(1972, 1979)
The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT I and SALT II) were the end result of negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union to slow the nuclear arms race. For decades, the two superpowers devoted many resources to researching and deploying improved rockets and more powerful warheads. By the mid-1960s, the arsenals of the two nations were more than sufficient to guarantee the destruction of the world. Talks commenced in 1969 to set limits on nuclear weapons. Gerard Smith, of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, led the official U. S. delegation, but much of the negotiations occurred between national security adviser Henry A. Kissinger and Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. After 30 months of negotiations, an agreement was reached, and President Richard M. Nixon traveled to Moscow in 1972 to sign SALT I.
Salt I was comprised of two distinct agreements. The first was the Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Arms. During the negotiations, the two sides could not agree on absolute limits, but both sides agreed to continue negotiations, while abiding by temporary force level and development limitations. The Interim Agreement was set to expire five years after it was adopted. It created a great deal of controversy during ratification because the raw numbers indicated that the Soviets could maintain a larger force than the Americans. The second part of the agreement was the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (aBm). This agreement placed limits on ballistic missile defense deployment, development, and testing. The ABM treaty was to last indefinitely with reviews every five years.
There were a number of flaws in the ABM treaty. First was the issue of verification. The Soviets would only agree to space and aerial reconnaissance and other less indirect means of checking. This made it virtually impossible to track mobile weapons systems, and to determine the number of warheads on a missile, the number of bombs on a plane, or if a missile silo even contained a missile. Although on-site inspection was deemed appropriate only for verification of treaty-mandated weapon destruction, there was considerable political pressure in the United States to reach an agreement.
The second round of talks commenced in November 1972. These talks spanned the remainder of the Nixon administration, the administration of Gerald R. Ford, and into the administration of James Earl Carter, Jr. After seven years, SALT II was signed in 1979. The treaty was viewed as a step toward arms reduction, and in that spirit was due to expire in 1985. The agreement contained a protocol limiting the testing and deployment of specific weapons systems, and a statement to guide the next round of talks.
Because it specifically outlined what was denied, loopholes opened in SALT II could be exploited by advances in engineering and technology. SALT I, on the other hand, outlined what was permissible, and anything not listed was prohibited. SALT II was never ratified. In August 1979 the Senate refused to consider the treaty after the disclosure of the presence of Soviet troops in Cuba. When the Soviet
Union invaded Afghanistan in December, President Carter withdrew the treaty from consideration.
Though it was not ratified, both nations abided by the SALT II provisions. During the presidency of Ronald W. Reagan, a new series of talks was initiated—the strategic arms reductions talks (START).
Further reading: John Newhouse, Cold Dawn: The Story of SALT (Washington, D. C.: Brasseys, 1989); Strobe Talbott, Endgame: The Inside Story of SALT II (New York: HarperCollins, 1980).
—John Korasick
World History
