Iceland in the Cold War Iceland in the Cold War Throughout the Cold War, the nation of Iceland was a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and allied with the United States, hosting a US military presence in Keflavík Air Base from 1951 to 2006. In 1986, Iceland hosted a summit in Reykjavík between United States President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, during which they took significant steps toward nuclear disarmament. Five years later, in 1991, Iceland became the first country to recognize the renewed independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania when they broke away from the Soviet Union. Early in
Walk of the People – A Pilgrimage for Life were denied entrance into East Germany in June 1985 and settled in an old mill house in a border town to figure out a plan. A few weeks later, they walked to Vienna, Austria, then took a train to Budapest and some other cities in Hungary as part of a tour organized by the government Hungarian Peace Committee. They were turned down again for visas to fly to Moscow. Eventually, several members took a train to Moscow from Geneva, Switzerland, following the November 1985 Geneva Summit between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. They met with members of the Soviet Peace Committee