Bush met with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at the Malta Summit in December 1989 , just after the fall of the Berlin Wall . His administration had been under intense pressure to meet with the Soviets , but not all initially found the conference to be a step in the right direction . General Brent Scowcroft , among others , was apprehensive about the meeting , saying that it might be " premature " due to concerns that , according to Condoleezza Rice , " expectations would be set that something was going to happen , where the Soviets might grandstand and force the U.S. into agreements that would ultimately not be good for the United States . " European leaders , including François Mitterrand and Margaret Thatcher , encouraged Bush to meet with Gorbachev . Although no agreements were signed , the meeting was received as an important step to the end of the Cold War . When asked about nuclear war , Gorbachev responded , " I assured the President of the United States that the Soviet Union would never start a hot war against the United States of America , and we would like our relations to develop in such a way that they would open greater possibilities for cooperation ... . This is just the beginning . We are just at the very beginning of our road , long road to a long-lasting , peaceful period . " Another summit was held in July 1991 , where the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty ( START I ) was signed by Bush and Gorbachev in Moscow . The treaty took nine years to negotiate , and was the first major arms agreement since the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987 . The contentions in START would reduce the strategic nuclear weapons of the United States and the USSR by about 35 % over seven years , and the Soviet Union 's land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles would be cut by 50 % . Bush described START as " a significant step forward in dispelling half a century of mistrust "
Malta Summit
Malta Summit
George H. W. Bush