President Gerald R. Ford and Soviet general secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev participated in the Helsinki summit conference of 1975, which ratified accords reached earlier by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. These renounced the use of force to settle disputes among European countries and recognized the Soviet Union's territorial gains since World War II, an objective that the USSR had been trying to achieve for at least thirty years. Signed by the United States, Canada, the Soviet Union, and all of the countries of Eastern and Western Europe, the accords also promoted Western aims of improving trading opportunities, implementing cultural exchanges, and adhering to human rights. This summit was considered one of the high-water marks of détente.
