This essay evaluates the effectiveness of President Ronald Reagan's ‘'Star Wars” address of March 23, 1983. The essay identifies three main audiences for U.S. defense policy rhetoric—the general public, experts, and foreign governments—and examines the appeal of the speech for each audience. It concludes that the address was effective for the general public, primarily as a response to the nuclear freeze movement. However, the speech was much less effective, and perhaps counterproductive, as an appeal to expert and foreign audiences. Consequently, the long‐term prospects for the Strategic Defense Initiative may have been hurt by the speech. It focused unnecessary attention on strategic defense research and development efforts and triggered heated debates on these issues long before the deployment decision must be made.