The unelected president who steered détente into its final phase
On the train to Vladivostok, when Ford grumbled how snarled Washington's traffic grew in snow, Brezhnev leaned over the table: "Well, that will be our first deal. We'll send you Soviet snowplows."
A Republican who spent twenty-five years in the House and served as vice president before succeeding Nixon after his resignation in 1974, Ford remains the only American president never elected to national office. He carried on Nixon's détente, meeting Brezhnev at Vladivostok in 1974 to fix the SALT II framework of 2,400 delivery vehicles and a 1,320 sub-limit on MIRVed systems, and a year later signed the Helsinki Final Act while turning the Jackson-Vanik amendment into law. His pardon of Nixon was the defining controversy of his presidency, and he lost the 1976 election to Carter.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1949–1973U.S. Representative, Michigan's 5th district
- 1965–1973House Minority Leader
- 1973–1974Vice President
- 1974–197738th President of the United States
- 1974.11Vladivostok summit: agreed the SALT II framework with Brezhnev
Related historical events
- 1969–1979Détente and the SALT NegotiationsU.S. president at the Vladivostok summitMet Brezhnev at Vladivostok in November 1974 and agreed on the SALT II framework of 2,400 delivery vehicles and 1,320 MIRVed systems.
- 1975The Helsinki AccordsPresident who signed the Helsinki Final ActFord signed the Helsinki Final Act in 1975.
The Vladivostok Summit and the SALT II Framework (1974)
Ford met Brezhnev at Vladivostok on 23-24 November 1974. The summit aimed to prepare a more comprehensive successor to SALT I, which was due to expire in October 1977 and had limited only ballistic missile numbers, leaving heavy bombers and multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) unrestricted, an arrangement that by 1974 worked to the advantage of the United States. A Kissinger visit to Moscow in October 1974 had already produced a general framework for a SALT II pact before Ford reached Vladivostok; Ford himself judged that only the number of launchers and MIRVs, and whether both sides would receive an equal quota, remained to be settled.
The two sides agreed within a day on equal aggregate limits of 2,400 launchers and 1,320 MIRVed systems. According to the State Department account, the Aide-Memoire recording the agreement included the 1,320 equal aggregate limit on MIRV systems, a ban on construction of new land-based ICBM launchers, limits on deployment of new types of strategic offensive arms, and the incorporation of important elements of the Interim Agreement, including verification provisions, with the new agreement's duration stated as through 1985. Ford and Brezhnev signed a SALT II accord on 24 November, and on 10 December Dobrynin and Kissinger exchanged confidential memoranda with the details of the limitations agreed at Vladivostok.
The accord proved an unfinished legacy. Delegations in Geneva resumed work on this framework in 1975, but fundamental disagreement emerged over how cruise missiles were to be addressed and whether the new Soviet bomber known as Backfire counted in the 2,400 aggregate. A comprehensive American proposal in 1977, which added significant reductions and qualitative constraints to the Vladivostok ceilings, was rejected by the Soviets as inconsistent with their understanding of the Vladivostok accord, and the remaining differences were compromised in later talks. The completed SALT II agreement was signed at Vienna on 18 June 1979 and sent to the Senate by President Carter, but it was never ratified: on 3 January 1980 Carter asked for floor consideration to be delayed in view of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.