Norma Percy the MP John Mackintosh, who recommended her to the Granada Television producer Brian Lapping when he was looking for a researcher for a documentary on the workings of Parliament called "The State of the Nation". Percy produced the Granada series "End of Empire" (1985), which explored the effects of the end of the British Empire in various former colonies, and worked with Lapping on the 1987 drama-documentary "Breakthrough at Reykjavik", a reconstruction of the Reykjavík Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986. After fifteen years at Granada, Percy joined the newly formed production company Brian Lapping Associates in
Jack F. Matlock Jr. Reagan rejected the proposals. Gorbachev began a period of internal economic restructuring, known as perestroika, and agreed to a series of summits with the American president. Matlock was instrumental in preparing Reagan for his first summit with Gorbachev, arranging for specialists within the government to write a "Soviet Union 101" course of 21 papers on Russia for Reagan to study. Matlock also participated in a mock summit, playing the role of Gorbachev, allowing Reagan to practice the encounter in advance. Speaking at a Chautauqua conference in Jūrmala, Latvia in June 1986, Matlock told the crowd that the United States did