ABSTRACT
When Jimmy Carter entered the White House as president he would find the documents relating to the SALT negotiations on his desk. All he had to do was to pick up where Ford left, without the pressure of elections. However, while the new president and those around him were idealistic and internationalist, advocating cooperation and multilateralism, the mood in the United States had changed, and defense spending, by 1976 polls, showed that the majority of the Americans turned toward what was now called patriotism, and they favored an increase in defense spending. There was one place, though, where Carter was like Nixon and that was in his wish to have full control over US foreign policy. The next significant appointment Carter made was that of secretary of state. The Soviets were encouraged by Carter's interest in SALT, and his comments on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and his call for a complete ban on nuclear testing.
