Détente
HDétente meant, a relaxing of tensions with the West, especially the
United States.
HIn May 1972, during a
Moscow visit by U.S. President Richard Nixon, he and Brezhnev signed agreements for
economic cooperation.
H Agreement was reached for a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty in May 1979, and Brezhnev met with U.S. President
Jimmy Carter in Vienna for a formal signing one month later.
HThe Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan in December of that year doomed ratification of the accord by the U.S.
Senate.
HU.S.-Soviet relations
worsened during the early 1980s.
HWashington condemned the Soviet role in the
suppression of dissidence in Poland in 1981 and its shooting
down of a South Korean civilian aircraft in Soviet airspace in
September 1983.
