The United States first proposed an anti-ballistic missile treaty at the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference during discussions between U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union Alexei Kosygin.

The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was signed on this day, May 26, in 1972, by the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev.