Reagan and Gorbachev's Changing Relations

• Geneva Summit - Nov 1985:

  • leaders of the Soviet Union

  and the US hold a summit conference

  • engaged in long, personal talks and seemed to develop a genuine and close relationship

  • produced no real agreements

  • wanted to make the world a ‘safer place’

  • decided to speed up arms talks, work towards abolishing chemical weapons and be more active on human rights issues

  • pleased with what had been

  agreed
• Reykjavik Summit - Oct 1986

  • discussed plans to limit weapons, reduce nuclear force, restrict missile bases, eliminate all nuclear missiles within 10 years and progress towards a test ban of nuclear weapons

  • tensions increased again - failed to reach an agreement about disarmament

  • talks stalled over refusal to abandon the SDI
• Washington Summit - Dec 1987 (INF Treaty):

  • continued to draft an arms reduction

  • treaty which would eliminate all

  nuclear weapons

  • this would be checked

  • INF treaty - eliminated all nuclear missiles within a 500-5500 km radius

  • reduced the amount of nuclear weapons that the superpowers possessed

  • went further than limiting them

  • met again in 1990, where they agreed on START (Treaty for the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Arms).