Had a broad streak of paranoia and mistrustful, and that sometimes worked against the instruments of government like the state department. In the end he ruined of self by bragging about his own catastrophic downfall in the watergate scandal of 1972 to 74. We are going to look at the good and bad side of the nixon presidency, and his partnership with National Security adviser kissinger. Im going to share this screens we can look at powerpoint pictures as we go through the sequence. First of all, here is nixon himself, he would be back in 1913 in california, grown up in a lower middle class family in california, went to the local college there. He graduated and went to Duke University law school and this was the worst years of the great depression, the mid 19 thirties. During the Second World War he joined the u. S. Navy, how the left you can see the photo of him as a young navy officer, he served with distinction, as a logistics expert getting the right equipment to the right place at the right time. He was given a series of accommodations from his commanders. He was also very talented poker player. Apparently he had a great ability to bluff, that is valuable quality to someone whos undertaking Foreign Policy at a high level. In 1946, after he had been demobilize from the navy, he ran for congress. On the right you can see his poster from his first election campaign. In 1946, and most full world war ii veterans were elected into congress and senate, one was nixon. Another was john f. Kennedy, another was joe mccarthy who is going to give his name to the era of mccarthy is some. In his early political career, nixon rose rapidly. He was an ardent anti communist, he worked very hard to understand communism and to understand why briefly, during the depression, Many Americans were attracted to communism. The house on american activities was dedicated to rooting out communist in high places. He understood that it was a good weapon to use against the democrats, a characteristic of rhetoric was the assures communists were at work and truman knew they were at work and was doing nothing to get rid of them. He ran successfully in a seat in the senate in 1950, bathing his opponent. In 1952, hes been in politics for six here, he was chosen by eisenhower to be his running mate. So a meteoric rise in 56 to the to be vice bespoke candidate. Because nixon won the election of 52, he was Vice President 53. That is the job he held throughout the eisenhower administration. In 1960 he was a republican candidate in the election against john f. Kennedy. Here the two candidates together. This was an election that he lost narrowly. One of the closest elections of the 20th century. To make matters worse, he then lost again in 1962 when he ran unsuccessfully for the governorship of california. In 1962 when he was in his late forties, it seemed as though his political career had now come to an end, he would sink back into the relative obscurity of the life of a new york lawyer. But they disastrous failure and the president ial campaign of 1964 which goldwater was Unsuccessful Republican running against Lyndon Johnson, this gave nixon a chance to revive his career. In 1968 he was back again, won the republican nomination and then one of nomination against hubert humphrey. By then the vietnam war was in full swing. This was the election in which johnson, although he had been entitled to run, had withdrawn from the race after the tenth offensive and being challenged inside the democratic primary by Jean Mccarthy and robert kennedy. Nixon comes into the white house, hes inaugurated in 1969. Now Henry Kissinger was the man he chose to be his National Security adviser, kissinger had been born in 1923 and he was born and raised in germany. He loves playing soccer as a kid, very good in school, but he was jewish. His family was jewish. As the nazi persecution of the German Jewish community escalated, the family eventually took the decision to emigrate, by doing so they certainly saved their lives. He was 15 when they came to the United States for the first time. He became a citizen during world war ii, he joined the army and because he was perfectly fluid in german, he was a valuable person for the american armies fighting in europe. He was involved in the battle of the bulge, the german counterattack in the winter of 1944 to 45, briefly as a private soldier he had the job of organizing a newlyliberated town in germany from the nazis. When the war had finished, kissinger went to college, first to harvards and then from harvard to graduate school where he wrote his dissertation on that is the man shown on the right. He was the senior politician in the austria hungarian empire. And he contributed to the pacification of europe at the end of the napoleon occurs in 1850. Kissinger wrote admiringly about him because he was somebody who perfectly understood the concept of the balance of power and the importance of using hard political realities, the kind of things that we read about, kissinger was a great believer in balance of power politics. There are no moral components, it just has to be up to date on current political realities. In 19 fifties, kissinger who by this time had a faculty and soon hand tenure, published a book called Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, he was interested in the kinds of questions the question of whether it is possible once you have Nuclear Weapons to actually use them in a way which prevents a catastrophic earth destroying apocalypse. At that point he was cautiously optimistic that it was possible to fight a limited nuclear war them. And in a relatively small way, this became a bestseller with the policy leads, and kissingers name was spread around washington from people who are looking for up incoming Foreign Policy advisers. During the early 1960s, he was advisor to rockefeller who is a moderate republican belonging to the opposite wing of the party from goldwater, in 1968 after nixon approached him with the possibility that he could become National Security adviser, he was perfectly willing to jump over to the nixon camp and sees the opportunity. Although i. C. E. Now or had been president in the fifties, he was a very bipartisan kind of politician. The democrats so in a way this was the first time the republicans had been in the presidency since Herbert Hoover left office back in 1932, it was not such a big pool of experience as there were democrats. One of the things that nixon and kissinger did together is revolutionize americas diplomatic posture with respect to the great the powers in the world. When was the soviet union and the other was china. The Nuclear Weapons rights have been going on since the end of world war ii with growing urgency since 49 when that russians tested their Nuclear Weapon for the first time. By 1969, the low population states of the great plains were honeycombed with missile silos and so where the planes of siberia. Each side ready to fire declare weapons against the other. Both sides gradually realize they had a common motive in trying to reduce the nature of an accidental exchange of weapons. They had a common interest in preventing nuclear war from ever taking place. Its destruction was so complete. They reached the idea of mutual controlled destruction. They could kill each others populations many times over. It was clearly a time to start rethinking how to understand the arms race and whether it made any kind of sense. Both sides had already appreciateds, when they signed the treaty in 1963 that they had a common interest in not testing these weapons in the atmosphere. By 69 they also recognized a common interest in trying to deescalate back from the brink of an accidental war. The photograph on the right shows Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, this took place in the first year of the Nixon Administration, summer of 69. An incredible achievement. But people who are interested in the world of weapons and military hardware understood perfectly that any rocket that can take people to the moon can also be packed with Nuclear Warheads and be fired against the other side. One of the characteristics of the missiles is that they are fired into space and then they come down at a super sonic speed out of space to attack their targets on the ground. A new wrinkle in weapons is what is called the mirv, instead of having just one warhead there would be nine or ten packed into the head of the rocket, they would be fire together but disperse in space and head four different target. Making the process of intersecting them that much more difficult that these were the conditions that nixon. Decided it was time for a new approach to the u. S. The soviet union. Heres a cartoon from the time showing that some of the paradoxes of Nuclear Weapons, two artist facing each other, both loaded with these enormously powerful bombs. You see the sign on one side says, on no account to be used. Because the enemy might retaliate. On the other side, on no account to be used because the enemy might retaliate. So they have reached a stand off, here they are firing bones and arrows at each others because they cannot use the most powerful weapon in their arsenal. One of the characteristics was not to use the regular channels, not to go through the state department, not to use the professional Foreign Policy staff who are trained to do exactly this type of work. Instead they opened back channels with the soviet ambassador in d. C. , incidentally regain themselves as a fascinating person. He first became ambassador to america in 1962 in kennedy was president , he remained there into 1986. He worked with president s kennedy, johnson, nixon, ford, carter and reagan. A long continuity of office overseeing the interests of the soviet union inside the u. S. He was charming and cultivated and incredibly knowledgeable all about these Foreign Policy first. So instead of through this state department, they began talking about the principle of detente with the soviet premier. That is bridging if, there is nixon talking to him, leaning in to make sure he gets the nuances of the translation right between them. Nixon was able to persuade him of the rightness of reducing their nuclear arsenals. Each side was spending too much money on these new color arsenals, each was increasing the danger of an accidental warm, therefore they have a mutual interest in deescalation. Negotiations began, with talks [interpreter] this eventually led in 1972 to the salt one agreement signing. One interesting aspect was depicted in the picture on the photograph of the right. The one on the right shows and antiBallistic Missile. One of the thoughts, that one of the defense planners had was this, if the enemy fires its Nuclear Weapons against us, we will surrender our cities with defensive missile bases. If our radar shows that missiles were coming toward us, we will fire antiBallistic Missiles which will intercept them. At first glance, that seems like a good idea. It makes the city safer, but as you know one of the characteristics of war planning and war gaming during the cold war was to think carefully about the way in which the enemy would interpret your actions. Its not enough just to have an intention, you have to make sure your intention is understood by the adversary. The american war planners the said this, if we build an anti Ballistic Missile system and surround our cities with it, with the enemy is going to think is this, that is a sign that the americans are planning a first strike against us. They will fire their missiles because by the time were able to retaliate they will shoot down or counter strike. The fact that theyre building this is an obvious sign that they are planning to strike us first. That is dangerous, it escalates the perception of threat. The question becomes, how do we reduce the danger . And the answer they came up with, we are not going to build these systems. We are going to leave ourselves defenseless because by leaving ourselves defenseless we are less likely to show that our intentions are misunderstood. The adversary will understand that and we know that if they launch against us, we are destroyed. But they wont do so because they know we can launch against them. In other words, each side a sense to the principle of making itself defenseless as a way of reducing the danger of nuclear war. It is a complicated way of thinking but it does have an internal logic which in the end pooped persuasive. At a summit meeting in 1972 that the soviets and the american leaders signed the treaty which went into effect from that time on. There were people in america who were horrified by this, old style anti communism, the toughest of them, the people like goldwater thought this was dismay. His view was that the russians were the not going to do it unless they believe that it could help them, if it helps them than it cannot possibly help us as well. In other words, people still said, whatever one side against the other side must lose. The alternative view was that this was a condition that both sides can gain because both can be reassured of the reduction of danger of nuclear war. Another part that made it painful, only the year before, in 1968, soviet tanks had rolled into prague, the checks in 68 just like that hungarians in 1966 had attempted to put some distance between themselves and soviet control. Even though the new government was not hostile to soviet union, it was not sufficiently subservient. The russians responded by sending tanks. Anti communism throughout america, it was one more sign that the soviet union was utterly untrustworthy. It was only because nixon had such strong anti communist credentials that he could get away with doing this in the first place. If a democratic president has tried this, it is almost certain that they wouldve won the opposition of the republicans and it would never come about. Nixon understood, he was in a position to do something about this. The other Great Development of the first Nixon Administration was the diplomatic opening to china. I mentioned earlier in the course, that he successfully completed the revolution in 1949, we on counters the chinese troops in the early days of the korean war when they attacked across the china north korea border after the win American Forces were moving north in north korea. Between 1940 and the early 1970s, the u. S. Did not have the medic relations with communist china. The u. S. Continue to recognize taiwan, the offshore islands in the pacific, to which he had led the treat nationalist chinese at the end of the Chinese Revolution in 1949. On the few occasions when an american diplomat needed to talk to a chinese diplomat they met in warsaw. By 70 and 71, nixon was thinking that theres something very odd about this situation. He had written an article and what she said this, taking the long view, we simply cannot afford to leave china outside the family of nations, theyre to nurture its fantasies, cherishes hate and threatens its neighbors. By 1969, it was also becoming clear that communism it was not monolithic. There were differences between russia and chinese communists. And even vietnamese coming us. It was possible to see some daylight between these different brands of communism. One of the central principles is the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Nixon and kissinger understood, if we can be friends with china, at least a chief diplomatic normalization, that is going to add pressure on the soviet union. How are we going to coexist with the soviet union . We dont give them an easy time. We are continuing to hope, way back in 46 along telegram that eventually the soviet system is going to fold up because of its own imperfections. This is maui in the foreground, the people in the background or karl marx, frederick angles, linen and stalin. He saw himself in this lineage of communism as the next of the great leaders. Affairs inside china are turbulence in between the Chinese Revolution and their rival on the scene of nixon and kissinger. A great leap forward was perhaps the most catastrophic policy decision ever made. This was to attempt china to have a five year plan to increase Grain Production in the countryside and a crash course of industrialization. Would actually happened was, the peasant firms were forcibly collectivized, you can see people in the photograph working on collective farms. The hope was that the rationalization, the fish and sea of largescale farms would lead to a sharp increase in green production. Would happen is that the resentful farmers, found less insensitive to work on such farms than they wouldve done if theyve been working on lands of their own. Productivity went down sharply. Mao, they had a cross course of industrialization. It is predicated on and industrial society. Marks have always thought the industrial working class where the revolutionaries. All over china, people had little blast furnaces and to bring all their metal goods and to melt them down in the hope that china could become a mass producer of steel goods. That is a complicated technology that cannot be done on a amateur scale. This is another policy initiative that failed drastically. To give you an idea of the scale of the calamity, the famine which began in china is regarded by most as the single worst famine in the history of the world. Literally millions, perhaps 50 million died of starvation in the years between 59 and 61. One of the many crazy policies was the program against the for a pass, rats, flies, mosquitoes in sparrows. There is something to say stamping out the first three, but when they try to get rid of all the sparrows, it was a natural predator against insects and it disappeared. It was almost immediately followed by a plague of locusts,