On September 1 , 1983 , the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 ( KAL 007 ) was shot down by a Soviet interceptor over the Sea of Japan near Moneron Island ( just west of Sakhalin island ) while flying over prohibited Soviet airspace . All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed , including Congressman Larry McDonald , a sitting member of the United States House of Representatives from Georgia and president of the anti-communist John Birch Society . From the start , the Reagan administration adopted a bellicose stance toward the Soviet Union , one that favored seriously constraining Soviet strategic and global military capabilities . The administration 's rigorous focus on this objective resulted in the largest peacetime military buildup in the history of the United States . It also ushered in the final major escalation in rhetoric of the Cold War . On June 8 , 1982 , Reagan , in a speech to the British House of Commons , declared that , " ... Freedom and democracy will leave Marxism and Leninism on the ash heap of history . " On March 23 , 1983 , Reagan announced one of the most ambitious and controversial components to this strategy , the Strategic Defense Initiative ( labeled " Star Wars " by the media and critics ) . While Reagan portrayed the initiative as a safety net against nuclear war , leaders in the Soviet Union viewed it as a definitive departure from the relative weapons parity of détente and an escalation of the arms race into space . Yuri Andropov , who had become General Secretary following Brezhnev 's death in November 1982 , criticised Reagan for " inventing new plans on how to unleash a nuclear war in the best way , with the hope of winning it "
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Able Archer 83