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
Ronald Reagan sure its total cost would reach in the trillions of dollars. Reagan encouraged Congress to think of it as billions of new dollars spent in individual districts. If SDI worked, thousands of Soviet nuclear-armed missiles would be worthless — if launched, they could all be shot down. Gorbachev made it his highest priority to get Reagan to abandon SDI. Meanwhile, Reagan escalated the rhetoric. In his famous 1983 speech to religious fundamentalists he outlined his strategy for victory. First, he labeled the Soviet system an "Evil empire" and a failure—its demise would be a godsend for the world. Second, Reagan