In the mid-1980s, both the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in a Cold War struggle, but both nations sought to reduce the total number of nuclear weapons.

[1] Diplomats struggled to come up with planned results in advance, with Soviets rejecting the vast majority of the items that U.S. negotiators proposed.

[2] The Geneva Summit was planned months in advance, so both superpowers had the opportunity to posture and to stake their positions in the court of public opinion.

Each day's events occurred at different locations in and around Geneva:[6] On November 19, 1985, Reagan and Gorbachev met for the first time at Fleur d'Eau.

[7] When the Soviet motorcade deposited Gorbachev at the driveway of Fleur d'Eau's eastern facade, Reagan emerged from the villa without his coat to greet him.

[6]: 650–651 During their first private meeting, Gorbachev told Reagan of information he had received from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, specifically the Institute for Earth Studies, where the scientists had become convinced that there would be a major earthquake in an area of California and Nevada by 1988.

[a][6]: 655 According to Secretary of State George Shultz, Reagan and Gorbachev's first private meeting exceeded their time limit by over a half an hour.

[16] Speaking with a group of Maryland high school students shortly after the summit about his second private meeting with Gorbachev, Reagan disclosed that he had discussed the topic of an alien invasion, saying, "I couldn't help but say to him, just think how easy his task and mine might be if suddenly there was a threat to this world from some other species from another planet outside in the universe.

"[18] In a 2009 interview, Gorbachev confirmed that during their second private meeting Reagan had asked if the Soviet Union would help if the U.S. was invaded by aliens from space.

[6]: 705 Members of the Reagan Administration were said to have privately lamented what they considered to be an insufficient focus on human rights issues at the summit.

[6]: 695 On November 21, 1985, at Geneva's International Conference Center (CICG), Reagan and Gorbachev held a joint press conference announcing several agreements, including implementation of the already signed Northern Pacific Air Safety accord that aimed at preventing a repeat of the Soviet downing of Korean Airlines Flight 007 in September 1983.

[22] At the end of the summit, Reagan gave Gorbachev a Colonial Williamsburg Chippendale-style mahogany box and desk set with fountain pens, carrying the theme "peace through communications", selected in honor of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.‑Soviet Apollo–Soyuz space mission.

According to Jack Matlock, instances during the summit which seemed to register most with the public consciousness, such as Reagan's missing overcoat and the pool house's roaring fireplace, showcased the role that public relations—in particular, the use of imagery—played in helping to convey the president's preferred messages, since in the Reagan White House, "few questions received more attention".

It was Henkel's idea to have a fire in the fireplace when Reagan invited Gorbachev to stop in for a private chat during their planned walk around the Villa's grounds.

However, not having run election campaigns and with little experience dealing with Western journalists, they were no match for their American counterparts when it came to setting the stage to make their man look good.

[28] With regards to the summit's final ceremony, both Reagan and Shultz pressed Gorbachev to agree to having the two leaders perform a more visual verbal statement in front of the assembled press and television cameras in addition to the signing ceremony, arguing that "if these leaders were simply present and went through the business of signing documents, it would not be the same thing as having them actually speak.

The memorandum of conversations shows Gorbachev having difficulty with the apparent disingenuousness of warm-sounding verbal statements as opposed to the colder reality of a written communique, saying that ultimately, there "was no need for rose-colored glasses":"Gorbachev noted that one other thing bothered him, namely, that having produced a document the sides do not believe in themselves; commenting on it, even briefly and generally, would only serve to strengthen and reaffirm the content of that document.