In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first American president to visit the USSR.
Nixon meets with then Union leader Leonid Brezhnev in the Kremlin.
The meeting in Moscow runs from May 22 to May 30. Several anti-ballistic missile treaties, the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, and the US-Soviet Incidents at Sea Agreement were signed.
This is considered the first part of a reconciliation between the two main Cold War rivals.
On May 29, Nixon and Brezhnev concluded the conference by signing a joint declaration to avoid military confrontation and to disarm.
Richard Nixon and his wife Pat were exposed to potentially harmful radiation while staying at the residence of the American ambassador in Moscow in 1959, according to declassified Secret Service documents, "BgVoice" recalls.
Nixon, then Vice President, was not informed of the threat, and the State Department only found out in 1976 when a member of his Secret Service, James Golden, revealed that the equipment had measured significant levels of radiation in and around the Nixons' sleeping quarters at the Spaso House residence. Golden said he was later told by the State Department that he had been exposed to “enormous doses” ionizing radiation produced by an atomic battery used by Soviet spies to power listening devices hidden in the building.
However, the secret agent expressed doubts about this explanation and it has not been confirmed. Now, for the first time, the underlying documentation has been made available online following a request to the Nixon Presidential Library from the National Security Archive at George Washington University. One of the archive's senior analysts, William Burr, who made the request, said that “this unusual and almost unknown episode of the Cold War deserves more attention so that the mysteries surrounding it can be resolved.
The documents were released as part of a series on the Soviet Union's use of various types of radiation against US targets, including the exposure of the US Embassy in Moscow to microwave radiation over many years. The records have new meaning in light of the current mystery surrounding Havana syndrome, a group of mostly neurological symptoms suffered by dozens of American diplomats and spies in recent years. Ionizing radiation is defined as having enough energy to damage cells and alter DNA.
Dosimeters at the Spaso House during Nixon's visit measured 15 x-rays per hour. This is less than a lethal dose, but the acceptable occupational exposure standard in the US at the time was only 5 x-rays per year. After Secret Service agents expose the Soviets' dirty tricks, revealing that they have discovered the listening devices in the residence, the radiation stops.