Sold – Pres. Nixon Says The U.S. Role in the World Needed Reshaping

I hope my trip to China and my forthcoming journey to Moscow may further add to our efforts

President Nixon made his mark in the area of foreign policy. Although his base of support was within the conservative wing of the Republican Party, and although he had made his own career as a militant opponent of Communism, Nixon saw opportunities to reduce the temperature of the Cold War by improving relations with the Soviet Union and establishing relations with the People’s Republic of China. Politically, he hoped to gain credit for creating these openings and the benefits they would bring; economically, it would mean increased trade with these giant nations; and geopolitically, he would play China against the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union against China, and both against North Vietnam. Nixon also counted on the Soviet Union and China losing interest in supporting North Vietnam as relations with the U.S. improved.

In 1971 Nixon dispatched Henry Kissinger to secret meetings with Chinese officials. As America’s foremost anti-Communist politician of the Cold War, Nixon was in a unique position to launch a diplomatic opening to China. The announcement that the President would make an unprecedented trip to Beijing caused a sensation among the American people, who had seen almost nothing of the world’s most populous nation since the Communists had taken power in 1949. Nixon’s visit to China in February 1972 was widely televised and heavily viewed, and it was very popular. It was only a first step, but a decisive one, in the budding rapprochement between the two states. It was, perhaps, Nixon’s greatest success.

The announcement of the Beijing summit produced an immediate improvement in American relations with the U.S.S.R. – namely, an invitation for Nixon to meet with Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev in Russia. It was a sign that Nixon’s effort at “triangulation” was working; fear of improved relations between China and America was leading the Soviets to better its own relations with America, just as Nixon hoped. In meeting with the Soviet leader in May 1972, Nixon became the first President to visit Moscow. Of more lasting importance were the treaties the two men signed to control the growth of nuclear arms. The agreements – a Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and an Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty – did not end the arms race, but they paved the way for future pacts which sought to reduce and eliminate arms. Nixon also negotiated and signed agreements on science, space, and trade.

Alfred Gruenther was a World War II general who afterwards served as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. After retiring from the army, he went on to become the President of the American Red Cross. During the Vietnam War, he returned to service as a senior intelligence officer on the staff of two successive U.S. military commanders in Vietnam, General William C. Westmoreland and General Creighton W. Abrams. It was surely for that reason that he received the following letter from President Nixon.

Typed Letter Signed on White House letterhead, Washington, March 7, 1972, to Gruenther. “Two years ago, I sent to the Congress my first annual review of United States foreign policy. That report, and the one which followed last February, emphasized that fundamental changes were needed in America’s role in the world and it set forth ways in which our role might be reshaped. Progress towards achieving these objectives in the past year has been gratifying, and I hope my trip to China and my forthcoming journey to Moscow may further add to our efforts. Because of your deep and abiding interest in the conduct of our international relations and because this report reflects my personal thoughts about world affairs, I wanted you to have a copy. This document comes with the belief you will find it helpful in understanding both our philosophy of foreign policy and our new approaches to the peace we all seek.”