Reykjavík Summit Reykjavík Summit The Reykjavík Summit was a summit meeting between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, held in Höfði in Reykjavík, on 11–12 October 1986. The talks collapsed at the last minute, but the progress that had been achieved eventually resulted in the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1986, Gorbachev had proposed banning all ballistic missiles, but Reagan wanted to continue research on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which involved the militarization of outer space. Yet Soviet suspicion of SDI
Stuart A. Summit General at the time. And although the nomination of Summit, an active Republican, had not been thought to be particularly controversial, his nomination ultimately languished. Initially, Summit's ethics were challenged by a personal injury attorney in New York who once had faced Summit in court. Then, Burns, who had been Summit's biggest champion in the Justice Department, resigned from the Reagan administration amid a public quarrel with Attorney General Edwin Meese. Even so, Summit was unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on August 11, 1988, which should have placed his nomination on the fast track for confirmation. However,