The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), formally known as the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. It is also abbreviated as the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT), though the latter may also refer to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which succeeded the PTBT for ratifying parties.
The Camp David Accords were a pair of political agreements signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David, the country retreat of the President of the United States in Maryland. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House and were witnessed by President Jimmy Carter. The second of these frameworks led directly to the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty. Due to the agreement, Sadat and Begin received the shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. The first framework, which dealt with the Palestinian territories, was written without participation of the Palestinians and was condemned by the United Nations.
Brinkmanship or brinksmanship is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict. The maneuver of pushing a situation with the opponent to the brink succeeds by forcing the opponent to back down and make concessions rather than risk engaging in a conflict that would no longer be beneficial to either side. That might be achieved through diplomatic maneuvers, by creating the impression that one is willing to use extreme methods rather than concede. The tactic occurs in international politics, foreign policy, labor relations, contemporary military strategy, terrorism, and high-stakes litigation.
On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory. Flown by American pilot Francis Gary Powers, the aircraft had taken off from Peshawar, Pakistan, and crashed near Sverdlovsk, after being hit by a surface-to-air missile. Powers parachuted to the ground and was captured.
The Berlin Conference of 1954 was a meeting of the "Big Four" foreign ministers of the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union from 25 January to 18 February 1954.
Peaceful coexistence was a theory, developed and applied by the Soviet Union at various points during the Cold War in the context of primarily Marxist–Leninist foreign policy and adopted by Soviet-allied socialist states, according to which the Socialist Bloc could peacefully coexist with the capitalist bloc. This was in contrast to the antagonistic contradiction principle that socialism and capitalism could never coexist in peace. The Soviet Union applied it to relations between the western world, particularly NATO countries, and nations of the Warsaw Pact.
The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was a key element of the détente process during the Cold War. Although it did not have the force of a treaty, it recognized the boundaries of postwar Europe and established a mechanism for minimizing political and military tensions between East and West and improving human rights in the Communist Bloc. The first phase was the Meeting of Foreign Ministers in Helsinki in 1973, the second negotiations held in Geneva from 1973 to 1975, and the third the Helsinki summit in 1975. The final document was signed in Helsinki, Finland on August 1, 1975, by 33 European nations, the United States and Canada. It is often called the Helsinki Agreement. In 1994, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was established as a successor to CSCE.
The Rapacki Plan was a proposal presented in a speech by Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rapacki to the United Nations General Assembly on 2 October 1957 as a limited plan for nuclear disarmament and demilitarization in Central Europe by establishing a nuclear-free zone. The plan declared that the People's Republic of Poland would not station or produce any nuclear armaments within their territory, if the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic agreed to do the same. Czechoslovakia would later include itself in support of the nuclear-free zone. The plan followed attempts by both Western Powers and the Soviet Union to de-escalate Cold War tensions and push for greater disarmament during the mid 1950s.
The Vienna summit was a summit meeting held on June 4, 1961, in Vienna, Austria, between President of the United States John F. Kennedy and the leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev. The leaders of the two superpowers of the Cold War era discussed many issues in the relationship between their countries.
Council of Foreign Ministers was an organisation agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 and announced in the Potsdam Agreement and dissolved upon the entry into force of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in 1991.
The Malta Summit was a meeting between United States President George H. W. Bush and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 2–3, 1989, just a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It followed a meeting that included Ronald Reagan in New York in December 1988. During the summit, Bush and Gorbachev declared an end to the Cold War, although whether it was truly such is a matter of debate. News reports of the time referred to the Malta Summit as one of the most important since World War II, when British prime minister Winston Churchill, Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed on a post-war plan for Europe at the Yalta Conference.
Canada–Soviet Union relations were the bilateral relations between Canada and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The Berlin Crisis of 1961 was the last major European political and military incident of the Cold War concerning the status of the German capital city, Berlin, and of post–World War II Germany. The crisis culminated in the city's de facto partition with the East German erection of the Berlin Wall.
The Geneva Summit of 1985 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. It was held on November 19 and 20, 1985, between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The two leaders met for the first time to hold talks on international diplomatic relations and the arms race.
The term Big Four Conference may refer to one of several conferences between heads of state or foreign ministers of the victorious nations after World War I (1914–18) or during and after World War II (1939–45).
The Helsinki Summit was a private, bilateral meeting between American President George H. W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that took place in Helsinki, Finland on September 9, 1990. Due to the vested interests of both the Soviet Union and the United States in the Gulf Crisis' resolution, August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was the primary topic of discussion for the leaders during the Helsinki Summit. The concerted efforts at easing American-Soviet tensions in the aftermath of the Cold War was another prominent topic, among other notable current events. At the summit's conclusion, Presidents Bush and Gorbachev produced a document of joint statements that illuminated the areas in which the leaders had committed to aligning their foreign policy goals. The summit was followed by a press conference wherein members of the media questioned Presidents Bush and Gorbachev about the content of their meeting and the justifications for their joint statements.
The United States foreign policy of the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, from 1953 to 1961, focused on the Cold War with the Soviet Union and its satellites. The United States built up a stockpile of nuclear weapons and nuclear delivery systems to deter military threats and save money while cutting back on expensive Army combat units. A major uprising broke out in Hungary in 1956; the Eisenhower administration did not become directly involved, but condemned the military invasion by the Soviet Union. Eisenhower sought to reach a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, but following the 1960 U-2 incident the Kremlin canceled a scheduled summit in Paris.
The Washington Summit of 1973 was a Cold War-era meeting between United States president Richard Nixon, United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union Alexei Kosygin that took place June 18–25. The Cold War superpowers met at the White House to discuss issues regarding oceanography, transportation, agricultural research, cultural exchange, and most significantly, nuclear disarmament. The Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War was signed during the summit. The summit has been called a high-water mark in détente between the USSR and the US. The summit was originally intended to run until June 26, but ended a day early.
The 2021 Russia–United States summit was a summit meeting between United States President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on 16 June 2021, in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Washington Summit of 1990, also known as the "Two Plus Four" talks, was an international summit in the history of the Cold War in which the United States and Germany gained the Soviet Union's support for the reunification of Germany by agreeing that NATO needed to be reformed. As part of this effort, US President George H. W. Bush called for a NATO summit to reform the organization and demonstrate NATO's willingness to present a different approach to the Soviet Union. As part of his efforts to improve relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, Bush proposed a bilateral summit in Washington to Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev, in addition to the NATO summit. Gorbachev agreed to the proposal, which resulted in the Washington Summit of 1990.
Switzerland 
Premier Nikolai Bulganin 
President Dwight D. Eisenhower 
Prime Minister Edgar Faure 
Prime Minister Anthony Eden 