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In the summer of 1986 Ronald Reagan and Mikael Gorbachev met in person for their second negotiation session, this time at the Höfði House in Reykjavik. For five days, the leaders talked alone except for interpreters. Reagan badly wanted to develop the Strategic Defense Initiative; known by its nickname, ‘Star Wars’. The idea was to put smart weaponry in space that could destroy ballistic missiles before they reentered the atmosphere. Reagan believed this would remove the threat of imminent destruction that had hung over the world since 1945. Gorbachev, on the other hand, felt this was just another escalation in the Cold War, and the Soviet Union would be forced to build yet more weapons to overcome the American defenses. He wanted Reagan’s plans shelved, arguing that it broke the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. He was probably right. The leaders talked back and forth, unable to overcome the impasse. At the end of the summit there was a mad scramble to announce some sort of deal, but this proved difficult. In the last moments before they had to conclude a communiqué, Reagan suggested they abolish all nuclear weapons. Reagan’s negotiating team was horrified and shut the door.

For decades, the American strategy had been to use nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the apparent numerical advantage of the Soviets. In all the potential scenarios analyzed by the Pentagon, Russian forces ended up overrunning American forward positions – otherwise known as Western Europe! The only way to stop them was through a release of nuclear weapons, which, inevitably escalated to all-out nuclear

Ronald Reagan and Mikael Gorbachev

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