History of the United States II / Unit 16 USH2 2282 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Geneva, Reykjavík and the INF Treaty
The idea
Reagan and Gorbachev met at Geneva in nineteen eighty-five, and at Reykjavík, Iceland, the following year they astonished the world with a pledge to try to abolish nuclear weapons by nineteen ninety-six. In nineteen eighty-seven, at the White House, they signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, eliminating a whole category of nuclear weapons.
In practice
The two leaders signing in the East Room.
Where people slip
The same president had called the Soviet Union an evil empire four years earlier. The misreading takes one half for the whole: Reagan the hawk or Reagan the peacemaker. The anchor records both, a build-up and then engagement after nineteen eighty-four, and the Yawp says the summits produced no concrete agreements at first but a relationship of unprecedented trust, which made the treaty possible.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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