NIXON in CHINA ~ February 21, 1972

U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. It marked the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC, who at that time considered the U.S. one of its staunchest foes. The visit has become a metaphor for an unexpected or uncharacteristic action by a politician.

The visit
Improved relations with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China are often cited as the most successful diplomatic achievements of Nixon’s presidency. After World War II, Americans saw relations between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorating, Russians consolidating communist puppet states over much of Eastern Europe, and China teetering on the edge of communism. Many Americans felt concern communists might cause the downfall of schools or labor unions. One of the main reasons Richard Nixon became the 1952 Vice-president candidate on the Eisenhower ticket was his strong anti-communism stance. Despite this, in 1972 Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit China.

Preparation
In July 1971, President Nixon's National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger secretly visited Beijing during a trip to Pakistan, and laid the groundwork for Nixon's visit to China.

The meeting
From February 21-28, 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai. Almost as soon as the American president arrived in the Chinese capital he was summoned for a meeting with Chairman Mao who, unknown to the Americans, had been ill nine days earlier but was at that point feeling strong enough to meet Nixon. Secretary of State William P. Rogers was excluded from this meeting and the only other American present was National Security Council staffer (and later U.S. Ambassador to China) Winston Lord. To avoid embarrassing Rogers, Lord was cropped out of all the official photographs of the meeting. Although Nixon was in China for a week, this would be his only meeting with the Chinese leader.

Upon their meeting, Mao's first words to Nixon were: "Our common old friend, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, doesn't approve of this."

Nixon held many meetings with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai during the trip, which included visits to the Great Wall, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. At the conclusion of his trip, the United States and the PRC Governments issued the Shanghai Communiqué, a statement of their foreign policy views and a document that would remain the basis of Sino-American bilateral relations for many years. Kissinger stated that the U.S. also intended to pull all its forces out of the island of Taiwan. In the communiqué, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations.

The results
The U.S. acknowledged the notion that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is only one China. Nixon and the U.S. government reaffirmed their interests in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question agreed by the Chinese themselves. The statement enabled the U.S. and PRC to temporarily set aside the "crucial question obstructing the normalization of relations"concerning the political status of Taiwan and to open trade and other contacts. However, the United States continued to maintain official relations with the government of the Republic of China in Taiwan until 1979 when the U.S. broke off relations with the Republic of China and established full diplomatic relations with the P.R.C.

After Nixon's visit he spoke about what this meant for the two countries in the future:
"This was the week that changed the world, as what we have said in that Communique is not nearly as important as what we will do in the years ahead to build a bridge across 16,000 miles and 22 years of hostilities which have divided us in the past. And what we have said today is that we shall build that bridge."

Richard Nixon wrote many books about his international contributions and accomplishments. Beyond Peace is the last of his post-career volumes, addressing the need for the United States to beat the competition in a world transformed by the collapse of the Communist bloc.

Aftermath
Max Frankel of The New York Times received the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his coverage of the event.

The visit inspired John Adams' 1987 opera Nixon in China.

Image & text:wikipedia.com

HALLOWEEN 1960

(Can this really be more than half a century later?)

1960 was the year of the Kennedy–Nixon Election. I, of course, supported Richard Nixon. I was still too young to think for myself. I came from a strong Republican background. Bob Rich— my maternal grandfather, for whom I was named – after all, had been a Republican member of the House for almost two decades. Furthermore, "Experience Counts!" John Kennedy was nothing but a young whipper-snapper!

In typical fashion, I overplayed my enthusiasm. I wish I had a photograph of it!! For the Halloween parade at Steele Elementary School, I went as a Nixon supporter. No jest intended. I wore black pants with 'NIXON' in white adhesive tape up one leg, and 'LODGE' on the other, an 'N' on one shoe, an 'L' the other, campaign buttons on my sleeves, and a sandwich sign with Nixon-Lodge campaign posters. I carried two other double-sided mounted posters on wooden sticks and, of course, wore a Nixon boater hat with extra buttons on the band.

I was crushed when Nixon lost.

(How quickly …and soundly I changed!)

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On April 18, 2007 I listened to NPR, and at the end of an obituary for Kitty Carlisle Hart, as she sang Smoke Gets in Your Eyes during the credits, I recalled the autumn of my sophomore year in New Haven. Yale Glee Club conductor Fenno Heath’s secretary was a strikingly elegant blond soprano named Judith (I think), a student in the Music School, and had the female lead in a local production of Roberta at a High School near East Rock. I went to see her in the show. Her principal song was Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. I remember talking with Judith occasionally— particularly the morning after the 1968 election. We were horribly depressed that Nixon had won. Judith commented, however, that maybe it would work out for the best since Nixon evidently wanted the job so badly. (Fenno’s Glee Club office in Hendrie Hall had a moody bust of Sibelius, which I thought rather curious, since Sibelius had been out of favor for several decades. Now, of course, he’s considered one of the greats of the Twentieth Century).

Anyway, on Saturday night 04/21/07 I went to a small, local Spizzwink(?) alumni get-together at Perry’s on Union Street. After a fine lunch with Adam K at the Rotunda in Neiman-Marcus and a too-short nap with Rose and Rupert, I really wasn’t up for the evening—especially with the downpour. I got a taxi with a cell-phone-chatting Asian cab driver, who didn’t seem to pay much attention to the weather conditions, or the traffic. So I was grateful when I managed to get there alive.

On leaving my flat, I had picked up my copy of the Spizzwink(?) song book from 1971. When I opened it I came across a notation on the back of a sheet of music: “Latest Harris Poll H 43 N 40” The night before the ’68 election, it had looked as though Humphrey would win! Devin, one of the newer alums and a graduate student in Poly Sci at UC Berkeley, was fascinated to hear that. He said that it showed you couldn’t depend on polling data then. Of course, 2000 demonstrated that even if Humphrey had received 43 % and Nixon 40 %, that alone would not necessarily have guaranteed election victory for either one.

(Check out my 10/02/08 posting : October Surprise 1980 (1968) for more comments on the ’68 election.)

By the way, the Spizzwink(?) dinner was great fun! I went to our Ninety-Fifth Anniversary Reunion in New Haven two years last April with my friend Mary Ellen.

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In 1993 I met former President Nixon at a rehearsal for the Low Jinks during the summer encampment at the Grove. I introduced myself as Rob Bell, Robert F. Rich Bell, grandson of Congressman Robert F. Rich, who had served in the Congress with Nixon in the late forty’s and early fifty’s. Nixon said “I remember Bob Rich. He always asked: ‘Where are we going to get the money?’”* To his friends nearby Nixon exclaimed: “I knew this man’s grandfather!!” (This was Nixon’s first and last visit to the Grove after his resignation. For years he had been persona non grata in the Club, and not welcomed to the summer encampment.)

I was impressed – that he would remember after all these years. A few months later I learned from my nephew Sheridan, that Nixon had been at the embassy in Beijing about six months before, and when asked by my nephew –visiting his Dad at the embassy—if he remembered Congressmen Rich, Nixon admitted that he did not. So either Nixon’s memory was jogged by my nephew’s question, or he went back and researched his files. (The internet wouldn’t have been so friendly in 1993. There was no Google.) Either way, it’s still impressive.

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* One thing about my grandfather: he may have been very stingy with the people’s money, but he was extraordinarily generous with his own.

OCTOBER SURPRISE 1980 (1968)

I remember waiting for a bus with my friend Gary Evans Murakami at Van Ness by the Jack Tar Hotel, when word came down that President Carter had made an early concession on election night 1980. I was angry about that—first, that he had been defeated*—but second, that he had conceded before the polls had closed on the West Coast. I felt that his action would almost certainly impact some of the House and Senate seats.

I won’t include it here, but I wrote a five thousand word letter to professor Gary Sick in 1991 about the October Surprise in the 1980 presidential campaign. I know that it’s been discounted by the press, and it’s dropped off the radar screen of general interest; but I’m convinced that there was—and still is—a significant story.

The issue was not Vice Presidential candidate Bush’s going to Paris. That was a straw man—easily demolished—and effective in shutting down the investigative reporting.

What actually happened – and it has to be true, because it was stipulated by all the participants— was a meeting in Washington D.C. at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel, on October 2, 1980 with Richard Allen, Laurence Silberman and Robert McFarlane. Somebody claiming to represent the Iranian government offered to free the hostages to a President Reagan if the new government would sell arms to Iran to assist them in their war with Iraq. This meeting was never reported to the Secretary of State, though Silberman, as a former ambassador, knew that the law required him to do so. He later asserted the offer had not been credible.

Laurence Silberman is now a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. His was the deciding vote which overturned the conviction of Oliver North for his illegal activities in the Iran-Contra affair (which incidentally did not divert the largest amount of money to the Contras from the sale of arms to Iran, but instead set up secret Swiss bank accounts, whose purpose was to fund a permanent secret plumbers unit without Congressional oversight-- still an unaccounted-for fund).

The person who claimed to represent the government of Iran made offers that were eventually kept— and the hostages were released the actual minute Reagan was sworn in as President on January 20, 1981— 76 days after the election. Former Iranian President Beni Sadr claimed that the Reagan election campaign didn't want the hostages released until Reagan was sworn in, so that Carter would be denied any credit for their release. So were they held another 76 days just for spite? (During the last primary season, Rudy Guiliani citied the Iran hostages’ release on Inauguration Day as a prime example of Reagan’s influence and greatness.)

They were offered a deal— the terms of which were honored by both sides. Yet they claimed they had not accepted the deal. Is that credible? You decide.

It parallels what happened in 1968. And some of the same people were involved. The Paris Peace Conference was boycotted by President Thieu at the request of Madame Chenault, (wife of General Chenault of the "Flying Tigers") who stated on A&E's "Secret Biography of Richard Nixon" aired 2/19/91, that she did so at the behest of the Election Campaign for Richard Nixon. She persuaded President Thieu that he would receive better peace terms under a President Nixon than under a President Humphrey. Had it been reversed, would Republicans call this treason?

This episode was mentioned by Richard Allen on an NPR call-in show 4/17/91, though, he said it was an example of how "you cannot control people who work for campaigns and then go off the transom on their own initiative." That's how he also described the meeting on October 2, 1980. (I happened to call in and ask a question. Have you ever wondered why many people on call-in shows sound rather flustered and stupid when they ask their question? In my case I used my speed dial about 300 times before I got through and had my question screened. I was put on hold for about half an hour. Then without any warning, I was on the air. It sure would have helped if someone had given a five or ten second notice.)

Remember, almost half the names on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington were added after the election of Richard Nixon, who had his "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War. Did Madame Chenault's mission at the behest of Nixon's Campaign Committee actually block an earlier settlement of the war? We will never know. Former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's obituary in the NY Times cited this episode as one of the major frustrations and disappointments of his life.

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Tonight is the Vice-Presidential Debate between Senator Biden and Governor Palin. That should be fascinating! They had the first Presidential Debate last week after all. Although there wasn’t a knockout, I think Obama did pretty well.

*Carter has the reputation of being a much better ex-president than president. I contend he was a much better president than people give him credit, certainly in the area of developing alternate fuels. I think he was ahead of any of his successors. One of the first things Reagan did in office was to remove the solar panels from the White House. I’m sure that was because Nancy didn’t like the aesthetics; but think how much further along we’d be if Carter had been reelected in 1980. Carter is blamed for the terrible inflation in the late 1970’s. But he inherited that from Nixon and Ford, especially as a result of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Inflation was finally whipped (to use Ford’s term) and credit is generally given to Paul Volcker -- appointed by? You guessed it: President Jimmy Carter.