As the US and the USSR have moved toward a closer relationship over the past twenty years, one very successful area of mutual cooperation has been the field of high‐energy physics. Both the US and USSR have at least five accelerators operating at center‐of‐mass energies greater than 3.0 GeV. During the past two decades the US and USSR have alternately had the higher energy accelerator. The number of active high‐energy physicists, including theorists, machine builders and experimentalists is roughly comparable for both countries. This similarity between the facilities available and the number of specialists in the field for both sides formed a promising foundation on which a joint program could be built.