The SALT II Treaty

Abstract

On June 18, 1979, President Jimmy Carter and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (salt II) in Vienna. Carter considered the treaty to be very significant; a month before signing the treaty, he told a congressional delegation: ``I will never have a chance so momentous to contribute to world peace as to negotiate and to see ratified this salt treaty. And I don't believe that any member of the Senate will ever cast a more important vote than when a final judgment is made to confirm and ratify this negotiated treaty.''1 Members of Congress agreed. Senate minority leader Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) called salt II ``the most important treaty this country has undertaken since World War I.''2 Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio) concurred: ``Not since Woodrow Wilson's time and the League of Nations debate has a treaty been so important, yet so contentious, as the salt II Treaty.''3