By EUGENE J. McCARTIIY

By EUGENE J. McCARTIIY

Rappahannock News Contributing Writer

The great disarmament achievement under the Nixon Administration was contained in the agreement known as SALT I (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) signed on April 2(5, 1972, well in advance of Nixon’s run for re-election. The agreement set limits on the number of land-based and submarinelaunched missiles the U.S. and the Soviets could have, limits well above what they already possessed.

Both countries then moved to build to the maximums allowed by the treaty, and to build other weapons and weapon systems not covered by SALT I. The U.S. increased its emphasis on multiple warhead missiles, the multiple warheads making the number of missiles agreed to all but irrelevant. The U.S. also proceeded to build the Trident submarines, to develop cruise missiles and to consider the neutron bomb. The Soviets built new and larger missiles. They also developed and deployed their own multiple warhead system, and were reported to have made great strides in the development of laser weapons.

SALT I was not a disarmament agreement, but an agreement allowing further but somewhat limited arms build-ups.. It allowed both countries to have more arms that they had when the agreement was made, but possibly fewer arms, of some kinds, than they would have had if the agreement had not been entered into.

In the Carter Administration a major disarmament conference was held in the summer of 197M. In anticipation of those talks, both the U.S. and the Soviets announced significant increases in military spending and in the arms build-ups. Both either claimed to have plans for new and sophisticated weapons of a higher order, or were accused of having such weapons. Both began actively peddling arms to client nations - the Russians primarily to African nations, the United States to the Middle East and to Southeastern Asia.