156. Editorial Note
In a statement to reporters in the White House Briefing Room on September 30, 1986, Secretary of State George Shultz announced: “This morning the Eastern District Court of New York accepted the application of Gennadiy Zakharov, a Soviet citizen assigned to the U.N. Secretariat, to plead nolo contendre to all three counts of the indictment filed against him. The court has remanded Mr. Zakharov into the custody of the Soviet Ambassador to the United States for the purpose of effecting his immediate departure from this country. It is expected that Mr. Zakharov will leave the United States this afternoon.” Shultz also announced that Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze had “informed me that Yuriy Orlov, one of the founders of the Helsinki Monitoring Group and a giant of the Soviet human rights movement, [Page 661] will be allowed to leave the Soviet Union.” Mr. Orlov and his wife were expected to depart the Soviet Union by October 7 and come to the United States. (“Statement by Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Remarks by the President on Soviet-United States Relations,” Public Papers: Reagan, 1986 vol. II, pp. 1292–1299) Shultz’s statement came one day after the departure from Moscow of Nicholas Daniloff, who had been arrested and charged with espionage on August 30. Documentation on the negotiation of Daniloff’s release is scheduled for publication in Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. V, Soviet Union, March 1985—October 1986.
Following Shultz’s statement, at approximately 10:06 a.m., President Ronald Reagan announced that “General Secretary Gorbachev and I will meet October 11th and 12th in Reykjavik, Iceland. The meeting was proposed by General Secretary Gorbachev, and I’ve accepted. And it will take place in the context of preparations for the General Secretary’s visit to the United States, which was agreed to at Geneva in November of ’85.” (“Statement by Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Remarks by the President on Soviet-United States Relations,” Public Papers: Reagan, 1986 vol. II, 1292–1299)