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
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,