*richard nixon was elected in 1968 through his southern strategy and
his
promises to the silent majority of law and order and peace with honour.
*he
brought american peace by vietnamizing the war, but he was able to do
this in
part because he and his national security advisor henry kissinger
adopted a new
approach to american foreign policy.
*they
believed in realpolitik, the politics
of reality:america might not like the ussr or red china, but
both could be
good trading partners.furthermore,
during the 1960s the sino-soviet split divided the world’s communist
countries
between those that preferred the ussr and those that
preferred china (with some,
particularly yugoslavia and eventually north korea, seeking their own
paths), and
nixon thought he could take advantage of this.
*by working
with the people’s republic of china, nixon felt he could
deepen the
sino-soviet split and play the soviets and red chinese off against each
other
and also get china to put pressure on north vietnam to end the war.nixon and kissinger began secret talks with china about normalising
relations with
chairman mao and premier zhou enlai.
*it is
possible that no earlier president could have done this.not only had the sino-soviet split not been obvious
enough before, but no other president would have dared open up to china out of fear that he
would look
soft on communism.nixon, however, had
built a career out of being very tough on communists, so no-one thought
he was
giving in.
*in
1971, the us ping-pong team was invited to china for a tour of the
country and a
series of exhibition matches (which the chinese won).the next year, a chinese team visited the united states.soviet table-tennis players were not invited in either case.
*ping
pong diplomacy allowed more open diplomacy to begin.in february, 1972, richard nixon visited china and met mao and
zhou, and even
learned enough chinese ahead of time to make a toast.this set america and china on the path to fully
normal
relations, and in 1979, the us recognised the
people’s republic
of china (the un had done so
in 1971).
*because
leonid brezhnev, leader of the ussr, feared that nixon
and mao might
begin working together against him, he invited nixon to visit the soviet union after he got back
from his trip
to china.in
may, 1972, nixon went to moscow.
*in moscow, nixon and brezhnev
planned a
joint us-soviet space mission, which eventually took place in july,
1975 when
nasa and the soviet space programme co-operated in the apollo-soyuz
test
project, in which an american space capsule docked with the soviet
space
station, soyuz. this may be considered the end of the space race.
*even
more important was the strategic arms limitation treaty (salt i),
signed during
nixon’s visit in 1972.it placed limits
on the number of icbms each country could have.although both sides got around the limits by creating more
dangerous
types of missiles, salt i was an important step towards ending the arms
race.
*in
short, richard nixon, a man who had built his career hunting communists
during
the red scare, began a period of détente (reduced tensions) with
the soviet union that lasted for the
rest of the
decade.
*nixon’s
presidency also saw the passage of the xxvi amendment in 1971, allowing
people
above 18 (instead of 21) to vote. people had complained that
young men
could be drafted who couldn’t vote. the hope had been to raise
the draft
age, but they lowered the voting age instead.