October 11, 1986: The Reykjavik Summit

October 11, 1986, 40 years ago: President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev meet for a summit in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. Although Iceland was, and remains, a member of NATO, it is the member with the smallest population, and the only one without a standing army, just a lightly armed coast guard. So Gorbachev accepted it as a suitable, if not quite neutral, location.

Discussions were held at Höfði (pronounced HOFF-dee), a coastal house that had previously served as the French Consulate and the British Embassy.

Reagan sought to include discussion of human rights, including the emigration of Soviet Jews and dissidents, and the war caused by the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Gorbachev sought to limit the talks solely to arms control.

Gorbachev had proposed banning all ballistic missiles, but Reagan wanted to continue research on the missile-defense system called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, mocked by its opponents as "Star Wars"), which involved the militarization of outer space. Yet Soviet suspicion of SDI continued, and relations between the countries were strained.

Despite getting unexpectedly close to the potential elimination of all nuclear weapons, the meeting adjourned with no agreement. But both sides discovered the extent of the concessions the other side was willing to make. Observers have referred to the summit as an enormous breakthrough, which eventually facilitated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty that was signed at the Washington Summit on December 8, 1987.

Some time later, Gorbachev was asked by a journalist when he knew "the Cold War was lost." He said, "Reykjavik." In other words, when he knew that Reagan wouldn't give up SDI. Except SDI was far from ready. Reagan believed (incorrectly) it would be ready by the time he left office on January 20, 1989, presuming.(correctly) that Gorbachev would still be in office.

Reagan was too ignorant to realize that he was bluffing, but Gorbachev was too timid to call his bluff. If he had, things might have been different.

Mikhail Gorbachev died on August 30, 2022. On October 11, 2026, he has been dead for 4 years, Ronald Reagan has been dead for 22 years, the Soviet Union has been dead for 35 years, Vladimir Putin has operationally been in charge of Russia for nearly 27 years, the Republican Party has held the Presidency of the United States for 26 of the last 46 years -- and the Strategic Defense Initiative is still not operational.