Witness History17 Nov 2025

Reagan and Gorbachev: The Geneva Summit

Forty years ago, in November 1985, two of the world’s most powerful leaders met for the first time.

With Cold War tensions running high and the nuclear arms race dominating global politics, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came together for the first time at the Geneva Summit.

Using archive recordings, Megan Jones explores what happened during this landmark meeting.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan at the Geneva Summit 1985. Credit: Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

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