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 . In 1964 , Reagan 's speech , `` A Time for Choosing '' , in support of Barry Goldwater 's foundering presidential campaign , earned him national attention as a new conservative spokesman . The United States presidential election of 1964 was the 45th quadrennial presidential election . No candidate for president since has equalled or surpassed Johnson 's percentage of the popular vote , and since 1820 , only Abraham Lincoln in 1864 , Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 , Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 have won by a greater electoral vote margin .