1. The negotiations surrounding SALT I and SALT II provided a foundation for Reagan's far-reaching arms control agreements with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the last years of the Cold War.

2. Our preparations for SALT II suddenly took on a theological cast.

3. In the summer of 1979, I led a delegation of senators to Moscow to discuss the second Strategic Arms Limitation Talks agreement (SALT II).

4. Nonetheless, Carter's successor, President Ronald Reagan, continued to abide by the unratified SALT II pledges.

5. It was hardly an environment conducive to conceptual thought when SALT II got under way in October 1972.