That is correct... Reagan was made to believe that the technology could actually be made to work.Reagan did not like the mutual assurance of destruction (or mutually assured destruction) doctrin that maintained the nuclear balance of the day and wanted something that would negate the USSR's nuclear deterrent.Star Wars was the supposed answer.Star wars worked more effectively than even Reagan could have dreamed off in that the USSR bankrupted itself trying to respond to the consequences of the possible nullification of their nuclear deterrent.Like Reagan, soviet scientists were led to believe that the US had the technology and was willing to spend the money to make the Star Wars shield real and effective. The collapse of of the Soviet Union was (in part) an unintended consequence of how the Soviet Union chose to respond to the Star Wars program, and not the result of a planned and deliberate outcome that popular folklore makes it out to be