A month later, and almost three years since Samantha Smith wrote to the Kremlin, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev met in Geneva, Switzerland, agreeing to intensify discussions between the superpowers.

Source: https://nypost.com/2023/06/18/the-girl-who-tried-to-bring-peace-between-the-us-and-the-soviet-union/

Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” speech at the Berlin wall in 1987 was a more significant factor.

Source: https://talkbusiness.net/2023/09/space-issues/

Increasingly, Gorbachev was being pulled in two different directions by democrats who wanted even greater freedoms and autonomy for the republics and conservatives who wanted to end the reforms that they believed were breaking the union apart.

Source: http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2023/12/end-of-soviet-union-and-legacy-of.html

In March 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev gained the Soviet Communist Party’s position of general secretary.

Source: https://spectator.org/the-murderous-soviet-union-was-born-a-century-ago/

See “How Gorbachev was misled over assurances against NATO expansion” https://natowatch.

Source: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/02/alasdair-macleod/a-tale-of-two-worlds/