The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) commenced in November 1969 as the most ambitious attempt by two great powers, each with ample nuclear power to destroy much of the globe, to negotiate a code of arms restraint. As the talks wore on, ambition turned to dogged persistence and culminated in exhaustive desperation to reach an accord worthy of the effort. In 1972, the United States achieved one principal goal-a treaty limiting anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems-but had to settle for a five-year agreement limiting offensive weapons. Perhaps the biggest frustration for the Americans was the belated realization that the Soviets dogmatically held significantly different perceptions of security and nuclear deterrence that precluded precise definition of terms and consensus of objectives. No single point of contention in SALT I better illustrated the divergent American and Soviet perceptions than the issue of forward-based systems (FBS). The Americans were inclined to define strategic nuclear systems by their technical capabilities. They wanted to negotiate limits on central systems, the ones with intercontinental ranges. These were the only kinds of Soviet weapons that directly threatened the security of the United States. On the other hand, the Soviets defined strategic weapons as those that threatened the security of the USSR regardless of where they were deployed. The Soviet negotiators insisted on including in the scope of SALT not only American intercontinental missiles but also those of its NATO allies (the United Kingdom and France) and American theater nuclear forces (TNF) that might hit targets in the