Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)

From 1969 to 1979, negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union that resulted in treaties (SALT I and SALT II) to reduce the proliferation of [Page 680]nuclear arms. SALT I is an acronym for the first series of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks held from 1969 to 1972 between the United States and the Soviet Union. The talks resulted in a number of agreements reducing the offensive nuclear arsenals of the two superpowers. A second round of talks (SALT II) occurred between 1972 and 1979 and focused on curtailing the manufacture of strategic nuclear weapons.

Salt I (1969–1972)

The late 1960s was a period of change in the character of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviets were deploying heavy land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as well as ICBMs launched from submarines (SLBMs) at a rate of about 200 per year beginning in 1968.

Meanwhile, the U.S. nuclear arsenal had remained at 1,054 ICBM and 656 SLBM since 1967, but the United States was deploying more multiple independently targeted reentry vehicle (MIRV) warheads that enabled a single missile to attack as many as 10 separate targets. The United States had a substantial lead in long-range bombers as well. Both nations had developed and deployed antiballistic missile systems.

Essentially, the arms race was moving toward a stalemate as both nations had the capability to destroy one another several times over. On November 17, 1969, representatives of the superpowers held the first of a series of negotiations in Helsinki, Finland. Further sessions alternated between Helsinki and Vienna, Austria.

After protracted negotiations, the United States and Soviet Union reached an agreement on antiballistic missiles in May 1971. The negotiations ultimately culminated in the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and the Interim Agreement Between the US and the USSR on Certain Measures With Respect to the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the so-called SALT I treaties). U.S. President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev signed the treaties in Moscow on May 26, 1972. In the treaties, both sides agreed to reduce the number of ICBMs and ABMs, but the United States refused to reduce the number of MIRV warheads.

Salt II (1972–1979)

Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were less successful than President Nixon in the subsequent Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), which lasted from 1972 to 1979. President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met with Brezhnev and agreed to reductions in the number of missiles, but Soviet treatment of its Jewish citizens chilled relations between the superpowers. When President Carter proposed even deeper cuts, Brezhnev refused.

Threatened by improved U.S. relations with China and a deteriorating economy, Brezhnev finally met with President Carter in Vienna in 1979 and the leaders signed a treaty. The SALT II treaty limited each nation to 2,250 nuclear missiles with no more than 1,320 MIRVs. The U.S. Senate balked at the treaty, however, and when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, U.S.-Soviet relations again deteriorated. The U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty, although both nations honored its terms. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan announced a new round of negotiations, the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START), to replace the SALT treaties. START resulted in subsequent agreements to reduce nuclear weapons.

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