On June 18, 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT II treaty at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. This agreement—short for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II—was designed to curb the escalating nuclear arms race by limiting the number of strategic nuclear delivery systems each superpower could possess.
SALT II built on the earlier SALT I agreement and introduced caps on MIRVs (Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles), ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers, aiming to stabilize the balance of power during the Cold War. Although the treaty was never formally ratified by the U.S. Senate—largely due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan later that year—both nations voluntarily abided by its terms for several years. It was a moment of cautious optimism in Cold War diplomacy, even if short-lived.
