A Brief History
On October 27, 1988, President Ronald Reagan made one of his most shocking Cold War related announcements while President when he decided to have the newly completed US Embassy in Moscow mostly destroyed and started over again!
Digging Deeper
The US and Soviet Union were nearing the end of the Cold War that had gone on since the end of World War II, and each country had a hard line leader that was unlikely to back down. President Reagan in the US was a staunch anti-communist and cold-warrior, and the USSR was led by Mikhail Gorbachev, a Ukrainian-Russian that talked about opening up relations with the US, but allowing the new embassy to be built with hundreds of covert electronic monitoring device built into the structure which was discovered by the Americans in 1985.
The outraged Americans had to continue to use the old embassy for security reasons, and the Soviets were not allowed to occupy their new Washington embassy in retaliation. Eventually, much of the new American embassy was taken down in 1994 and entirely new structures were made under US supervision to prevent a repeat of the sneaky bugging of the new building. The new embassy was not fully open and occupied until the year 2000, a building that had started construction in 1979.
The Cold War lasted from 1947 until the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, with the US leading the democratic, capitalist countries of the West against the Communist Bloc led by the USSR. President Ronald Reagan is often given credit for forcing an end to the Cold War, mainly by forcing the Soviets into an arms race that they could not match with the much richer United States. Of course, skeptics claim otherwise, that the increased military spending prolonged the Cold War.
After a short period of relative relief, Russia ended up with Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB (Soviet spy agency) head as the virtual dictator and relations between the Russia and the Western Allies (led by the US) are once again quite strained. And the circle goes round and round!
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Kessler, Ronald. Moscow Station. Scribner, 1989.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="14836 https://www.historyandheadlines.com/?p=14836">69 Comments
I believe it was acts like Ronald Reagan’s, the year of 1988, that made American appear the strongest country in the world. These types of decisions are bold, and not everyone would agree with them, but Reagan did what he believed was best.
I think that was smart of them ultimately. During the cold war it took years for it to end. Once it did end in 1991, 9 years later this building reopened so it ended up working out that the new ideal would work out to create the new embassy.
What solved this problem
I wished could have happen alot sooner to spear peoples lives. RR did what he knew best though for the future.
I think that Reagan did what he believed would be best for everyone. I stand behind his decision.
While the story is possibly true, you cant deny the amount of paranoia between the two countries at the time.
I believe that Reagan did what he thought was best for everyone even when people thought that it wasn’t the best idea.
It clearly was for the best, the new building would have technology that would let all of the U.S. secrets fall into Russian hands.
Building a new embassy to replace the existing one was purposed to be cheaper and safer than attempting to locate and disable all of the bugging devices.
The US would have to build a new embassy, they could not stay in one that was bugged. Also, the Soviets should have expected to not be able to use their embassy in Washington after they tried to spy on us.
President Reagan did the right thing in having the embassy re-built. I also believe he was instrumental in bringing the cold war to an end.
Making a new embassy was a good idea, new security, free of bugs, and better build.
Security is always the thing you worry about most with over seas embassies they definitely needed to make a new one to guarantee it was secure and that we could rely on it if necessary.
I think that Regan did the tight thing by rebuliding the embassy with new security that was free of bugs
I think Regan made the correct decision to build a new embassy because the old was being spied on by the Soviets.
truly sick that Russia just keeps on having questionable leaders.
This was a good move on regans part. i wonder how bad the old one wa.
I am glad that Reagan forced an end to the Cold War. I think he made great decisions.
I am glad the Americans found the bugged devices in the building structure when they did.
Even though president Reagan made some questionable decisions, he did get us out o the Cold War.
I cannot believe that the Soviets built in equipment to spy on Americans into the embassy. Regan had no other choice than to rebuild completely.
I am kind of surprised the Soviets had that kind of technology to spy on Americans to see what they were doing in the embassy. It is kind of scary to think what people do now to spy on us with the technology we do today.
Keep your friends closer ad your enemies closer.
Overall, I never really understood why the Cold War is so heavily emphasized in history books. President Reagan was definitely smart to end it when he did.
There were a lot of things going on during the cold war. This was one step in the right direction that Reagan did. He wanted to get rid the spying system and make it stop for good.
I never realized that this occurred. I think Reagan did the right thing.
I would demand that it be rebuilt as well. This is completely unacceptable should have never happened in the first place.
It is hard to determine what would have been the right thing in this case. To look at it from both sides is important to me, and I can see why it would be the right thing, and also why it would be the wrong thing.
I do not believe I remember much about this particular incident but I would have to say it was a good idea to rebuild the Embassy.
I think this was a good choice during the time, there was only so much that could be done!
I agree with Reagan on this one. There was not really a reason for the Embassy to be destroyed in the first place so I would definitely demand for it to be rebuilt.
It was a relic of the Cold War and it was a serious irritant in relations between the two countries.
I don’t think Reagan had another choice. It’s good that Americans found out what was happening when they did about the bugged devices.
I agree with Reagan, it seems he didn’t have another better choice at that time.
This is such a waste of money to destroy and restart a near new building.
I don’t think Reagan had a better choice.
I think it’s a waste of money to destroy and rebuild a perfectly good building
It’s interesting to consider an entire building being bugged to gain knowledge of what was happening on the inside. It makes me wonder if something similar to this could take place in buildings that house our federal government today.
it is interesting, also I like what the President Ronald Reagan do .
Why did they want to destroy and start all over again?
Sometimes it is important to do things for the security of the country. If it was thought that the embassy was bugged then it was neccessary to change the embassy.
This doesn’t surprise me at all.
I think Reagan did the only rational thin he could do given the fact that the building was full of surveillance equipment.
US and Russia will butt heads forever there is so much hostile involvement between the two countries.
Sneaky, but don’t be fooled, the United States is not above such acts!
I think they made the right decision in changing the embassy for being bugged. It amazes me with technology these days how easy it is to bug something.
I thought it was odd that they couldn’t fix it with out destroying it and start over.
The advances in technology make it easy to get information you are seeking whether by means of hiding a device or putting in plain sight. I don’t think this will be the last time a device is put in place to find information.
Technology has come a long way and to completely destroy it just seems crazy. There has to be a way around that.
Hopefully we can restore ties with Russia and Trump is the man to do it. Makes no sense in today’s to be at odds with each other.
This is an interesting story, I find it interesting that we demolished a great deal of the new embassy. This sounds like it was a waste of money to demolish and re-build.
I was surprised by this story, I would have no doubt that Russia would put listening equipment in our embassy and why wouldn’t our government be prepared for that prior to building the embassy.
Why wouldn’t they try to bug the embassy. Good thing we caught it before the building was built completely.
I would like to have known why it took so long to finish the construction on the new building that started in 1979 but was not finished until 2000. You really can not blame President Regan for having a new one built and using another building in the mean time, not allowing the Russians near the building they were using, since the Russians did hide monitoring equipment into the U.S. embassy.
I find it weird that the building needed to be demolished just to be rebuilt again.
Thats a long time to complete a building.
Even today there still seems to be trust issues between America and Russia. With all this distrust, we still consider Russia an ally.
I think there will always be trust issues with Russia, just hope we stay allies
There have always been issues between the U.S. and Russia. I hope we never have to go to war with them.
This isn’t shocking. The US and Russia have always bumped heads. Why we still deal with them, who really knows!!!
I really hope we do not go to war with Russia.. I never knew they conflict has been on-going for years.
I feel like we won’t go to war with Russia. What would be the benefit? To see who has the biggest missile? (joke)
It took 21 years for our new embassy in Russia to be built that’s crazy.
At first I was going to say what a waste of money to tear a brand-new building down, but I can see why the decision was made to erect a new one, this time with American supervision. There is no sense of having an embassy if the foreign government can spy on your activities.
it wast time and money. But countries have the right to protect their privacy and security
There will always be power hungry people in the world like Putin.
Seems like such a waist of time and money, but I understand the want and need to do so. Feeling safe and secure ranks very high on my list.
The time and money lost due to this is a shame. Nevertheless it is good that they found these hidden electronic monitoring devices. One could only imagine what history would be like had they not found these and information was given to the wrong person. So with that the loss of time and money was well worth it.
I wonder if President Trump can have the White House demolished. This would give a greater statistical chance of removing all of Obamas wiretaps.
This article just goes to show how far technology has truly come.