There Zhukov was open to ideas of reducing nuclear weapons, initially impressing Khrushchev with his willingness to downsize the massive Soviet military.

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Following their meeting the pair announced that the US and Russia are to reopen negotiations on reducing their nuclear weapons stockpiles - the first such talks for more than a decade.

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He directed a Nuclear Policy Review that committed the government to reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national strategy, scaling back the size of the strategic arsenal, and continuing a 20-year moratorium on production of new nuclear warheads.

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The president remains committed to reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons, but until there is some assured means of verifying other countries have done the same, the nation is stuck maintaining a potent arsenal to deter attacks.

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Yet on May 23rd, Mr Bush put forward the case for substantially reducing America's stockpile of nuclear weapons.

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Under the Moscow Treaty, signed in 2002, the U.S. has committed to reducing its strategic nuclear arsenal by two-thirds -- to between 1, 700 and 2, 200 deployed nuclear weapons from about 10, 000 at the height of the Cold War.

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