May 28 1972

From The Space Library

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Current revision

President Nixon discussed Moscow summit meetings and resultant agreements in radio and TV address to Soviet people from Kremlin in Moscow. He said: "We have agreed on joint ventures in space. We have agreed on ways of working together to protect the environment, to advance health, to cooperate in science and technology." Most important agreement was "historic first step in the limitation of nuclear strategic arms." By settling arms limitation, "people of both of our nations, and of all nations, can be winners. If we continue in the spirit of serious purpose that has marked our discussions this week, the agreements can start us on a new road of cooperation for the benefit of . . . all peoples." (PD, 6/5/72, 939-41)

Press commented on U.S.-U.S.S.R. space cooperation agreement. U.S. would "be doing virtually all of the cooperating" in joint space mission called for under new U.S: U.S.S.R. space agreement, William Hines said in Washington Sunday Star. "While negotiations were underway . . . it was assumed that the 1975 joint manned space flight envisioned ... would be a 50-50 proposition. The Americans would build the hardware . . . and the Russians would provide a small space station in which experiments could be carried out." Instead, U.S.S.R. had "pulled back their item-the Salyut station-and changed the nature of the mission." This had relieved U.S.S.R. of considerable expense and "left Uncle Sam holding a $250 million bag, this sum being the estimated cost of the hardware our side will have to build anyway." (W Star, 5/28/72, A6)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "An agreement between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.... ought to be just the first step toward full international co-operation in space. Countries which lack space programs of their own should be encouraged to participate in space ventures as limited partners." Other countries had scientific expertise to contribute. "Beyond this they ought to receive the full benefits of whatever information is gained through space research. Historically, science never has been the exclusive domain of a single nation or even a small group of nations. It has served all mankind and this is the way it should be in space." (St. Louis P-D, 5/28/72)

Achievements of U.S: U.S.S.R. summit meetings in Moscow to date were summarized in New York Times article by Max Frankel. U.S. and Soviet officials had "duly signed the agreements that had been specially packaged for the occasion. Some, on cooperative ventures in health research, environmental control, scientific cooperation and a link-up of astronauts in space, had been merely rewritten or upgraded from earlier agreements, to add to the cumulative sense of achievement. One of the accords, to avoid naval harassment and incidents at sea, had been negotiated under the deadline of the summit " Another, on trade, had become "too complicated to resolve" and was "earmarked for energetic followup this summer." Agreement to limit construction of defensive and offensive nuclear weapons "was finally finished in a whirlwind round of all-night sessions." Main premises behind summit meeting were "that the two superpowers are now truly strategic equals, that they both have enough invulnerable weapons to deter nuclear attack, that they need to stop adding more weapons before they can reduce the number of weapons, that they both can use the money they might eventually have for better purposes, that they must avert even indirect conflicts that might draw them into war, and that they must collaborate more broadly in other fields to avoid the intrusions of inevitable conflicts of interest and conflicts among smaller nations." (NYT, 5/28/72, 4:1)

President Nixon signed H.R. 14582, Second Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1972. Act, which became Public Law 92-306, contained $12.087-million NASA appropriation to cover increased pay costs. (PL 92-306; PD, 6/5/72, 938)

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