Iceland in the Cold War a summit in Reykjavík in 1986 between United States President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, during which they took significant steps toward nuclear disarmament. Only a few years later, in 1991, when Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson was foreign minister, Iceland would become the first country to recognize the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as they broke away from the Soviet Union. The US base served as a hub for transports and communications to Europe, a key chain in the GIUK gap, a monitor of Soviet submarine activity, a linchpin in the early warning system for incoming Soviet attacks,
Mikhail Gorbachev arms reduction treaties. Gorbachev toured the Reagan Museum on campus, met with students, and spoke at a convocation in the Reagan Center; he then traveled to the nearby Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, Illinois, as the keynote speaker at the combined George Washington/Ronald Reagan Day Dinner where college president J. David Arnold named him an Honorary Reagan Fellow of Eureka College. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gorbachev accompanied former Polish leader Lech Wałęsa and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a celebration in Berlin on 9 November 2009. On 7 June 2010, Gorbachev gave