weekend experienced the most amazing things. and what did they experience is the terms for this deep reductions, the deep nest hiest history for nuclear weapons that s continued to this day and what neither of them could imagine, that the cold war would end within a very short time. it was amazing. the thesis of the book is that these 48 hours, reykjavik, represented the start of the end of the cold war, and the events coming out of reykjavik resulted in just that. the decline of the soviet union, the end of the soviet union and then the end of the cold war. ken, this is all fascinating stuff. thank you so much for bringing it all back. and it could never be more relevant than today with vladimir putin. thank you again. it s a great story. it s a great story. thanks very much for the book. and we ll be right back. naming names. the fact is, it comes standard with an engine that s been called the benchmark of its class.
blo bloodless the government has tried to engage them in terms of trying to dialogue with them to find out what s going on, and why they are doing what they are doing. obviously, they have nothing really. it s just the ideological extreme religious city which is why they are just embarking on these mindless killings. we appreciate what you do and appreciate you visit with us. congratulations to you. ambassador, thanks as well. thank you very much. coming up, andrea s interview with ken adelman, author of the new book reagan at reykjavik. it takes it through that in october of 1986 in the midst of the cold war. it was a meeting that would change the course of history. to set the scene, here s nbc s tom brokaw with an nbc news special report from raykovits. i m president reagan.
with mikhail gorbachev in reykjavik, ireland. it would set the stage for future talks. the two men at the height of their power end upped addressing the core issues of nuclear disarmament. what first appeared to be a diplomatic disaster turned out to lay the groundwork for a nuclear arms accord that would change the course of history. i m joined by ken adelman, former arms controller for president reagan. he took part in that summit in iceland and wrote the new book reagan at reykjavik: 48 hours that ended the cold war. when president reagan and gorbachev came out of that white house and their faces were so grim, it looked as though the whole thing had exploded. that all the promise and hope of their past meetings had just fallen apart. tell me what happened and how do you think it turned around. you were on the lawn, andrea. yeah. i was in the house with the president and we shared the same view that it had all absolutely
been disastrous. but then a year later, reagan s real determination and strategic plan had come about because we signed he signed and gorbachev signed the most sweeping arms control agreement in history. and then three years after that or four years after that, the soviet union fell. exactly on the terms that reagan had laid out. well, at the time, one of the things he quoted in the book, we don t know just what reagan had in mind before reykjavik but we know his mood. awfully excited. part of it was his fondness for big events. and reykjavik, despite his attempts to damp ten down, shaping up to be a very big event. he also liked negotiating. considered himself quite a master of it. he really was a good negotiator. he held out on strategic defense. he was ridiculed by many in the media. ridiculed by many so-called foreign policy experts but he was holding out for that whole card of strategic defense. and would not give it up.
the deal too much. if you fall in love with a deal and it s too important for you to get it and the details are important, you could get snookered. what s your view? the president s balancing being open to a deal with north korea without, as the majority leader there says, being too or wanting the deal too badly. has the president balanced that properly? of course kim has already won by getting a summit when there s been very little groundwork for the summit. we ve had this problem in the past where leaders go off into the woods like gorbachev and reagan at reykjavik and come back with something that the national security bureaucracies are horrified by. i think that s a possibility in this case. kim has won by the summit itself. i think we could get too down in the weeds there. i mean, compared to what we had