July 1st, 1968 - Johnson Announces Weapons Limitations Treaty with USSR

*This is a student project created for a United States History class. The posts in this blog are of historical nature about a specific event in U.S. History. This blog deals with Detente and SALT. This is not meant to be expert scholarship and there may be errors. This is a first attempt at learning something in more depth. There has been a genuine effort to properly cite all pictures, quotes, information gathered in this research project. For a list of sources see the final blog."

            President Johnson announced the planned signing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty with the Soviet Union. The treaty was to mark the beginning of discussion on the removal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in both the United States and the Soviet Union. The dates of the discussions had yet to be said by Johnson, the rest of the government or in the Soviet Union and the matter of these discussions had yet to be said also, and further news on this subject would be updated at a later date.

January 20th, 1969 - Nixon Takes Oath of Office

            Republican Richard Nixon became the 37^th President of the United States of America after defeating Democrat Hubert Humphrey in the Presidential race back in November of 1968. During his inauguration speech, Nixon spoke of ushering in a new era of peace, prosperity, and negotiation as quoting Nixon himself from that speech “We cannot expect to make everyone our friend, but we can try to make no one our enemy.” It was expected that Nixon would continue the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks seen in 1968 with the Soviet Union along with Johnson’s tactics of Detente, however further plans for conducting peace remained unknown at the time.

February 27th, 1969 - Nixon Travels to Berlin During Trip in Europe

            Only one month into his presidency, Richard Nixon had all ready began travels in Europe to help strengthen the Trans-Atlantic power of NATO. Nixon headed to Berlin in February, in order to show its citizens that they are not the only ones going through a feeling of loneliness especially after the construction of the Berlin Wall. Nixon was met with much acclaim throughout the day as he stopped at numerous areas in order to shake hands with parade watchers (As seen in the picture above). The trip was overall a success to Nixon, whom was worried of being overcastted by the shadow Kennedy left years before.

November 17th, 1969 - White House Announces Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

Going off of what was said earlier in October 1969, the White House, along with the Soviet Union, confirmed plans to begin the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (or SALT). The White House chose the Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Gerald Smith, to lead the US delegations during the talks and President Nixon also stated that the first conference was to be held outside of the US in Europe. However when the first conference would take place had yet to be mentioned by either the US or the USSR. This was an important step in the fight to sustain world peace after the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1969, putting all peace negotiations on hold, The announcement of SALT was seen as a possibility of finally achieving peace with the USSR.

April 17th, 1971 - American Ping-Pong Team Begins Ping-Pong Diplomacy in China

Following an interesting chain of events, the American ping-pong team was invited to China in April 1971 after the 31^st Japanese Ping-Pong Tournament. The allowing of nine team members along with five American journalists marked an important occasion as the first Americans allowed into China after its Communist takeover in 1949. Primer Chou En-lai worked out the public relations between the two countries beautifully stating confidently, “You have opened a new chapter in the relations of the American and Chinese people.” This event marked a healthy start to President Nixon’s détente plan through a “ping heard around the world”. 

February 24th, 1972 - Nixon Has Private Meeting with China’s Mao Zedong

            President Nixon along with Secretary of State Kissinger met with Mao Zedong in November 1972 in China in order to draw up the Memorandum of Conversation. The documents associated to the Memorandum deal mostly with relations throughout Asia. Nixon stated in the documents that America would count Taiwan as a part of China and will not support any independence. The documents also outlined a settlement on the Indo-Chinese War of 1962 along with discussions on the current Vietnam War. Nixon also discussed with Zedong on both countries policies with the Soviet Union. Overall, the meetings in China managed to further improve relationships between it and the United States.

May 22nd, 1972 - First Détente Summit Begins

            President Nixon managed to make at the first Détente summit in Moscow a success along with the help of Soviet Prime Minister Brezhnev. Brezhnev, despite a rather tense talk on the recent bombings in North Vietnam, stated that he wished to keep a healthy and peaceful relationship with President Nixon. Along with the peace made between the two leaders, the two countries made progress in signing the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty along with further talks regarding SALT treaties. The Summit was an overall success and lead to multiple more between the two superpowers.