SALT 1

After the Cuban missile crisis, many concerned Americans and soviets hoped for some de-escalation of the tense atmosphere. In fact, many historians nowadays would state that after such a heart stopping moment, those in control of the government and war machine would have opted for some amount of what we would come to call the detente.

However, it wasn’t until 1967 that Johnson called upon the Soviets to discuss some limitation to the arms being developed in both countries. Even then, this was only in response to the ABM system being built around Soviet Russia. The main point of the cold war, and the most assured way to keep both sides from detonating nuclear missiles on enemy soil was the concept of MAD, or mutual assured destruction. With the development of ABM’s, otherwise known as anti-ballistic missiles, there was a defensive system being set up around Russia. This would cause a kink in the idea of MAD, because if they had a defense system then America no longer had a way of retaliating against them in the event of nuclear war. Moreover, there was rumor of the Soviets building a missile with a range long enough to have first strike capabilities on the United States.

As such, the first strategic arms limitation talk, known as SALT 1 discusses the disassembly and limitation of the ABM’s set up around each country. While many might state that this is exactly the opposite of what the United States might want because we would not be able to have any reliable defensive structure around our nation, they would not fully understand the concept of MAD. If there was defense, then mutual destruction was no longer assured. The constant tension between the two countries and the fear was what kept each sure that the other would not detonate on enemy soil. As such, this talk, while not truly creating any lasting solution by any means, was able to continue on the relative safety of each country.