Iceland in the Cold War the military protection of the United States, even if the economic benefits of the US military presence are gone. With the withdrawal of US forces, the country's military co-operation with other allied NATO countries, such as Norway, has increased. 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,
Speeches and debates of Ronald Reagan the Berlin Wall. On June 12, 1987, he gave a speech at the Wall in which he challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall!" Reagan's senior staffers objected to the phrase, but Reagan overruled them saying, "I think we'll leave it in." "Tear down this wall!" has been called "The four most famous words of Ronald Reagan's Presidency." Although there is some disagreement over how much influence Reagan's words had on the destruction of the wall, the speech is remembered as an important moment in Cold War history and was listed by "Time" magazine as one of