Washington Summit Washington Summit The Washington Summit of 1987 was a Cold War-era meeting between United States president Ronald Reagan and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev that took place December 8–10. Reagan and Gorbachev discussed regional conflicts in Afghanistan, Central America, and Southern Africa, arms control issues for chemical weapons as well as conventional weapons, the status of START negotiations, and human rights. A notable accomplishment of the Washington Summit was the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Following the near-breakthrough of the previous year's Reykjavik Summit, and much to the chagrin of
Political positions of Ronald Reagan Reagan himself in his autobiography, Reagan earnestly desired the abolition of all nuclear weapons. He proposed to Mikhail Gorbachev that if a missile shield could be built, all nuclear weapons be eliminated and the missile shield technology shared, the world would be much better off. Paul Lettow in particular has written that Reagan's opposition to nuclear weapons started at the dawn of the nuclear age and in December 1945 he was only prevented from leading an anti-nuclear rally in Hollywood by pressure from the Warner Brothers studio. In his autobiography, "An American Life", Reagan wrote: "The Pentagon said at least