138. Editorial Note
On October 9, 1986, President Ronald Reagan traveled from Washington to Reykjavik, Iceland, to meet with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. Air Force One departed from Andrews Air Force Base at around 9:45 a.m. and landed at Keflavik airport at 7:05 p.m. The President then proceeded to the United States Ambassadorial Residence, where he stayed that evening. Throughout the following day, Reagan met privately with senior advisors, including Secretary of State George Shultz, reviewed preparatory material, and called on [Page 486] Icelandic President Vigdis Finnbogadottir and other senior Icelandic officials from 4:30 to 5:10 p.m., before returning to the Ambassadorial Residence to dine with Shultz, White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan, and President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs John Poindexter. A chronology is in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, volume VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 1.
On October 11, Reagan received briefings from his senior staff and a team of experts, before departing for Hofdi House at 10:15 a.m. and arriving shortly before Gorbachev and the Soviet delegation. From 10:40 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Reagan and Gorbachev met with an interpreter and a notetaker, with Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze joining them at 11:30 a.m. Gorbachev proposed a draft agreement to reduce by fifty percent the strategic offensive arms of both sides; a draft agreement eliminating U.S. and Soviet long-range intermediate-range nuclear forces (LRINF) in Europe; to initiate negotiations on shorter-range intermediate-range nuclear forces (SRINF) in Europe; to limit Soviet LRINF in Asia; and to agree that the United States and Soviet Union would adhere to the 1972 Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems for ten years and, during this period, confine to laboratories any space-based elements of potential missile defense systems. The President described the General Secretary’s proposals as “very encouraging,” while noting outstanding differences—most notably the restriction on testing of defensive systems should further development of promising systems necessitate testing beyond the ABM Treaty. After several exchanges, Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to break for lunch and consultations with their respective teams, and then continue discussions of nuclear arms later that afternoon. The memorandum of this first conversation between Reagan and Gorbachev at Reykjavik is printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, volume V, Soviet Union, March 1985–October 1986, Document 301.
Reagan and Gorbachev met again in Hofdi House from 3:30 until 5:40 p.m. The President offered detailed responses to the General Secretary’s morning proposals, laid out his case for the Strategic Defense Initiative, and called for two meetings of experts’ groups to commence at 8 p.m. that evening and report back to the two leaders by the following morning. One group would discuss nuclear arms, while the other would discuss regional and bilateral affairs and human rights. Gorbachev accepted this negotiating framework. At the conclusion of this meeting, Reagan returned to the U.S. Embassy, where he met with Shultz, Regan, Poindexter, Ambassador Paul Nitze, Ambassador Max Kampelman, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Kenneth Adelman, and Robert Linhard of the National Security Council staff, to review the afternoon conversations with Gorbachev and provide instructions for [Page 487] the evening’s nuclear arms negotiations. Reagan then had a private dinner with Shultz, Regan, and Poindexter, after which he retired for the evening. The memoranda of conversation of Reagan and Gorbachev’s second meeting at Reykjavik and that of the experts’ group meeting on regional and bilateral affairs are printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, volume V, Soviet Union, March 1985–October 1986, Documents 302 and 303. The memorandum of conversation of the overnight arms control experts’ conversation is printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, volume XI, START I, Document 159.
The following morning, Reagan met with Gorbachev from 10 a.m. until 1:35 p.m., 3:25 until 4:30 p.m., and 5:30 until 6:50 p.m., in between which Shultz and Shevardnadze met from 2:05 until 3 p.m. Memoranda of conversation are printed in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, volume V, Soviet Union, March 1985–October 1986, Documents 306, 308, and 307. Reagan departed Keflavik Airport on Air Force One at approximately 8:49 p.m. local time, and arrived at the White House Residence at 10:43 p.m.
Subsequently, the National Security Council staff prepared a detailed chronology of all exchanges between U.S. and Soviet counterparts at Reykjavik, which is in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, volume VI, Soviet Union, October 1986–January 1989, Document 1. On October 14, William Tobey and Steven Steiner of the National Security Council staff sent Poindexter a set of talking points, titled “The Importance of SDI,” which included: “The President’s Strategic Defense Initiative offers our best hope of a safer world where our and our Allies’ security would no longer rest on deterrence through the threat of mass annihilation”; “SDI is a research and technology development program to demonstrate by the early 1990s the feasibility of effective defenses against ballistic missiles for the U.S. and our allies. The most promising concepts involve layered defenses for targeting missiles in all phases of their flight—boost, mid-course, and terminal”; and “SDI is critical to progress towards arms reduction agreements. It brought the Soviets back to the negotiating table and now acts as the necessary lever that for the first time has them talking seriously about deep reductions of the most dangerous weapons—offensive ballistic missiles.” (Reagan Library, Steven Steiner Files, Arms Control File, 51—AC/SDI (10/1/1986–10/31/1986))