Following the near-breakthrough of the previous year's
Reykjavik Summit, and much to the chagrin of many supporters of both leaders, Reagan and Gorbachev began putting resources into INF Treaty negotiations. This, in addition to various troubles foreign and domestic in both countries led to a tense time preceding the Washington Summit. For Reagan, trouble with
the stock market, failure to win approval for Supreme-Court-nominee
Robert Bork, and the
Iran-Contra scandal were all generating political pressure. Also, criticism from an uncharacteristically large number of notable conservatives including former President
Richard Nixon, former Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger, commentator
William Buckley, as well as members of his own administration resulted in a contentious political atmosphere around the INF Treaty. Gorbachev too was encountering opposition, not only the INF treaty negotiations, but also his
Perestroika reform programs. Despite replacing over 150 senior defense ministers and officers after the
Mathias Rust incident, Gorbachev's frustrations were only compounded when just two months before the Washington Summit was held, then-candidate member of the
Politburo and supporter of Gorbachev,
Boris Yeltsin, denounced the Soviet General Secretary and resigned from his post in an unprecedented and highly controversial move. Though, according to Reagan's Secretary of State
George P. Shultz, the Soviet leader was unusually contentious during their late-October meeting in Moscow to finalize the terms of the INF treaty, "Shultz had barely unpacked his bags back in Washington before word came from Moscow that Gorbachev wanted the summit to take place soon.
Shevardnadze would be in Washington within two days to see to the final details of the INF Treaty and the summit". Thus, in spite of outside complications, by the time the summit was set to take place, most of the details relating the INF Treaty had already been worked out. At least a week before the meeting,
The New York Times reported that "The Soviet leader and President Reagan are scheduled to sign a treaty Dec. 8 eliminating their nations' shorter-range and medium-range missiles", although the newspaper also said that discussion regarding "reducing long-range, strategic nuclear weapons" was encountering obstacles. ==Summit schedule==