Question

How did détente represent a new direction in u.s. foreign policy?

Answer 1

Detente represented an effort to relax the heated tensions of the Cold War.  Rather than continuing the massive buildup of nuclear arsenals in an arms race, the United States and the Soviet Union began to talk to one another about the strategic reduction of armaments.  The nations' leaders, Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon, met in Moscow in 1972 -- the first visit of a US president to Moscow.  They signed agreements stemming from these Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT), which began a new direction in policy between the two superpowers.