1986

January 4
A cylinder of Uranium hexafluoride, a chemical used in nuclear-fuel production, is improperly heated at a Kerr-McGee plant at Gore, Oregon. One worker dies and 100 are hospitalized.

January 15
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons by the year 2000. He states, "No one must be indifferent or stand aloof in the matter of preserving peace and saving mankind from the threat of nuclear war. This concerns each and everyone. Each state, large or small, socialist or capitalist, has an important contribution to make. Every responsible political party, every mass organization and every individual also has an important role to play. No task is more urgent, more noble and humane than to unite all efforts to achieve this lofty goal. The task is to be accomplished by people of our generation without shifting it onto the shoulders of those who succeed us. That is the bidding of our time or, if you like, the burden of historic responsibility for our decision and action in the time that remains until the beginning of the third millennium."

April 16
The Missile Technology Control Regime is established.

April 26
An uncontrolled surge of power, followed by fire and an explosion, at reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sends a radioactive cloud around the world and contaminates large areas in the Ukraine and Byelorussia. Some 50 million curies of radiation are released.

June
Stonewalled by the US Navy's "neither confirm nor deny" policy, the New Zealand Labor government passes the world's first statute barring entry to all nuclear powered and nuclear armed naval vessels. Because the US refuses to compromise its position even for vessels known not to be nuclear powered or capable of carrying nuclear weapons, this bans port visits by all US Navy ships until President George W. Bush retires most nonstrategic naval nuclear weapons in 1991.

September 26
The Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident is adopted.

The Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency is adopted.

September 30
Israeli agents kidnap Mordechai Vanunu , a nuclear technician at Israel's Dimona nuclear installation from 1976 to 1985. Days later, the London Sunday Times publishes the evidence he released, which leads experts to conclude that Israel may have stockpiled up to 200 nuclear warheads. Vanunu is tried in secrecy in Israel, convicted of treason and espionage, and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. Vanunu states, "I have sacrificed my freedom and risked my life in order to expose the danger of nuclear weapons which threatens this whole region. I acted on behalf of all citizens and all of humanity."

October 3
A fire breaks out aboard the Soviet Yankee Class nuclear submarine K-219 in the Atlantic about 400 miles east of Bermuda. Heroic efforts by crew members prevent a reactor meltdown that could have contaminated the East coast of the U.S. and Canada. The submarine sinks three days later.

October 11-12
President Ronald Reagan and President Mikhail Gorbachev meet at Reykjavik, Iceland. At the summit, the two presidents seriously discuss the possibility of nuclear abolition, only to have the talks break down over Reagan's refusal to abandon his plans to develop the Strategic Defense Initiative.

October 27
The Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident enters into force.

December 11
South Pacific Nuclear-Free-Zone Treaty enters into force.