Ronald Reagan was president of the United States.
The phrase evil empire was first applied to the Soviet Union in 1983 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan , who took an aggressive , hard-line stance that favored matching and exceeding the Soviet Union 's strategic and global military capabilities , in calling for a rollback strategy that would , in his words , `` write the final pages of the history of the Soviet Union . '' Ronald Reagan . Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an `` evil empire '' , and during his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate , President Reagan challenged Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to `` tear down this wall ! ''