On this Day in 1972: Nixon Visits Moscow

On May 22, 1972, President Richard Nixon arrived in Moscow for a summit with Soviet leaders. During a week of meetings with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and other Soviet officials, the United States and the USSR reached a number of agreements, including one that laid the groundwork for a joint space flight in 1975. On May 26, Nixon and Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), the most significant of the agreements reached during the summit. The treaty limited the United States and the USSR to 200 antiballistic missiles each, which were to be divided between two defensive systems. President Nixon returned to the United States on May 30.

Nixon’s visit to Moscow on this day in 1972 was a step toward conciliation (in the form of space cooperation and the signing of the SALT arms control treaty) in the depths of the Cold War. Today, the United States and Russia may be over two decades removed from the Cold War, but there is little sign of any conciliation to come between our countries on the horizon.

Ambassador James Collins set out his explanations for this chill in relations, and his recommendations for what is needed going forward, in his acceptance speech for the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service at the Kennan Institute’s Davis Dinner.