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In an effort to wind down the Cold War, Ronald Reagan met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who had been promoting "Glasnost" (Openness), at home. 1983 saw two major crises in foreign affairs: the U.S. invasion of Grenada and the Beirut Bombing. The proposal for a Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) drew mixed reviews in Congress. The Iran-Contra Affair erupted in 1986 and the United States bombed Libya in retaliation for an earlier bombing in West Berlin. George H.W. Bush was the victor in the Election of 1988 and presided over the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the communist regimes, ending the Cold War. In 1991 Bush organized a broad coalition that forced the invader Iraq from Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War. Bush also sent American soldiers to Panama to remove General Manuel Noriega. The Election of 1992 brought Bill Clinton to the White House. He surfed the wave crest of the country’s greatest bull market, but was politically hobbled by the Monica Lewinsky and other similar scandals and the resulting impeachment. The Election of 2000 was hotly contested due to voting irregularities and required the involvement of the U.S. Supreme Court to select the President.
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