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¶ What happens next? The next major move will be a resumption of the SALT talks, which will concentrate on the possibility of wrapping into one full-scale treaty all new offensive nuclear systems, perhaps including bombers. The stickiest point may be whether various improvements in existing weapons, especially the expanded deployment of multiple warheads within missiles, should and can be controlled.
While not directly dependent upon the summit, the new spirit in East-West relations was evident last week in two developments in West Germany. The first was aimed at eliminating the tensions that for more than 25 years have made the isolated city of West Berlin the focal point of the cold war. Secretary of State William Rogers joined the Soviet Union's Andrei Gromyko, Britain's Sir Alec Douglas-Home and France's Maurice Schumann in signing an agreement that should guarantee free access to West Berlin and more movement among residents of the two sectors of divided Berlin. After the signing, Rogers made the first visit into East Berlin by a U.S. official in a car bearing an American flag. He was saluted by East German border guards as he crossed Checkpoint Charlie. Second, the Foreign Ministers of NATO, briefed on the summit by Rogers, selected Helsinki as the site to begin exploratory talks in the fall that will precede a 33-nation conference on European security, probably in 1973. It would presumably legitimize the Russian seizure of Polish and German lands in World War II. But the NATO Ministers insist that progress be made simultaneously toward a reduction of forces in Europe by both sides.
A far more idealistic goal of the two major powers, as stated in a declaration of principles drawn up at the summit, remains more distant. It is no less than "the achievement of general and complete disarmament." Despite the hopeful beginnings in Moscow, that goal only demonstrates how far the big powers still must travel to fulfill the visions of the tough-minded men who faced each other across the bargaining tables in the Kremlin.