At the time, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreements were the most far-reaching attempts to control nuclear weapons ever.
Nixon and Brezhnev seemed unlikely candidates for the American and Soviet statesmen who would sign a groundbreaking arms limitation treaty, as both had the reputations of being hard-line Cold War warriors.
Yet, by 1972, both leaders were eager for closer diplomatic relations between their respective nations.
The Soviet Union was engaged in an increasingly hostile war of words with communist China, and border disputes between the two nations had erupted in the past few years.
The United States was looking for help in extricating itself from the unpopular and costly war in Vietnam.
It’s believed that Nixon in particular, wished to take the American public’s mind off the fact that during nearly four years as president, he had failed to bring an end to the conflict.
The May 1972 summit meeting between Nixon and Brezhnev was an opportune moment to pursue the closer relations each desired.
The most important element of the summit concerned the SALT agreements.
Discussions on SALT had been ongoing for about two-and-a-half years, but with little progress.
During the May 1972 meeting between Nixon and Brezhnev, however, a monumental breakthrough was achieved.
The SALT agreements signed on 27 May addressed two major issues of the Cold War.
First, they limited the number of antiballistic missile (ABM) sites each country could have to two (ABMs were missiles designed to destroy incoming missiles).
Second, the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles was frozen at existing levels.
In August 1972, the US Senate approved the agreements by an overwhelming vote. SALT-I, as it came to be known, was the foundation for all the arms limitations talks that followed.
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