Profiles in Leadership - Reagan's Courage

In 1986, President Reagan met with Gorbachev in Reykjavik to discuss nuclear disarmament, among many other things. From Architects of Victory quoting An American Life:

Then, after everything had been decided, or so I thought, Gorbachev threw us a curve. With a smile on his face he said: "This all depends of course, on you giving up SDI." I couldn't believe it and blew my top. "I've said again and again the SDI wasn't a bargaining chip. I've told you, if we find out that the SDI is practical and feasible, we'll make that information know to you and everyone else so that nuclear weapons can be made obsolete. Now, with all we have accomplished here, you do this and throw in this roadblock and everything is out the window..."

Gorbachev heard the translation of my remarks, but he wasn't listening. He wouldn't budge from his position....I was getting angrier and angrier. I realized that he had brought me to Iceland with one purpose: to kill the Strategic Defense Initiative. he must have known from the beginning that he was going to bring it up at the last minute.

"The meeting is over," I said. "Let's go, George, we're leaving."

Reagan's Communication's Director Patrick Buchanan had this to say:

This was a triumph. What you saw then was the character of this man. He hated nuclear weapons, but he believed in the defense of his country. He believed in SDI and he was willing to blow up a summit over it. But when it was done, he knew he had done what he believed was right.

But for me, that was the moment that said it about Reagan. It was his general serenity in his beliefs. His conviction that—as he used to say—as he would point to the ceiling, “The rest of time I’ve got”—after the shooting—“belongs to Him.”

I think fundamentally Reagan’s success was due to the fact that his beliefs and his principles were correct and they corresponded perfectly with the time he was in.