Ronald Reagan D.C., and the fourth in Moscow. Reagan believed that if he could persuade the Soviets to allow for more democracy and free speech, this would lead to reform and the end of Communism. The critical summit was at Reykjavík in October 1986, where they met alone, with translators but with no aides. To the astonishment of the world, and the chagrin of Reagan's most conservative supporters, they agreed to abolish all nuclear weapons. Gorbachev then asked the end of SDI. Reagan said no, claiming that it was defensive only, and that he would share the secrets with the Soviets. No
Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration that they would no longer intervene in the affairs of allied states in Eastern Europe. In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan. Reagan's Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a former economics professor at Stanford University, privately instructed Gorbachev on free market economics. At Gorbachev's request, Reagan gave a speech on free markets at Moscow University. When Reagan visited Moscow, he was viewed as a celebrity by the Soviets. A journalist asked the president if he still considered the Soviet Union the evil empire. "No," he replied, "I was talking about another time, another era." In his autobiography "An American