Walk in the Woods timeline

August 1945	US forces strike Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons.
June 1946	Bernard Baruch, US representative to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, presents plan to place all atomic resources of the world under an international authority. Plan is rejected five days later by the Soviet Union.
September 1949	President Truman announces the detonation of a nuclear device by the Soviet Union, and later orders US development of the hydrogen bomb.
March 1960	Ten-nation Disarmament Conference is convened in Geneva. The Soviet Union proposes “general and complete disarmament.”
October 1962	The Cuban missile crisis brings the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. This event gives a strong impetus to arms control and the need for accommodation between the two major nuclear powers.
June 1963	The US and the Soviet Union sign the “Hot Line” Agreement.
August 1963	The Limited Test Ban Treaty is signed in Moscow. It bans nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, or under water.
January 1967	The Outer Space Treaty is signed, banning the placement of nuclear weapons in Earth orbit or on celestial bodies.
July 1968	The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is signed in Washington, Moscow, and London.
November 1969	SALT talks begin in Helsinki. The US renounces unilaterally and unconditionally all methods of biological warfare.
February 1971	The Seabed Arms Control Treaty is signed at UN Headquarters.
September 1971	The US and The Soviet Union sign the “Hot Line” Improvement and Modernization Agreement and an Agreement on Measures to Reduce the Risk of Outbreak of Nuclear War.
May 1972	Nixon and Brezhnev sign the SALT I agreement, consisting of the ABM Treaty and an Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms in Moscow.
December 1972	The US and the Soviet Union sign in Geneva a Memorandum of Understanding for the Establishment of the Standing Consultative Commission.
June 1973	The US and the Soviet Union sign in Washington the Agreement for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
July 1974	Protocol to the ABM Treaty is signed, limiting US and Soviet deployments to one site each. The two countries also sign the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, limiting underground nuclear tests to no more than 150 kilotons.
November 1974	Ford and Brezhnev agree on a framework for future limitations in strategic offensive weapons.
May 1976	The US and the Soviet Union sign the Treaty on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes.
June 1979	Carter and Brezhnev sign the SALT II treaty in Vienna.
1981	The Reagan Administration begins a major defense build-up.
November 1981	US-Soviet begin talks on limiting intermediate nuclear forces (INF) in Europe.
June 1982	START talks begin in Geneva. Private discussions between US and Soviet negotiators at the INF talks, nicknamed “a walk in the woods,” produce a formula for agreement, but it is repudiated by both governments.
December 1982	Soviet leader Yuri Andropov proposes the creation of a nuclear-free zone in Europe.
March 1983	President Reagan announces his Strategic Defense Initiative.
November 1983	The Soviets walk out of the Geneva INF talks in protest of US deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles in Western Europe, and later suspend START negotiations.
May 1984	The Soviet Union announces deployment of additional nuclear missiles in Eastern Germany to counter the continuing build-up in Western Europe of US Pershing II and cruise missiles.
January 1985	US Secretary of State George Shultz and his Soviet counterpart Andrei Gromyko meet in Geneva and agree to begin arms control negotiations in three areas: space, strategic weapons, and intermediate range weapons.


The International Social Studies Project in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Historical Timeline for "A Walk in the Woods"

Historical Timeline
for "A Walk in the Woods"