Overview

The Control Agenda is a sweeping account of the history of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), their rise in the Nixon and Ford administrations, their downfall under President Carter, and their powerful legacies in the Reagan years and beyond. Matthew Ambrose pays close attention to the interplay of diplomacy, domestic politics, and technology, and finds that the SALT process was a key point of reference for arguments regarding all forms of Cold War decision making. Ambrose argues elite U.S. decision makers used SALT to better manage their restive domestic populations and to exert greater control over the shape, structure, and direction of their nuclear arsenals. Ambrose also asserts that prolonged engagement with arms control issues introduced dynamic effects into nuclear policy. Arms control considerations came to influence most areas of defense decision making, while the measure of stability SALT provided allowed the examination of new and potentially dangerous nuclear doctrines. The Control Agenda makes clear that verification and compliance concerns by the United States prompted continuous reassessments of Soviet capabilities and intentions; assessments that later undergirded key U.S. policy changes toward the Soviet Union. Through SALT's many twists and turns, accusations and countercharges, secret backchannels and propaganda campaigns the specter of nuclear conflict loomed large.

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9781501713743

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Ambrose is no ideologue or partisan. He is clear that the collapse of arms-limitation negotiations would have been far worse than the flawed process. But he is clear-eyed about how efforts at arms reduction struggled in the face of stronger factors. * Survival *

The Control Agenda makes an important contribution to the field of diplomatic history. Ambrose's work will appeal to policy schools and the strategic studies community. --James Wilson, Historian in the Office of the Historian at the U.S. Department of State Matthew Ambrose has written a superb account of the history of the SALT process of arms control. I know of no book that tells this story from Nixon through Reagan. The Control Agenda fills a huge gap in the literature and I predict it will stand the test of time. --Thomas Schwartz, Professor of History, Political Science, and European Studies at Vanderbilt University

Matthew Ambrose has written a superb account of the history of the SALT process of arms control. I know of no book that tells this story from Nixon through Reagan. The Control Agenda fills a huge gap in the literature and I predict it will stand the test of time. -- Thomas Schwartz, Professor of History, Political Science, and European Studies at Vanderbilt University The Control Agenda makes an important contribution to the field of diplomatic history. Ambrose's work will appeal to policy schools and the strategic studies community. -- James Wilson, Historian in the Office of the Historian at the U.S. Department of State

Author Information

Matthew Ambrose received a Ph.D in History from The Ohio State University. He previously worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Historical Office, and is is currently a Defense Analyst for the Government Accountability Office. He lives with his family in Arlington, Virginia.

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