ABSTRACT
The first summit was held in Rambouillet, France, on 15-17 November 1975. The participants were the Five (France, the US, the UK, Germany, and Japan) plus Italy. The Rambouillet meeting was originally intended by some of the participants-and presented by all of them-as a one-time get-together of the leaders, but US President Gerald Ford decided to call another such conference the following year. That summit, with Canada joining for the first time, met in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on 27-28 June 1976. With San Juan, the summit became a regular annual event, taking place in strictly determined rotation among the Group of Seven (G7) countries: France, US, UK, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada. The 1977 London Summit saw the European Community (EC) become a participant (then and still a less-than equal one). The complex issue of Russian participation is discussed in Chapter 3. Table 2.1 shows the places and dates of the twenty-four annual summit meetings held from 1975 to 1998 as well as the 1999 summit.
