaceniks, most Democratic members of Congress, left-wing church groups, many NATO countries (including initially Margaret Thatcher), and the Soviet Union.