may 26, 1972 - The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) end in the signing of the ABM treaty by Nixon and Brezhnev

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SALT I is one of multiple events and treaties that make up a period known as Detente - and easing or cooling of relations.

"Failures of Marxism-Leninism to meet the expectations held out for it: states like Poland, Hungary, and East-Germany now faced a stagnant, even declining, standard of living – all the more depressing when contrasted with the prosperity of West Germany and the rest of Western Europe. Military intervention could never solve that problem; indeed it would probably worsen it by provoking western economic sanctions. It made sense, then, to seek detent with the US, for only that could ensure the continued stability of the Soviet sphere of influence in Easter Europe" (Gaddis 2006, p. 153)


"Signed by Nixon and Brezhnev at the Moscow summit, the SALT I accords, as the came to be called, were significant for several reasons. They reflected recognition on the part of both superpowers that a continuing arms race could only make them less secure. They represented an acknowledgment on the part of the US that the Soveit Union was now its equal in nuclear capability, and in some categories of weaponry its superior. They legitimized the logical of Mutual Assured Destruction: that remaining defenceless against a nuclear attack was the best way to keep one from happening. And they accepted satellite reconnaissance as a method of verifying compliance with these agreements." (Gaddis 2006, p. 200)

"The complexity of the argument (SALT I) made it difficult to seel to the US congress….that left an opening for Senator Henry Jackson – whose Jackon-Vanik amendment would soon strain Soviet-American relations in another way –to secure passage of a resolution requiring that all subsequent arms control agreements provide for numerical equality in all weapons systems covered." (Gaddis 2006, p. 200)

"The complexity of the argument (SALT I) made it difficult to seel to the US congress….that left an opening for Senator Henry Jackson – whose Jackon-Vanik amendment would soon strain Soviet-American relations in another way –to secure passage of a resolution requiring that all subsequent arms control agreements provide for numerical equality in all weapons systems covered" (Gaddis 2006, p. 201)

"It had taken two and a half years to negotiate the 1972 SALT I agreements, which tolerated asymmetries. The SALT II negations, which could not, were sill dragging on when the Ford administration left office five years later." (Gaddis 2006, p. 201)

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