ABSTRACT
A blatant example of Kissinger's frantic commitment to SALT and détente was his reaction to the visit of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet Nobel laureate and dissident, to the United States in summer 1975. Key senators tried to arrange a meeting between the famous author and President Ford, as that seemed to be an opportunity to demonstrate US commitment to human rights, and to rub the Kremlin's nose in it. In the Fall of 1975, Ford was fighting in two fronts: the external and domestic. With Schlesinger dismissed, the administration seemed to drift further away from SALT, with Kissinger remaining the last advocate of SALT. Where Schlesinger, Rumsfeld and the JCS did fail the talks was in their insistence on including and excluding weapon systems in contradiction to the Vladivostok agreement. Schlesinger and Rumsfeld admitted that the BACKFIRE was not really a strategic bomber, but still insisted including it in the agreement.
