Gorbachev and Reagan.

1. Gorbachev and Reagan. Meeting 17.

2. 1979 December – NATO agrees to install “Pershing II” and “Cruise” missiles in Europe after 1983 December 27 – Soviet Union enters Afghanistan 1980 August 31 – agreement signed in Gdańsk concerning the forming of free trade unions September 17 – decision to form Solidarność November 10 – Solidarity registered

3. 1981 January 20 – Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States. Reagan is elected due to his anti-Soviet rhetoric and opposition to the concessions of détente. January 20 – Iran hostage crisis ends. August 19 – Gulf of Sidra Incident: Libyan planes attack U.S. jets in the Gulf of Sidra, which Libya has illegally annexed. Two Libyan jets are shot down; no American losses are suffered. November 23 – The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) begins to support anti-Sandinist Contras. December 13 – Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski introduces Martial Law in Poland, which drastically restricts normal life, in an attempt to crush the Solidarity Trade Union December 23 – Ronald Reagan introduces economic sanctions against Poland December 29 – Reagan introduces economic sanctions against USSR

4. 1982 January 30 – Reagan proclaims „Solidarity day with the Polish Nation” February 5 – G. Britain announces economic sanctions against Poland and USSR February 24 – President Ronald Reagan announces the "Caribbean Basin Initiative" a small doctrine aimed at prevention of possible overthrow of governments in the region by communists. April 2 – Argentina invades the Falkland Islands, starting the Falklands War. May 30 – Spain joins NATO. June 6 – Israel invades Lebanon to end raids and clashes with Syrian troops based there. November 10 – Leonid Brezhnev dies. November 14 – Yuri Andropov succeeds

5. Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov 15 June [O.S. 2 June] 1914 – 9 February 1984 Soviet politician and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Andropov served in the post for only 15 months, from November 1982 until his own death in February 1984. Earlier, Andropov served as the Soviet ambassador to Hungary from 1954 to 1957, and was largely responsible for the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. In 1967-1982 he was the Chairman of the KGB - Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security – est. 1954). Pressed for the 1968 intervention in Czechoslovakia, but is said to have opposed intervention in Poland in 1980-81.

6. 1983 March 8 – In a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, Reagan labels the Soviet Union an "evil empire". March 23 – Ronald Reagan proposes the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or "Star Wars"). September 1 – Civilian Korean Air Lines Flight 007, with 269 passengers, is shot down by a Soviet interceptor aircraft October 25 – U.S. forces invade the Caribbean island of Grenada in an attempt to overthrow the Marxist military government, expel Cuban troops, and abort the construction of a Soviet-funded airstrip. November 2 – Exercise Able Archer 83 — Soviet anti-aircraft misinterpret a test of NATO's nuclear warfare procedures as a fake cover for an actual NATO attack; in response Soviet nuclear forces are put on high alert. According to some analysist this was the closes to a nuclear conflict in the whole Cold War.

7. 1984 January – US President Ronald Reagan outlines foreign policy which reinforces his previous statements. February 9 – Andropov dies. February 13 – Konstantin Chernenko is named General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. July 28 – Various allies of the Soviet Union boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics (July 28 - August 12) in Los Angeles.

8. Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko 24 September 1911 – 10 March 1985 Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Chernenko was also Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 11 April 1984 until his death. Chernenko represented a return to the policies of the late Brezhnev era. Nevertheless, he supported a greater role for the labour unions, and reform in education and propaganda. He favored military spending at the cost of cutting consumer oriented expenses.

9. 1984 December 16 – Margaret Thatcher and the UK government, in a plan to open new channels of dialogue with the Soviet leadership candidates, meet with Mikhail Gorbachev at the Chequers. One of the reasons was connected with the possible Soviet donation to the British coal miners’ union. In December 1984, Gorbachev accepted an invitation to Britain, and Thatcher invited him and his wife Raisa to lunch at Chequers. A colossal argument broke out; Thatcher ‘deliberately and breathtakingly… set about serially cross-examining him about the inferiority of the Soviet centralised command system and the merits of free enterprise and competition’. The miners’ strike, then in its ninth month, proved that ‘communism was synonymous with getting one’s way by violence’. Gorbachev gave as good as he got; at one point Raisa mouthed ‘It’s over’ to her husband, suggesting that they leave. But the argument was inspired, and the afternoon ended on a joke. ‘I can assure you,’ Gorbachev said, ‘that I am not under instructions from the Politburo to persuade you to join the Communist party.’ https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/margaret-thatchers-most-surprising-virtue-imagination/

10. http://www.voanews.com/content/experts-margaret-thatcher-british-prime-mininster-cold-war-20th-centurty/1639519.htmlhttp://www.voanews.com/content/experts-margaret-thatcher-british-prime-mininster-cold-war-20th-centurty/1639519.html “When she first came in, in 1979, she took a very, very strong anti-communist attitude and really didn’t want anything to do with the Soviet leadership,” said Bale. “But she recognized very early on that Mikhail Gorbachev was something different. And to her credit, she pursued the relationship with him, even when some people thought she was perhaps being naively taken in.”In December 1984 — three months before Gorbachev became the Soviet leader — he was in London as the head of a parliamentary delegation. He was invited to meet Margaret Thatcher, who later said “this is a man we can do business with.”

12. https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-thatcher-with-gorbachev-and-his-wife-raisa-soviet-gen-secy-at-chequers-7454448.htmlhttps://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-thatcher-with-gorbachev-and-his-wife-raisa-soviet-gen-secy-at-chequers-7454448.html

13. 1985 March 11 – Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of the Soviet Union after Chernenko’s death. August 6 – Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union begins what it has announced is a 5-month unilateral moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons. The Reagan administration dismisses the dramatic move as nothing more than propaganda and refuses to follow suit. Gorbachev declares several extensions, but the United States fails to reciprocate, and the moratorium comes to an end on February 5, 1987. November 21 – Reagan and Gorbachev meet for the first time at a summit in Geneva, Switzerland, where they agree to two (later three) more summits In Geneva, two leaders held talks on international diplomatic relations and the arms race. Gorbachev later said: “We viewed the Geneva meeting realistically, without grand expectations, yet we hoped to lay the foundations for a serious dialogue in the future.”

14. http://www.thereaganfiles.com/the-summits.html The Geneva Summit The first meeting between President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev took place in Geneva, Switzerland in November 1985. Reagan and Gorbachev discussed all areas of U.S.-Soviet relations. Overall, the two leaders used the meetings to feel out each others positions. Although no significant agreements were made, the two leaders agreed to meet again. The Geneva Summit is seen today as a success as Reagan and Gorbachev were able to start the process that led to a thawing of Cold War tensions, and the eventual signing of the INF (Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces) Treaty in 1987.

16. 1986 February 13 – France launches Operation Epervier (Sparrowhawk) in an effort to repulse the Libyan invasion of Chad. April 15 – U.S. planes bomb Libya in Operation El Dorado Canyon. April 26 – Chernobyl disaster: A Soviet nuclear power plant in the Ukraine explodes, resulting in the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. October 11-12 – Reykjavik Summit: a breakthrough in nuclear arms control.

17. The Reykjavík Summit was a summit meeting between U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Secretary-General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, held in the famous house of Höfði in Reykjavík, the capital city of Iceland. The talks collapsed at the last minute, but the progress that had been achieved eventually resulted in the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. October 17 – Ronald Reagan signs into law an act of Congress approving $100 million of military and "humanitarian" aid for the Contras. November 3 – Iran-Contra affair: the Reagan administration publicly announces that it has been selling arms to Iran in exchange for hostages and illegally transferring the profits to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua

18. http://www.thereaganfiles.com/the-summits.html Arms control negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States stalled following the Geneva Summit. General Secretary Gorbachev proposed to President Reagan in September 1986 that the two leaders meet the next month to inject urgency into the stalled arms control negotiations. President Reagan immediately agreed.  Over two-days of meetings in October 1986 failed to produce any arms control agreements. General Secretary Gorbachev and Reagan, however, seemed on the verge of agreeing to a sweeping arms control agreement that would in principle work towards the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. President Reagan would say that he could not agree to the deal because General Secretary Gorbachev insisted that any agreement incorporate limits on testing of the Strategic Defense Initiative. General Secretary Gorbachev left believing that no agreement was reached because President Reagan did not come to the meeting prepared to reach any agreement.   The Reykjavik Summit is now seen as significant turning point in arms control negotiations. Although no agreement was reached at the time, Reagan and Gorbachev in principle agreed on the need to reduce their nuclear arsenals. Gorbachev also recognized that Reagan would not negotiate SDI. Over the next couple of months Gorbachev dropped his insistence that SDI be linked to any arms control agreement, and when Reagan and Gorbachev met again in Washington in December 1987, all they had to do were sign the documents agreeing to eliminate their intermediate range nuclear weapons (The INF Treaty), the most sweeping arms control reductions treaty ever signed by that time. 

21. 1987 June – Gorbachev announces Glasnost and Perestroika. Gorbachev's goal in undertaking Glasnost is to pressure conservatives within the Party who oppose his policies of economic restructuring (Perestroika). It is Gorbachev's hope that through initiatives of openness, debate and participation, that the Soviet people will support Perestroika. June 12 – During a visit to Berlin, Germany, U.S. President Ronald Reagan famously challenges Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in a speech: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" (The Berlin Wall).

22. November 18 – After nearly a year of hearings into the Iran-Contra scandal, the Joint Congressional Investigating Committee issues its final report. It concludes that the scandal, involving a complicated plan whereby some of the funds from secret weapons sales to Iran were used to finance the Contra war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, was one in which the administration of Ronald Reagan exhibited "secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law." December 8 – The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C. by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Some later claim this was the official end of the Cold War. Gorbachev agrees to START I treaty.

23. http://www.thereaganfiles.com/the-summits.html General Secretary Gorbachev came to Washington in December 1987 to sign the INF Treaty documents and to persuade President Reagan to agree a further arms control agreement, a START agreement. The START negotiations started from the principle that both sides would eliminate 50% of their offensive ballistic missiles. To accomplish this goal, however, General Secretary Gorbachev insisted that Reagan agree to delay deployment of SDI until both sides had eliminated their offensive weapons. This way, Gorbachev argued, one side would not have an advantage over the other. Reagan, however, insisted that SDI could not be part of any arms control negotiations. After the Washington Summit Reagan encouraged his advisers to continue to seek a START agreement, but that he would not make any agreement limiting SDI.

25. http://www.thereaganfiles.com/the-summits.html President Reagan traveled to Moscow in May 1988. General Secretary Gorbachev was hoping to use the Summit as an opportunity for Reagan and Gorbachev to agree to the START Treaty, but soon after Reagan arrived it became very clear that he was not interested in further arms control agreements. Reagan spent most of the Summit, instead, talking about human rights. The Summit is probably best remembered for Reagan's statement to reporters outside the Kremlin saying that he no longer thought of the Soviet Union as an "evil empire."

26. Signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in Moscow

27. http://www.thereaganfiles.com/the-summits.html Reagan and Gorbachev had a short visit in December 1988 on Governor's Island, right outside Manhattan in New York City. President-elect George H.W. Bush was also present. No substantive issues were discussed, and President-elect Bush interesting chose to observe. The meeting is probably most significant for President-elect Bush's lack of participation. Although Bush had been involved with most of President Reagan's most important foreign policy decisions, he would upon taking office immediately signal that he was freezing negotiations  between the United States and Soviet Union until he had a chance to develop his own approach. Bush, it seems, unlike Reagan was not convinced that the Soviet Union was no longer an "evil empire." It took over three years for Bush and Gorbachev to sign the START Treaty, which was reached in 1991.