The Second Round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), 1979The Second Round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, commonly known as SALT II, began almost immediately after the first round ended in 1972. The negotiations led to a treaty on nuclear arms control that the United States and the Soviet Union signed in 1979. Although it was never ratified by the U.S. Senate, both countries adhered to the terms of the agreement.
After the SALT I talks, which resulted in both a treaty limiting antiballistic missile systems and an interim agreement limiting nuclear arms delivery systems, both sides agreed that there was an immediate need to transform the interim agreement into a formal treaty, which would further limit the development of new technologies and place lower ceilings on the overall number of missiles deployed. In particular, the development of multiple independently-targeted reentry vehicles (MIRVs), which made it possible to attach many warheads to a single missile, had created a situation in which limits placed on the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMS) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) did not limit the number of nuclear warheads each government could deliver to targets. To address these concerns, two years after the SALT I agreement, U.S. President Gerald Ford and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev held a summit meeting at Vladivostok, during which they agreed on the basic tenets of the next SALT agreement and numerical limits for the number of strategic launch vehicles to be deployed by each country.
Although the Vladivostok Accords set a limit of 2,400 total strategic launch vehicles for each country with the stipulation that 1,320 of these could be equipped with MIRVs, ongoing technological developments meant that further negotiations were still required to reach a formal treaty over arms control. During the mid-1970s, the United States was developing new cruise missiles, which were very accurate and would skim over the ground close to the earth, undetected by radar. The Soviet Union was also improving its technology, and building new "Backfire" bombers.
When Jimmy Carter assumed the U.S. Presidency in 1977, he proposed a new set of arms limits that required much deeper cuts in total conventional and nuclear capability. He also suggested that any new agreement include limits on both U.S. cruise missiles and new Soviet bombers, or neither. Carter presented the new proposal even as he engaged in public criticism of the Soviet record on human rights, however. Both measures angered the Soviet leaders, and they refused to consider the proposal. Negotiations continued, but became subordinated to other issues, such as the completion of the Panama Canal Treaty in 1977 and the recognition of the People's Republic of China in late 1978. Finally, the two sides reached a consensus in 1979 and signed an agreement that was very similar to the terms to the Vladivostok Accords.
The agreement included a treaty and a protocol. The treaty set limits on the number of strategic launch vehicles each country could deploy, but then also set quotas for the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and SLBMs that could carry MIRVs as well as further restrictions on the number of warheads that any one ICBM could carry. The two sides also agreed to limits on the number of launchers and bombers each country could maintain to deliver the missiles. The protocol banned either country from developing or deploying mobile ICBMs or cruise missiles with ranges longer than 375 miles. In addition to this treaty and protocol, SALT II also created a statement of principles to guide the next round of negotiations. In the end, limits on cruise missiles were included in the treaty, but the Soviet "Backfire" bomber was not. Informally, however, Brezhnev informed Carter that the Soviet Union would produce no more than 30 of the planes per year.
The completed SALT II agreements faced steep opposition during the ensuing U.S. Senate battle over ratification. Opinions on the treaty and protocol varied widely. Some Senators supported the treaty and its ratification on the grounds that it was important to the process of arms control, and that approving each step would make it possible to make further gains in the future. Of those opposed to the treaty, some believed the treaty did not go far enough in setting limits and therefore did not represent a meaningful attempt at stopping the arms race, whereas others suggested that the terms of the treaty placed too many limits on the United States and could damage U.S. interests and security. Just when it seemed that the forces in favor of ratification would win out, however, Senator Frank Church announced the presence of Soviet troops in Cuba, and demanded that the treaty not be considered until they were withdrawn. In fact, the troops had remained in Cuba as part of an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, so this concern should not have caused such a delay in the passage of the agreement. That delay proved critical, however, as the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979, leading Carter to pull the treaty from consideration in protest against the action.
Although the SALT II treaty was never ratified, both sides considered the limits it set important enough to their own security and the balance of power that they adhered to the terms anyway. Even the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan in the United States and a series of leadership changes in the Soviet Union did not derail the two nations from observing the terms of the agreement. The two rounds of SALT negotiations were followed by the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, or START, which began in the late 1980s. | 
