Cold War to the Kremlin's military and political concessions, Reagan agreed to renew talks on economic issues and the scaling-back of the arms race. The first summit was held in November 1985 in Geneva, Switzerland. At one stage the two men, accompanied only by an interpreter, agreed in principle to reduce each country's nuclear arsenal by 50 percent. A second summit, was held in October 1986, Reykjavík, Iceland. Talks went well until the focus shifted to Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense Initiative, which Gorbachev wanted eliminated. Reagan refused. The negotiations failed, but the third summit in 1987 led to a breakthrough with the
17th G7 summit "core members" of the international forum: British Prime Minister John Major sent a letter to other members of the G7, asking for their permission to invite Mikhail Gorbachev, who has been pressing to come to London to plead for more Western economic support for his country. Pressure to invite Mr. Gorbachev had come mainly from the leaders of France, Germany, and Italy who have made public appeals for him to be invited to attend; but Britain sent the official invitation inviting the Soviet Union to participate. A wry comment which was oft repeated during the summit was that G7 had