Arms Control Since Hiroshima

 

 

 

naval disarmament policy came close to being just another aspect ofU. S. naval policy. Naval officers often argued for new naval disarmament treaties not because they were idealistically committed to them, but rather because they were convinced that they could not get sufficient funds for new construction from the Congress. That being the case they frequently felt that the °nly way of maintaining our relative naval strength was through disarmament diplomacy. If that were true in the interwar period, it is even more true today. Since the penalties of failure arc now so much greater than they were in the 1920s and 1930s, our arms control

On j October 1972, President Nixon and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko exchanged copies of documents to bring into full effect the strategic arms limitation agreements between the two nations. The U. S. proclamation of the treaty (above) was countersigned by the President and by William P. Rogers, Secretary of State.

policy must be more closely integrated with our arms policy than ever before.

The most significant political change wrought by World War II was that a bipolar system was substituted for the old multipolar one. Thus, the prime determinant of the postwar arms control experience was the relationship between the United States and Russia. For purposes of arms control, this relationship may conveniently be considered in three phases. First, there was the period of American nuclear monopoly; second, the era of declining American superiority; and finally, the time of rough strategic parity.

The period of American monopoly was one of intransigence and the absence of arms control progress. The Cold War was at its height. It began with the Baruch Plan and ended with the explosion of the first Russian atomic device in 1949.

The time of declining American superiority began in 1949 and ended sometime not long after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Considerable hostility remained through this era, and for most of the time the unity of the opposing Cold War camps remained intact. Arms control negotiations were occasionally undertaken with some sincerity, but more often the prime motivation was the achievement of national advantage.

The third period, that of strategic equality, has been marked by declining unity on both sides. It appears that several significant political and strategic changes took place during this period. These made possible some relatively minor arms control agreements and caused some statesmen to take arms control more seriously than they had at any time in the past. The era of strategic equality began after the Cuban Crisis, and it shows more signs of stability than either of the two earlier phases.

The phase of U. S. atomic hegemony was a traumatic time for an America beset by conflicting emotions. On the one hand there was the feeling that the country had been betrayed by its own leaders during the last weeks before Pearl Harbor and during the wartime conferences. Americans were distressed that their great effort in the war had not improved their security—it was worse than it had been in the 1930s. On the other hand, there was self-doubt. Had our submarines already won the war against Japan when the bomb was dropped? Was our B-29 conventional bombing campaign on the point of victory when Hiroshima was flattened? Had we needlessly incinerated tens of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians? All of these things created the longing to make this war really become the war to end all wars. One response to this longing was the attempt to build a bigger and better League of Nations: the United Nations. Another was to resume the quest for arms control.

Some authors have said that the goals of arms control during the phases of hegemony and superiority were not peace and economy at all. They have suggested that, during these phases, at least, the objectives of the arms controllers were merely to score as many points as possible for their own nations through gamesmanship and propaganda. The memoir literature of the period is, naturally, not nearly as cynical. Harry Truman, Dean Acheson, and even Bernard Baruch all protest their ideological motivation though they all admit to sometimes being governed by tactical considerations. Though the best historians of the subject, Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, have their reservations about the Truman policy, they seem to agree that the Baruch Plan was a sincere effort to achieve both nuclear arms control and enduring peace.

The United States and Russia developed their postwar arms control policies along lines very similar to those presented by Klaus Knorr, who said that there are two extreme models for a disarmed world. The "supranational model” was used by the United States in the development of its arms control policy from the Baruch Plan (1946) forward. From the start, the Russians have employed an "international model” in the formulation of their disarmament policy. The supranational scheme "calls for a powerful world police force that, in terms of authority and capability, would effectively centralize the use of military force on behalf of a disarmed and warless world.” At the opposite extreme, Knorr finds that the "international model” supported by the Russians "specifies weak or no supranational institutions, including a weak or no international police force, and leaves change to be wrought by national pressures.” These two models were to receive their most elaborate expression between 1959 and 1962 in the American and Russian proposals for General and Complete Disarmament (GCD). However, many of the main features of the models were apparent in the initial post-Hiroshima effort at arms control.

The first attempt at postwar arms limitation was taken soon after Nagasaki, but it did not at the outset much resemble the supranational scheme cited above. President Truman commissioned a distinguished group of scientists and statesmen to undertake investigations looking toward the establishment of an international system for the control of nuclear power. The Committee, led by Dean Acheson and supported by an advisory board under David Lilienthal, conducted extensive de- liberations and finished its report early in 1946. Perhaps the Acheson-Lilienthal Report favored the so-called internationalist model for arms control since it did not foresee that the interests of the victim of violations would be protected against the violator through the application of force or other coercion on the part 0

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Arms Control Since Hiroshima

^Sllpranational agency. Rather, it proposed that the %ol, production, and ownership of all nuclear mate- should be vested in an international agency under ^c supervision of the United Nations. Ultimately, ""'ever, adherence to the terms of the arms control ^Sr>gemcnts would depend either on international ?^0cl faith, or unilateral responses to violations. In fact, goal of the Acheson-Lilienthal Plan was not eternal Rather, it was merely to assure that the United ^ites would receive timely warning of any aggressor’s A toward nuclear armament.

The Acheson-Lilienthal proposals were destined to Modified in a crucial way—so crucial that the result- ^ plan would approach the supranational model. The ^iCldent provides a classic example of how American ^Jr0estic politics can affect the formulation of its for- policy. President Truman believed very strongly ⁴ the development of American nuclear energy _r‘°^uld be controlled by civilians, not the military. The Egress, in the spring of 1946, seemed resolved to ;^>e the military a determining voice in nuclear policy, ^an felt that one way in which he could improve ^le chances of his program for nuclear energy would ^t0 appoint Bernard Baruch as U. S. representative ⁽he U.N. Atomic Energy Commission—Baruch had N friends in Congress who might prove helpful in ^l'^Sl)ring civilian control of nuclear energy.

^he appointment of Baruch probably did help in ^c creation of a civilian-controlled Atomic Energy '^mission. His reputation as the elder statesman of democratic Party, an astute businessman, and an Sclent wartime mobilizer of American industrial p‘!>ht, duly impressed some conservative members of ,°ⁿgress. The final vote was in Truman’s favor. The difficulty was that Baruch was not at all in sympa- • with the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, and he °^ught that he should have a voice in the formulation American nuclear policy. Even that would not have I Rented a major difficulty except that the Report was , ^cd to the press (through a Congressional Commit- j ^cording to Acheson). The leak outraged Baruch : ^t‘*c felt that it would deny him a significant voice policy-making process. He wrote to the President gening not to represent the United States at the ^n,ted Nations, and Truman found it necessary to j'he the elder statesman with conciliatory words.

^ hus it came to pass that Bernard Baruch succeeded A^cting American nuclear policy in significant ways.

Original Acheson-Lilienthal Report was conceived p^me of the best brains in the country, and it _t^P°sed a scheme of international control of nuclear _r|)t^r£y with the safeguard of on-site inspections of all ^ '°ⁿs—something which would have been tough for ^C Russians to accept in any event. Baruch, however,

believed that armaments were wholly the symptom of the disease of international political insecurity—that weapons themselves could not be the source of insecurity. Further, he felt that history had shown that disarmament measures without firm controls were worse than futile for they undermined national security and made war all the more probable. Baruch’s answer was to go a step beyond the Report and to demand that any agreement provide that violators be punished by sanctions and that the veto power in the U.N. Security Council be made inapplicable in matters having to do with such sanctions. In effect, Baruch changed the goal of nuclear arms control from ensuring against surprise atomic attack to eliminating war altogether. This was a serious mistake, according to Acheson, because it made it utterly inevitable that the Russians would reject our proposals and that our arms control effort would fail. Acheson felt that the enforcement of the provisions of the agreement would have been neither practical nor important. What was vital to him was that the agreement make certain that the United States would receive timely warning of Russian violations so that it could undertake unilateral measures to meet any new threat.

Indeed the Russians did reject the American proposals, and they were ready with a substitute suggestion-one which would have been as bad for the Americans as the Baruch Plan would have been for the Russian strategic interests (as the U.S.S.R. conceived them, at least). The Russian plan insisted upon abolishing the nuclear stockpile first, and then negotiating the control measures against nuclear rearmament. Of course, this was totally unacceptable to the United States for we were in the midst of dismantling our conventional forces and the Russian plan would have left us completely defenseless. Thus, an impasse was reached in short order. Baruch forced a vote in the Atomic Energy Commission of the United Nations late in 1946. Though the majority favored the American plan, Russian cooperation was not to be had. Without it, there was little hope for international control of nuclear armaments.

The remaining years of the period of American hegemony were filled with intense international hostility and the problem was one of rearmament, not disarmament. No significant progress was made in arms control until well after the United States had lost its nuclear monopoly.

In the era of declining U. S. nuclear superiority, there was scarcely less East-West hostility than there had been during the preceding phase. The Russians exploded their first nuclear device in 1949. Immediately afterward, the United States found itself fighting the

Korean War with one hand, and building up the economic and military strength of its European allies with the other. At home, McCarthy ism did nothing to lessen the tensions of the Cold War, or to promote the cause of arms control. From the demise of the Baruch Plan until the end of the Korean War, serious disarmament negotiations were simply out of the question.

The picture did brighten a bit after the elections of 1952. The new Republican President was able to make peace in Korea. At about the same time, in August of 1953, the Russians exploded their first H-bomb. Stalin died that year. There seemed to be hope for a thaw in the Cold War, and Winston Churchill began moves towards a Summit meeting. It was not that easy.

There still were several factors inhibiting rapprochement. The Republican Party was even more ideologically opposed to the Communists than were their predecessors. McCarthyism had not yet abated. The Grand Old Party cherished its image of frugality, and it attempted to bring a new thriftiness to government through economies in defense spending—"more bang for the buck.” This meant greater reliance on bigger and better nuclear weapons, otherwise known as the strategy of "massive retaliation.” Whatever else it was, "more bang for the buck” could hardly have done much to ease Russian minds and coax them towards disarmament negotiations.

Before long, the United States and the U.S.S.R. agreed to a summit meeting. The conference opened in Geneva during mid-July 1955, and after four days of preliminaries, President Dwight Eisenhower tore a page out of the book of the Washington Conference. As Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes had done at Washington in 1921, Eisenhower made a surprise proposal which seemed rather radical—the "Open Skies” offer. He suggested that the United States and Russia exchange complete and detailed blueprints of their military establishments, and that each side permit the other to check the accuracy of these blueprints through a system of aerial inspection. The host country to this aerial reconnaissance would be allowed to have one of its own nationals on every flight. Eisenhower held that this would overcome one of the chief Russian objections to inspection, and the want of agreement on that had supposedly been the chief obstacle to world disarmament. He said that the aircraft involved would be stationed in remote areas, and that the crew members would have no contact with the Russian people. The Kremlin would not have to fear subversion at the hands of the capitalists.

As had been the case with Hughes before him, Eisenhower apparently received a very favorable reaction from world opinion. Richard Rovere, who was

at the Conference, remarked that the "Open Skies” proposal was taken as a "master stroke” in capitals all over the world. Rovere himself was not that enthusiastic, but he did report that the reception of the idea was very generally favorable and he was ready to accept that as being of some benefit.

Back in 1921, however, the Hughes proposals had included an inducement for Britain and Japan. The pay-off for the Russians in the "Open Skies” scheme was not that apparent. Eisenhower himself admitted that Cold War tactical considerations played a part in the formulation of the offer for it was desired to place the Russians on the "defensive.” It was too patently aimed against the Soviet strength—secrecy arising from the fact that Russia was a closed society. The proposed quid pro inspection rights for the Russians in America—was an empty concession, for they already had a fairly complete picture of the American defense organization which had been developed largely from data easily gathered by overt, legal means. Thus, the "Open Skies” idea merely appeared to be a radical departure; the old obstacle of the inability to agree on an inspection system remained. Disarmament is an institution not much subject to direct denunciation. Marshal Nikolai Bulganin therefore responded by saying that "Open Skies” appeared to have considerable merit, but that no final judgment could be made on the spot. This, in effect, tabled the matter though it was sporadically discussed during the next two years with no progress at all.

During the remainder of the period of declining American superiority, lit le was done in the way arms control. Soon after the Summit meeting of 1955. a series of events occurred which adversely affected the political foundations for arms limitation. In 1956, there were the Suez and Hungarian crises. American confidence was shaken in the next year by Sputnik, and the initial reaction was in the direction of rearmament- Neither the U-2 incident, nor the Bay of Pigs fiasc° did much to stabilize the relationship between the superpowers.

All the same, there were some long-term factor* which were operating in the direction of disarmament—at least partial disarmament. First, the R^uS‘ sians, who had never undertaken to surpass the United States in strategic bombers, were gradually overcoming their inferiority through the rapid development of mi*' siles. Second, there was a growing concern over the environmental effects of the nuclear armaments race- Both camps showed signs of incipient disunity, and the earliest fears of growing Chinese power were ap^- pearing. The French decision to build an independent strategic nuclear force aroused additional fears of th^c proliferation of atomic weapons. The negotiators of th^e

Arms Control Since Hiroshima 23

East and the West were becoming ever more knowl- ^edgeable about arms control problems, and they were ^ginning to turn their attention away from their preoccupation with the idea of General and Complete Disarmament (GCD) in favor of partial measures.

As mentioned above, the emphasis had long been ^0r> General and Complete Disarmament. Since the days °f the Baruch Plan, negotiations had been sporadically tarried out under the auspices of the United Nations ^ttntil 1957 when the disgusted Russians had walked out of the meetings. They felt that the United Nations ^w°uld always be dominated by the West, and that the taS.S.R. would never be fairly treated until arms con- tfol negotiations were completely severed from the ^w°rld organization. Consequently, an extra-United Nasons disarmament committee of ten nations—five from ^each side of the Iron Curtain—was set up in I960. Presently, nations from the Third World were added ^Undl the total number reached 18 in 1961. The first Meeting of this group in its present form took place 'ⁿ 1962 though the 18-nation committee never has had "tore than 17 members in attendance—France has so tar refused to participate.

The negotiations for GCD never amounted to much ^e"her inside or outside the United Nations. Neither 'he United States nor Russia ever varied very far from 'heir original positions. The former held that control ^ust come first, and then disarmament. The United States also insisted that a very important task was the limitation of conventional armaments. The Russians have consistently proposed immediate disarmament followed by controls, and have argued that the most ^serious threats to world security are nuclear weapons.

As explained in the passage on disarmament models above, both sides presented and modified comprehen- ^sive plans for GCD between 1959 and 1962. Both of 'hose plans were entirely consistent with the previous positions of their initiators, and neither did very much '° satisfy the objections of their adversaries. In general, 'he position of both sides remains unchanged down '° 'he present—though there has been considerable ^c°njecture in the American literature that the need for '"spection has declined in a rather radical way. The Realists argue that the rising capability of unilateral ^verification (reconnaissance by satellite, seaborne and ^a"borne ferreting operations, and other technological •mprovernents) has made inspection much less necessary 'han it was in earlier days. Further, some of them argue 'hat the need for inspection had been exaggerated. Wording to this interpretation, the goal of the inspec- ^tlon program had mistakenly been the discovery of every ^Vl°lation, and the punishment of each. The true goal ⁰ inspection and verification should, the idealists ar- merely be aimed at the timely discovery of those

violations massive enough to be a serious threat to our security. (Idealist is here used to describe those who believe that the best road to security and peace is through diplomacy, disarmament, and world organization; realist would then be used to describe one who believes that the surest guarantee of security and peace is an effective system of national defense.)

The idealists have not yet been able to carry the day and, after I960, statesmen on both sides of the Iron Curtain began to look more and more toward partial settlements. There were several political developments which made the climate for arms control more hospitable. Apparently, both sides were profoundly impressed by the Cuban Missile Crisis and the holocaust which might have arisen from it. At the very least, both sides seemed to become more interested in those measures which would help prevent war by miscalculation or accident. The explosion of the first Chinese nuclear device in 1964 increased the incentive for Russo- American rapprochement. One result of this has been a greater desire for arms control on both sides. The growth of the Russian missile capability after the Cuban affair promised a kind of strategic parity which would eventually permit the U.S.S.R. to negotiate from a position of equality instead of inferiority. World opinion against the contamination of the atmosphere continued to mount. Though in the early 1960s there remained many inhibiting factors, the situation was better for arms control than it had been at any time since the conclusion of the London Naval Treaty of 1930.

The most obvious approach to partial arms control was to attempt conclusion of a test ban treaty. Ever since fallout from an American test had caused the accidental death of a Japanese fisherman in 1954, world public opinion against tests of nuclear devices had been rising. As early as 1958, the United States and Russia had undertaken negotiations for the ban of nuclear tests. It was in that year that Russia led the way to a nuclear test moratoriaum, and the unilateral American adoption of a similar measure soon followed. The deliberations were conducted intermittently at Geneva by various representatives of the United States, Great Britain, and the U.S.S.R. The stumbling blocks were similar to those which had allegedly prevented agreement on GCD for more than a decade. The Russians would not accept inspection on their territory; the Americans would not accept limitation without such inspection. In I960, the problem of the test ban became more urgent when the French successfully tested their first nuclear device. There was some movement towards compromise early in I960. The Russians said that they would accept a limited number of on-site inspections, but refused to be pinned down to any specific number.

After the inauguration of the new President early in the following year, the U.S.S.R. stipulated that a treaty could include no more than three on-site inspections annually. An immense gap still existed since the United States had started with a figure of 40 and did not feel able to come lower than 20 inspections. The Americans argued that so few inspections would allow the other side to jeopardize the security of the West through a clandestine testing program; the Russians countered by insisting that security could be maintained through unilateral verification and the American demand for inspection was merely a trick to spy on Russia and a propaganda device designed to sway domestic opinion in the United States. What little hope there was dimmed considerably when the U.S.S.R. resumed its nuclear testing program during September of 1961. Though President John F. Kennedy quickly responded with a program of his own, he did limit it to tests which would not produce the fall-out which was so feared around the world. In the spring of 1962, after further efforts were made to bring about a comprehensive test ban, President Kennedy decided to resume atmospheric testing.

At first, Kennedy was reluctant to offer a partial test ban to the Russians because he feared that to do so would undermine his desired comprehensive test ban—just as the successful naval disarmament at the Washington and London Naval Conferences were said to have undermined the interest of the British in the subject of land armaments. During the summer of 1963, however, he offered the Russians two alternatives: a comprehensive test ban with inspection, or a limited ban without inspection (excluding underground tests because of U. S. scientists’ fears that they could not be reliably detected by unilateral means.) The Russians rejected both offers. The first, they said, was merely an attempt to spy on Russia; the second would merely legitimize underground testing. Meanwhile, Kennedy had undertaken to remedy the deficiencies of the "massive retaliation” defense policy: the so-called missile gap and the inability to respond to less-than-total challenges because of the want of a conventional and counterinsurgency capability. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Kennedy believed that the adversary’s desire to achieve arms control could be aroused through the increase of one’s own strength. This was a factor in the arms increases of the early 1960s on the American side.

Late in 1962, the desire on both sides for real arms control measures seemed to increase. Perhaps Russia was a bit shaken because of the Cuban Crisis; perhaps she came to feel that there was some sincerity in America’s professions of peaceful intent because of the great restraint Kennedy seemed to have shown during

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the Crisis. Further, as David Edwards has pointed out, Russia may have seen an opportunity to embarrass China by means of a successful arms control treaty with the United States. On the American side, the pursuit of a test ban treaty had probably been sincere even before the Crisis, and that event only heightened public fear of war and consequently increased the desire for arms control progress. Meanwhile, some of President Kennedy’s scientific advisers had come to the conclusion that the previous American policy had overestimated the need for inspections. There was no argument but what atmospheric and underwater tests could be easily detected by both sides. The scientists said that the earlier estimates of the number of earthquakes occurring in Russia had been too large; and the earthquake areas are not those suitable for nuclear testing in any event. This had made it possible for the Kennedy Administration to come down somewhat on its inspection requirements, and the gap had narrowed from the original American 40 vs. the Russian zero to the American position of eight and the Russian concession of a maximum of three. Krushchev, claiming that the Americans had misled him into making the offer of three inspections, fell back on the idea of a partial test ban without any inspections. At first, he tried to tie it to the conclusion of a NATO-Warsaw Pact non-aggression treaty, but he abandoned that position when the United States promised to subsequently pursue serious negotiations for such an agreement between the alliance systems. Once Krushchev had made these decisions, the rest was easy. By July, the limited test ban had been written into a treaty, and the U. S- Senate gave its approval in October. Thus it happened that, after an extended hiatus, the first post-World War II formal arms control arrangement was concluded during the summer of 1963.

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One of the prime motivations for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty had been the desire to avoid the proliferation of nuclear weapons to states not possessing them. The specter aroused by the successful test of nuclear weapons by France, and the impending development of nuclear power by China, was extremely worrisome to Russian and American statesmen. Even as the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was being concluded, Averell Harriman took the occasion to suggest to Krushchev that the time was also ripe for a nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The feeling that proliferation would be destabilizing and seriously increase the chances of war was nearly unanimous in both the East and the West. In A Thousand Days, Arthur Schlesinger, J^r claims that the desire for a non-proliferation arrangement was indeed one of the principle factors causing the United States to pursue the Test Ban Treaty. Nor only was it hoped that the Nuclear Test Ban Treat)

'°uld itself be a factor encouraging further arms con- ^t()l steps, but also that the Russo-American arrange- "^ent would hamper the nuclear development efforts '’the near-nuclear nations.

On the Russian side, there was not much fear of ^r°liferation within the Communist camp. The real fear that somehow West Germany would develop an dependent, or even a joint, nuclear capability. ^<>ugh the Test Ban Treaty and the almost simulta- "^C0US agreement on the Hot Line between Washington ^!ri(l the Kremlin were evidence of a new detente arising Vwt from the Cuban settlement, the United States ^ not rush to satisfy Russian desires to deny West ^rman acquisition of a nuclear capability. Quite the ^c°ntrary. During the mid-1960s, the Americans at- ^pted to shore up the unity of NATO and (according some) to prevent proliferation through the creation ^!|f a Multilateral Force (MLF) with nuclear weapons ^lich would be under the joint command and owner- up of the NATO partners, but which would have ^'trtheless allowed the United States the final veto ⁸¹¹ the launching of any missiles. Neither the American Military, nor the European members of NATO (other an West Germany) were enamored with the idea. In *564, while the debate on MLF was still going on, the Chinese increased the pressure for arms control through ^C|(ploding their first nuclear device. During 1965, Presi- Lyndon Johnson gave up the idea of MLF and ^t(lus removed the last substantial obstacle to the contusion of a non-proliferation agreement.

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A procedural obstacle remained. The proposed non- Miferation arrangement was to include provisions for ^lllspection of the non-nuclear states. The question '®ich arose was whether the inspection of the Euro- ^^an countries would be undertaken by the Interna- ^tlQnal Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or by the ^turAtom organization which was already performing '"Ailar verification functions. The members of F.urAtom ^Cjfed that inspection by IAEA would permit industrial ^P'onage. In the end, the objections of the members kurAtom were overcome through a compromise '°*^ution. During a transition stage of some length, ^rAtom would continue to conduct the necessary ^^sPections within its own jurisdiction. At the end of ^e transition, the inspection work would be gradually Inferred to IAEA. When that happened, all the na-

^nudear status quo. The nuclear signatories agreed ^t0 transfer the weapons themselves, nor the tech- ⁽⁾§y and material needed for the manufacture of

Arms Control Since Hiroshima 25

_r ^ mid-1968, this final compromise had opened the y, ^t0 agreement between the superpowers. The [^'Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is designed to preserve

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nuclear weapons, to powers which did not already have them. The non-nuclear signatories pledged themselves not to obtain a nuclear capability. Germany has been prevailed upon to adhere to the Treaty, but the other near-nuclear and nuclear powers which are the greatest threat to the status quo have not. The most important of these are France, China, India, and Israel. Their chief objection has been the lack of a "pay-off” in return for their self-denying commitments. An ineffective attempt to satisfy these powers was made through unilateral proclamations in the Security Council on the part of both the superpowers. The United States and Russia both promised that they would sincerely pursue negotiations for the reduction of their own armaments. Such pledges, of course, are easily made and easily evaded—a point which the near-nuclear powers well understood.

As promised in the Security Council, the United States and the U.S.S.R. resumed negotiations for the control of strategic armaments soon after the conclusion of NPT. These negotiations, known as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), were conducted in an uninspiring way during the ensuing two years. Meanwhile, the political foundation for arms control was changing in some ways. First, the United States was gradually "winding down” its war in Vietnam and that war has often been cited as a major impediment to substantial arms limitation. Further, the recent faint signs of a lessening of Sino-American tensions may have had some effect on the thinking of Kremlin statesmen. At any rate, the procedural problems which had been blocking progress in the SALT talks were overcome and the way was opened to additional—and more substantial—arms control agreements.

The debate over the ABM had long gone on in the Congress, the press, and among the scholars when a compromise solution allowing a limited deployment was finally adopted. Some students of arms control argued that ABM would destabilize mutual deterrence because it would call into question the effectiveness of the second-strike capabilities of the superpowers. This, they argued, would increase the incentive for a first strike and make war more likely. The Russians generally held that ABMs were targeted only against incoming missiles, and that they could not be aimed at cities or people. ABMs could therefore only be classified as defensive and they were not a threat to the peace. Finally, in 1971, some progress was made in SALT when the two sides agreed, in principle, to conclude an arrangement limiting ABM and, at the same time, to make a limited accord on offensive missiles.

The SALT negotiations proceeded satisfactorily during late 1971 and early 1972, and the documents were ready for signature by the time President Richard Nixon went to Moscow in May 1972. The nature of