Reykjavík summit of 1986
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
- Date:
- October 11, 1986 - October 12, 1986
- Context:
- Cold War
- Key People:
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- Ronald Reagan
Reykjavík summit of 1986, meeting held in Reykjavík, Iceland, on October 11 and 12, 1986, between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. The meeting, the second between the two leaders, was intended not as a summit but as a session in which the leaders explored the possibility of limiting each country’s strategic nuclear weapons to create momentum in ongoing arms-control negotiations. The Reykjavík summit almost resulted in a sweeping nuclear arms-control agreement in which the nuclear weapons of both sides would be dismantled. Although no agreement was reached, many historians and government officials, including Gorbachev himself, later considered the Reykjavík summit a turning point in the Cold War.
Reagan had been committed to opposing the Soviet Union at every opportunity. The White House believed that American supremacy was key to U.S. survival, and it was thought that an accelerated arms race would cause irreparable harm to a faltering Soviet economy. Reagan, however, was gradually being perceived as an extremist hard-liner bent on the complete destruction of the Soviet Union. To allay such fears, he attended the summit meetings.
Meanwhile, Gorbachev based his presidency on the dual reform programs of perestroika (“restructuring”) and glasnost (“openness”). The Soviet Union was a military and industrial power for much of its history, but in its waning decades it was faltering under the strain of its outmoded economic system and industrial infrastructure. To compete against the West, the Soviet economy and society would need drastic restructuring. Gorbachev, however, could not afford to continue down the path to reform without assurances about national security. He needed an arms-limitation treaty to accomplish that.
During the exchange of proposals, the leaders agreed that nuclear weapons must be eliminated, and they nearly produced an agreement to eliminate the Soviet and American nuclear weapons stockpiles by 2000. What prevented such an agreement was the space-based missile defense system known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) under consideration by the United States. President Reagan refused to limit SDI research and technology to the laboratory. Gorbachev, however, would not accept anything less than a ban on missile testing in space. Despite the failure to reach an agreement on that issue, both sides felt that the meeting was a success and that it opened the way for further progress.