• The main aim of this document was to inform Foreign Office and other civil servants about background information to relations between Britain and the USSR in 1983.
• At the time these relations were not good. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was a strong opponent of Communism. The US President at the time was Ronald Reagan, who opposed Communism even more strongly.
• At the Yalta Conference in 1945 the USA, USSR and UK agreed that Eastern Europe would be a Soviet 'sphere of influence'. However, disagreements began soon afterwards when the leaders disagreed about the difference between influence and domination.