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SALT and ABM.

The talks on the SALT- and ABM-treaties were mainly conducted by Kissinger via the hotline with Dobrynin. Stephen Ambrose admits that Kissinger’s way of handling the talks had been brilliant, but not as important as the “confluence of events and needs.” First of all, he states, the two superpowers had to “reduce the dangers and costs of the arms race.”

The American strategy in the 1960s had been MAD, “Mutually Assured Destruction”, which roughly said that each side had developed such capacities as to destroy the other in a retaliatory second strike. Both the Soviet Union and the United States relied on their nuclear arsenal as second strike-weapons, although not ruling out to use them for a first strike if necessary. But missiles then had been so inaccurate that they were not very useful in a first strike.

MAD said that once each superpower had the ability to destroy the enemy, it would not need to add more missiles. The Soviet Union, however, did not subscribe to MAD and kept on building weapons in order to outnumber American warheads with their launchers. A disarming counterforce strike then wouldn’t work as the United States would not be able to destroy the Soviet arsenal in a retaliatory second strike. An additional problem posed the U.S. stationing their nuclear arsenal on the sea as well as in space and on the ground. Although by doing so they were more flexible, “only land-based ICBMs would possess counterforce capacity for many years” (Thornton, XXI), that is can be MIRVed and turned into offensive weapons. Both nations improved the weapon’s technology, and with “Minutemen” the USA was clearly ahead of its enemy. But still the U.S. had a disadvantage.

The ABM-treaty, however, was necessary, because the U.S. had developed a Missile Defense System during the Johnson Years (“Sentinel”), which was to protect American cities. Nixon improved it when starting “Safeguard”, only no longer used it to protect major cities but the American nuclear weapons. Although Nixon was fond of ABM, he did not get the funding from Congress. The Soviet Union, however, also went ahead with Missile Defense, building a small system around Moscow. The ABM-treaty allowed each nation to install two systems to protect cities, not missiles. "SALT II" later reduced it to one system per nation, and finally the U.S. gave up its right for building even one properly. That is why President Geory W. Bush now had to cancel the ABM-treaty in order to employ his Missile Defense.

The "SALT I" treaty of 1972 put the USA in an 3:1 advantage over the Soviet Union. It allowed the Soviets 1.600 offensive missiles and the Americans 1.054. The treaty did not include MIRVs (Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles), because the parties could not agree on that issue. The U.S. were in advantage here. The treaty also included a limit on nuclear submarines, where the U.S. outnumbered the SU by 41:30.

Department of Defense and Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) did not know of Kissinger’s talks with Dobrynin, got news of them only in 1971. This experience led to Yeoman Charles Radford leaking documents to Admiral Robert O. Welander and Thomas Moorer, the Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff.