Episode 28 : A Celebration of the Iife of George Shultz (Part 3) Reagan at Reykjavík

In Part 3 of the celebration of the life of George Shultz, we look back at one of the singular, major events of the Cold War in which George Shultz was a major participant.  

For a couple of days in October of 1986, four men met and changed the direction of the world. The two leaders President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and their two chief diplomatic aids Eduard Shevardnadze and George Shultz met to have discussion about Arms Control. It was hastily called and had no real big agenda in place. 

It turned out to have a really big agenda.

It saw the two leaders of the two Nuclear Super Powers start negotiating way out in front of where the career diplomats actually were and it was then and there that Gorbachev offered up the biggest most sweeping arms control proposal ever offered up in the history of negotiations. But Ronald Reagan turned it down to protect his Strategic Defense Initiative, basically a missile defense shield from outer space, often derided as a "Star Wars" pipe dream. 

Reykjavik was widely criticized and seen as a failure at the time, but it was where the groundwork was laid for the end of the Cold War and all the breakthroughs to come. Eventually the Soviet Union would be dissolved, the Berlin Wall would fall and the last act of Mikhail Gorbachev as the Premier of the Soviet Union, on Christmas Eve 1991, would be to call President Ronald Reagan's successor George H.W. Bush to tell him of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And it all began at the Höfôi House in Reykjavik , Iceland. 

We relive that summit here in Part 3 of the look back at the remarkable life of George Shultz. 

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