Reagan, Gorbachev, and the end of the arms race

U.S. President Ronald Reagan had initially adopted a stance of strong rhetorical confrontation toward the USSR, famously calling it an "evil empire." Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985 opened new space for bilateral dialogue between the two superpowers. Reagan and Gorbachev held their first summit in Geneva in November 1985, establishing a constructive personal relationship, and additional summits followed in Reykjavik (1986), Washington (1987), and Moscow (1988), progressively deepening the bilateral dialogue. The Reykjavik summit, although it did not produce an immediate agreement, laid the conceptual groundwork for future disarmament agreements.