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
Presidency of Ronald Reagan negotiations with the United States over arms control. As his influence on domestic affairs waned during his second term, Reagan increasingly focused on relations with the Soviet Union. Reagan recognized the change in the direction of the Soviet leadership under Gorbachev, and shifted to diplomacy, with a view to encourage the Soviet leader to pursue substantial arms agreements. Reagan's personal mission was to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons, which according to Jack F. Matlock Jr., Reagan's ambassador to Moscow, he regarded as "totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and