Foreign policy of the Richard Nixon administration

The foreign policy of the Richard Nixon administration was the foreign policy of the United States from January 20, 1969 to August 9, 1974, when Richard Nixon served as President. Nixon focused on reducing the dangers of the Cold War among the Soviet Union and China. His policy sought on détente with both nations, which were hostile to the U.S. and to each other. He moved away from the traditional American policy of containment of Communism, hoping each side would seek American favor. Nixon's 1972 visit to China ushered in a new era of U.S.-Chinese relations and effectively removed China as a Cold War foe. The Nixon administration signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union and organized a conference that led to the signing of the Helsinki Accords after Nixon left office.

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When Nixon took office, the United States had approximately 500,000 soldiers stationed in Southeast Asia as part of an effort to aid South Vietnam in the Vietnam War. Nixon implemented a policy of "Vietnamization", carrying out phased withdrawals of U.S. soldiers and shifting combat roles to Vietnamese troops. As peace negotiations continually bogged down, Nixon ordered major bombing campaigns in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The U.S., South Vietnam, and North Vietnam agreed to the Paris Peace Accords in early 1973, and the U.S. subsequently withdrew its remaining soldiers in South Vietnam. The war resumed as North Vietnam and South Vietnam violated the truce, and in 1975 North Vietnam captured Saigon and completed the reunification of Vietnam.

Leadership

Richard Nixon and his top aide Henry Kissinger focused on the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, the Middle East, Pakistan, and major arms limitation agreements. Unless a crisis erupted on other matters, they let the State Department handle it with secretary William P. Rogers in charge. He was an old friend of Nixon—a good administrator with little diplomatic experience and less interest in geopolitical dynamics.[1][2]

Kissinger

The relationship between Nixon and Kissinger was unusually close, and has been compared to the relationships of Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House, or Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins.[3] In all three cases, State Department was relegated to a backseat role in developing foreign-policy.[4] Historian David Rothkopf has compared the personalities of Nixon and Kissinger:

They were a fascinating pair. In a way, they complemented each other perfectly. Kissinger was the charming and worldly Mr. Outside who provided the grace and intellectual-establishment respectability that Nixon lacked, disdained and aspired to. Kissinger was an international citizen. Nixon very much a classic American. Kissinger had a worldview and a facility for adjusting it to meet the times, Nixon had pragmatism and a strategic vision that provided the foundations for their policies. Kissinger would, of course, say that he was not political like Nixon—but in fact he was just as political as Nixon, just as calculating, just as relentlessly ambitious....these self-made men were driven as much by their need for approval and their neuroses as by their strengths.[5]

The Nixon Doctrine
Further information: Nixon Doctrine

The Nixon Doctrine shifted the main responsibility for the defense of an ally, to the ally itself, especially regarding combat. The United States would work on the diplomacy, provide financial help and munitions, and help train the allied army. Specifically:

  • The U.S. would keep all its treaty commitments.
  • The U.S. would “provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security.”
  • In conflicts involving non-nuclear aggression, the U.S. would “look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for defense.”[6]

The Doctrine was exemplified by the Vietnamization process regarding South Vietnam and the Vietnam War.[7] It also came into play elsewhere in Asia including Iran,[8] Taiwan,[9] Cambodia[10] and South Korea.[11] The doctrine was an explicit rejection of the practice that sent 500,000 American soldiers to Vietnam, even though there was no treaty obligation to that country. A major long-term goal was to reduce the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and China, so as to better enable the détente process to work.[12]

Detente and Arms Control, 1969-1979

Nixon and Kissinger were both committed to a realism that focused on American economic advantages and jettisoned moralism in foreign policy, seeking détente with Communism and confrontation with old allies who now had become economic adversaries. Everyone assumed, mistakenly, that Nixon's anticommunist reputation at home indicated a hard-line cold warrior. But as early as 1959 (in his "kitchen debate" with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev), he was moving away from containment. Nixon concluded that containment (which he saw as a Truman policy) had failed. As a realist in foreign policy, it was time to emphasize economic goals in foreign policy, and to de-emphasize expensive ideological or peripheral commitments. Furthermore, having rich allies meant the American economy no longer could dominate or control the world economy. By the mid-1960s, China and the USSR had become bitter enemies. Their armies growled at one another across a long border; the risk of war was serious.[13]

Both Moscow and Beijing realized it would be wise to de-escalate tensions with the US, but Lyndon Johnson ignored them both. Sensing fresh opportunity, Nixon played the two Communist giants one against the other.[14] Nixon's utterly unexpected trip to China in 1972 was set up by Kissinger's negotiations using Pakistan as an intermediary. The trip in effect ended the cold war with that nation and ushered in an era of friendship that was still unfolding a half-century later.[15] Moscow rushed to catch favor, and Nixon's summit meetings with Brezhnev produced major arms agreements—especially a treaty banning anti-missile defenses in space; it was thought that the balance of terror, with each side having thousands of nuclear missiles, guaranteed peace, and that a successful defense against missiles would dangerously destabilize this equilibrium.[16]

SALT I Agreements, 1969-72
Main article: Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) led to START I and START II, which were Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties with the USSR. The goal was to limit multiple-warhead capacities and impose other restrictions on each side's number of nuclear weapons. Thanks to negotiations in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1969, SALT I produced an Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an interim agreement between the two countries. The agreement expired on December 31, 1985 and was not renewed. START never was ratified. A successor to START I, New START, was proposed and was eventually ratified in February 2011.[17]

Nixon and Kissinger achieved breakthrough agreements with Moscow on the limitation of Anti Ballistic Missiles and the Interim Agreement on Strategic Missiles. Nixon was proud that he achieved an agreement that his predecessors were unable to reach, thanks to his diplomatic skills. Nixon and Kissinger planned to link arms control to détente. and to the resolution of other urgent problems regarding Vietnam, the Mideast, and Berlin. Through the employment of linkage. The linkages never worked out because of flawed assumptions about Soviet plans.[18]

Helsinki Final Act, 1975
Main article: Helsinki Accords

Nixon and Kissinger set up the international "Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe" (CSCE) in Helsinki, bringing together nearly all of Europe in 1973. Washington's goal was to strengthen relations with the Soviet Union through détente. However, there was opposition at home from Ronald Reagan and the conservatives, and Gerald Ford's weak defense of the Accords hurt his reelection chances.[19] The 1975 accords were signed by all of Europe, the USSR, the US and Canada. The key provisions included legitimizing the current borders, and a pledge by each nation to respect the human rights and civic freedoms of their own citizens. For the first time the USSR recognized its own people had rights regarding free speech and travel.[20]

China

Rapprochement with China, 1971-1972
Main article: 1972 Nixon visit to China
President Nixon shakes hands with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai upon arriving in Beijing

Since the end of the Chinese Civil War, the United States had refused to formally recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate government of China. The U.S. had instead supported the Republic of China (ROC), which controlled Taiwan.[21] By the time Nixon took office, many leading foreign policy figures in the United States had come to believe the U.S. should end its policy of isolating the PRC.[22] The vast Chinese markets presented an economic opportunity for the increasingly-weak U.S. economy, and the Sino-Soviet split offered an opportunity to play the two Communist powers against each other. Chinese leaders, meanwhile, were receptive to closer relations with the U.S. for several reasons, including hostility to the Soviet Union, a desire for increased trade, and hopes of winning international recognition.[21] Nixon's goal of closer relations with China (and the Soviet Union) was closely linked to ending the Vietnam War,[23][24][25] Nixon later described his strategy:

I had long believed that an indispensable element of any successful peace initiative in Vietnam was to enlist, if possible, the help of the Soviets and the Chinese. Though rapprochement with China and détente with the Soviet Union were ends in themselves, I also considered them possible means to hasten the end of the war. At worst, Hanoi was bound to feel less confident if Washington was dealing with Moscow and Beijing. At best, if the two major Communist powers decided that they had bigger fish to fry, Hanoi would be pressured into negotiating a settlement we could accept.[26]

Both sides faced domestic pressures against closer relations. A conservative faction of Republicans led by Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan strongly opposed a rapprochement with China, while Lin Biao led a similar faction in the PRC. For the first two years of his presidency, Nixon and China each made subtle moves designed to lower tensions, including the removal of travel restrictions. The expansion of the Vietnam War into Laos and Cambodia hindered, but did not derail, the move towards normalization of relations.[27] Due to a misunderstanding at the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships, the Chinese table tennis team invited the U.S. table tennis team to tour China.[28] In the aftermath of the visit, Nixon lifted the trade embargo on China. At a July 1971 meeting with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, Kissinger promised not to support independence for Taiwan, while Zhou invited Nixon to China for further talks.[27] After the meeting, China and the United States astounded the world by simultaneously announcing that Nixon would visit China in February 1972.[29] In the aftermath of the announcement, the United Nations passed Resolution 2758, which recognized the PRC as the legitimate government of China and expelled representatives from the ROC.[30]

Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong meets with Nixon, 1972

In February 1972, Nixon traveled to China; Kissinger briefed Nixon for over 40 hours in preparation.[31] Upon touching down in the Chinese capital of Beijing, the President and First Lady emerged from Air Force One and greeted Zhou. Nixon made a point of shaking Zhou's hand, something which then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had refused to do in 1954 when the two met in Geneva.[32] Prior to the meeting the Nixon administration convinced Chinese leaders to allow the construction of a satellite relay station, which allowed Nixon's visit to be broadcast live in the U.S. The visit was carefully choreographed by both governments, and major events took place during prime time to reach the widest possible television audience in the U.S.[33] When not in meetings, Nixon toured architectural wonders including the Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, and the Great Wall. Americans received their first glimpse into Chinese life through the cameras which accompanied Pat Nixon, who toured the city of Beijing and visited communes, schools, factories, and hospitals.[32]

Nixon and Kissinger discussed a range of issues with Zhou and Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party of China.[34] China provided assurances that it would not intervene in the Vietnam War, while the United States promised to prevent Japan from acquiring nuclear weapons. Nixon recognized Taiwan as part of China, while the Chinese agreed to pursue a peaceful settlement in the dispute with the ROC. The United States and China increased trade relations and established unofficial embassies in each other's respective capitals. Though some conservatives criticized his visit, Nixon's opening of relations with China was widely popular in the United States.[35] The visit also aided Nixon's negotiations with the Soviet Union, which feared the possibility of a Sino-American alliance.[36]

Vietnam

At the time Nixon took office, there were over 500,000 American soldiers in Southeast Asia. Over 30,000 U.S. military personnel serving in the Vietnam War had been killed since 1961, with approximately half of those deaths occurring in 1968.[37] The war was broadly unpopular in the United States, with widespread, sometimes violent protests taking place on a regular basis. The Johnson administration had agreed to suspend bombing in exchange for negotiations without preconditions, but this agreement never fully took force. According to Walter Isaacson, soon after taking office, Nixon had concluded that the Vietnam War could not be won and he was determined to end the war quickly.[38] Conversely, Black argues that Nixon sincerely believed he could intimidate North Vietnam through the Madman theory.[39] Regardless of his opinion of the war, Nixon wanted to end the American role in it without the appearance of an American defeat, which he feared would badly damage his presidency and precipitate a return to isolationism.[40] He sought some arrangement which would permit American forces to withdraw, while leaving South Vietnam secure against attack.[41]

Nixon delivers an address to the nation about the bombings in Cambodia, April 30, 1969

In mid-1969, Nixon began efforts to negotiate peace with the North Vietnamese, but negotiators were unable to reach an agreement.[42] With the failure of the peace talks, Nixon implemented a strategy of "Vietnamization," which consisted of increased U.S. aid and Vietnamese troops taking on a greater combat role in the war. To great public approval, he began phased troop withdrawals by the end of 1969, sapping the strength of the domestic anti-war movement.[43] Despite the failure of Operation Lam Son 719, which was designed to be the first major test of the South Vietnamese Army since the implementation of Vietnamization, the drawdown of American soldiers in Vietnam continued throughout Nixon's tenure.[44]

1971

During the quiet year 1971 that saw the removal of nearly all American ground forces, Hanoi was building up forces for a full-scale invasion of the South. In late March 1972, the PAVN launched a major cross-border conventional surprise attack on the South. They expected the peasants to rise up and overthrow the government; they did not. They expected the South's army to collapse; instead the ARVN fought very well indeed. They did not expect heavy US bombing, which disrupted their plans and forced a retreat.

In 1971 Nixon sent massive quantities of hardware to the ARVN, and gave Thieu a personal pledge to send air power if Hanoi invaded. The NLF and Viet Cong had largely disappeared. They controlled a few remote villages, and contested a few more, but the Pentagon estimated that 93% of the South's population now lived under secure GVN control. The guerrilla war had been decisively won by GVN. The year 1971 was eerily quiet, with no large campaigns, apart from a brief ARVN foray into Laos to which was routed by the PAVN.

1972: LINEBACKER I
Main article: Operation Linebacker

Giap decided that since the American forces had left he could invade in conventional fashion and defeat Saigon's demoralized army, the ARVN. His assumption that Vietnamization had failed was soon proven wrong. Saigon had started to exert itself; new draft laws produced over one million well-armed regular soldiers, and another four million in part-time, lightly armed self-defense militia.[45]

In March–April, 1972 Hanoi invaded at three points from north and west with PAVN regulars spearheaded by tanks. On March 30, 30,000 PAVN troops, supported by regiments of tanks and artillery, rolled southward across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separated the two Vietnams. A second PAVN force of 20,000 crossed the border from their sanctuaries in Cambodia into areas north of Saigon. A third PAVN invasion moved in from eastern Laos. This was conventional old- fashioned warfare, reminiscent of North Korea's invasion in 1950.[46]

The outcome was quite different however. Nixon ordered LINEBACKER I, with 42,000 bombing sorties over North Vietnam. Hanoi was evacuated. Nixon also ordered the mining of North Vietnam's harbors, a stroke LBJ had always vetoed for fear of Soviet or Chinese involvement, But thanks to détente the Soviets and Chinese held quiet. The ARVN, its morale stiffened by American resolve, rose to the occasion. With massive tactical air support from the US, it held the line.[47] As in Tet, the peasants refused to rise up against the GVN. "By God, the South Vietnamese can hack it!" exclaimed a pleasantly surprised General Abrams.[48] Since the PAVN's conventional forces required continuous resupply in large quantities, the air campaign broke the back of the invasion and the PAVN forces retreated north. However they did retain control of a slice of territory south of the DMZ. There the NLF, renamed the "Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam" (PRG) was established; it welcomed diplomats from the Communist world, including Fidel Castro, and served as one of the launch points of the 1975 invasion.[49]

After the failed Easter Offensive the Thieu government made a fatal strategic mistake. Overconfident of its military prowess, it adopted a policy of static defense that made its units vulnerable; worse, it failed to use the breathing space to reorganize and rebuilt its faulty command structure. The departure of American forces and American money lowered morale in both military and civilian South Vietnam. Desertions rose as military performance indicators sank, and no longer was the US looking over the shoulder demanding improvement. Politics, not military need, still ruled the South Vietnamese Army. On other side, the PAVN had been badly mauled—the difference was that it knew it and it was determined to rebuild. Discarding guerrilla tactics, Giap three years to rebuild his forces into a strong conventional army. Without constant American bombing it was possible to solve the logistics problem by modernizing the Ho Chi Minh trail with 12,000 more miles or roads. Brazenly, he even constructed a pipeline along the Trail to bring in gasoline for the next invasion.[50]

LINEBACKER II 1972
Main article: Operation Linebacker II

Late in 1972 election peace negotiations bogged down; Thieu demanded concrete evidence of Nixon's promises to Saignon. Nixon thereupon unleashed the full fury of air power to force Hanoi to come to terms. Operation LINEBACKER II, in 12 days smashed many targets in North Vietnam cities that had always been sacrosanct. 59 railroad yards, warehouses, radar stations, electric power plants, and airfields were blasted with laser- guided "smart bombs." US policy was to try to avoid residential areas; the Politburo had already evacuated civilians not engaged in essential war work. The Soviets had sold Hanoi 1,200 SAM surface-to-air missiles that proved effective against the B-52s for the first three days. In a remarkable display of flexibility, the Air Force radically changed its bomber formations overnight—and Hanoi ran out of SAMs. An American negotiator in Paris observed that:

Prior to LINEBACKER II, the North Vietnamese were intransigent. After LINEBACKER II, they were shaken, demoralized, and anxious to talk about anything. Beijing and Moscow advised Hanoi to agree to the peace accords;they did so on January 23, 1973. The Air Force interpreted the quick settlement as proof unrestricted bombing of the sort they had wanted to do for eight years had finally broken Hanoi's will to fight; other analysts said Hanoi had not changed at all.[51]

Bombing of Cambodia, 1969

In March 1969, Nixon approved a secret B-52 carpet bombing campaign (code-named Operation Menu) of North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia without the consent of Cambodian leader Norodom Sihanouk.[52][53] In early 1970, Nixon sent U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers into Cambodia to attack North Vietnamese bases, expanding the ground war out of Vietnam for the first time.[43] Even within the administration, many disapproved of the incursions into Cambodia, and anti-war protesters were irate.[54] The bombing of Cambodia continued into the 1970s in support of the Cambodian government of Lon Nol—which was then battling a Khmer Rouge insurgency in the Cambodian Civil War—as part of Operation Freedom Deal.[55]

Ending the Vietnam War, 1973-1974

In the aftermath of the Easter Offensive, peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam resumed, and by October 1972 a framework for a settlement had been reached. Objections from South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu derailed this agreement, and the peace talks broke down.[56] After years of fighting, the Paris Peace Accords were signed at the beginning of 1973. The agreement implemented a cease fire and allowed for the withdrawal of remaining American troops; however, it did not require the 160,000 North Vietnam Army regulars located in the South to withdraw.[57] By March 1973, U.S. military forces had been withdrawn from Vietnam.[58] Once American combat support ended, there was a brief truce, but fighting quickly broke out again, as both South Vietnam and North Vietnam violated the truce.[59][60] Congress effectively ended any possibility of another American military intervention by passing the War Powers Resolution over Nixon's veto.[61]

South Asia

Bangladesh Liberation War
Main articles: Bangladesh Liberation War and Indo-Pakistani War of 1971

A war for independence broke out in East Pakistan in 1971 with Bangladesh and India against Pakistan—an American ally. Nixon sent the a carrier group to the Bay of Bengal to weigh in on Pakistan's side but without any combat action. Nixon and Kissinger saw India as a threat to U.S. interests, they were constrained by their belief that the American public would not accept hostilities against a fellow democracy.[62] Pakistan was needed to facilitate secret talks underway with China that led to a revolutionary rapprochement turning China from enemy to friend. feared that an Indian invasion of West Pakistan would risk total Soviet domination of the region, and that it would seriously undermine the global position of the United States and the regional position of America's new tacit ally, China. To demonstrate to China the bona fides of the United States as an ally, and in direct violation of the US Congress-imposed sanctions on Pakistan, Nixon sent military supplies to Pakistan and routed them through Jordan and Iran, while also encouraging China to increase its arms supplies to Pakistan. In the end Pakistan lost and Bangladesh became independent, but the USSR did not expand its control. India resented the American role for decades.[63]

Africa

Nigeria and Biafra, 1967-1970

Nigeria experienced a devastating six-year civil war during the 1960s and early 1970s. It defeated the breakaway attempt by Biafra, the richest province. US-Nigerian relations were strained under Nixon, who seemed to favor Biafra but in the end formally supported the national government. The two nations began friendly trade and political ties beginning in 1977 starting with a visit by President Carter.[64][65]

Geopolitical situation, 1978-79.
  SWAPO allies
  South African allies
  South West Africa (Namibia)
  South Africa

Angola, 1974-75
Main article: Angola–United States relations

Nixon continued policies of Kennedy and Johnson regarding the anti-colonial struggle that began in 1961 in Angola and continued until the coup d'état. The Soviet-backed faction defeated the UNITA faction supported by the U.S. and South Africa.[66][67]

Middle East

Egypt
Further information: Egypt–United States relations

Sadat asked Moscow for help, and Washington responded by offering more favorable of armys financial aid and technology to Anwar Sadat of Egypt; as a result the Soviets were forced out of Egypt in 1971. The advantages included Egypt's expulsion of 20,000 Soviet advisors and the reopening of the Suez Canal, and were seen by Nixon and Kissinger as "an investment in peace."[68][69] Also in the region Saudi Arabia and the United States had a common interest in weakening the radical Arab states of Libya, Iraq, and South Yemen, and the militant PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization). The effect was to reduce Soviet influence in the region, generally.[70][71]

Arab-Israeli (Yom Kippur) War, 1973
Main article: Yom Kippur War

In October 1973, Syria and Egypt attacks Israel in order to regain the territories they had lost in the Six-Day War of 1967. It was a complete surprise to Israel and the U.S. Kissinger rushed to Moscow to restrain the Soviets. U.S. begins airlift of $2 billion in military supplies to Israel. Israel scores a victory against Syria and multiple battles against Egypt. US helps arrange an uneasy cease-fire.[72]

Arab Oil Embargo, 1973-1974
Main article: 1973 oil crisis

As the Yom Kippur war ended in defeat, the oil-producing Arab nations, organized as Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, embargoed oil shipments to US and Israel's supporters. It caused a worldwide energy crisis and severe damage to world economy as fuel was much more expensive and in short supply. By 1970 the United States economy was heavily dependent on oil for cars, trucks and heating; domestic production had fallen and more and more was imported.. Fuel efficiency and new supplies were urgently needed so Congress approved an pipeline to reach the oil fields in far northern Alaska. It imposed a national speed limit of 55 mph.[73]

Kissinger's"Shuttle Diplomacy" 1973-74

See [74]

Iran and the Shah

A major development was the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1978-79 and the emergence of the Islamic Republic of Iran as an anti-American regime. Historians have long debated whether Nixon and Kissinger, actively recruited the Shah as an American puppet and proxy. Yes says James Bill and others.[75] However, Richard Alvandi argues that it worked the other war around, with the Shah taking the initiative. President Nixon, who had first met the Shah in 1953, regarded him as a modernizing anticommunist statesman who deserved American support now that the British were withdrawing from the region. They met in 1972 and the Shah agreed to buy large quantities of expensive American military hardware and took responsibility for ensuring political stability and fighting off Soviet subversion throughout the region.[76]

Latin America
Main article: Latin America–United States relations

Cuba

“I was hard-line on Cuba,” Nixon told Jules Witcover in 1966. He said that if he won the 1960 election, he would have pressured Eisenhower to send the exiles into combat before his inauguration on January 20, 1961.[77]

Chile
Main article: United States intervention in Chile

Chile moved sharply to the left, after 1970, seizing American copper mining companies and aligning itself with Castro's Cuba. In Chile in 1973 the military executed a putsch that overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende, and killed him.[78] Nixon and Kissinger set policy to strongly oppose the Allende regime while avoiding visible intervention. Economic pressure was used to boycott Chilean copper and thereby damage the Chilean economy and retaliate for nationalizing American copper interests without compensation. The CIA convinced the Chilean generals that Allende was plotting against the army. The result of the coup was long term authoritarian control of Chile by General Augusto Pinochet who supported American interests and brutally crushed the left wing opposition.[79]

For decades historians have heatedly debated the role of the United States, focusing on four main issues: (1) Did the US attempt to spark a military coup to prevent Allende taking office in 1970? (There was no coup that year.) (2) The commander in chief of the Chilean army, General Rene Schneider blocked coup efforts; he was murdered—was the US involved? (3) Chile's economy went into free fall as copper revenues plunged and food prices soared; was the US responsible? (4) Was the US involved in the plotting and execution of the successful 1973 coup? The Clinton Administration in 1999-2000 released a massive cache of 23,000 secret documents, allowing for the first time an in-depth look at American involvement. Historian working through the documents continue to be bitterly divided, with one group insisting that American involvement at all stages was minimal, and the opposition insisting that the Kissinger was deeply guilty.[80]

Canada
Further information: Nixon Shock

Nixon personally despised Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and the two clashed over Trudeau's independent foreign policy.[81]

President Nixon addresses the Parliament of Canada, 1972

The United States was by far Canada's largest market. The Canadian economy became dependent on smooth trade flows with the United States so much that in 1971 when the United States enacted the "Nixon Shock" economic policies (including a 10% tariff on all imports) it put the Canadian government into a panic. Canada reacted by introducing an Employment Support Program, stepping up the tempo of discussions on trade matters, and meeting with international bodies. Trudeau promoted his "Third Option" policy of diversifying Canada's trade and downgrading the importance of Canada – United States relations. In a 1972 speech in Ottawa, Nixon declared the "special relationship" between Canada and the United States dead.[82]

Relations deteriorated on many points, including trade disputes, defense agreements, energy, fishing, the environment, cultural imperialism, and foreign policy. They changed for the better when Trudeau and President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) found a better rapport.[83]

The Nixon shock to international finance
Main article: Nixon shock

The Administration made drastic changes in international finance with its 1971 New Economic Policy and again with a second devaluation of the dollar in February 1973. The result was the end of fixed exchange rates that set the value of the dollar in terms of gold; it had been well established since Bretton Woods in 1944. Nixon and his powerful Secretary of the Treasury John Connally juggled international versus domestic forces, as well as military-political needs. Especially concerning was continuing inflation in the U.S., increasing unemployment, and a growing trade deficit. Major effects included an 8% devaluation of the dollar, as well as new surcharges on imports, and unexpected controls on wages and prices that had never been used except in wartime.[84][85] One result was to loosen restraints on the fast-growing economy of West Germany, freeing it to dominate the European economy. [86] However Great Britain suffered, as the free-floating pound meant that sterling lost its role as a reserve currency.[87]

See also

Notes
  1. Melvin Small, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (1999) p 46.
  2. See United States Foreign Policy 1969-1970: A report of the Secretary of State (1971), online and subsequent annual volumes for the details of lesser issues.
  3. Robert S. Litwak (1986). Détente and the Nixon Doctrine: American Foreign Policy and the Pursuit of Stability, 1969-1976. Cambridge UP. p. 48. ISBN 9780521338349.
  4. Geoffrey Warner, "Nixon, Kissinger and the breakup of Pakistan, 1971." International Affairs 81.5 (2005): 1097-1118.
  5. David Rothkopf, Running the world: the inside story of the National Security Council and the architects of American foreign policy (2004), pp. 111–12.
  6. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (1994) p 708.
  7. John G. Keilers, "Nixon Doctrine and Vietnamization" (U.S. Army Military History Institute, June 29, 2007) online
  8. Stephen McGlinchey, "Richard Nixon’s Road to Tehran: The Making of the US–Iran Arms Agreement of May 1972." Diplomatic History 37.4 (2013): 841-860.
  9. Earl C. Ravenal, "The Nixon Doctrine and Our Asian Commitments." Foreign Affairs 49.2 (1971): 201-217.
  10. Laura Summers, "Cambodia: Model of the Nixon doctrine." Current History (Dec 1973) pp. 252-56.
  11. Joo-Hong Nam, and Chu-Hong Nam. America's commitment to South Korea: the first decade of the Nixon doctrine (1986).
  12. Robert S. Litwak, Détente and the Nixon doctrine: American foreign policy and the pursuit of stability, 1969-1976 (1986).
  13. Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger and the American century (2007), pp 179-86.
  14. Evelyn Goh, "Nixon, Kissinger, and the “Soviet card” in the US opening to China, 1971–1974." Diplomatic history 29.3 (2005): 475-502.
  15. Margaret MacMillan, Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (2008)
  16. Allen S. Whiting, "Sino-American Détente." China Quarterly 82 (1980): 334-341.
  17. Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (2nd 1994), pgs. 146-223.
  18. Tal, David. "“Absolutes” and “Stages” in the Making and Application of Nixon’s SALT Policy." Diplomatic History 37.5 (2013): 1090-1116.
  19. Sarah B. Snyder, "Through the Looking Glass: The Helsinki Final Act and the 1976 Election for President." Diplomacy & Statecraft 21.1 (2010): 87-106.
  20. William Korey, The Promises We Keep: Human Rights, the Helsinki Process, and American Foreign Policy (St. Martin's Press, 1993).
  21. Herring 2008, pp. 775–776.
  22. Small 1999, pp. 118–119.
  23. Gaddis, pp. 294, 299.
  24. Guan, pp. 61, 69, 77–79.
  25. Zhai, p. 136.
  26. Nixon, Richard (1985). No More Vietnams. Westminster, Maryland: Arbor House Publishing Company. pp. 105–106. ISBN 978-0-87795-668-6.
  27. Herring 2008, pp. 776–778.
  28. Small 1999, pp. 120–121.
  29. Ambrose 1989, p. 453.
  30. Herring 2008, p. 779.
  31. Black, p. 778.
  32. The Nixon Visit. American Experience. PBS. Retrieved July 17, 2011.
  33. Herring 2008, pp. 791–792.
  34. Black, pp. 780–782.
  35. Herring 2008, pp. 791–793.
  36. Dallek, p. 300.
  37. Small 1999, p. 32.
  38. Drew, p. 65.
  39. Black, p. 572, 1055: "Nixon, so often a pessimist, thought he could end the Vietnam war within a year....He somehow imagined he could partly replicate Eisenhower's peace in Korea.".
  40. Herring 2008, pp. 765–766.
  41. Black, p. 569.
  42. Ambrose 1989, pp. 281–283.
  43. Herring 2008, pp. 766–768.
  44. Small 1999, pp. 83–84.
  45. Dale Andradé, Trial by Fire: The 1972 Easter Offensive, America's Last Vietnam Battle (1995)
  46. A.J.C. Lavalle, ed. Airpower and the 1972 Spring Offensive (Air University Press, 1976), pp 1-7.
  47. Robert A. Pape, "Coercive air power in the Vietnam War." International Security 15.2 (1990): 103-146.
  48. Anthony James Joes (2014). Why South Vietnam Fell. Lexington Books. pp. 124–27. ISBN 9781498503907.
  49. Lewis Sorley, "Courage and Blood: South Vietnam's Repulse of the 1972 Easter Invasion," Parameters Summer 1999, pp. 38-56.
  50. Phillip B. Davidson, Vietnam at War: The History: 1946-1975 (1991) pp. 738-59.
  51. Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (2006) pp 197-202.
  52. Black, p. 591.
  53. Clymer, Kenton (2013). The United States and Cambodia, 1969-2000: A Troubled Relationship. Routledge. pp. 14–16. ISBN 9781134341566.
  54. Small 1999, pp. 79–80.
  55. Owen, Taylor; Kiernan, Ben (October 2006). "Bombs Over Cambodia" (PDF). The Walrus: 32–36.Kiernan and Owen later revised their estimate of 2.7 million tons of U.S. bombs dropped on Cambodia down to the previously accepted figure of roughly 500,000 tons: See Kiernan, Ben; Owen, Taylor (2015-04-26). "Making More Enemies than We Kill? Calculating U.S. Bomb Tonnages Dropped on Laos and Cambodia, and Weighing Their Implications". The Asia-Pacific Journal. Retrieved 2016-11-15.
  56. Herring 2008, pp. 796–797.
  57. Ambrose 1991, pp. 53–55.
  58. Herring 2008, p. 797.
  59. Ambrose 1991, p. 473.
  60. Small 1999, p. 94.
  61. Herring 2008, pp. 802–803.
  62. Jarrod Hayes, "Securitization, social identity, and democratic security: Nixon, India, and the ties that bind." International Organization 66.1 (2012): 63-93. online
  63. Geoffrey Warner, "Nixon, Kissinger and the breakup of Pakistan, 1971." International Affairs 81.5 (2005): 1097-1118.
  64. Levi A. Nwachuku, "The United States and Nigeria—1960 to 1987: Anatomy of a Pragmatic Relationship." Journal of Black Studies 28.5 (1998): 575-593. online
  65. A. Dirk Moses, and Lasse Heerten, eds. Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967–1970 (Taylor & Francis, 2017).
  66. George Wright, The Destruction of a Nation: United States' Policy Towards Angola Since 1945 (1997) pp. viii-xiii.
  67. Quint Hoekstra, "The effect of foreign state support to UNITA during the Angolan War (1975–1991)." Small Wars & Insurgencies 29.5-6 (2018): 981-1005.
  68. Craig A. Daigle, "The Russians are going: Sadat, Nixon and the Soviet presence in Egypt." Middle East 8.1 (2004): 1+.
  69. Moshe Gat (2012). In Search of a Peace Settlement: Egypt and Israel Between the Wars, 1967-1973. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 256–58. ISBN 9780230375000.
  70. Roland Dannreuther, The Soviet Union and the PLO (Springer, 2016).
  71. Thomas W. Lippman, Hero of the crossing: How Anwar Sadat and the 1973 war changed the world ( U of Nebraska Press, 2016).
  72. Abraham Rabinovich, The Yom Kippur War: the epic encounter that transformed the Middle East (2007.
  73. Rüdiger Graf, "Making Use of the 'Oil Weapon': Western Industrialized Countries and Arab Petropolitics in 1973–1974." Diplomatic History 36.1 (2012): 185-208. online
  74. Amos Perlmutter, Crisis Management: Kissinger's Middle East Negotiations (October 1973-June 1974)." International Studies Quarterly 19.3 (1975): 316-343. online
  75. James A. Bill, The eagle and the lion: The tragedy of American-Iranian relations (1989).
  76. Roham Alvandi, Nixon, Kissinger, and the Shah: The United States and Iran in the Cold War (2014)
  77. Kent M. Beck, "Necessary Lies, Hidden Truths: Cuba in the 1960 Campaign." Diplomatic History 8.1 (1984): 37-59.
  78. Jonathan Haslam, Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende's Chile: A Case of Assisted Suicide (2005).
  79. Tanya Harmer, Allende's Chile and the Inter-American Cold War (2011) online
  80. For a review of the historiography see Zakia Shiraz, "CIA Intervention in Chile and the Fall of the Allende Government in 1973." Journal of American Studies (2011) 45#3 pp 603-613. online
  81. Small 1999, pp. 149–150.
  82. Bruce Muirhead, "From Special Relationship to Third Option: Canada, the U.S., and the Nixon Shock," American Review of Canadian Studies, Vol. 34, 2004 online edition
  83. Lily Gardner Feldman, "Canada and the United States in the 1970s: Rift and Reconciliation." The World Today 34.12 (1978): 484-492. online
  84. John S. Odell, "The US and the emergence of flexible exchange rates: an analysis of foreign policy change." International Organization 33.1 (1979): 57-81.
  85. Joanne Gowa, "State power, state policy: Explaining the decision to close the gold window." Politics & Society 13.1 (1984): 91-117.
  86. William Glenn Gray, "Floating the system: Germany, the United States, and the breakdown of Bretton Woods, 1969–1973." Diplomatic History 31.2 (2007): 295-323.
  87. Martin Daunton, "Britain and Globalisation since 1850: IV the Creation of the Washington Consensus." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 19 (2009): 1-35.

Further reading
  • Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician 1962–1972 (1989). online free to borrow
  • Bell, Coral. The diplomacy of detente : the Kissinger era (1977) online free to borrow
  • Black, Conrad. Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full (2007) online free to borrow
  • Brown, Seyom. The Crises of Power: An Interpretation of United States Foreign Policy during the Kissinger Years (Columbia University Press, 1979).
  • Dallek, Robert. Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (2007) online free to borrow
  • Gaddis, John Lewis Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (1982).
  • Garthoff, Raymond L. Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (2nd 1994) [https://archive.org/details/detenteconfronta00raym online free to borrow=,
  • Hanhimäki, Jussi. The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (2004) online free to borrow
  • Herring, George C. From Colony to Superpower; U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (2008).
  • Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography (1992)
  • Litwak, Robert S. Détente and the Nixon Doctrine: American Foreign Policy and the Pursuit of Stability, 1969-1976 (1986).
  • Logevall, Fredrik, and Andrew Preston, eds. Nixon in the World: American Foreign Relations, 1969-1977 (2008) online
  • Patterson, James. Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974 (1996).
  • Schulzinger, Robert D. ed. A Companion to American Foreign Relations (2003).
  • Small, Melvin. The Presidency of Richard Nixon (1999) online free to borrow
  • Small, Melvin, ed. A Companion to Richard M. Nixon (2011). online
  • Suri, Jeremi, Henry Kissinger and the American Century (2007)
  • Thornton, Richard C. The Nixon-Kissinger Years: Reshaping America's Foreign Policy (2001) online free to borrow

Regional
  • Alvandi, Roham. "Nixon, Kissinger, and the Shah: the origins of Iranian primacy in the Persian Gulf." Diplomatic History 36.2 (2012): 337-372. online
  • Aridan, Natan. Advocating for Israel: Diplomats and lobbyists from Truman to Nixon;; (Lexington Books, 2017).
  • Chua, Daniel Wei Boon. "Becoming a “Good Nixon Doctrine country”: Political relations between the United States and Singapore during the Nixon presidency." Australian Journal of Politics & History 60.4 (2014): 534-548.
  • Davies, J. E. Constructive Engagement? Chester Crocker and American Policy in South Africa, Namibia and Angola 1981-1988 (2008).
  • Green, Michael J. By more than providence: Grand strategy and American power in the Asia Pacific since 1783 (Columbia UP, 2017) pp 323–362. online
  • Guan, Ang Cheng. Ending the Vietnam War: The Vietnamese Communists' Perspective (2003).
  • Hoey, Fintan. "The Nixon Doctrine and Nakasone Yasuhiro’s Unsuccessful Challenge to Japan’s Defense Policy, 1969-1971." Journal of American-East Asian Relations 19.1 (2012): 52-74.
  • Kirkendall, Andrew J. "The Nixon Doctrine in South America." Diplomatic History 37#3 (2013): 627–630, https://doi.org/10.1093/dh/dht015
  • Komine, Yukinori. "The 'Japan card' in the United States rapprochement with China, 1969–1972." Diplomacy & Statecraft 20.3 (2009): 494-514.
  • Lobell, Steven E. "Winning friends and influencing enemies among great power rivals: The case of Washington, Beijing, and Moscow, 1969–1979." Chinese Journal of International Politics 4.2 (2011): 205-230. online
  • MacMillan, Margaret. Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (2008_
  • Thornton, Thomas P. " US-Indian Relations in the Nixon and Ford Years," in The hope and the reality: US-Indian relations from Roosevelt to Reagan ed. H.A. Gould and S. Ganguly. (1992).
  • Tudda, Chris. A Cold War Turning Point: Nixon and China, 1969-1972 (LSU Press, 2012)
  • Winger, Gregory. "The Nixon Doctrine and US Relations with the Republic of Afghanistan, 1973–1978: Stuck in the Middle with Daoud." Journal of Cold War Studies 19.4 (2017): 4-41 online.
  • Xia, Yafeng. "China's Elite Politics and Sino-American Rapprochement, January 1969–February 1972." Journal of Cold War Studies 8.4 (2006): 3-28. online
  • Zhai, Qiang. China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (2000).

Primary sources
  • United States Foreign Policy 1969-1970: A report f the Secretary of State (1971), online and subsequent annual volumes
  • Kissinger, Henry. The White House Years (1979) online free to borrow
  • Kissinger, Henry. Ending the Vietnam War: a history of America's involvement in and extrication from the Vietnam War (2003) online free to borrow
  • Kissinger, Henry. Years of upheaval (1982) online free to borrow
  • Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy (Simon & Schuster, 1994)
  • Nixon, Richard. RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (1978) online free to borrow
  • Nixon, Richard. major books online free to borrow
  • Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, 1969–1972 (2003) online free
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