The agreement will enter into force immediately after signature by both parties. The most important element of the summit was the SALT agreements. Discussions on SALT have been taking place for about two and a half years, but with little progress. However, during the meeting between Nixon and Brezhnev in May 1972, a monumental breakthrough was made. The saltal agreements signed on 27 May dealt with two important issues. First, they limited to two the number of anti-ballistic missile (ABM) sites that any country could have. (ABMs were missiles designed to destroy missiles that arrived.) Secondly, the number of intercontinental and submarine-fired ballistic missiles has been frozen at the existing level. However, the agreements did not cover several re-entry missiles that can be operated independently of one another (individual missiles equipped with several nuclear warheads) or the development of new weapons. Yet most Americans and Soviets celebrated the SALT accords as immense achievements. By mutual agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the President of the United States and Mrs.
Richard Nixon paid an official visit from May. From 22 to 30 May 1972. The president was accompanied by Secretary of State William P. Rogers, assistant to President Henry A. Kissinger, and other U.S. officials. During his stay at the U. H.S.R., President Nixon went with Moscow to the cities of Leningrad and Kiev. In 1968, the United States offered to conduct talks on the agreement and the Soviet Union agreed. The talks took place on 11 October 1971 in Moscow and on 17 May 1972 in Washington, D.C.
The final agreement was reached at the Moscow Summit on 25 May 1972, signed by US Secretary of the Navy John Warner and Soviet Naval Commander of Admiral sergei Gorchkov of the Soviet Union Fleet. Both sides consider the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxic Weapons and on Their Destruction as an essential disarmament measure. . . .