david tal

“Absolutes” and “Stages” in the Making and Application

of Nixon’s SALT Policy*

“The outsider thinks in terms of absolutes; [. . .] the political leader [. . .] rarely can

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reach his goal except in stages.”1
It was on Friday night, May 26, 1972, that the Communist leader, Leonid L.
Brezhnev, and the American president, Richard Nixon, sat in the Great Hall of the
Kremlin, and signed the “historic agreements” that set a limit on the number of
launchers of defensive missile systems each side would be allowed to keep (200) and
prohibited the nationwide buildup of antiballistic missile (ABM) systems—the
Interim Agreement on Strategic Missiles and the ABM Treaty.2 This was the
end of a journey that the Nixon administration had begun three years earlier, in
Helsinki. The architects of the journey from the American side, President Nixon
and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, were excited: Nixon was con-
cluding a journey initiated by President Lyndon Johnson, who had embarked on
this journey toward an agreement on the strategic limitation of armaments and a
ban on ABMs but had left office without such an agreement. For Nixon, this
agreement was not only an achievement that had been denied to his predecessor,
it also seemingly represented the success of his own approach over that of his
predecessors. Nixon’s original intention when first embarking on his journey
had been to break not only with Johnson’s approach toward this agreement on
arms limitation but also with the direction in which American disarmament policy
had been moving for more than a decade. His was “a new policy for dealing with
the Soviets,” and he intended to make the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)
one component within his larger foreign policy in general and toward the Soviet
Union in particular.3
Nixon—in tandem with his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger—
intended to link arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union to the resolution
of other political problems. They had a name for this new path: Linkage. Nixon
explained the mechanism as follows: “[W]e decided to link progress in such areas

* I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of the article for their most valuable
comments. I also would like to thank Ms. Melissa Heddon from the Richard Nixon Presidential
Library and Museum for her well appreciated help.
1. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston, MA, 1979), 55.
2. Hedrick Smith, “Ceilings Are Set,” NYT May 27, 1972, 1.
3. Richard Nixon, The Memories of Richard Nixon, vol. 2 (New York, 1979), 428.

Diplomatic History, Vol. 37, No. 5 (2013). ß The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University
Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. All rights reserved.
For permissions, please e-mail: [Link]@[Link]. doi:10.1093/dh/dht064
Advance Access publication on April 29, 2013

1090
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1091

of Soviet concern as strategic arms limitation [. . .] with progress in areas that were
important to us – Vietnam, the Mideast, Berlin. This concept became known as
linkage.” The strategy of linkage, concluded Nixon, was a success: “[I]t would take
almost two years of patient and hard-nosed determination on our part before they
would accept that linkage with what we wanted from them was the price they
would have to pay for getting any of the things they wanted from us.”4
The linkage between strategic arms limitations and outstanding issues such as
the Middle East, Berlin and, foremost, Vietnam thus became central to Nixon’s
and Kissinger’s policy of Détente. Through employment of linkage, they hoped to

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change the nature and course of U.S. foreign policy, including U.S. nuclear dis-
armament and arms control policy, and to separate them from those practiced by
Nixon’s predecessors. They also intended, through linkage, to make U.S. arms
control policy part of Détente. All this would be achieved through the application
of an arms control policy that would be different from that of their predecessors.
Their intention was to transform the incremental approach, which had dominated
U.S. arms control policy since 1958, into a comprehensive one. The incremental
approach entailed tackling various aspects of arms control one at a time and
separately from negotiations on outstanding political problems with the Soviet
Union. Nixon and Kissinger intended to make those negotiations an integral part
of the negotiations with the Soviet Union. That is, they meant, through linkage, to
turn U.S. arms control and disarmament policy from incremental to comprehen-
sive, and to make it an integral part of Détente.
But did they succeed? Did Nixon in fact manage to pave a new road and con-
clude the agreement by using linkage? With very few exceptions,5 most students of
Nixon’s foreign policy think that, indeed, Nixon broke new ground. Thomas
Schwartz argues that “Historians have not emphasized enough the degree to
which this policy was distinct from the way the Johnson Administration had pur-
sued its hope for strategic arms talks despite the ongoing war in Vietnam and other
disputes with the Russians.”6

4. Nixon, Memories, 428–29.

5. Walter Isaacson, Kissinger (New York, 2005), 165–168, 424.
6. Thomas A. Schwartz, “Legacies of Détente: A Three-Way Discussion,” Cold War History,
Vol. 8, No. 4 (2008): 515. See also Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon Vol. 2 (New York, 1989), 548;
Conrad Black, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full (New York, 2007), 592–593; McGeorge Bundy,
Danger and Survival (New York, 1988), 552; William Bundy, A Tangled Web (New York, 1998), 65,
327; Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger (New York, 2007), 139, 398; Sidney D. Drell, “The Impact
of a US Pubic Constituency on Arms Control,” in Anatoly Gromyko and Martin Hellman (eds.)
Breakthrough (New York, 1988), 225; Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation
(Washington, DC, 1994), 289; Francis J. Gavin, “Nuclear Nixon: Ironies, Puzzles, and the
Triumph of Realpolitik,” in Fredrik Logevall and Andrew Preston, Nixon in the World (New
York, 2008), 126–127; David Greenberg, “Nixon as Statesman: The Failed Campaign,” in
Logevall and Preston, Nixon in the World, 57–58; Jussi Hankimäki, The Flawed Architect
(Oxford, 2004), 35–39, 49–50, 186, 221–222; Seymour M. Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger in
the Nixon White House (New York, 1983), 148–149; Joan Hoff, Nixon Reconsidered (New York,
1994), 201; Walter LaFeber, American Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–1990 (New York, 1991), 271;
Robert Litwak, Detente and the Nixon Doctrine (Cambridge, 1984), 93–96; Fredrik Logevall and
1092 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

However, a careful study of Nixon’s approach to the SALT agreements, par-

ticularly from the vantage point of U.S. arms control policy, presents a different
picture. A thorough review of their correspondence and documents reveals that
Nixon was able to stand in the Great Hall of the Kremlin and sign these “historic
agreements” because his policy of linkage had in fact failed. It failed mainly because
it was based on flawed assumptions and false premises, the foremost of which was
that the Soviet Union wanted strategic arms limitation agreement much more than
the United States did. This disparity, it was thought, would give the United States
an advantage that it could use in the conduct of Détente. It also failed because, like

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other foreign policy issues, the making of policy depended not only on the decision
and will of the president and his advisors, but also on the actions of the other side.
As it turned out, the Soviet Union did not play the game the way Nixon and
Kissinger had envisioned and anticipated. Thus, the historic success was possible
precisely because Nixon had not actually made his arms control policy “distinct”
from that of the Johnson Administration and its predecessors in his approach to
strategic arms talks with the Soviet Union.

***
When Richard Nixon entered the White House, he could have found in the files
left behind by his predecessor an invitation sent in July 1968 by the Soviet Prime
Minister, Andrei Kosygin, to President Johnson to come to Moscow, to initiate
talks on the limitation of offensive and defensive nuclear arms.7 Johnson waited for
that letter quite a while, but the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in July 1968
abruptly cut a process that could have expedited the talks on strategic arms limi-
tations. The Soviet government expressed more than once, during the brief period
remaining to Johnson in office, their interest in commencing the talks, as did
Johnson. The impact of the invasion, however, was too harsh, and the Johnson
administration concluded without the talks on strategic arms limitation having
started. When Johnson felt that the time was ripe to proceed, it was already

Andrew Preston, “The Adventurous Journey of Nixon in the World,” in Logevall and Preston, 8-
9; Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics, 247; Robert D. Schulzinger, Henry
Kissinger: Doctor of Diplomacy (New York, 1989), 67; Franz Schurmann, The Foreign Politics of
Richard Nixon (Berkley, 1987), 379; Lawrence W. Serewicz, America at the Brink of Empire
(Baton Rouge, 2007), 100; Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (Cambridge,
2007), 225–226.
7. Letter From Chairman Kosygin to President Johnson, July 25, 1968, FRUS 1964–1968 XI.
In fact, Nixon had learned about the nature of Johnson’s proposal to the Soviet government,
aiming for strategic talks on arms limitations to begin only in February 1969, when Johnson’s
national security advisor, Walt Rostow, sent to the State Department the message he had delivered
to Dobrynin on September 16, 1968. W. W. Rostow to J. Walsh, Department of State, February
11, 1969, Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, California (henceforth
RNPL), National Security Council (NSC) Files, Sentinel-ABM System, vol. 1, February to April,
1969.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1093

after the November election, and Nixon declined Johnson’s offer to start the talks
at that time.8
The Soviets expected that the new administration would continue where the
departing administration had left, and as the last measure agreed upon by the two
governments had been a heads-of-states summit to discuss the limitation of nuclear
strategic arms, they expected that the new administration would proceed from that
point. Nixon, however, with the encouragement of his national security advisor,
did not intend to continue from the point at which his predecessor left, or failed to
start. The new president intended to change U.S. arms control policy profoundly.

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American nuclear disarmament and arms control policies date back to the days
of the Truman administration. President Truman’s nuclear disarmament policy
was based on the premise that wars are not caused by arms races but by political
differences.9 Indeed, from 1945 to 1958 U.S. disarmament policy was part of a
“package deal” that included and depended on the negotiation and resolution of
outstanding political problems between East and West. The result was that during
those years no progress on disarmament-related issues was achieved. Only in 1958,
with the introduction of the incremental approach, did progress become possible.
The new approach (which was accepted by Eisenhower and, more significantly, by
his successor, John F. Kennedy) sought to make U.S. disarmament policy more
flexible and versatile by incorporating partial elements in addition to the trad-
itional comprehensive disarmament plan. It aimed to bring the United States
and the Soviet Union together to discuss limited disarmament measures and,
specifically, a nuclear test ban agreement in isolation from negotiations on general
disarmament or from any other outstanding political issue.10
Indeed, this was the reason for the ultimate success of John F. Kennedy in
signing the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union in 1963.
President Johnson followed the same track in negotiating the nonproliferation
treaty (NPT) as well as in his failed attempts to negotiate an agreement on the
limitation of strategic arms. When Nixon won the elections, the Soviets hoped that
he would continue what his predecessor had started.11

8. Letter From Chairman Kosygin to President Johnson, July 25, 1968, FRUS 1964–1968 XI;
Record of Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Committee of Principals, ACDA-3024,
August 22, 1968, FRUS 1964–1968 XI; Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant
(Rostow) to President Johnson, August 29, 1968, ibid., Memorandum From the President’s
Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson, September 10, 1968, FRUS 1964–1968 XIV;
Message From the Government of the Soviet Union to the Government of the United States
[October 2, 1968], ibid.
9. The Joint Chiefs of Staff: Memorandum to the President, December 31, 1946, President’s
Secretary’s Files, Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.
10. David Tal, The American Nuclear Disarmament Dilemma, 1945-1963 (Syracuse, NY, 2008),
116 ff.
11. On the Johnson disarmament policy, see Hal Brands, “Progress Unseen: U.S. Arms
Control Policy and the Origins of Détente, 1963–1968,” Diplomatic History 30, no. 2 (2006):
253–85.
1094 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

Nixon did not do so, however. He differed from his predecessors in both his
philosophical approach to arms control and his view of the place of arms limitation
agreements within the wider context of U.S. relations with the Soviet Union.
Nixon’s—and Kissinger’s—attitude toward the arms control component within
Détente had been determined by his view regarding the link between disarmament
and war and the relationship between diplomacy and power. Nixon believed that
the root of war was not the arms race, but political differences. Hence, the removal
of weapons would solve no problem and might, on the contrary, provoke aggres-
sion. Nixon said in February 1969, “History makes it clear that wars result not so

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much from arms, or even from arms races, as they do from underlying political
differences and political problems.”12
The phrase regarding the lessons of history that Nixon used had been suggested
to him by Kissinger, who also dismissed the idea that disarmament or arms control
agreements could reduce tensions or avoid war. In his book, Nuclear Weapons and
Foreign Policy, first published in 1957—which Nixon had read and appreciated—
Kissinger writes that “the notion that armaments are the cause rather than the
reflection of conflict is not new. It has been the basis of schemes of disarmament
throughout history. [. . .] Nevertheless,” argues Kissinger, “it is open to serious
doubt.” The major cause of war since the days of the Congress of Vienna (1815)
and continuing after the Second World War was political difference, not the ac-
cumulation of arms: “If disagreements on specific issues had been tractable, the
armaments race would never have started.”13 It was this belief that led Kissinger to
suggest that Nixon—in his upcoming meeting with Dobrynin in February 1969
when they were due to discuss the strategic weapons talks—should tell the ambas-
sador that “[o]ur reading of history indicates that almost all crises have been caused
by political conditions, not by the arms race as such.”14 He believed that past
administrations’ pursuit of disarmament agreements was based on the false as-
sumption that arms control by itself could serve as a confidence building measure
and thereby help to reduce tensions, a completely mistaken notion in Kissinger’s

12. Memorandum of Conversation, February 17, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 39–40;
Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to the
Acting Executive Secretary of the Department of State, February 21, 1969, ibid., 68; Richard
Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, vol. 1 (New York, 1978), 428, 456–57. And see Nixon
letter to William Rogers, Melvin Laird and Richard Helms, February 4, 1969, Digital National
Security Archives (DNSA), 00398 (the letter is also in Kissinger, White House Years, 135–36);
Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence (New York, 1995), 201. See also Gavin, “Nuclear Nixon,”
130–32. See also Paper Prepared for the National Security Council by the Interdepartmental
Group for Europe, February 18, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 52–62.
13. Henry A. Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York, 1969) (abridged edi-
tion), 172–73.
14. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to
President Nixon, February 15, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976, XII, 33.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1095

view. Furthermore, the pursuit of peace at any cost is dangerous, as it grants

additional power and leverage to the more unscrupulous party.15
Kissinger believed that the incremental approach, which separates disarmament
negotiations from discussion of outstanding political problems, was even worse
and resulted from a flawed American attitude toward diplomacy and power. The
Founding Fathers had not hesitated to use diplomacy as a means of advancing U.S.
national interests—even opportunistically—as a matter of course. Their primary
goal was to secure U.S. national interests. As time passed, and in particular fol-
lowing the First World War, idealism overtook pragmatism and realism in the

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shaping of U.S. foreign policy. Even when still practicing power and acting in
accordance with geo-political necessities, as happened for example when the
United States entered the First World War, “we chose to interpret our participa-
tion in legal and idealistic terms” rather than to see the war for what it was: A war
over the balance of power. One result of this moralistic stance was a refusal to
accept that “foreign policy must start with security,” which in turn led the United
States to pursue such idealistic notions as promoting disarmament among U.S.
allies on the basis of the false belief that “weapons by definition contributed to
international tensions” and, conversely, that disarmament would reduce interna-
tional tensions.16
The second problem, intertwined with the first, was the conceptual separation
between power and diplomacy, which was evident mainly after the Second World
War and adoption of the strategy of containment as a way to deal with the emer-
ging threat posed by the Soviet Union. Containment was based on the assumption
that power and diplomacy were two distinct phases of policy. That meant that at a
time when the United States had the power—especially given its nuclear monop-
oly—to back up diplomatic moves and negotiations, it would not do so. This
allowed the Soviet Union to gain strength and match its power with that of the
United States. The correct way to win, argued Kissinger, would be to negotiate
while the United State was still the stronger party. It was an equation in which
diplomacy provided purpose to the power, and power would support the American
stand in the negotiations.17 This idealistic-realist dichotomy is of course not the
only way to explain the nature and course of U.S. foreign policy, but it was
Kissinger’s.
If such was the case, as Francis Gavin asks, why negotiate arms control at all? At
least three reasons exist: First, in the late 1960s disarmament was an integral part of
world—and of course, within this context, American—diplomacy. The United
States could not allow itself not to negotiate disarmament. This was “the
American Nuclear Disarmament Dilemma.”18 Second, Nixon regarded

15. Kissinger, White House Years, 70, 127–28; Memorandum of Conversation, September 1,
1971, RNPL, NSCF, SALT Vol. XVII, September to December 1971.
16. Kissinger, White House Years, 59–60.
17. Kissinger, White House Years, 60–64.
18. Tal, The American Nuclear Disarmament Dilemma, XV.
1096 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

negotiations on the limitation of strategic arms as a way to maintain existing stra-

tegic parity between the United States and the Soviet Union, which was an
American interest. Nixon came to power precisely as the Soviet Union was closing
its strategic gap with the United States. The approach adopted to date—maintain-
ing a strategic gap through the continuous buildup of additional missiles and
strategic arms—was no longer available, as the mood in the United States, par-
ticularly given the war in Vietnam, would not allow that anymore. The only way to
retain strategic balance between the two superpowers would be through an agree-
ment by which the Soviet Union would stop its buildup of strategic weapons.19

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“We are giving up nothing,” concluded Kissinger during the final phase of nego-
tiations on the limitation of strategic weapons even though neither side would
enjoy strategic superiority.20
The third reason to conduct arms control negotiations was that they could serve
U.S. foreign policy interests in its dealings with the Soviet Union. The larger
context was Détente, within which U.S. arms control policy constituted one elem-
ent. While there are disagreements over the rationale behind Détente, there is
agreement that Détente aimed to replace confrontation with negotiations.21 Nixon
justified Détente (without using the term) on the basis of the need to ensure co-
existence between the two great powers. According to his own testimony, Nixon
was a “very strong anti-Communist,” and he regarded the differences between the
Soviet and the American systems as too deep to reconcile, but he believed that it
was essential to acknowledge those differences and the various Cold War outstand-
ing problems “as a sound basis for an enduring settlement.” The way to do this
would be by adopting a comprehensive approach, according to which the two sides
would negotiate a vast array of subjects of interests, some more important to the
Soviets, some to the Americans.22 Nixon saw this as the only viable approach
because the United States and the Soviet Union, “the world’s two competing
nuclear superpowers,” shared so many interests throughout the world that
“were so widespread and overlapping,” that “it was unrealistic to separate or com-
partmentalize” all those subjects and issues. In addition, the United States should
not allow the Soviets “to reap the benefits of cooperation in one area” while acting
against American interests in other areas. “Such a course involves the danger that

19. Talk by President Nixon, December 1970, DNSA, December 1970, 00638. See also
Nixon-Gromyko meeting, September 29, 1971, FRUS 1969–1976 XXXII, 614–15; Schwartz,
“Legacies of Détente,” 514.
20. Conversation among President Nixon, Kissinger and Haldeman, March 9, 1972, FRUS
1969–1976 XXXII, 693.
21. The literature on Détente is extensive. The following are just a few samples: John Lewis
Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (Oxford, 1982), 289; Keith L. Nelson, The Making of Détente
(Baltimore, MD, 1995), xv; Jeremi Suri, Power and Protest, (Cambridge, 2003), 213–15.
22. Background Press Briefing by President Nixon, October 12, 1970, FRUS 1969–1976, XIII,
2–3; Nixon, Memoire I, 425–27.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1097

the Soviets will use talks on arms control as a safety valve on intransigence
elsewhere.”23
The result was a trade-off: Negotiations over subjects that were important to
the Soviets would be concurrent and interdependent with negotiations on topics
that were important to the Americans. The assumption in the United States was
that there were two issues of greater interest to the Soviets than to the United
States: An agreement on the limitation of strategic arms (as such an agreement
would maintain their strategic parity with the United States and save them the
need to continue the economically burdensome production of major arms) and a

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trade agreement with the United States.24
The issues that mattered most to the United States were Vietnam and the
Middle East. The war in Vietnam “presented mostly problems and few promising
opportunities” for the incoming administration, wrote Jussi Hanhimaki. Nixon
and Kissinger attributed some of the difficulties associated with this war to the
Soviet Union. The assumption in Washington was that Soviet support for Hanoi
strengthened the North Vietnamese leaders’ stubbornness. Washington specific-
ally accused Moscow of supplying massive amounts of weapons to North Vietnam,
thus enabling Hanoi to continue the war and forestall negotiations on a peace
settlement.25 The other front was the Middle East, where the Soviet Union sup-
ported Egypt and Syria for the most part, and the United States stood by Israel.
Vietnam was higher on their list of priorities, but the situation in the Middle East
was volatile enough to make the Americans want to see the conflict resolved, and
they assumed that the Soviet Union could advance an agreement toward this end if
they so wished.26
The implication of the new concept for American arms control policy was a
shift from the incremental approach to arms control that had been practiced by the
previous administrations to a comprehensive approach. The talks on the limitation
of strategic arms had strategic value, as they aimed to perpetuate the emerging
strategic balance between the Soviet Union and the United States (“sufficiency”
instead of “superiority”). The talks also had political value, however, because the
United States could extract concessions from the Soviets on issues important to the
Americans in return for the strategic arms talks. Détente was thus a policy that
aimed to bring the great powers together, to discuss their differences diplomatic-
ally and in a comprehensive manner. It also meant linking together various topics
in a way that would make the Soviets more compliant on issues important to the
Americans.

23. Nixon letter to William Rogers, February 4, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 27.
24. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation, 26; Nixon, Memoires I, 428.
25. Garthoff, Detente and Confrontation, 26; Hanhimaki, The Flawed Architect, 28; Nixon,
Memoires I, 428.
26. Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs to President
Nixon, June 13, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 179.
1098 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

The concept of linkage was presented to the Soviets even before Nixon’s in-
auguration. Kissinger delivered messages to the Soviet government in December
1968 and January 1969 stating that the President-elect intended to reassess the
strategic position of the United States before starting arms control negotiations.
Kissinger also said that the talks would be connected to the Soviet agreement to
“negotiate seriously” other issues, particularly Vietnam and the Middle East. The
talks should be conducted concurrently with progress on one issue dependent on
progress in other areas.27 Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet Ambassador to the United
States, heard similar arguments from President Nixon during their first meeting in

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the White House, on February 17.28
How would the mechanism of linkage work? Kissinger had an answer. He
proposed to Dobrynin the creation of an American-Soviet forum that would con-
currently and regularly discuss all the outstanding issues between the United States
and the Soviet Union. Then he proposed that the president appoint Cyrus Vance,
former deputy Secretary of Defense and former deputy chief of the U.S. delegation
to the Paris peace talks, as the chief negotiator to SALT, to be sent to Moscow,
where he would initiate talks and concurrently meet in confidence with a North
Vietnamese negotiator to discuss a military and diplomatic solution for Vietnam.
The Soviet role in the process would of course be to invite the North Vietnamese
representative and ensure that he negotiate in good will. In this way, a linkage
would be created and maintained between the initiation and progression of the
SALT talks and the Vietnam talks.29
The idea seemed sensible. It would turn the abstract and principled idea of
linkage into a reality. Cyrus Vance posed the more crucial question in response to
Kissinger’s proposal to him: “How would the two negotiations in Moscow . . . be
related to each other?”30 Within that question lay the more disturbing aspects of
the comprehensive approach: How would the Soviets force the North Vietnamese
to send a representative, and how would they force that representative to be more
cooperative than the North Vietnamese representatives in Paris? If the talks with
the North Vietnamese were to slow down or fail, would the SALT talks also slow
down or be stopped? Kissinger did not address these questions, and they soon

27. Memorandum from Henry Kissinger to President-elect Nixon, Washington, December

18, 1968, FRUS 1964–1968 XIV; Memorandum of Conversation, January 2, 1969, NA-PAF, NSC
Files, Country Files, Europe, USSR; Kissinger, White House Years, 127–28; Nixon, Memories I,
429.
28. Memorandum of Conversation, February 17, 1969, NA-RG 59, Central Files 1967–1969,
POL 1 U.S.-USSR. And see Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence (New York, 1995), 201; Richard
Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, vol. 1 (Warner Books, 1978), 456–57.
29. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to
President Nixon, April 3, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976 VI, 181–84; Memorandum From the President’s
Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, June 13, 1969, FRUS
1949–1967 XII, 179; Kissinger, White House Years, 265–67.
30. Kissinger, White House Years, 266.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1099

became irrelevant as the Soviets did not respond in any way to the proposal, which
then essentially evaporated.31
The problem with linkage was not only the mechanism itself but its substance as
well. The comprehensive approach was based on two premises: First, that “the key
to a Vietnam settlement lay in Moscow and Peking rather that in Hanoi” and,
second, that the Soviets were eager to start talks on the limitation of strategic arms
and would be ready to pay a price toward this end.32 The Soviets acted energet-
ically to repudiate these two assumptions. They did so by insisting that their in-
fluence on North Vietnam was not as strong as the Americans assumed it was and

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by rejecting the premise that they wanted SALT so much that they would be ready
to pay a price for it.
As to the alleged influence Moscow had on Hanoi, Dobrynin repeatedly denied
such an influence. He urged Kissinger to understand “the limitations of Soviet
influence in Hanoi,” and in any case, the Soviet Union could not afford to sever ties
with Hanoi or not provide it economic and military aid and thus be open to
accusations of “having undermined a fellow Socialist country.” The linkage strat-
egy made no sense, argued Dobrynin.33 Studies have shown that this was indeed
the case,34 but nothing could demonstrate this point more clearly than the eye-
opening experience Kissinger underwent in April 1972. Piles and piles of papers
were filled with arguments and claims based on that assumption, but it took one
trip for Kissinger to Moscow to change his view on this matter completely: “I am
not sure they are able to deliver on Vietnam,” wrote Kissinger to Nixon in April
1972, after a series of meetings with the leaders of the Soviet Union.35 Kissinger’s
visit will be further discussed below, but suffice it to mention here that years of
assumed policy ended abruptly after a few days of talks with Brezhnev and his
colleagues.
The Soviets also made it clear that as much as they were interested in the talks,
they had their limits and were not willing to pay just any price. Nixon sent a
message to Kosygin in March 1969 in which he made a direct linkage between
the three most problematic political issues for the United States—the Middle East,
Vietnam, and Berlin (including the security of Europe)—and discussions on arms

31. Memorandum of Conversation, May 5, 1969, NA, RG 59, 1967–69, DEF 1 U.S.-USSR;
Kissinger, White House Years, 268.
32. Nixon, Memories I, 427.
33. Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to
President Nixon, April 15, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 131. See also Arkady N. Shevchenko,
Breaking with Moscow (New York, 1985), 265.
34. Ilya V. Gaiduk, “Soviet Policy toward US Participation in the Vietnam War,” History 81,
no. 261 (1996): 45–49; Ilya V. Gaiduk, “The Vietnam War and Soviet-American Relations,
1964-1973: New Russian Evidence,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 6, no. 7
(1995): 251, 252; Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from
Stalin to Gorabchev (Chapel Hill, NC, 2007), 197–200.
35. Message from Henry A. Kissinger to Alexander Haig, April 22, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976
XIV, 545.
1100 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

control.36 “Many in the [Soviet] foreign office were incensed at the linkage con-
cept,” and Kosygin’s response reflected that sentiment: “It seem to us that taking
into account the complexity of each of these problems by itself, it is hardly worth-
while to attempt somehow to link one with another.”37 When news reports pub-
lished in the United States claim that the Soviet Union was anxious to start the
talks because of its economic problems, the Soviet government instructed its rep-
resentatives not to raise the question of the talks at all.38
Dobrynin described to his superiors in Moscow the American assumption that
the Soviet Union was in “difficult situation” and “therefore we are supposedly

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more interested than the U.S. in resolving issues such as the strategic arms limi-
tations talks” as “the illusionary notion.”39 He also delivered this message on
various occasions to Kissinger and Nixon, making it clear that Moscow was
ready to conduct talks with the United States but rejecting any reference to
preconditions. The Soviet government would discuss any topic with the United
States, but no topic could be connected to another.40 Dobrynin conveyed this
explicitly to the president during their meeting on February 14: “Our interest is
no greater than that of the U.S., and we do not see here any direct linkage with the
resolution of other political problems,” he told the president.41 He reiterated
the message on various later occasions.42 The profound premise underpinning
the comprehensive approach was thereby shaken.
Nixon also had to deal with resistance to the linkage within his own ranks. His
Secretary of State, William Rogers, expressed readiness to discuss the opening of
the talks with the Soviets with no conditions even though Nixon had instructed
him differently. On February 4, the President informed Rogers of his intention to
tie the beginning of the talks with the Soviets on the limitation of strategic arms to

36. Letter from President Nixon to Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union
Kosygin, March 26, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 97–99.
37. Letter from Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union Kosygin to
President Nixon, May 27, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 169; Shevchenko, Breaking with Moscow,
265–66. See also Raymond Garthoff, Journey Through the Cold War: A Memoir of Containment and
Coexistence (Washington, DC, 2001), 244.
38. Memorandum of Conversation, May 5, 1969, NA, RG 59, 1967–69, DEF 1 U.S.-USSR;
Kissinger, White House Years, 268. The head of the American delegation to SALT mentioned in his
memoires that “SALT delegation officials, both military and civilian, believed that neither the
Soviets nor the United States were under any override need to reach a SALT agreement.” Gerard
Smith, Doubletalk: the Story of SALT I (Garden City, NY, 1980), 115.
39. Telegram from Ambassador Dobrynin to the Soviet Foreign Ministry, October 23, 1969,
Soviet-American Relations, 99.
40. Memorandum from Kissinger to the President, February 15, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976, XII,
31, 36.
41. Memorandum of Conversation (USSR), February 17, 1969, David C. Geyer and
Douglas E. Selvage, eds., Soviet-American Relations: The Detente Years, 1969-1972 (Washington,
DC, 2007), 17.
42. Memorandum from Senator Charles Percy to the President’s Assistant for National
Security Affairs March 27, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976, XII, 105.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1101

other outstanding issues. The president’s language, however, was ambiguous.43 In

May, Nixon asked Rogers to delay his approach to the Soviets with a suggested
date to commence SALT, explaining that it was necessary to complete the con-
sultation within the administration with the NATO allies. Nothing was said about
linkage.44 This was how Rogers understood Nixon’s instructions: “The linkage
question was more related to the carrying out of the SALT negotiations and less
related to the starting of the negotiations.” It was in this light that Rogers told
Dobrynin in June that the United States was ready to begin talks on strategic arms
limitation—no strings attached—in late July.45

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In his memoirs, Kissinger complained that the “bureaucracy”—namely, Rogers
and Gerard Smith, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) director
and U.S. chief negotiator to SALT—sabotaged Nixon’s linkage policy by propos-
ing such premature dates for the opening of the talks that it would be impossible to
tie the issues of interest to the White House with the talks on arms limitations in
time for their opening. “We had to abandon our attempt to use the opening of
SALT talks as a lever for other negotiations,” admitted an embittered Kissinger.46
As noted above, however, Nixon’s instructions to Rogers contained no indication
of the need to adhere to the comprehensive approach. It would be better to take
such an approach, but it was not a condition. Rogers did mention linkage to his
Soviet interlocutors, not as a condition but in the same unbinding way that Nixon
had mentioned linkage to him.
Nonetheless, it was not too late to apply the comprehensive approach, and the
talks themselves certainly seemed a good opportunity to do so. Indeed, in prep-
aration for the start of the talks on November 17 in Helsinki, Nixon told
Dobrynin that progress in the talks on strategic arms limitation was subject to
progress in the talks on Vietnam.47 Lest Dobrynin and the Soviets would get the
wrong impression from the contradictory messages regarding linkage, Kissinger
reiterated the point to Dobrynin: “[He] should not be confused by the various
arguments he had heard with respect to linkage – we considered linkage a

43. Letter from President Nixon to Secretary of State Rogers, February 4, 1969, NA, NSF,
PAF, January to May 1969, SALT VOL. 1; Memorandum of Conversation, April 1, 1969, FRUS
1969–1976 XII, 118–21.
44. Memorandum from President Nixon to the Secretary of State, May 7, 1969, RNPL, NSC
Files, PAF, MIRV Panel Meeting, June 16, 1969.
45. Memorandum by Gerard Smith, March 28, 1969 in Editorial Note, FRUS 1969–1976
XXXII, 15–16; Letter from the Secretary of State to U.S. Mission, NATO, June 14, 1969, RNPL,
NSC Files, SALT Vol. III. See also Rogers public statements, Department of State Bulletin,
November 10, 1969, 393; Department of State Bulletin, December 1, 1969, 465–68.
46. Kissinger, White House Years, 137–38; The President’s News Conference of June 19, 1969,
John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, CA:
University of California (hosted), Gerhard Peters (database). Available from [Link]
[Link]/ws/?pid¼2106 (accessed June 25, 2010).
47. Talking Points, October 18, 1969, RNPL, NSC Files, President’s Trip Files, Dobrynin/
Kissinger, 1969, Part 1; Memorandum of Conversation, October 20, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976 XII,
279–82.
1102 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

fact.”48 Nixon wrote to Gerard Smith on the eve of the American delegation’s
departure to Helsinki that while no preconditions were made regarding the be-
ginning of talks, “progress in arms limitation must be accompanied by progress in
the solution of critical political problems.”49
The message reached the nonbeliever. The American chief negotiator to SALT
objected to the linkage strategy, believing that it could only complicate negoti-
ations.50 He did not have to deal with this problem, however, as a division of roles
between Smith and Kissinger had been created. As discussed above, Kissinger’s
attempt to create a top body that would coordinate and execute the comprehensive

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approach, with Cyrus Vance as it Czar, failed. Whether by intent or not, Kissinger
became that Czar. The division of work that then emerged had Smith and his
delegation providing a professional service concentrated on the details of an agree-
ment on the limitation of strategic arms, while Kissinger had the task of placing the
negotiations within the wider context of negotiations with the Soviets. In this way,
Kissinger seemed to be moving even further ahead than the president, as was
evident with the preparation for the last National Security Council (NSC) meeting
before the American delegation departed for Helsinki. Kissinger advised the
President to “reiterate your view that you will make decisions concerning SALT
in the context of our general relations with the USSR.” During the meeting the
president ignored this advice and made no reference to linkage.51
He did introduce that item in a letter to Smith presenting National Security
Decision Memorandum (NSDM) no. 33, which contained the president’s “basic
approach to SALT.” Here the president repeated Kissinger’s words, according to
which “I should like to make clear that I view arms limitation talks in the context of
our over-all relations with the Soviet Union.” The president continued, noting
that even though “I did not advance explicit pre-conditions for the opening of the
talks” and would “stipulate none for their continuation,” still he believed that “to
be meaningful, progress in arms limitation must be accompanied by progress in the
solution of critical political problems.”52 More than a directive, this was an ex-
pression of will, conveying quite clearly that the president would not make

48. See also the conversation between Kissinger and Dobrynin, Memorandum of
Conversation, November 6, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 301–2.
49. [Kissinger to Nixon:] Your Talking Points for NSC Meeting on SALT, November 10,
1969, RNPL, NSC Files, SALT, China Trip/Vietnam, vol. IV ; Draft Minutes of NSC Meeting
on SALT, November 10, 1969, DNSA, 00077; NSDM 33, November 12, 1969, RNPL, NSC
Files, SALT, China Trip/Vietnam, vol. IV; Letter from President Nixon to Gerard Smith,
November 12, 1969, ibid. And see also Memorandum from Kissinger to the President:
Congressional Briefing on SALT, November 14, 1969, ibid.
50. Smith, Doubletalk 6, 25–26, 76. At the same time, Smith was in favor of a comprehensive
agreement that would include both offensive and defensive weapons: Minutes of a Review Group
Meeting, July 17, 1969, FRUS 1969–1972 XXXII, 93.
51. Talking Points for NSC Meeting on SALT, November 10, 1969, RNPL, NSF, SALT
vol. IV, October to November 1969; Minutes of a NSC Meeting, November 10, 1969, FRUS
1969–1972 XXXII, 153–59.
52. Letter from President Nixon to Gerard Smith, November 12, 1969, RNPL, NSF SALT
vol. IV, October to November 1969.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1103

progress in discussion of outstanding political problems a precondition for pro-

gress on SALT. The president was less committed to linkage than his national
security advisor.53
Indeed, the American delegation to the talks acted completely independently of
progress or breaks in the discussions on the Middle East or Vietnam. The first
round of SALT began on November 17, 1969, and ended on December 22. The
reports from Helsinki indicated that the talks were serious and should move to the
next practical stage, that is, negotiating an agreement on the freezing and limita-
tion of strategic nuclear arms.54 The delegates did not mention the outstanding

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issues between the United States and the Soviet Union, Vietnam being foremost,
and those problems played no role in the negotiations. The pace of the negoti-
ations was determined solely on the basis of the agreements that could be
reached.55
Kissinger still tried to implement linkage. The next round of talks was set to
begin on April 16, 1970, in Vienna.56 In December 1969 Kissinger and Soviet
Ambassador Dobrynin agreed, through the back channel, to discuss SALT,
thereby creating a parallel—and clandestine—channel in addition to the one run
by the Soviet and American diplomatic delegations in Geneva and Vienna.57 This
channel could give the White House the power to override the process that was
underway in Geneva and Vienna and to exercise the linkage strategy directly at a
time that seemed to call for linkage (the early 1970s), as the United States was
failing in its objectives on both the Vietnam and Middle East fronts.
By the end of 1969, the sense in the United States was that the American
position in Vietnam had improved, and Kissinger, who believed that “the optimum
moment for negotiations is when things appear to be going well,” acted to resume
the negotiations with North Vietnam that had stalled in November with the res-
ignation of the American ambassador to Paris, Henry Cabot-Lodge. In January
1970, the Americans and the North Vietnamese agreed to resume the Paris talks

53. See also Memorandum for President Nixon from H. Kissinger, November 15, 1969,
RNPL, NSC Files, SALT, vol. V, May to November 1969.
54. See also First Session of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, November 17 to December
22, 1969, RNPL, NSC Files, SALT, vol. VII, January 1970; NSC Under-Secretaries Committee:
Memorandum for the President, December 8, 1969, RNPL, NSC Files, SALT, vol. V, May to
November 1969; G. Smith to the President, December 9, 1969, RNPL, NSC Files, SALT, vol. VI,
December 1–31, 1969; Memorandum to the President: Report of the U.S. Delegation to the
Preliminary Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, December 29, 1969, RNPL, NSC Files, SALT,
vol. V, May to November 1969.
55. Smith address in the conclusion of the Helsinki meeting: American Embassy, Helsinki to
Secretary of State, December 22, 1969, RNPL, NSC Files, SALT, vol. V; Memorandum From
Smith to the President, December 29, 1969, ibid.
56. Department of State for the Press: Communiqué on the Meeting of the Delegations of the
United States and the USSR on Questions of Curbing the Strategic Arms Race, December 22,
1969, RNPL, NSC Files, SALT, vol. V.
57. Memorandum of Conversation between the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Kissinger) and the Soviet Ambassador (Dobrynin), December 29, 1969, FRUS 1969–1976
XII, 342–43.
1104 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

during February.58 The meeting between Kissinger and the North Vietnamese
negotiator, Le Duc Tho, was a lesson in disillusionment. Le Duc Tho outlined his
government’s demands: A quick unilateral American withdrawal, dismantlement
of the South Vietnamese government at the time and establishment of a new
government that would “support peace” (euphemism of Kissinger’s used for a
government prescribed by Hanoi). “Is this posed as a preference or as a condition?”
asked Kissinger, and Le Duc Tho replied, “This is a condition.” “It was a condition
to which Hanoi stuck resolutely until the end of 1972,” concluded Kissinger.59
Things fared badly for the United States in the Middle East as well. In early

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January 1970, Israel started to bomb targets deep inside Egypt’s heartland in order
to press Nasser to stop firing across the Suez Canal. Kissinger blamed the Soviets
for not allowing Egypt to accept the American proposals for settlement that could
have ended the War of Attrition and Israeli bombing deep within Egypt. Kissinger
proposed “to come down very hard on the Soviet threat” against Israel.60
This seemed to be the right time to exercise linkage and demand Soviet co-
operation in both areas, Vietnam and the Middle East, as a condition for the
resumption of talks on the limitation of strategic arms, due to begin in Geneva
in April. That though did not happen. Expecting the resumption of the American-
North Vietnamese talks in Paris, the president asked his ambassador in Moscow,
Jacob D. Beam, not to raise the issue of Vietnam with the Soviets “for at least the
next 60–90 days” because the president “has given up on the Soviets so far as
getting any useful help from them is concerned.” Nixon hinted at a new approach
toward Vietnam, one that could include intensification of military activity at the
expense of diplomacy: “We will now end the war our way, taking whatever meas-
ures may be needed.”61 The “next 60 - 90 days” that Nixon had referenced meant
that the United States would not make a linkage between the opening of the second
round of the talks in early April and Vietnam. At least for now, progress on SALT
remained disconnected from the Vietnam issue.
The same happened during Kissinger’s meeting with Dobrynin in March. That
could be yet another opportunity to bring to the table linkage and to demand that
the Soviets soften the North Vietnamese position in return for continuation of the
SALT talks and to request that the Soviets work with the United States to calm
down the Israeli-Egyptian front. Kissinger and Dobrynin discussed both topics but

58. Kissinger, White House Years, 436–40. Rogers told the Soviets in early January that the
“Communists are doing badly in South Vietnam, and would be well advised to negotiate while
they can.” Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the Soviet Union, January 6,
1970, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 351.
59. Memorandum of Conversation, February 21, 1970, FRUS 1969–1976, VI, 619–20;
Kissinger, White House Years, 446.
60. Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between Secretary of State Rogers and the
President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), January 31, 1970, FRUS
1969–1976 XII, 366–67.
61. Memorandum for the Record, January 23, 1970, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 362.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1105

in complete isolation from SALT.62 As planned, the second round of SALT indeed
opened in Vienna on April 16, 1970.63
The first significant test of the linkage strategy had failed. In the face of concrete
crises on both the Vietnam and Middle East fronts, Nixon and Kissinger allowed
the SALT negotiations to continue as if the linkage strategy did not exist. To make
matters worse, a role reversal took place between the United States and the Soviet
Union, rendering the comprehensive approach and the linkage strategy null and
void. This reversal occurred with the escalation of tension in Southeast Asia in
April-May 1970, which made SALT even more imperative for the Americans than

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it was for the Soviets.
In Cambodia, anticommunist General Lon Nol, who had ousted Prince
Sihanouk in March 1970, called in April 1970 for help “from any quarter” in his
struggle against the Khmer Rouge and the North Vietnamese bases in Cambodia.
With the increase of reports from Cambodia—unverified by American intelligence
sources—according to which North Vietnamese troops were advancing toward
Phnom Pen and the capital was under threat of collapse, Nixon ordered a joint
South-Vietnamese-American military incursion into Cambodia.64
The sense within the administration was that the operation was a success and
that the North Vietnamese had suffered blows from which they would take months
to recover. The reaction within the United States, though, “was a different story.”
University students, editorialists, and congressmen sharply attacked the incursion.
The killing of four students from Kent University, Ohio, by National Guard forces
and ten days later of two students at Jackson State College, Mississippi, by police
during antigovernment demonstrations represents the nadir of this exchange.
Nixon strongly defended his actions, but under the growing pressure, and despite
his initial commitment, he instructed American forces to pull out of Cambodia by
June 30.65
To make matters worse, the Soviet government joined those criticizing the
administration for the American and South Vietnamese troops’ invasion of
Cambodia. In an embarrassing reversal of roles, Kosygin now threatened that
the American actions in South Asia could have an adverse effect on SALT. In
Vienna, the Soviet head of delegation, Vladimir Semenov, expressed harsh criti-
cism of the American actions in Cambodia.66 Two months later, the Soviet gov-
ernment sent an aide-memoire to President Nixon expressing interest in a positive
conclusion to the SALT talks. At the same time, “in our profound conviction, one

62. Memorandum of Conversation, March 10, 1970, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 437.
63. From U.S. Delegation, SALT to Secretary of State, April 17, 1970, RNPL, NSC Files,
SALT, vol. VIII.
64. Bundy, A Tangled Web, 147–55; R. B Smith, “The International Setting Of The Cambodia
Crisis, 1969-1970,” International History Review 18, no. 2 (1996): 303–35.
65. Bundy, A Tangled Web, 155–56; Kissinger, White House Years, 509–17.
66. Letter from G. Smith to the President, May 6, 1970, RNPL, NSC Files, SALT, vol. VIII;
Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs to President Nixon,
FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 481; Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 190–202.
1106 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

of the most important conditions for a successful development of the strategic arms
talks [. . .] is the state of the international situation as a whole.”67
That was the kind of rhetoric the White House used in the past, and was used
now against the United States. The mounting criticism leveled against him made
SALT suddenly a necessity for Nixon, a sign of his devotion to the cause of peace
rather than a carrot to use in negotiations with the Soviet Union. The United
States now needed SALT no less than the Soviets, possibly more. The Americans
therefore urged the Soviets not to link SALT with other outstanding political
problems. Kissinger, to a great extent the architect of linkage, heard from “that

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fellow Arbatov, who is close to Brezhnev,” that if the United States would continue
bombing in Cambodia, the Soviet Union might withdraw from the SALT talks.
Kissinger’s response to those words of threat, as he told Nixon, was: “What we do
in Cambodia has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t affect our relationship unless
you want it to.”68
Nixon was moving along the same path, and in a talk he had with Dobrynin in
June, he told him practically that “he was prepared to let bygones be bygones and
start afresh if the Soviet Union was prepared to take a similar approach.” The
issues concerning the United States, mainly Vietnam, would be treated by the
United States independently of the way U.S. relations with the Soviet Union
were conducted, and the United States expected the Soviet Union to endorse
this approach. What was before a “carrot” to be used to affect Soviet policy now
became a benefit to both the Soviet Union and the United States. Such was the case
with the trade agreement, and such would be the case with the SALT agreement.69
To be clear, Dobrynin spelled out in detail to Kissinger what the Soviets had
inferred from Nixon’s statement and approach, and what amounted in the Soviet
view to the introduction, or re-introduction of the incremental approach: They
should deal first with SALT, then with the Middle East, continue with Europe and
address “Vietnam last.” Kissinger agreed.70 The order of priorities was decided
between Kissinger and Dobrynin as follows: First, no more talks on linkage (and
certainly no more practice of linkage), and second, the Kissinger-Dobrynin back
channel would be the meaningful track for negotiations on a strategic arms limi-
tation treaty. The American and Soviet delegations would discuss the details, while
Kissinger and Dobrynin “would work on the general principles.”71
In the summer of 1970, the outline of an agreement between the United States
and the Soviet Union seemed to emerge. Both sides agreed to discuss a limited

67. Aide Memoire from the Soviet Union [undated], FURS 1969-76 XII, 547.
68. Letter from G. Smith to the President, May 6, 1970, FRUS 1969–1972, XXXII, note 3,
263.
69. Memorandum of Conversation, June 10, 1970, 7:05–7:34 p.m., FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 514;
Memorandum of Conversation, June 19, 1970, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 525–26.
70. Memorandum of Conversation, June 10, 1970, 7:30 p.m.–1 a.m., FRUS 1969–1976 XII,
516. And see Nixon, Memoires, I, 648.
71. Memorandum of Conversation, June 10, 1970, 7:30 p.m.–1 a.m., FRUS 1969–1976 XII,
517–18.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1107

agreement that would include a ban on ABMs with the exception of actual or
projected sites to protect national capitals and an agreement to reduce the
danger of nuclear war between the two powers resulting from accidental or un-
sanctioned use of nuclear missiles. Kissinger’s assessment of the impact of such an
agreement on U.S.-USSR relations was somber in comparison to the way the
administration planned to use the SALT agreement to make the Soviet Union
more receptive toward the United States. Kissinger thought that the limited agree-
ment was unprecedented and would be a “turning point” in U.S.-Soviet relations.
Now that an agreement on the limitation of strategic arms had become as import-

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ant to the Americans as it was to the Soviets, however, Kissinger concluded that an
agreement would no longer “restrain Soviet conduct elsewhere. The Soviets could
calculate exactly the opposite; that they would gain relatively a free hand, while the
US would be more inhibited from sharp reactions, lest the tentative Détente
would be jeopardized.” The Soviets indeed did so in 1968, when they invaded
Czechoslovakia and after the conclusion of negotiations on the nonproliferation
treaty, assuming that now the United States had lost its leverage over them.
Kissinger was worried lest the Soviets do something similar again in the future.
These were not words of warning Kissinger was delivering to the President in
order to stop or slow down the SALT negotiations; these were words of conclusion
and summary, analyzing for the president the current situation. The United States
was no longer making “a favorable SALT agreement dependent on their [Soviet]
political performance elsewhere.”72
In March 1970, Kissinger told Dobrynin that the administration was ready to
consider a summit. Kissinger tried to tie the summit to “a major breakthrough on
Vietnam,” but Dobrynin brushed him away: “Vietnam could not be put on the
agenda for a summit.”73 It appeared to be obvious to both of them that the linkage
Kissinger made between progress on Vietnam and a summit was meaningless
rhetoric. Perhaps unnecessarily, in his meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister
Andrei Gromyko in October 1970, Secretary Rogers stated again that “there
was no linkage between SALT and other political issues.”74
Now that they had put linkage aside and were expecting a summit and an
agreement that would benefit them, Nixon and Kissinger seemed eager to move
ahead. Nixon urged the Soviets to agree to announce the summit on October 30.75

72. Memorandum for the President from Henry Kissinger, July 13, 1970, NA PAF, NSF,
SALT vol. XI, July 1970.
73. Memorandum of Conversation, April 7, 1970, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 467.
74. Memorandum for the File by the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
October 21, 1970, FRUS XXXII SALT I, 1969–1972, 351. Nixon told Gromyko a day after
Rogers’ talk with him that there was a linkage between the situation in Vietnam and the
American-Soviet trade relations, but that was so because “under our legislative arrangements
some items which could be used to aid North Vietnam could not be exported to the Soviet
Union.” Memorandum of Conversation, October 22, 1970, DNSA, 00202.
75. Kissinger’s Memorandum to the President, November 2, 1970, DNSA, 00205,
November 2, 1970; Kissinger, White House Years, 795.
1108 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

Nixon wanted and needed the summit. Kissinger explained that “an agreement
between Nixon and Russia” was a useful way to “paralyze” the antiwar demon-
strators that “tormented” him. “It would defuse people,” said Kissinger in a meet-
ing with Nixon. “[T]hey can’t very well attack their President when he is getting
ready for a summit meeting.”76 The upcoming congressional elections made the
announcement even more desirable and welcome.77
In a rare demonstration of honesty, Nixon said to Kissinger in April 1971,
during a discussion of SALT and the planned summit, “Look, let me put it this
way: all this a bunch of bullshit. It won’t worth a damn. But the point is that in

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terms of our public relations, we can use something like this at this time.”78 Nixon
was thinking about the upcoming presidential elections. The feeling in the White
House during those days was that the President’s popularity and his prospects for
reelection were low but could now change thanks to SALT and an American-
Soviet summit: “We were at the bottom of our cycle now,” said Rogers to Nixon,
yet given the news about SALT and the summit “[we] can start our way upward,” a
sentiment shared by the president and Kissinger.79 A few days later Nixon ex-
plained why this was the case: “The American people are so peace-loving, they
think agreements solve everything.”80 SALT and the summit were now associated
with Nixon’s reelection, and hence most necessary.
Indeed, the Soviets made use of Nixon’s eagerness to their advantage. While the
administration wanted to negotiate an arms control agreement that would include
both defensive and offensive strategic weapons, the Soviets tried to limit the dis-
cussions to a separate ABM agreement, which they assumed would be easier to
achieve. The tone and nature of the debate had been determined by the rationale
behind SALT, which was political and strategic. Politically, the administration
wanted an agreement that would allow Nixon to be the first president to sign a
significant arms control agreement. A separate agreement on the limitation of
ABM systems would have sufficed for that purpose, but there were also strategic
considerations: At stake was the need to maintain strategic parity between the
United States and the Soviet Union in an agreement given the lack of U.S. trust
in the Soviet commitment to strategic parity. The Americans would not insist on
an agreement entailing actual dismantlement of weapons, but they would insist
on maintenance of the status quo. The United States had stopped building

76. Kissinger, White House Years, 552; Memorandum of Conversation, June 23, 1970, FRUS
1969–1976 XII, 528. See Kissinger-Nixon conversation transcript in Editorial Note, FRUS
1969–1976 XXXII, 429; Conversation Between President Nixon and the Director of the Office
of Management and Budget, April 7, 1971, FRUS, 1969–1976 XXXII, 440.
77. H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries, Inside the Nixon White House: The Complete
Multimedia Edition (Santa Monica, CA, 1994), Entry for October 14, 1970.
78. Conversation Among President Nixon, Kissinger and the Assistant to the President
(Haldeman), April 23, 1971, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XXXII, 455.
79. Haldeman Diaries, entry for April 12, 1971.
80. Conversation Among President Nixon, Kissinger and the Assistant to the President
(Haldeman), April 17, 1971, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. XXXII, 445.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1109

Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) many years earlier, and thus a freeze
agreement would affect only the Soviet Union.
The immediate American reaction to the proposal to negotiate a separate
agreement limiting ABM systems was complete rejection. Any agreement must
“involve limitations on both offensive and defensive systems.”81 As he was keen to
have the summit take place, however, Nixon agreed to conclude a separate agree-
ment on the limitation of ABM systems, accepting the Soviet approach as proposed
by Semenov to Smith on May 4 in Vienna, where Semenov proposed supplement-
ing a separate agreement to limit ABMs with the concurrent temporary cessation

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of new ICBM construction. That idea was in the heart of the agreement reached by
Kissinger and Dobrynin through the backchannel, and it led to a joint Moscow—
White House announcement, on May 20, 1971, of an understanding on a limited
agreement.82 That meant of course that the Soviets were also making a concession,
allowing Nixon to agree that negotiations on the limitation of offensive strategic
weapons would start after the conclusion of the ABM limitation agreement. An
immediate measure would be to freeze construction of additional buildup of new
ICBMs.83
Linkage was mentioned again in what was a sideshow to SALT but was cer-
tainly part of Détente. This time, though, the perspective was somewhat different.
Negotiations on the status of Berlin had begun in March 1970 and concluded
in an agreement in September 1971. In his memoires, Kissinger presented the
U.S.-Soviet negotiations as a successful example of the application of linkage,
tying the negotiations on Berlin with the negotiations on SALT.84 At the time,
however, when SALT was tied with the summit and Nixon wanted the summit
almost desperately, it was the other way around. Kissinger had in fact been worried
that the Soviets would attempt to link SALT and the summit with Berlin. When it
appeared that Dobrynin was trying to do just that in April 1971, Kissinger “reacted
very sharply,” telling the ambassador that “I heard many eloquent descriptions of

81. Telegram from U.S. Delegation to SALT III to Secretary of State, December 3, 1970, NA
PAF, NSCF, SALT XIII, July to September 1970; Memorandum for Henry Kissinger from
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, December 5, 1970, ibid., Telegram From Secretary Rogers to G. Smith,
December 8, 1970, NA PAF, NSCF, SALT XIII, July to September 1970; Telegram From
Secretary Rogers to G. Smith, December 13, 1970, ibid., Telegram From G. Smith to
Secretary Rogers, December 15, 1970, ibid.
82. Telegram from U.S. Delegation, Vienna to Secretary of State, May 6, 1971, NA, NPA
NSCF SALT Vol. XV, May to July 1971; Memorandum of Conversation: SALT Delegation, May
9, 1971, ibid., Richard Nixon: “Remarks Announcing an Agreement on Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks,” May 20, 1971, Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
[Link] (accessed July 13, 2010).
83. Memorandum of Conversation, May 12, 1971 and Memorandum of Conversation, May
13, 1971, DNSA, 00274; Draft of Letter From President Nixon to Prime Minister Kosygin [un-
dated], ibid.
84. Kissinger, The White House Years, 803–4, 821. See also David C. Geyer, “The Missing
Link: Henry Kissinger and the Backchannel Negotiations on Berlin,” in American Detente and
German Ostpolitik, 1969-1972, eds. David C. Geyer and Bernd Schaefer (Washington, DC, 2004),
91–92.
1110 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

the difficulties of linkage” in the past from Dobrynin, and warned that “the linkage
of the Summit to any preconditions [i.e.- Berlin- DT] was totally unacceptable to
us.”85 The image that Kissinger labored to create in his memoires is seen in an
entirely different light when primary sources are consulted.
Now that the chances for agreement seemed brighter than ever, Kissinger
sought to cause the Soviet government to set a date for the summit. Events reached
the point where Kissinger tried to practice extortion, telling Dobrynin in June
1971 that “we expected an answer by next week or we should call off the whole
project.” That of course was not an option, and a few days later the Soviet gov-

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ernment informed the Nixon administration that September—Kissinger’s pre-
ferred date—was too soon and that a later date should be set, perhaps around
late November or December.86
It appeared at the time that the United States had enough leverage over
Moscow to increase Soviet interest in a U.S.-USSR summit. In July 1971
Kissinger visited Beijing secretly, marking the dawn of a new era in U.S.-China
relations, which had an equally significant impact on U.S.-USSR relations as well.
Whether or not this achievement represented a deliberate goal, the sense within
the administration was that the breakthrough in relations with China also changed
the Soviet attitude toward the United States: “The fact of the matter, Gentlemen,”
told Kissinger to a group of media men and conservatives, “is that up to July 17th
Dobrynin and the Russians were insolent in their dealings with us. Since July 17th
we have their full attention.”87 Indeed, during the meeting with Dobrynin follow-
ing his visit to Beijing, Kissinger observed that “for the first time in my experience
with him, Dobrynin was totally insecure.” Now, assuming that Moscow was under
pressure, Kissinger told Dobrynin that “after a long series of Presidential overtures
designed to open a new vista of cooperation, the Soviet response, particularly on
the Summit, had been grudging, petty and evasive.” Dobrynin, “almost beside
himself with protestations of goodwill,” explained that the Soviet reply was af-
fected solely by schedule issues, nothing else. The Soviets wanted the summit, and
the earliest possible date was November. Kissinger could not avoid creating a
linkage between the summit and his visit to China. When Dobrynin asked
Kissinger if his visit to Beijing had been affected by the Soviet summit decision,
Kissinger replied, “if the Russians had accepted the September summit, we would
have stalled the Chinese summit until much later.”88
Apparently, the Soviets were concerned by what seemed a turn in U.S. foreign
policy and by the possible effects of a new Washington-Beijing axis on U.S.-USSR

85. Conversation Among President Nixon, the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affairs (Kissinger), and the Assistant to the President, April 23, 1971, FRUS 1969–1972 XXXII,
453, 459; Mmemorandum of a Conversation, April 23, 1971, DNSA, 00267; Mmemorandum of a
Conversation, April 27, 1971, DNSA, 00268.
86. Memorandum for the President from Henry A. Kissinger, June 21, 1971, DNSA, 00292;
Note from the Soviet Leadership to President Nixon, undated, FRUS 1969–1976 XII, 548–49.
87. Memorandum of Conversation, August 12, 1971, DNSA, 00330.
88. Memorandum of Conversation, July 19, 1971, DNSA, 00314.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1111

relations. When Nixon sent a letter to Brezhnev in August replying to what seemed
an invitation from the latter to open a direct line of communication between
himself and Nixon, Dobrynin wondered if the absence of any reference to the
summit in Nixon’s letter was significant. Was the US “no longer interested in
it?” wondered Dobrynin. When Kissinger promised him that such was not the
case; rather, the United States was waiting for the Soviet response. Dobrynin told
Kissinger that Moscow would send an invitation to Nixon within two weeks.89
Now things seemed to move faster—Kissinger and Dobrynin concluded that an
announcement should be made soon, and indeed, President Nixon announced on

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October 12 that he would visit Moscow in May 1972 to discuss issues arising from
their bilateral relations.90 The planned summit had two components: As the stage
for signing the SALT treaty that was so important to the United States and as the
crowning point of Détente from which the Soviet Union would benefit no less than
the United States. The summit would bring with it increased trade between the
two powers, an objective Moscow sought eagerly.91
Thus, from an arms control perspective, SALT and the summit marked the
return of Nixon to the track paved by his predecessors: The United States was
acting now, as it did before, to achieve an arms control agreement that would be
independent of outstanding political issues up to a point, that point being Vietnam.
Since the autumn of 1971, there had been indications that the North Vietnamese
were planning a major offensive against the South. Kissinger warned Dobrynin
that the United States would react sharply in such a situation. In making this claim,
Kissinger intended to prevent the Soviets from forming a linkage between the
situation in Vietnam on the one hand and SALT and the summit on the other,
as had happened in April 1970, when the Soviet Union threatened to abort SALT
following the American operation in Cambodia. Kissinger did this by informing
Dobrynin that in the event of North Vietnam aggression, the United States would
react sharply. Kissinger also promised Dobrynin that the United States would give
the Soviet Union an indication of its intention if violence erupted. Dobrynin’s
reply was assuring: “Moscow would understand U.S. escalation in response to
North Vietnam actions.”92
The moment of truth arrived on March 30, 1972, with the long-awaited North
Vietnamese offensive. North Vietnamese forces crossed the border into South

89. Memorandum of Conversation, August 5, 1971, DNSA, 00325.

90. Memorandum of Conversation, August 17, 1971, DNSA, 00343; The President’s News
Conference, October 12, 1971, John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency
Project, Santa Barbara, CA, [Link] (accessed January 3,
2011).
91. See Meeting of Secretary of Commerce Stans with President Nixon and others, December
7 1971, FRUS 1969–1976 XIV, 20, note 2.
92. Memorandum for the President from Henry A. Kissinger, November 26, 1971, DNSA,
00394. In their meeting on January 21, 1972, Kissinger was even more blatant, telling Dobrynin:
“If a Communist offensive occurred, I emphasized that we would certainly take the strongest
possible action, which in turn would have effects on our relationship.” Memorandum of
Conversation, January 21, 1972, FRUS 1969–1972, XIV, 128.
1112 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

Vietnam in three places, initiating their spring offensive. “The battle has begun,”
said Nixon.93 Nixon was determined not to let the North Vietnamese win the
campaign, and throughout the days remaining until the summit, Nixon and
Kissinger acted to achieve two major objectives: First, to make it clear that the
United States would react fiercely against attacking forces—“we will under no
circumstances accept a defeat there and we will do what is necessary not to”—
and expected the Soviets to understand and accept this. Second, and related to the
first, was the objective of avoiding any linkage between the events in Vietnam and
the summit. Nixon implored Kissinger not to allow the events in Vietnam to cause

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the cancellation of the summit: “If there is a way really, Henry, to not allow
Vietnam to sink the Soviet summit – that’s what I’m thinking about.”94 Nixon
would not, however, allow the summit to forestall American action against the
North Vietnamese offensive. Nixon was ready to take all necessary measures, even
at the risk of derailing the summit.95
Gavin correctly observes that “Nixon and Kissinger appeared willing to scuttle
the Moscow summit and end any possibility of SALT by threatening massive
escalation after a spring offensive by North Vietnam into the south,”96 but up to
a limit. Nixon did everything in his power to convince the Soviets not to link the
summit to American actions in North Vietnam. Nixon was determined to act
against North Vietnam even at the risk of thwarting the summit and, alongside
his national security advisor, accused the Soviet Union of providing the support to
North Vietnam that enabled it to attack the South. Kissinger sought a strategy that
would “influence decision-making not only in Hanoi but also in Moscow.”97 At the
same time, Nixon and Kissinger would communicate constantly with the Soviets,
mainly through Dobrynin, in order to make American intentions clear. The strat-
egy devised to convince the Soviets to restrain the North Vietnamese would not
include linkage between SALT and the crisis in Vietnam. The agreement on the
limitation of strategic weapons was now important enough to Nixon both domes-
tically and strategically to prevent his risking it by conditioning SALT—or the
Summit—on concrete Soviet steps to end the North Vietnamese invasion. Indeed,
in their meeting on April 6, Kissinger “pointed out to Dobrynin the inadmissibility
of what was going on in Vietnam,” and then proceeded to discuss SALT and the
summit completely independently.98
Nevertheless, the president and Kissinger were fairly certain that the Soviets
were going to cancel the summit in light of the strong military U.S. reaction to the

93. Nixon and Kissinger talk, March 30, 1972, Editorial Note, FRUS 1969–1972, XIV, 234.
94. Telephone Call from Nixon to Kissinger, April 3, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976 XIV, 254–55;
Dobrynin, In Confidence, 243; Conversation Between President Nixon and Henry A. Kissinger,
April 15, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976 XIV, 331.
95. Telephone Call from Kissinger to Nixon, April 4, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976 XIV, 255.
96. Gavin, Nuclear Nixon, 137.
97. Kissinger in the Washington Special Actions Group (WSAG) Meeting, April 4, 1972, in
Editorial Note, FRUS 1969–1976 XIV, 256.
98. Memorandum of Conversation, FRUS 1969–1976 XIV, 264–65.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1113

North Vietnamese attack. In such a situation, Nixon would not budge. If facing
the choice between defeat in Vietnam or acting to prevent defeat even at the cost of
the summit, Nixon was unequivocal: everything necessary to prevent defeat in
Vietnam was to be done. “I’m going to destroy the goddamn country, believe
me,” he told Kissinger. “And let me say, even the nuclear weapon if necessary.”99
While his main concern was that the Soviets could create a linkage between the
Vietnam situation and the summit, Nixon could not resist trying to apply his own
linkage, demanding that the Soviet Union stop providing military support to
North Vietnam (which he believed had enabled the North Vietnamese offensive)

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in return for the summit. The occasion to do so was Kissinger’s visit to Moscow in
April 1972, when the issue of linkage became a point of contention between the
president and his national security advisor.
Kissinger went to Moscow with clear instructions to discuss the Vietnam situ-
ation primarily and to make it clear to his hosts that this situation jeopardized the
summit.100 Resorting to the linkage strategy, and assuming that the Soviets were
anxious to have the summit (an assumption endorsed by Kissinger’s reports),
Nixon insisted that discussions on the summit and its very occurrence, be condi-
tional on the Soviets agreeing to persuade Hanoi to stop the offensive: “Vietnam is
ten times more important than the Summit. [. . . The] Summit is not to be dis-
cussed further until Vietnam is settled.”101
Although prior to his departure to Moscow, Kissinger had agreed with the line
suggested by the president, matters changed for him following his talks with Soviet
leaders, including Brezhnev. In Moscow, Kissinger reached the conclusion that
the Soviets were not behind the North Vietnamese March offensive and would not
be able to bring about its end: “I am not sure they are able to deliver on Vietnam.”
All the United States could expect would be a “maybe” on the issue of Soviet
assistance in “deescalating or ending the war,” and “surely” on the question of
getting Brezhnev’s agreement to an American counteroffensive against the North
Vietnamese. Under these circumstances and in the context of Vietnam, argued
Kissinger, the Summit became one of the major issues of his discussions with the
Soviet leaders.102
In contrast to the way he had talked in Washington, now, in Moscow, Kissinger
wondered: “What in the God’s name they are getting” by providing assistance to

99. Conversation Between President Nixon and his Assistant for National Security Affairs
(Kissinger), April 19, 1972, FRUS 1969–1972 XIV, 423.
100. Memorandum from President Nixon to his Assistant for National Security Affairs
(Kissinger), April 20, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976 XIV, 449–50; Conversation between Nixon and
Haldeman, April 20, 1972, ibid., 453.
101. Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between President Nixon and his Deputy
Assistant for National Security Affairs (Haig), April 21, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976 XIV, 513;
Transcript of Telephone Conversation Between President Nixon and his Deputy Assistant for
National Security Affairs (Haig), April 22, 1972, 556; Message from Alexander Haig to Henry
Kissinger, April 22, 1972, ibid., 569.
102. Message from Henry A. Kissinger to Alexander Haig, April 22, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976
XIV, 545.
1114 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

the North Vietnamese? “The leaders here seem extremely embarrassed and con-
fused” by the situation they were put into by the North Vietnamese. Kissinger
insisted that the concessions he had secured from the Soviets on Vietnam were the
most they could get, and that American hands remained untied in responding to
the North Vietnamese attack. “To kick them in the teeth now would be an ab-
surdity,” summed up Kissinger.103
Nixon “exploded” upon reading Kissinger’s reports,104 which insisted that
there was no point in the Vietnam-Summit linkage created by the president, but
he would not force the linkage approach on Kissinger. He regarded Kissinger’s trip

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to Moscow as an overall failure with minor achievements. “It seems to me that their
primary purpose of getting you to Moscow to discuss the summit has now been
served while our purpose of getting some progress on Vietnam has not been
served,” wrote Nixon to Kissinger. The Soviets agreed to join the diplomatic
effort to end the war, but at the same time, wrote the president, they “will be
continuing to send arms” to North Vietnam, and “anyone who gives a murder
weapon to someone he knows is going to kill with it is equally responsible for the
crime.” Kissinger had failed to change this situation.105
Upset though he was with Kissinger’s failure or, in practical terms, refusal to
apply linkage, Nixon would not impose his will on his advisor. This last-minute
effort to apply linkage had failed, just as the previous attempts had.
While Nixon gave up on linkage, it still remained to be seen how far the Soviets
would go in tying the summit to the Vietnam situation. The moment of truth was
Nixon’s decision to mine North Vietnamese ports and thus to impose a blockade
on them in order to prevent the arrival of military supplies. The president
announced this policy on May 8 in a speech to the nation and in a personal
letter to Brezhnev.106 The decision indicates that when Nixon told Kissinger
that “Vietnam is ten times more important than the summit,” he truly meant
what he said. There was a limit to both the price that Nixon was willing to pay
for the Summit and SALT as well as his readiness to risk his re-election. The
recurring theme that justified all these risks in Nixon’s eyes was that “an American
president couldn’t be in Moscow while Soviet guns and tanks” were killing
American and South Vietnamese soldiers.107

103. Message from Henry A. Kissinger to Alexander Haig, April 22, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976
XIV, 568; Message from Henry A. Kissinger to Alexander Haig, April 23, 1972, ibid., 588–89.
104. See, for example, The Haldeman Diaries, April 22, 1972.
105. Message from President Nixon to his Assistant for National Security Affairs in Moscow,
April 23, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976 XIV, 599–600.
106. Letter from President Nixon to Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev, May 8, 1972, FRUS
1969–1976 XIV, 781–83; Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast Asia, May 8, 1972,
John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online], Santa Barbara, CA,
[Link] (accessed February 12, 2011).
107. Haldeman Diary, entry for May 8, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976 XIV, 788. Nixon had repeat-
edly invoked this theme on previous occasions.
 Nixon’s SALT Policy : 1115

The administration premise was that the Soviet reaction to Nixon’s announce-
ment would be to cancel or at least postpone the summit. Neither happened. A few
days after Nixon’s May 8 announcement, Brezhnev’s response arrived: unless new
measures, in addition to those introduced by President Nixon on May 8, were
introduced against North Vietnam, the state of American-Soviet relations would
remain as it was, that is, the summit would be held as planned. Kissinger had failed
completely in predicting the Soviet reaction, and after the Soviet announcement,
they failed to understand the reasons behind the Soviet decision to maintain plans
for the summit.108 Dobrynin explained that while debating the option of cancelling

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the summit in reaction to the American blockade and bombing, the Soviet lead-
ership decided to continue with the summit. The major reason behind this decision
was that although an ally, Hanoi “doggedly” avoided informing the Soviet Union
about plans regarding the United States and would not take into account the
implications of their actions on Moscow’s relations with Washington. The
Kremlin refused to give Hanoi a right of veto regarding Soviet relations with
the United States.109
Exactly like the Americans, the Soviets too were unwilling to link the summit or
SALT to outstanding political issues. Smith called this “linkage in reverse.”110
Having rejected linkage when it was first introduced by the Americans approxi-
mately three years previously, the Kremlin would not resort to it on the eve of a
dramatic breakthrough in superpower relations. In May, Nixon boarded the plane
that took him and the American delegation to Moscow, and the rest, as it is said, is
history.
Both Nixon and Kissinger viewed linkage as important enough to mention in
their memoirs in more than a passing way. “We saw linkage,” summed up
Kissinger, “as synonymous with an overall strategic and overall view. To ignore
the inter-connection of events was to undermine the coherence of all policy.”111
That, though, was precisely what did happen: Linkage was ignored, but not be-
cause of the bureaucracy. To be sure, Secretary Rogers and chief negotiator Smith
opposed linkage. Kissinger had demonstrated, however, that he could circumvent
the objections: The back channel—a successful venue—was aimed at achieving
precisely that goal. Linkage was ignored because it became apparent that it would
not work. It did not work for three reasons: First, the premise upon which the
concept of linkage was based, according to which the Soviet Union was much more
interested than the United States in SALT, was not based on any empirical evi-
dence, but on Nixon’s and Kissinger’s conceptions. As a Defense official

108. Letter from Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev to President Nixon, May 11, 1972, FRUS
1969–1972 XIV, 799–801. See also Memorandum of Telephone Conversation between President
Nixon and His Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), May 14, 1972, FRUS 1969–1976
XIV, 840–41.
109. Dobrynin, In Confidence, 248.
110. Smith, Doubletalk, 383.
111. Kissinger, White House Years, 129.
1116 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y

commented, “no one really knows the Soviets’ objectives and we need not specu-
late on them.”112 Nixon and Kissinger did speculate, though, and were proven to
be wrong. As it turned out, the only price that the Soviet leaders were ready to pay
for SALT was the addition of their signature to an agreement.
Second, and associated with the first, it turned out that SALT was at least as
important to the United States as it was to the Soviet Union. Nixon and Kissinger
had learned that reality defies position papers, and although not included in their
calculations when SALT was discussed, domestic politics proved to be a force that
made SALT essential for Nixon and Kissinger. Nixon’s image, and accordingly,

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his political prospects, came to depend on an arms-control agreement. Although
he was not prepared to sign an agreement at any cost, Nixon was prepared to
abandon linkage as soon as it became obvious that it was an impediment to an
agreement.
The third reason for the failure was the implied America-centric approach
manifest in the concept of linkage. Nixon and Kissinger assumed that they
could decide the rules of the game and the Soviets would comply. That did not
happen. The wishes, plans, and intentions of the United States could determine
the course of U.S. foreign policy, but not of the party on the other side of the table.
Indeed, the other side’s wishes, plans and intentions were just as integral to the
negotiations.
Thus, it was precisely because he abandoned the comprehensive approach
that tied arms control negotiations with the resolution of political outstanding
problems—linkage—and returned to the incremental approach to arms control,
that Nixon was able to sign the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement on
Strategic Missiles. Nixon and Kissinger learned—though never admitted—that
it was one thing to devise a strategy and another actually to implement it. In his
book, Kissinger wrote about the difference between the outsider academic and the
political leader: “The outsider thinks in terms of absolutes; [. . .] the political leader
[. . .] rarely reach[es] his goal except in stages.”113 This was a lesson that Kissinger
and Nixon learned the hard way. Seeking to change the course of U.S. disarma-
ment policy to make it part of a comprehensive plan, they defined a policy “in
terms of absolutes.” Implementing the comprehensive approach, or linkage, how-
ever, depended also on those affected by the strategy. Eisenhower moved from the
comprehensive approach to arms control to the incremental approach once he
realized that otherwise no agreement with the Soviets would be possible. Nixon
and Kissinger, despite their interest and knowledge in history, refused initially to
learn the lesson of their predecessors but had to take the same course eventually in
light of reality.

112. Memorandum for Dr Kissinger from Winston Lord, June 16, 1989, DNSA, 00025.
113. Kissinger, White House Years, 55.