ABSTRACT
Mikhail Gorbachev arrived in Washington on December 7 1987 for third summit meeting with President Reagan. The summit meeting had earlier been endangered by Gorbachev's declaration that the pending Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF) agreement was not sufficient to justify a summit. Reagan believed that Gorbachev was 'ready to talk' at the Washington summit because the US had walked out on him at Reykjavik and 'gone ahead with the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) program'. Gorbachev proposed the elimination of all Soviet and US intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe. Unlike the previous condition at Reykjavik, – which led to the failure of the summit – there was no linkage between this proposal and the SDI. Gorbachev had said that the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty must be observed strictly if long-range arms were to be reduced. Afghanistan Expectations were raised prior to the Washington summit that Gorbachev might use the occasion to announce a specific timetable for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
