Question

How did the US Congress respond to the signing of the SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) treaty?

Answer 1

Answer:

SALT II was the second series of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The talks opened in Geneva in September 1972 to complete the agreement on strategic defensive weapons. The agreement for the limitation of the construction of nuclear weapons was reached in Vienna on June 18, 1979, but with the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, on the eve of Christmas 1979, there were harsh reactions on a global scale, especially on the American side.  

On 3 January 1980, Carter proposed to the Senate to postpone indefinitely the ratification of the SALT II treaty. Then he took a series of restrictive measures, including the suspension of the planned sales of grain, culminating then in the announcement that the American athletes would not take part in the XXII Olympics, to be held in Moscow on the summer of 1980. With the increasing tensions at the beginning of the eighties, the great powers accused each other of betraying the agreements made, but this did not prevent the negotiations for the reduction of strategic weapons, albeit with continuous interruptions, to resume until reaching the START agreements (START I and START II).