On this day, 38 years ago, on December 8, 1987 (October 18, 1987, the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union signed the INF Treaty. U.S. President Reagan (second from right) and Soviet leader Gorbachev (second from left) met in Washington in December, whispering with their subordinates during the talks. At 2:02 pm on December 8, 1987 (U.S. Eastern Time), U.S. President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev signed a treaty on the destruction of all intermediate-range and short-range nuclear missiles between the two countries in the East Room of the White House. This is the third meeting between U.S. President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev in three years in Washington. This meeting was also the 14th meeting held by the heads of state of the United States and the Soviet Union after the war. Under the treaty, the United States and the Soviet Union will destroy a total of more than 2400 nuclear warheads by 1991. These warheads are equivalent to about 4% of the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union. This treaty, signed after more than six years of difficult negotiations, is the first treaty in the history of disarmament negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union to truly reduce the number of nuclear weapons. Reagan said when signing the treaty: "We trust each other, but trust still needs to be verified. Gorbachev said: "You have repeated this sentence many times." Attachment: Previous post-war U.S. -Soviet summits. Eisenhower, Khrushchev and Bulganin held the first post-war U.S. -Soviet summit in Geneva from July 18 to 23, 1955; Eisenhower and Khrushchev met in Washington and Camp David respectively on September 15, 1959 and September 26 to 27. This was also the first time a Soviet leader visited the United States after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1933; Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Macmillan and Charles de Gaulle held a meeting in Paris from May 16 to 17, 1960; Kennedy and Khrushchev met in Vienna from June 3 to 4, 1961; Johnson and Kosykin met in Glasgow, USA from June 23 to 25, 1967; Nixon and Brezhnev met in Moscow from May 22 to 30, 1972, and the two sides signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the First Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement; From June 18 to 25, 1973, Nixon and Brezhnev held meetings in Washington, Camp David and San Clemente, and the two sides signed an agreement on the prevention of nuclear war; Nixon and Brezhnev met in Moscow and the Black Sea sanatorium from June 28 to July 3, 1974; Ford and Brezhnev met in Vladivostok from November 23 to 24, 1974, and the two sides issued a joint statement on the issue of offensive strategic weapons; Ford and Brezhnev held two talks while attending the CSCE in Helsinki; Carter and Brezhnev met in Vienna from June 15 to 18, 1979 and signed the Second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty; Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva from November 19 to 21, 1985. In a joint statement, the two sides expressed their desire to improve U.S. -Soviet relations, maintain dialogue, and accelerate arms control negotiations; from October 10 to 12, 1986, Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavik. The two sides reached preliminary agreement on reducing intermediate-range missiles and strategic weapons. However, due to great differences on space weapons, the meeting did not achieve concrete results. The US-Soviet summit held talks and shook hands and celebrated after reaching an agreement to destroy medium-and short-range missiles in Europe. Soviet leader Gorbachev (left) and U.S. President Reagan (right) formally signed the Treaty on the Destruction of Intermediate-Range and Short-Range Missiles in Washington on December 8. This is the scene of the withdrawal of the first cruise missiles from the UK Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Treaty on the Complete Destruction of Intermediate-Range Missiles between the United States and the Soviet Union in Washington