Bruce B. G. Clarke senior military officer in arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union. After his first year at the State Department he was selected for brigade command but the busy pace of Soviet-American negotiations caused his assignment to be extended one year beyond the normal two-year posting. In his three years at the State Department, he regularly shuttled between negotiations in Washington and Geneva. This period include three summit meetings between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev: the November 1985 Geneva Summit, the October 1986 Reykjavík Summit and the December 1987 Washington summit where the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was
Jack F. Matlock Jr. Reagan rejected the proposals. Gorbachev began a period of internal economic restructuring, known as perestroika, and agreed to a series of summits with the American president. Matlock was instrumental in preparing Reagan for his first summit with Gorbachev, arranging for specialists within the government to write a "Soviet Union 101" course of 21 papers on Russia for Reagan to study. Matlock also participated in a mock summit, playing the role of Gorbachev, allowing Reagan to practice the encounter in advance. Speaking at a Chautauqua conference in Jūrmala, Latvia in June 1986, Matlock told the crowd that the United States did