20. SUMMIT IN REYKJAVIK
Washington intensified its preparations as the date of the Reykjavik
meeting approached. When Suzanne Massie asked Reagan what he
wanted from the Russians, he needed no time before replying: ‘I want
to get rid of those atomic weapons, every one!’^1 On 2 October 1986
Reagan selected Regan and Poindexter to chair the final planning
groups. He asked them to devise tactics for how he would present his
arguments to Gorbachëv.^2 United Nations business kept Shultz in New
York, so he wrote to the President advising him to restrict the size of
the party he took into the sessions with Gorbachëv – he suggested that
Reagan should limit his leading companions in Iceland to Poindexter,
Regan and Shultz himself. Shultz urged Reagan to seize the initiative.
He forecast that the meeting had the potential to lead to a resolution
of the current difficulties about intermediate-range nuclear weapons
and move on to questions of strategic weaponry. He warned Reagan
to be ready for Gorbachëv to attack him for his announcement,
on 27 May, that America might not renew its commitment to the
SALT-II Treaty’s limitations after it reached its term. He highlighted
the reasons for optimism. Since the beginning of his presidency,
Reagan had set his face against accommodating to Soviet demands.
Now there was a chance of reaping a fine harvest from his efforts.^3
Reagan’s old pal Barney Oldfield wished him bon voyage. Oldfield
recounted that the last time he flew to Keflavik airport had been in
1953, when his job had been to settle a royalties dispute which was
stopping the local radio station from playing Bing Crosby’s ‘White
Christmas’ to the troops of the American military base. Reagan
responded with an anticommunist joke and a recommendation of Tom
Clancy’s latest thriller, Red Storm Rising, which he had just finished
reading.^4 Film actor and friend Charlton Heston sent a note advising:
‘When you go to Iceland, don’t blink.’^5 Though his tone was amicable
and respectful, he implicitly shared the apprehension among the Presi-
dent’s conservative followers that he might make undue concessions in