Political Climate
The majority of these operatives were spying for Communist nations. Their arrests in 1985 heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union at a crucial point in the Cold War; Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power as Soviet general secretary in the same year.
These high-publicity cases added to the American public's suspicion of the Soviets at a time when the Soviet Union was transitioning into new leadership and reforms under Gorbachev. Even Gorbachev's meeting with President Ronald Reagan at the November Geneva Summit did little to reduce uncertainty as to the future of U.S.-Soviet relations.
The arrest of so many foreign spies working within the United States Intelligence Community sparked two demands among the American public: more internal government security and protection against infiltration, and more and better public access to government information.
Read more about this topic: 1985: The Year Of The Spy
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or climate:
“No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Certainly parents play a crucial role in the lives of individuals who are intellectually gifted or creatively talented. But this role is not one of active instruction, of teaching children skills,... rather, it is support and encouragement parents give children and the intellectual climate that they create in the home which seem to be the critical factors.”
—David Elkind (20th century)