Reagan and Gorbachev: The Geneva Summit

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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)

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:07.0	Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it.
0:13.3	But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go?
0:19.2	I remember having this very sharp thought
0:21.7	that what you do right now,
0:23.6	this is it. This defines your life.
0:26.0	I'm ready to talk and ready to listen.
0:28.3	I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this.
0:33.9	Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast.
0:37.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:42.5	Hello, you're listening to Witness History with me, Megan Jones. Now, if this is one of your
0:48.4	favourite podcasts already, feel free to skip ahead a little bit. But if you're listening for the very
0:53.7	first time, then welcome. I want to tell you a little bit. But if you're listening for the very first time, then welcome.
0:56.0	I want to tell you a bit more about us.
0:58.7	We look at a moment in history told by the people who were there
1:02.0	and new nine minute episodes drop every weekday.
1:05.6	So if that sounds like your thing, hit subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
1:10.4	But for now, let me take you back
1:12.2	40 years ago, when two of the world's most powerful leaders met for the first time.
1:18.1	US President Ronald Reagan and leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, came together
1:23.5	at the Geneva Summit, a key moment in Cold War diplomacy. I've been working with archive material for this programme,
1:30.3	so you will hear different voices reading Gorbachev's translated words.
	...

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