Yahh..Reagan was a nincompoop to walk away at Rekjavik....what a dunce....
Reagan-Gorbachev Summit Talks Collapse as Deadlock on SDI Wipes Out Other Gains
By Lou Cannon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 13, 1986; Page A01
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND, OCT. 12 -- The summit meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev collapsed tonight after the two leaders had tentatively agreed to sweeping reductions in nuclear arsenals but deadlocked on the crucial issue of restricting the U.S. space-based missile defense program widely known as "Star Wars."
Secretary of State George P. Shultz, reporting in a strained voice on a meeting that began with bright promise and ended gloomily after more than seven hours of negotiation today, said he was "deeply disappointed" and no longer saw "any prospect" for a summit meeting in Washington between the two leaders in the coming months.
Gorbachev, in a news conference tonight, painted a bleak picture of U.S.-Soviet relations leading up to this weekend's summit and said that the talks had "ruptured" over the fundamental differences between the superpowers on the Strategic Defense Initiative and the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. He said Reagan's insistence on deploying SDI had "frustrated and scuttled" the opportunity for an agreement.
The United States, Gorbachev complained, had come to Reykjavik "empty-handed," with the same "mothballed" proposals that the Soviets opposed in Geneva. But after the talks here, he said, he had told Reagan that "we were missing a historic chance. Never had our positions been so close together."
Reagan, in remarks to U.S. service personnel at the airport before leaving Iceland, said, however, that "though we put on the table the most far-reaching arms control proposal in history, the general secretary (Gorbachev) rejected it."
"We moved toward agreement on drastically reduced numbers of intermediate-range missiles in both Europe and Asia," Reagan said. "We approached agreement on sharply reduced strategic arsenals for both our countries. We made progress in the area of nuclear testing, but there was remaining at the end of our talks one area of disagreement" -- the American SDI program.
(Reagan returned to Andrews Air Force Base late Sunday night, where he was met by Nancy Reagan. He had no comment on the talks, saying only "tune in tomorrow night," a reference to his televised report to the nation scheduled for 8 p.m. Monday.)
Shultz told reporters that the two leaders, aided by groups of experts, had reached a contingent agreement to eliminate all nuclear ballistic missiles within 10 years and also had made progress on human rights issues.
But Shultz said that the two days of talks here had ended without agreement because the Soviets insisted on a change in the 1972 ABM treaty that would have limited Reagan's SDI antimissile program to laboratory research.
...The collapse of the summit talks on the SDI issue left both leaders in an uncertain political position.
Reagan had persuaded a reluctant Congress to remove restrictions on his arms programs from a pending budget bill largely on the hope that he could make progress on arms accords here and at a prospective future summit meeting in the United States. Gorbachev has unilaterally observed a 14-month nuclear testing moratorium despite skepticism in Soviet military circles, hoping he could persuade the United States to join the moratorium.
Instead of returning with an agreement to cut nuclear arsenals and reduce testing, as seemed possible earlier today, both leaders are returning home empty-handed.
Reagan's explanation for the failure of the Iceland summit in his departure speech tonight appeared to differ in one important particular from the account given by Shultz and White House officials who briefed reporters on the meeting on condition they not be identified.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/summit/archive/oct86.htm
