An Ideal Weekend Getaway

By Amy Wilentz

The first snow of the season was already swirling down from Iceland's granite skies, softening the roar of the large, dark cargo jets descending over the treeless, volcanic landscape. Some, decorated with the silver stars and blue insignia of the U.S. Air Force, taxied past the familiar F-15s and AWACS surveillance planes stationed on the vast NATO base at Keflavik. Others, boasting the red star of the Soviet Union, looked jarringly out of place. Red and blue alike, the cargo planes thudded down on the asphalt and roared to a halt on Keflavik's 10,000-ft. runway, disgorging advance teams, communications specialists, security agents, photocopiers, computers, television cameras and cables for this weekend's minisummit 32 miles away in the capital city of Reykjavik (pronounced Rake-yah-veek).

No sooner had the meeting been announced than the usually calm, almost phlegmatic capital (pop. 87,000 -- about the size of Sioux City, Iowa) began madcap preparations for the onslaught of some 1,500 journalists and White House and Kremlin staffers who are to accompany President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev. Reykjavik's several hundred rental cars were immediately snapped up, and the hardy Icelanders, whose unyielding environment has taught them to take advantage of every opportunity, began offering private cars for rent.

Advance men scoured the city for accommodations. "The object," said a White House aide, "is to get two men in a room." It was unclear if he was talking about getting the two leaders together or about doubling up reporters and staffers in a limited number of hotel rooms.

The Icelandic government quickly took matters in hand. Prime Minister Steingrimur Hermannsson, granted emergency powers, commandeered the four largest central hotels. Tourists on an Icelandair promotion package were ordered to clear out early. That opened up space for only 916 visitors, but again entrepreneurial Icelanders promptly filled the gap. Houses and apartments in central Reykjavik were renting for an unheard of $6,000 to $7,000 for the summit week. "This is a chance of a lifetime," said one woman. "I'd much rather be in Majorca anyway." The Soviet Union plans to solve the space crunch by sending one or more cruise ships to Reykjavik harbor to act as floating hotels for reporters and support workers.

Not since the highly publicized 1972 chess match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in Reykjavik has Iceland (pop. 240,000) been the focus of such intense superpower attention. The summit, proudly wrote an editorialist in Morgunbladid, the island's largest daily newspaper, "puts Iceland in the spotlight as firmly as it has ever been."

For centuries Iceland has been far from the vortex of global affairs. Even the story of its founding illustrates its distance from the rest of the world. In 874, so the legend goes, the Viking chieftain Ingolfur Arnarson tossed some wooden pillars out to sea, vowing to settle the land wherever they washed up. They apparently came to rest in a western bay of Iceland, where Arnarson soon established the small fishing village of Reykjavik (meaning Bay of Smoke, after the numerous geothermal springs that supply the city's heating and keep its streets ice-free in winter).

By the year 930, the islanders had established the Althing, a republican legislature that endures to this day as the oldest parliament in the world. Their isolation kept them proud and self-reliant, and Iceland's language remained pure; it still is very close to Old Norse, and a committee monitors all neologisms. An idiosyncratic literature has developed based on the Viking sagas, which relate the nation's early history. Today Iceland has a 99.9% literacy rate, one of the highest in the world, while maintaining some curious folk traditions: a survey by the University of Iceland reported that nearly 65% of the population believe in elves and other supernatural creatures. Indeed, the Hofdi guesthouse, Reykjavik's official residence for visitors and the likely site of the summit meetings, is widely believed to be haunted.

Although its people think of themselves as neutral, Iceland has been a NATO member since 1949. The country has neither an army nor a navy, but the Keflavik base, which monitors Soviet ship traffic in the crucial North Atlantic sea-lanes, is staffed by some 3,000 U.S. military personnel. When Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze was discussing the summit, he told reporters that his delegation knew they would be safe in Reykjavik. Why? "You (Americans) have a very big base there," he said, smiling.

The summit will give Gorbachev a chance to further a long-standing Soviet foreign policy goal of wooing Iceland out of NATO. The Kremlin has been more than cordial, backing Iceland on international matters even when it was not in Moscow's immediate interest to do so. During the so-called cod wars of the 1950s and '70s, when Iceland gradually enlarged its territorial control of fishing rights to 200 miles, the Soviets protested but nevertheless became the first major nation to recognize the new limits. In return, Iceland expanded its trade with Moscow and now provides the Soviets with about one-fifth of their frozen fish and 80% of their salted herring. The island buys 90% of its petroleum supplies from the Soviet Union.

"Iceland had a glorious dawn, and has lain in twilight ever since," wrote British Historian James Bryce after an 1872 visit to the island. "It is hardly possible that she should again be called on to play a part in history." This week, however, Iceland's very remoteness has thrust it onto center stage. President Reagan reportedly chose Reykjavik over London for this meeting to minimize distractions. The driving force behind this superpower outing, according to both Soviet and U.S. officials, is "less is best." In attracting the two leaders, Iceland's spartan isolation may have been its major selling point.

With reporting by Hope Millington and Christopher Ogden/Reykjavik