The date: October 11-12, 1986.

As a young staffer in the Reagan White House Political Affairs Office, I, along with other colleagues, was frustrated.

The 1986 congressional elections were in full swing, and it was our responsibility to arrange for President Reagan’s trips around the country to campaign for Republican candidates. And suddenly, everything had stopped in its tracks.

Out of the blue, Mikhail Gorbachev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, wanted an immediate summit with Reagan to discuss, amazingly, a treaty banning ballistic missiles. A summit not in Moscow or Washington but out in the nowhere land of the capital of Iceland — Reykjavík.

Reagan, whose creation of what was called the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) had presumably pushed a suddenly interested Gorbachev to this point, was interested.

The instant result, to the chagrin of the White House Political Office, was for Reagan to be pulled off the campaign trail. With Air Force One now jetting off the campaign trail to Reykjavík, Iceland, for this sudden summit with Gorbachev.

Why Reykjavík? In historian and diplomat William Inboden’s Reagan book The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink, Gorbachev is quoted as saying: “It’s a good idea. Halfway between us and them, and none of the big powers will be offended.”

The whole thing that seemed even more incredulous was that the summit was being held in a decidedly plain if large wooden building that had previously served as a French consulate and British Embassy.

But on the books, Reykjavík it was.

When Reagan landed, the UPI described the setting for this unique superpower confab as “one of the strangest places on Earth — a windblown, volcanic moonscape populated by sheep, ponies, elves, pagan gods and 241,000 bookish descendants of the Vikings.”

Gathered on each side of a conference table, the Reagan–Gorbachev negotiations began. And made progress with potential agreement on cuts in offensive weapons. Reagan was delighted.

And then.

And then it became crystal clear that Gorbachev was insisting — demanding — that Reagan restrict research into SDI.

The two had heretofore found much appreciated common ground. “Let’s agree to this now,” Reagan urged Gorbachev. Reagan was well aware that for a first time, the fabled Cold War “arms race” had become a race to cut arms.

And then.

Gorbachev would not agree to the U.S. researching, much less achieving, the SDI. Deadlock.

Inboden writes that with this deadlock, “Reagan scribbled a note and passed it to (Secretary of State George) Shultz. ‘Am I wrong?’ he asked. ‘No, you are right,’ whispered Shultz.”

On this deadlock went. Tempers rising.

Finally, I was told by colleagues in the room that Reagan, furious, slapped a hand on the table and stood up first, looking over at his secretary of state and saying, “Let’s go, George.”

A photographer captured the look on each leader’s face as they departed. They were not happy.

Gorbachev said, “I don’t know what more I could have done.”

To which a furious Reagan replied: “You could have said yes.”

And with that, Reagan slipped into his limousine and was driven back to the airport, and a waiting Air Force One that whisked him back home.

Back home, all media hell was breaking loose. Reagan biographer Steven F. Hayward writes in volume two of his biography, this one titled The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989:

Reagan’s liberal critics and the media alternated between outrage at Reagan’s stubborn and foolish refusal to give in on SDI and alarm at the seeming recklessness with which Reagan came close to committing total or near-total nuclear disarmament.

Why is this tale relevant — make that important — now?

Because the recent episode Americans saw play out live and in living televised color between a steely President Trump and a hapless Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office is nothing if not a reminder that an American president has been here before.

And by standing strong in Reykjavík in 1986, Reagan would eventually win the day. Two years later, there was Gorbachev in the White House East Room to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with a smiling Reagan next to him. Reagan did not hesitate to say something Gorbachev had by now heard him say many times: “Trust but verify.” Reagan had done exactly that.

At this exact moment, Trump is standing strong. He is there to negotiate, to move forward.

The question now is whether Zelenskyy will be smart enough to pay serious attention to Trump — and take a page from Gorbachev’s example.

And finally, bring peace to the Ukrainian people. Starting with a cease fire.

Stay tuned.

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