James A. Abrahamson administration to announce the program would cease. Abrahamson accompanied President Reagan to Reykjavik, Iceland, for the Reykjavik Summit on October 11, 1986, to meet the Soviet leader, Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev. The subject of the Strategic Defense Initiative's technological advances and their effects on the strategic nuclear balance between the United States and the Soviet Union during the last years of the Cold War was raised by the Soviets at the meeting. During the post-summit press conference, Gorbachev said Reagan's insistence on deploying SDI had "frustrated and scuttled" the opportunity for an agreement. Abrahamson was promoted to lieutenant general on
1989 Sino-Soviet Summit though Gorbachev did not say it directly during the Summit or afterward, he sympathized with the protestors as they were pushing for the political changes that Gorbachev had implemented in the Soviet Union. 1989 Sino-Soviet Summit The four-day Sino-Soviet Summit was held in Beijing from May 15–18, 1989. This would be the first formal meeting between the Soviet Communist leader and the Chinese Communist leader since the Sino-Soviet split in the 1950s. The last Soviet leader to visit China was Nikita Khrushchev in September 1959. Both Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader of China, and Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the