President-Elect Reagan. Okay. Now what?
November 6, 1980 – Election ’80: The New Morning After – Business And Brezhnev As Usual.
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November 6, 1980 – With the election now past and the day to day business still at hand, the 1980 Presidential election was watched just as closely abroad as it was at home. Particularly in the Soviet Union, where Premier Leonid Brezhnev lost little time sending congratulations to the President-elect. Addressed to “Esteemed Mr. Reagan”, Brezhnev expressed the hope that a Reagan Administration would help improve U.S.-Soviet relations. And Muscovites, passing the American Embassy where a picture of Reagan was displayed, expressed the same sentiments as Brezhnev, adding it was Jimmy Carter who boycotted the 1980 Olympics. In one respect, the Kremlin may have had some positive expectations. Mr. Reagan opposed the embargo of U.S. grain shipments to the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the President-elect was against the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) as negotiated by the Carter administration, and that may have been on the mind of Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Tikhonov, who addressed a meeting on the eve of the 63rd anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Tikhonov said he had hopes for Moscow to take a constructive approach to U.S.-Soviet relations from the new White House administration. But he complained that, while the Soviet Union strived to ease world tensions, Washington was increasing them. Tikhonov did not specifically mention the SALT II treat, which Ronald Reagan had called “Fatally flawed”, but he declared that Moscow was prepared to reach an understanding on the reduction or ban of any weapon, above all nuclear, and on the prevention of manufacture of new types and systems of weapons of mass destruction. Some observers saw this is as a possible re-opening of talks with the Reagan Administration on the SALT treaty.
And a Peking newspaper charged that the arrival of a Soviet aircraft carrier and other warships in the Gulf of Thailand threatened peace throughout Southeast Asia. According to The Peoples Daily, the Soviet fleet was using the former U.S. Naval installation at Cam Ranh Bay as its base.
And that’s a little of what was going on, this November 6, 1980 as reported by CBS Radio 9:00 am news.
