What was significant about the strategic arms limitation treaty SALT I that Nixon completed with the Soviet Union?

The Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty – or SALT I – was the first anti-ballistic missile treaty signed between the United States and the Soviet Union, and resulted in groundbreaking, unprecedented levels of agreement between the two ideological foes. For the first time in history, the superpowers agreed to place limits on many of their most vital armaments.
The two nations hotly debated this for over two years, beginning in November 1969 and capping with the signing of an Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms in May 1972, during the Nixons historic trip to the Soviet Union – the first for an American President. The interim agreement, which is commonly referred to as the SALT I Treaty, froze the total number of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles in each country’s respective arsenal. In order to prevent advances in destructive technology, and achieve an actual reduction in nuclear arms, the two nations began SALT II talks in November 1972 in Geneva.

Without the unique relationship between President Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, detailed more in a previous article, the swift results may not have been attained so easily. This, coupled with several dozen other game-changing factors which differentiated Nixon Administration negotiations from those of previous administrations, allowed for a different approach in regard to the Soviet Union, culminating in this agreement.

As any student of U.S. government knows, a treaty isn’t official until approved by the U.S. Congress. So although the signing took place in May, with all its fanfare and clinking of glasses, it was not until September 30, 1972 that the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty took effect – thirty-eight years ago, today.

“I think what is particularly pleasing – pleasing in the sense of how our system works – is that this agreement has had bipartisan support in the fullest sense,” noted the President. He swiftly signed the executive agreement approving the treaty in the Treaty Room (named appropriately for this matter).

According to the POTUS, the SALT I Treaty was “the beginning of a process that is enormously important that will limit now, and, we hope, later reduce the burden of arms, and thereby reduce the danger of war.” The discussions leading up to the signing also resulted in the important Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, signed along with the Interim Agreement.

Cold War history buffs will tell you that the SALT I Treaty began the process of negotiation between the superpower rivals, as this legislative giant was coupled with the ABM Treaty, soon followed by SALT II, and eventually enhanced and reformed into the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of the Reagan years.

Original Photo Caption: May 1972, Moscow, USSR — President Richard Nixon shakes hands with Leonid Brezhnev after the signing of the SALT treaty. Among those in the audience, in the front row between Nixon and Brezhnev, are Podgorny, Kosygin, and Andrei Gromyko.

Summary

The negotiations known as Strategic Arms Limitation Talks began in November 1969 and ended in January 1972, with agreement on two documents: the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. Both were signed on May 26, 1972.

Interim Agreement between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. of five-year duration which froze the number of strategic ballistic missiles at 1972 levels. Construction of additional land-based ICBM silos were prohibited, while SLBM launcher levels can be increased if corresponding reductions are made in older ICBM or SLBM launchers. Modernization of launchers is allowed, however, if kept within specific dimensions.

Narrative

SALT I, the first series of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, extended from November 1969 to May 1972. During that period the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated the first agreements to place limits and restraints on some of their central and most important armaments. In a Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems, they moved to end an emerging competition in defensive systems that threatened to spur offensive competition to still greater heights. In an Interim Agreement on Certain Measures With Respect to the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, the two nations took the first steps to check the rivalry in their most powerful land- and submarine-based offensive nuclear weapons.

Soviet and American weapons systems were far from symmetrical. The Soviet Union had continued its development and deployment of heavy ballistic missiles and had overtaken the U.S. lead in land-based ICBMs. During the SALT I years alone Soviet ICBMs rose from around 1,000 to around 1,500, and they were being deployed at the rate of some 200 annually. Soviet submarine-based launchers had quadrupled. The huge payload capacity of some Soviet missiles ("throw-weight") was seen as a possible threat to U.S. land-based strategic missiles even in heavily protected ("hardened") launch-sites.

The United States had not increased its deployment of strategic missiles since 1967 (when its ICBMs numbered 1,054 and its SLBMs 656), but it was conducting a vigorous program of equipping missiles with "Multiple Independently-targeted Re-entry Vehicles" (MIRV). "MIRVs" permit an individual missile to carry a number of warheads directed at separate targets. MIRVs thus gave the United States a lead in numbers of warheads. The United States also retained a lead in long-range bombers. The Soviet Union had a limited ABM system around Moscow; the United States had shifted from its earlier plan for a "thin" ABM defense of certain American cities and instead began to deploy ABMs at two land-based ICBM missile sites to protect its retaliatory forces. (The full program envisaged 12 ABM complexes.)

Besides these asymmetries in their strategic forces, the defense needs and commitments of the two parties differed materially. The United States had obligations for the defense of allies overseas, such as Western Europe and Japan, while the Soviet Unions allies were its near neighbors. All these circumstances made for difficulties in equating specific weapons, or categories of weapons, and in defining overall strategic equivalence.

In a summit meeting in Moscow, after two and a half years of negotiation, the first round of SALT was brought to a conclusion on May 26, 1972, when President Nixon and General Secretary Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement on strategic offensive arms.

Intensive research had gone into finding ways of verifying possible agreements without requiring access to the territory of the other side. Both the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement stipulate that compliance is to be assured by "national technical means of verification." Moreover, the agreements include provisions that are important steps to strengthen assurance against violations: both sides undertake not to interfere with national technical means of verification. In addition, both countries agree not to use deliberate concealment measures to impede verification.

Source: Department of State

What was significant about the strategic arms limitation treaty SALT I that Nixon completed with the Soviet Union quizlet?

What was the significance of the arms race and SALT?

What happened because of the strategic arms limitation talks SALT )?

What did Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev achieve by signing the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty SALT I )?