US and Soviet Relations, 1986
On January 1st 1986 US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev extended New Year’s greetings to each other’s nations on television. This was an extension of the two nation’s warming relations that started in Geneva in 1985.
Diplomacy was tested in September when Nicholas Daniloff, an American journalist, was arrested in Moscow by the KGB and accused of spying. Seemingly the Soviets had arrested Daniloff in retaliation for the arrest three days earlier of Gennadi Zakharov, an employee of the Soviet UN Mission. Both men were released later in the month.
