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
1985: The Year of the Spy tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union at a crucial point in the Cold War; Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power as Soviet general secretary in the same year. These high-publicity cases added to the American public's suspicion of the Soviets at a time when the Soviet Union was transitioning into new leadership and reforms under Gorbachev. Even Gorbachev's meeting with President Ronald Reagan at the November Geneva Summit did little to reduce uncertainty as to the future of U.S.-Soviet relations. The arrest of so many foreign spies working within the United States Intelligence Community sparked two demands among