Nixon News & Notes
How Nixon's 1972 Visit to China Changed the Balance of Cold War Power
On July 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon addressed the nation in a live televised broadcast to make an unexpected announcement: He had accepted an invitation from Beijing to become the first U.S. president to visit the People’s Republic of China, a Communist nation of 840 million that, next to the Soviet Union, was America’s fiercest adversary in the Cold War.
“I have taken this action because of my profound conviction that all nations will gain from a reduction of tensions and a better relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China,” said Nixon in his address.
The surprise announcement was the result of months of top-secret diplomacy between the Nixon White House and Beijing. Nixon, always a fan of the “big play,” had high hopes that his trip to China would be the kind of seismic geopolitical event that changed the course of history.
Nixon's Nuclear Energy Vision
On October 6, 1973, Israel and her Arab neighbors Egypt and Syria went to war for the second time in six years. The United States helped out Israel in the Yom Kippur War, as it became known, and the Nixon Administration’s policy of Shuttle Diplomacy, administered by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, is sometimes credited with having helped avert a global crisis that could have spiraled into world war.
Conrad Black has noted that one of Nixon’s greatest thematic strengths was “to lead from strength at a moment of apparent weakness,” and in the 1973 Arab-Israeli crisis, that is exactly what the President did, to great effect. But there were costs.
Richard Nixon's Southern Snack Food: Cottage Cheese With A Secret Ingredient
As the 37th President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, was known for many things. He was, for example, Commander-in-Chief when the Paris Peace Accords were signed and the U.S. began to withdraw from the Vietnam War. Of course, he's also the reason that "gate" has become a suffix attached to every modern scandal. Between wars and coverups, we often forget that Nixon was also one of the presidents with the most bizarre eating habits. One food in particular comes up surprisingly often when we talk about how Nixon ate: cottage cheese.