Richard Nixon on Foreign Policy President of the U.S., 1968-1974

Sub-sections under Foreign Policy:
• China
• Communism
• Other issues under Foreign Policy

1972 China trip: "The week that changed the world"

Looking back, it's clear that both sides had taken enormous risks. They were venturing into the unknown, during the height of the Cold War no less. There could have been serious political consequences at home for leaders on both sides for appearing weak or, in our case, "soft on Communism." But the men who negotiated the trip calculated that the potential benefits outweighed the risks.

1971: Control Latin America as model for rest of world

The internal record makes it clear that throughout the Cold War, a primary concern of US policy makers has been what Oxfam called "the threat of a good example," referring to Washington's dedication to destroying Nicaraguan democracy and independence in the 1980s.

OpEd: Organized Bay of Pigs invasion that JFK carried out

The young and untried Kennedy decreed the blockade [against Cuba] and the Bay of Pigs invasion, organized by Eisenhower and by Nixon who knew less about war than he did. An unexpected twist of fate led him to new and unwise decisions that led to the October Missile Crisis from which he nevertheless emerged gracefully. But he remained traumatized by the prospect of a nuclear war.

Nixon’s Ten Commandments of Statecraft

A President needs a global view, a sense of proportion and a keen sense of the possible. If I could carve ten rules into the wall of the Oval Office for my successors in the dangerous years ahead, they would be these:
1. Always be prepared to negotiate, but never negotiate without being prepared
2. Never be belligerent, but always be firm
3. Always remember that covenants should be openly agreed to but privately negotiated
4. Never seek publicity that would destroy the ability to get results
5. Never give up unilaterally what could be used as a bargaining chip
6. Never let your adversary underestimate what you would do in response to a challenge
7. Always leave your adversary a face-saving line of retreat
8. Distinguish between friends who provide some human rights and enemies who deny all human rights
9. Do at least as much for our friends as our adversaries do for our enemies
10. Never lose faith. Faith without strength is futile, but strength without faith is streile.

1973: Egypt's Sadat represents future voice for moderation

Nixon believed that Sadat represented a future voice for moderation and restraint in the volatile Middle East. He prevented Israel from annihilating Sadat's army in order to preserve his leadership and thus the hope of a constructive peace settlement at a later time. For Sadat, the preservation of his army was a "face-saving line of retreat." But for the world, it was the foundation for the Egyptian-Israeli accord a few years later.

If every nation can't be friend, let them not be enemies

The triumphal parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House on January 20, 1969, resembled an obscene pageant as the limousine bearing the Nixon family was pelted with sticks, stones, empty beer cans, and homemade smoke bombs.

Don't turn our back on the Southern Hemisphere

The southern hemisphere holds unlimited potential for success, but it also faces daunting odds. We are therefore presented with an immense challenge. If we turn our backs on the countries of the southern hemisphere, we will never narrow the widening gap between the developed and underdeveloped worlds. And if the future becomes a "tale of two worlds," the foundation of future peace and stability will have been erected on soft ground.

Improve the effectiveness of Third World economic assistance

[The US Third World policy should include]:
• Assist population control programs.We must help break the link between spiraling population growth and poverty.
• Reduce trade barriers to exports from the underdeveloped world.To promote economic growth, foreign trade, not foreign aid, should be our principal instrument.By removing trade barriers, these countries have the chance to specialize in industries in which they enjoy a competitive advantage over the rest of the world.
• Facilitate debt relief.The ultimate answer to debt crisis lies with the underdeveloped world. At the same time, Western governments must insist that banks that recklessly lent billions to uncreditworthy states bear their share of the burden.
• Improve the effectiveness of economic assistance.We must face up to the fact that in the past our foreign aid has done as much harm as it has done good. We should not extend aid without attaching strings with clearly defined and measurable goals.

Provide funds to increase Japan's geopolitical role

To compensate for its low level of defense spending, Japan should allocate substantially more resources to helping those developing countries in which the West has a strategic stake.

[The US should] provide funds to provide the financial support needed for the internationally supervised elections, multilateral peacekeeping forces, economic compensation.

Selective foreign aid to create incentives for change

Recast foreign policy with US as only superpower

We now live in a world in which the United States is the only superpower. We must recast our foreign policy to cope with this radically new situation.

Vital interest in preventing nukes by potential enemies

A peripheral interest is one that, if taken by a hostile power, would only distantly threaten a vital interest.

Our overall security strategy must calibrate what we will do to protect an interest to its strategic importance. We should then match our capabilities--and the will to use them--to the threat we face. We should not send the 82nd Airborne Division to defend a peripheral interest in Mauritania, but we must not hesitate from doing so to defend a vital interest in the Persian Gulf.

Top NATO priority: East Europe postcommunist recovery

Islamic tolerance needs our support against fundamentalists

• FUNDAMENTALISM .They are motivated by a consuming hatred of the West and a determination to restore the superiority of Islamic civilization by resuscitating the past. They seek to impose the shari'a, the code of law based on the Koran.
• RADICALISM. Dictators and one-party states control several of the countries in the Muslim world.
• MODERNISM. Most prominent but least visible, the modernist political current seeks to integrate the countries of the Muslim world into the modern world, both economically and politically. Tolerance marks the key thrust of modernist Islam, with the nations of the west not condemned as "unbelievers" but embraced as other peoples "of the book."

No President nor Congress will allow destruction of Israel

We should not allow billions of people in poverty

1/4 of the people in the underdeveloped world live below the threshold of poverty. 30,000 people die every day from dirty water & unsanitary conditions. Average life expectancy is 20 years shorter than in the US. We cannot stand back and watch from afar as the underdeveloped world sinks in an economic morass. We should not allow it, and the billions of people who live there will not tolerate

I did not "sell" ambassadorships; but I did appoint donors

Expect coordinated European foreign policy after 1992

Since leaving office, I have been impressed by the gradual psychological and spiritual recovery of the peoples of West Europe and by the caliber of many of their top leaders. I did not expect that Western Europe would so quickly adopt and move forward with the plan for economic unification starting in 1992. I now expect that in the decade ahead we will see movement toward coordinated European foreign policies that might enable the fragmented giant of Europe finally to begin to emerge as a powerful geopolitical player.

US is not a declining power

In geopolitical terms, the US continues to be the world's only military, economic, political, and ideological superpower. Moscow has military might. Western Europe and Japan have economic clout. China, because of its size, enjoys political influence. But the US alone is a major player in all dimensions of world power. It is a distinction that implies a profound responsibility for shaping the course of world events.

Japan needs to spend more on defense

The cornerstone of Japan's defense, however, will continue to be its alliance with the US. A close partnership between the strongest military and economic power in the free world and the strongest economic power in Asia could provide the basis for American political and military flexibility in the region and act as a restraint on Soviet adventuring.

Nixon Doctrine: sell arms to resist aggression abroad

The Nixon Doctrine provided that the US would supply arms and assistance to nations threatened by aggression, IF they were willing to assume the primary responsibility for providing the manpower necessary for their defense.

Some Americans have an almost theological aversion to having the US sells arms abroad. But those who argue against supplying our friends with the arms they need to defend themselves ignore one very important point. There is almost no case on record since WWII in which arms provided by the US have been used by the country receiving them for purposes of aggression. Soviet arms are the ones that have been consistently used to break the peace.

Revitalize Monroe Doctrine to counter indirect aggression

Islamic modernization is wrenching but must be done

Modernization--which often means Westernization--has been a wrenching experience for these traditional societies, and the United States has become a convenient whipping boy for those torn between the strict teachings of the past and the lures or demands of the modern world. Conserving the best of traditional Islam while satisfying the needs of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will challenge the wisest reformers. But it must be done.

Work with Japan to shape international order in the Pacific

Use American power to create world peace for decades

Nixon: We are in a situation at the present time where, and it will be the last time when the United States, through its power, can create conditions which can lead to peace for, perhaps, 25 years. Nobody can look beyond that. That would be a great deal. Now, what is important is that the United States use that power, and use it effectively. The millennium will come someday, we hope, when everybody may want peace for the right reasons. But at the present time, we may want peace for reasons of necessity. Any man, no matter how tough, or savage, or barbaric he is, probably does think of young people, the kids. I mean, the Russians must think of the Russian kids, and the Chinese must think of the Chinese kids.

New world order of 5 major power centers

Public support helps with talks on foreign affairs

Kissinger: Yeah. Oh, enormously.

Nixon: We haven't moved yet enormously.

Kissinger: No, no. It helps enormously.

Haldeman: It helps enormously.

Nixon: Exactly.

No intervention in Cuba; it violates treaties & UN charter

NIXON: Our policies are very different. Sen. Kennedy's policies and recommendations for the handling of the Castro regime are probably the most dangerously irresponsible recommendations that he's made during the course of this campaign. In effect, what Sen. Kennedy recommends is that the US government should give help to the exiles and to those within Cuba who oppose the Castro regime--provided they are anti-Batista. We have five treaties with Latin America, plus the charter of the United Nations, in which we have agreed not to intervene in the internal affairs of any other American country--and they as well have agreed to do likewise.

KENNEDY: Mr. Nixon shows himself misinformed. He surely must be aware that most of the equipment and arms and resources for Castro came from the US, flowed out of Florida to Castro in the mountains. #2, I believe that if any economic sanctions against Latin America are going to be successful they have to be multilateral.

20 new African countries in 1950s, and all chose democracy

Am I trying to indicate that we have no problems in Africa or Latin America or Asia? Of course not. What I am trying to indicate is that the tide of history's on our side, and that we can keep it on our side, because we're on the right side. We're on the side of freedom. We're on the side of justice against the forces of slavery and injustice. But we aren't going to move America forward and we aren't going to be able to lead the world to win this struggle for freedom if we have a permanent inferiority complex about American achievements.

Latin America had 11 dictators in 1953; and only 3 now

NIXON: First of all, I don't agree that Cuba is lost. As I look at Cuba today [after the Castro revolution], I believe that we are following the right course, a course which is difficult but is the only proper one, working with the Organization of American States. Now Senator Kennedy has made some very strong criticisms of my part--or alleged part--in what has happened in Cuba. He points to the fact that I visited Cuba while Mr. Batista was in power there. I can only point out that if we are going to judge the Administrations in terms of our attitude toward dictators, we're glad to have a comparison with the previous administration. There were eleven dictators in South America and in Central America when we came in, in 1953. Today there are only three left including the one in Cuba. We think that's pretty good progress.

1972: Implemented Shanghai Communique's "One China" policy

"The US acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China."

As long as he remained in office, Nixon maintained the US embassy in Taipei and the treaty commitment to defend the Republic of China. Jimmy Carter, however, severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Economic liberty mounts pressure to open up China

Second, Nixon was implicitly arguing that a free market economy, which both South Vietnam and South Korea were encouraging, was a basic freedom totalitarian Marxism did not recognize. It was Nixon's belief that economic liberty, even if under autocratic governments, generated mounting pressure to open up society. In other words, if economic freedom comes, it is usually soon followed by political freedom. Nixon would cite Chile, Taiwan, and Singapore, as well as South Korea, as evidence.

1972 "Triangularization": USSR vs. USA vs. mainland China

Of course, he could have followed the example of the British and French, who recognized Red China and abandoned the Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan. But such a move would mean canceling our defense treaties with Taiwan and implicitly endorsing Red China's claim to the island.

The genius of Nixon's negotiations enabled him to have his cake and eat it too. That is, he achieved "triangularization" without abandonment of US military support of Taiwan. With the carefully crafted phrases, "one China" and "peaceful resolution," Nixon gained a liaison office in Beijing. George Bush would be the 1st liaison officer of that mission in Beijing. This access to the People's Republic was a success that exceeded Nixon's greatest hopes.

Appeasement didn't work with Hitler & won't work with China

Before a national TV audience, Richard Nixon was reminding Jack Kennedy of his father's disgrace. "Now what do the Chinese Communists want?" he asked, building dramatically to his climax. "They don't want just Quemoy and Matsu. They don't just want Formosa. They want the world." Nixon called the islands "a symbol of freedom."

If the 1st debate turned the election, the 2nd and 3rd, with their focus on holding the line against Asian communism, would one day drive American foreign policy.

1968: Open China so they accept international rules

1971: Initiative came after years asking "Who lost China?"

Even with Nixon's chances of reelection bolstered by his masterful turning of the tables on China policy, Nixon was single-handedly taking China out of the global struggle between the US, and the USSR, making her, more Cold War ally than enemy.

Pacific Rim will take center stage in 21st century

• Japan, an economic heavyweight but a political and military lightweight, has stumbled as its leaders search for a new role in the world commensurate with its great resources.
• China, a potential economic superpower and a major political player, stands at a crossroads--its people seeking to break with the Communist past but its current leaders unwilling to relinquish their totalitarian control.
• The former Soviet Union, a declining economic power but a towering military power in the Pacific, has the potential to convert its armed might into a greater presence politically and greater access to the region's capital and technology.

Keep China reforms alive until hard-line leadership passes

As China broadened its contacts with the world economy, these ties transformed Chinese society. Pro-democracy political currents ran deep. The old regime and these new ideas clashed at Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Their calls were met not with reason and understanding but with tanks and bullets. An estimated 1,300 demonstrators were killed and 10,000 wounded in the one-sided battle.

Our objective must be to keep the process of reforms alive until the current hard-line leadership passes from the scene.

Economically, China has moved halfway to a free-market system. It now has two economies--one private and one state-owned--locked in mortal competition.

China must modernize; but US can't push too much

Tiananmen repression did not wipe away progressive reforms

Tiananmen massacre inexcusable, but continue China relations

My 6th visit to China in October 1989 was potentially the most sensitive and controversial since my first trip 17 years before. My purposes in these meetings were threefold: to show the leaders that even China's friends in the US were outraged at the events of June 2-4 and that China would have to take steps to address our concerns; to draw the leaders back into a discussion of geopolitics after months of preoccupation with their domestic problems; and to establish a dialogue about the future of Sino-American relations.

My message was clear: While what they had done in June was tragic and inexcusable, it was in the interests of both the US and China for our relationship to continue in spite of it.

China fears USSR & is USSR's major vulnerability

The most dramatic of those vulnerabilities lies in the deep and perhaps irreconcilable differences between the Soviet Union and China. China's economy is still weak, and its nuclear capability is still relatively primitive. But with a billion of the world's potentially most able people on its longest frontier, under control of a government that looks toward Moscow with bitter hostility, the leaders of the Kremlin have reason to be apprehensive. In the long run China may post an expansionist threat to the West. But for the present China fears the Soviet Union and needs the West.

Bring China into world community, but with restraints

Dialogue with mainland China could begin when the leaders in Peking were persuaded "to turn their energies inward rather than outward." One of my first acts as President was to direct that we explore privately the possibilities of a rapprochement with China. This proceeded at first as a sort of slow ritual dance, but the steps rapidly gained momentum in 1971 until, on July 15, I made the surprise announcement that I would visit China in early 1972.

1972: Cultural, trade, and journalistic contact with China

We did not bring back any written or unwritten agreements that will guarantee peace in our time. We made some necessary and important beginnings, however, in several areas. We entered into agreements to expand cultural, educational, and journalistic contacts between the Chinese and American people. We agreed to work to begin and broaden trade between our two countries. We have agreed that the communications that have now been established between our governments will be strengthened and expanded.

Most important, we have agreed on some rules of international conduct which will reduce the risk of confrontation and war in Asia and in the Pacific. We agreed that we are opposed to domination of the Pacific area by any one power. We agreed that international disputes should be settled without the use of the threat of force.

Security interest in China overrides ideology

The real reason was our common strategic interest in opposing the Soviet dominance of Asia. Like the Soviet Union, China was a Communist country. The US was a capitalist nation. But we did not threaten them, while the Soviet Union did. It was a classic case of a nation's security interest overriding ideology.

Shanghai Communique established "One China" policy

Ping-Pong diplomacy: sport provided opening to China

Nixon: The Ping-Pong team makes the front page of the "New York Times." Ping-Pong is very important now--while we want to get every dividend we can on this, that we not appear to exploit it. We're playing for much higher stakes with the Russians--and this thing is sending them right up the wall, the Ping-Pong team. And we also are playing for high stakes with the Chinese--it's very good copy.

Kissinger: Zhou Enlai gave an interview to that Ping-Pong team--in which he said that this begins a new era of Chinese-American relations.

Nixon: Really?! [laughs] To a Ping-Pong team?!

Kissinger: [laughs]

Nixon: You know, what they're really trying to drive at: irritating the Russians.

Failed Two-China policy recognizing both Taiwan & PRC at UN

Nixon: [to Taiwanese ambassador Zhou]: We will stick by our treaty commitments to Taiwan, we will honor them. I said so in my State of the World report. However, we will take some steps in the next few days that are primarily to be seen as part of our world perspective, particularly vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.

Zhou: We appreciate your special attention; above all, don't spread the impression that all is lost.

Nixon: The important issue is the UN. We will be very much influenced by what the Generalissimo will think. As long as I am here, you have a friend in the White House.

State Dept. is "Cowardly College of Communist Containment"

By 1971, though, Nixon's attitude toward the State Department had become more strained than ever. One complicating factor was the presence of Henry Kissinger in the White House. At once shy & aggressive, Kissinger was a difficult personality for Nixon to control.

1959: Suspicious of Castro even when new Cuban leader

OpEd: Supported democracy when it fit strategic interests

Recommended quarantine of Cuba in 1960

By early 1960, Nixon recommended economic, political, and diplomatic isolation of Cuba. He added that "the time for patience was past," and that we should move vigorously in full association of our sister Latin American republics "to eradicate this cancer" in our hemisphere and "to prevent further Soviet penetration." "The Administration," said Nixon, was planning "a number of steps" and "will very promptly take the strongest possible economic measures to counter the economic banditry being practiced by this regime against our citizens."

Coined term "Domino Theory": defend against Asian Communism

1960: Krushchev's grandchildren will live in freedom

"Our next president must tell the American people not what they want to hear but what they need to hear," Nixon said in his acceptance speech. "Why, for example, it may be just as essential to the national interest to build a dam in India as in California." When read with historical hindsight, his best line dealt with the cold war. "Mr. Khrushchev says his grandchildren will live in freedom." Nixon would later call his words that evening "the single most effective political address" he ever made.

Renew transatlantic institutions; integrate Eastern Europe

• Security vacuum in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
• New democracies in Eastern Europe: We should open American business schools in each East European country to teach skills required to make the nuts and bolts of capitalism work.
• We should not ignore the need to train government regulators, particularly in the banking and antitrust fields. Without strict but sensible regulation, reforms can become a transition not to market but to anarchy.
• We should open Western markets to Eas European exports. Trade represents the major hope for rapid economic development.
• In order to prevent potential ethnic conflicts, we should work with the continent's leaders to channel the new East European nationalism in constructive directions.

Help construct viable post-Communist system in former USSR

In any revolution, two battles must be fought, one over ideology and one over control of the state. The democratic forces have won the first and prevailed in the first major clash of the second. But the victory of freedom will not be secure until the new democratic institutions are firmly in place.

All former Soviet republics have claimed sovereignty and asserted the supremacy of their laws over Moscow's. It is inevitable that virtually all will follow up with full declarations of independence.

Promote democratic self-determination away from Moscow

Our policies should reach out to help those leaders who are part of the solution rather than the problem:
• Encourage republics to make a clean break with the Communist past.
• Press nondemocratic republic governments to hold free legislative and presidential elections.

US assistance to new republics toward free market

While there are scores of needed economic reforms--free prices, private property, and others--there are two fundamental political requirements: painful honesty and strong leadership. The US should extend a helping hand to all republics that move toward a free-market system. The essence of our strategy should be to differentiate among the republics, providing greater assistance to those who make the most decisive break with the past.

Now is the springtime after the long winter of Communism

As a result of the new Soviet revolution, the world stands on the eve of an era of unprecedented opportunities for peace and progress. We must remember, however, that democracy is like a fragile plant. If it is not nurtured and cared for, it will wither and die. But once it sinks its roots, people will care for it. They will not fight to extend it, but they will fight to defend it.

Western aid premature until Soviets overhaul economy

1. Moscow must establish a free-market economy
2. Eastern European countries must complete their transition to full independence
3. NATO and the Warsaw Pact must establish parity in conventional arms
4. the US and the Soviet Union must conclude a verifiable START agreement ensuring stable nuclear deterrence
5. Gorbachev must cease his aggressive policies in the Third World.
6. the Soviet Union must adopt a political order that respects human rights and reflects the wishes of people expressed in free elections.

Anti-communist since 1946's Iron Curtain

In my travels as VP, in 1959 I visited the Soviet Union. In the heart of Siberia in Novosibirsk, away from the tight control of the central government of Moscow thousands of Russians swarmed around us shouting "mir y druzhabe"--"Peace and friendship." The people wanted friendship; the leaders, however, made no bones about the fact that they wanted something different. As Khrushchev put it coldly, "Your grandchildren will live under communism."

China summit and Russia summit give Americans hope

Nixon: The hope thing. The China thing [the Nixon-Mao summit three months before] was important from one standpoint only--hope. The American people are suckers. "Getting to know you"--all that bull. They're for "people to people."

Kissinger: Yeah, but it's for precisely that reason to go there under these circumstances and to cater to that group, it's just--

Nixon: It's isn't that group. The gray, middle America--they're suckers.

Going to China forced Russia to hold US summit meeting

Nixon: We are playing a game, without being too melodramatic: whatever happens with the election is going to change the face of the world. Now, "the China move" I've made not because of any concern about China, because I have none, but because of the need to do something about the Russians and to have another specter over 'em.

Nixon: You never can predict how the Chinese are. They're much less predictable than the Russians. The Russians are predictable. The Chinese are not predictable.

Kissinger: But they're subtler.

Nixon: Because they are Chinese, not because they're Communists. The Russians are more predictable because they're doctrinaire.

No official criticism of USSR's mistreatment of Soviet Jews

Kissinger: The State Department issued a terrific blast against the treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union.

Nixon: Oh, why didn't we stop that? I think you should get the memorandum to me, first thing in the morning, Henry. It's so important. I want no statement concerning the Soviet Union of any kind, public statements, to be made without clearance with me.

Kissinger: You know, I'm Jewish myself, but who are we to complain about Soviet Jews? It's none of our business. If they made a public protest to us for the treatment of Negroes, we'd be--

Nixon: I know.

Kissinger: You know, it's none of our business how they treat their people.

1971: No Soviet nuclear submarines may visit Cuba

Kissinger: The Russians now have put a tender back in Cienfuegos and a nuclear submarine next to it.

Nixon: Yeah, I saw that.

Kissinger: You should say something very enigmatic: "The Soviets know the understanding and the consequences."

Nixon: All right. This is what kind of a submarine ? With missiles?

Kissinger: I don't know if it's an attack submarine. Everybody felt that distinction is practically meaningless.

Nixon: Yeah. But I know what we said: "nuclear submarine free." Just tell him he started this thing.

Kissinger: Right. I think it's the only thing he respects.

Afterword: The Soviet visit did not develop into further activity in Cienfuegos.

1959 Kitchen Debate: show Soviets the American lifestyle

Our Moscow exhibition served a constructive purpose by bringing thousands and thousands of Soviet men, women, and children face to face with the products of American industry and above all with American citizens. [The Nixon-Krushchev event became known as the "Kitchen Debate" because the exhibition portrayed a typical American kitchen].

Soviets have a long road before their economy catches ours