Reykjavík Summit Reykjavík Summit The Reykjavík Summit was a summit meeting between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, held in Höfði in Reykjavík, on 11–12 October 1986. The talks collapsed at the last minute, but the progress that had been achieved eventually resulted in the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1986, Gorbachev had proposed banning all ballistic missiles, but Reagan wanted to continue research on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which involved the militarization of outer space. Yet Soviet suspicion of SDI
Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration crisis and stated that the Soviet Union "runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens." This was before Gorbachev rose to power in 1985. Reagan later wrote in his autobiography "An American Life" that he "did not see the profound changes that would occur in the Soviet Union after Gorbachev rose to power." To confront the Soviet Union's serious economic problems, Gorbachev implemented bold new policies for freedom and openness called glasnost and perestroika. Reagan relaxed his aggressive rhetoric toward the Soviet Union after Gorbachev became chairman of the Soviet Politburo in