arms limitation treaty

…Hughes negotiated the first effective arms-reduction agreement in history. On the whole, however, the policies of the United States were narrow and nationalistic. It did not cooperate with the League of Nations. It insisted that Europeans pay their American debts but in 1922 passed the Fordney–McCumber Tariff, which raised duties…

…new battleships allowed by the treaty could not mount guns of greater calibre than 16 inches, and they could not displace more than 35,000 tons.

This was the first arms-limitation agreement ever to result in the actual destruction of existing weapons. Relations between the superpowers had improved radically by 1988, owing primarily to the new Soviet premier, Mikhail Gorbachev, whose reforms at home were matched by equally great changes in foreign policy. An exchange…