In May 1972 , Nixon met with Leonid Brezhnev and other leading Soviet officials at the 1972 Moscow Summit . The two sides reached the Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement ( SALT I ) , which set upper limits on the number of offensive missiles and ballistic missile submarines that each county could maintain . A separate agreement , the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty , stipulated that each country could only field two anti-ballistic missile systems . The United States also agreed to the creation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe . An October 1972 trade agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union vastly increased trade between the two countries , though Congress did not approve of Nixon 's proposal to extend most favoured nation status to the Soviet Union
Moscow Summit
Moscow Summit (1972)
Presidency of Richard Nixon