Transcript TAKS Remediation Lesson #1

Supporting standards comprise
35% of the U. S. History Test
10 (A)
Supporting Standard (10)
The student understands the impact of political,
economic, & social factors in the U. S. role in the
world from the 1970s through 1990.
The Student is expected to:
(A) Describe Richard M. Nixon’s leadership in
the normalization of relations with China & the
policy of détente
Nixon’s 1972 visit to
China
President Nixon’s 1972 visit to the People's
Republic of China was an important step in
formally normalizing relations between the U. S.
and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It
marked the first time a U.S. president had
visited the PRC, which at that time considered
the U.S. one of its foes, and the visit ended 25
years of separation (1947-1972) between the two
sides.
U.S. did not maintain diplomatic
relations as it recognized the
Republic of China or Taiwan as
the government of China. Early in
his first term, Nixon and National
Security Adviser Henry Kissinger
(right) began sending subtle
overtures hinting at warmer
relations to the PRC government.
After a series of these overtures
by both countries, Kissinger flew
on secret diplomatic missions to
Beijing, where he met with
Premier Zhou Enlai. On July 15,
1971, the President announced
that he would visit the PRC the
following year.
Occurring from February 21 to 28, 1972, the
visit allowed the American public to view
images of China for the first time in over two
decades. Throughout the week the President
and his most senior advisers engaged in
substantive discussions with the PRC,
including an hour-long meeting with
Chairman Mao Zedong, while First Lady Pat
Nixon toured schools, factories and hospitals
in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and
Hangzhou with the large American press
corps in tow. Nixon dubbed the visit “the
week that changed the world.”
The repercussions of
the Nixon visit were
vast, and included a
significant shift in the
Cold War balance,
pitting the PRC with
the U.S. against the
Soviets. “Nixon going
to China” has since
become a metaphor for
an unexpected or
uncharacteristic action
by a politician.
“By opening relations with China we would catch
Russia’s attention and get more leverage on them
through playing this obvious, China card. The
idea would be to improve relations with Moscow,
hoping to stir a little bit of its paranoia by dealing
with China, never getting so engaged with China
that we would turn Russia into a hostile enemy
but enough to get the attention of the Russians.
This effort, in fact, worked dramatically after
Kissinger’s secret trip to China.
Kissinger and Nixon also wanted to get help
in resolving the Vietnam War. By dealing
with Russia and with China we hoped to put
pressure on Hanoi to negotiate seriously.
Although Nixon was
in China for a week,
this would be his sole
meeting with the top
Chinese leader.
Unknown to Nixon
and the rest of the
American diplomats
at the time, Mao was
in poor health and he
had been
hospitalized up to
only nine days before
Nixon’s arrival.
At the conclusion of his trip, the United States
and the PRC governments issued the Shanghai
Communiqué, a statement of their foreign policy
views and a document that has remained the
basis of Sino-American bilateral relations.
Kissinger stated that the U.S. also intended to
pull all its forces out of the island of Taiwan. In
the communiqué, both nations pledged to work
toward the full normalization of diplomatic
policy.
Nixon and his aides
carefully planned the
trip to have the
biggest possible
impact on television
audiences back in the
U.S.
The Chinese themselves agreed to a peaceful
settlement of the Taiwan question. The
statement enabled the U.S. and PRC to
temporarily set aside the “crucial question
obstructing the normalization of relations”
concerning the political status of Taiwan and
to open trade and other contacts. However,
the United States continued to maintain
official relations with the government of the
Republic of China in Taiwan until 1979 when
the U.S. broke off formal diplomatic relations
with the Republic of China and established
full diplomatic relations with the PRC.
While in Shanghai,
Nixon declared his
intention to “build a
bridge across 16,000
miles and 22 years of
hostilities which have
divided us in the past.
And what we have
said today is that we
shall build that
bridge.”
Richard Nixon
meets with Mao
Zedong in Beijing,
February 21, 1972.
The three objectives for the
Nixon trip were 1) to embrace
People’s Republic of China for
peaceful settlement of Taiwan.
2) Peaceful settlement
of the Vietnam War
And 3) deter Soviet
Union’s sphere of
Communist influence
after the Sino-Soviet
Split.
Some consider that Nixon’s diplomacy failed all
three of them, as 1)
Taiwan is still facing military threat from People’s
Republic of China after the Third Taiwan Strait
Crisis in 1996
2) Vietnam was soon captured by the PRC-aided
North Vietnam Communists as US withdrew troops
from there soon after Nixon’s trip to the PRC, and
3) The collapse of Soviet Union was mainly on the
internal/domestic economic causes of its
unproductive centrally planned economic system.
However, no one can dispute that President Nixon’s
visit opened the door to Sino-American foreign
relations, and paved the way to the strong economic
ties that bind the two countries today.
Improved relations
with the Soviet Union
and the People’s
Republic of China are
often cited as the
most successful
diplomatic
achievements of
Nixon’s presidency.
The rationale for
opening up China was
for the U.S. to gain
more leverage over
relations with the
Soviet Union.
Nixon would push for
détente with Soviet
Premier Leonid
Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev (left) & Richard Nixon
(right) during Brezhnev’s June 1973 visit to
Washington; this was a high-water mark in
détente between the United States and the
Soviet Union.
Détente
The word is from the French & refers to archery—when you arch the
bow & suddenly release it—détente means a relaxation of tension or
easing of strained relations, especially in a political context
Détente was all
Picture an archer who has his bowstring
about
relaxing
pulled back, his arrow aimed at another archer,
tension
of the
who is inthe
the same
position;
then, perhaps
because they both prefer
bownot to fight if it can be
avoided, they both slowly, let their hands move
forward, relaxing the tension on the
bowstring, but not yet putting down the bow or
removing the arrow from its place. That is the
meaning of détente.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the
two superpowers agreed to install a direct
hotline between Washington D.C. and
Moscow (the so-called “red telephone”),
enabling leaders of both countries to
quickly interact with each other in a time of
urgency, and reduce the chances that future
crises could escalate into an all-out war.
The most obvious manifestation of détente
was the series of summits held between the
leaders of the two superpowers and the
treaties that resulted from these meetings.
Early 1960s, before détente:
The Partial Test Ban Treaty had been signed
on August 5, 1963.
Later in the decade, the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty
And Outer Space Treaty were two of the
first building blocks of détente. These early
treaties were signed all over the globe.
The term is often used in reference to the
general easing of the geo-political tensions
between the Soviet Union & the U. S. which
began in 1969, as a foreign policy of U.S.
presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
called détente; a “thawing out” or “unfreezing” at a period roughly in the middle
of the Cold War. Détente was known in
Russian as разрядка (“razryadka,” loosely
meaning “relaxation of tension”).
Based on his 1959
performance against
Nixon’s right-hand man was
Khruschev in the so-called
National Security Adviser &
“Kitchen Debate,”
later Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger shown here with
as Eisenhower’s VicePresident, Nixon had earned Anatoly Dobrynin, Andrei
a justifiable reputation as a Gromyko, & Leonid Brezhnev
hard-liner on communism.
The most important treaties were not developed
until the Nixon Administration came into office
in 1969. The Political Consultative Committee of
the Warsaw Pact sent an offer to the West,
urging them to hold a summit on “security and
cooperation in Europe.” The West agreed and
talks began towards actual limits in the nuclear
capabilities of the two superpowers.
This ultimately led to the signing of the SALT I
treaty in 1972. This treaty limited each power’s
nuclear arsenals, though it was quickly rendered
out-of-date as a result of the development of
Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry
Vehicle (MIRVs). In the same year that SALT I
was signed, the Biological Weapons Convention
and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty were also
concluded. Talks on SALT II also began in 1972.
The period was characterized by the signing
of treaties such as the Strategic Arms
Limitations Talks (SALT) I and the Helsinki
Accords. A second Arms-Limitation Treaty,
SALT II, was discussed but never ratified by
the United States. There is still ongoing
debate amongst historians as to how
successful the détente period was in
achieving peace.
In 1975, the Conference on Security &
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) met and
produced the Helsinki Accords, a wide ranging
series of agreements on economic, political, and
human rights issues. The CSCE was initiated by
the USSR, involving 35 states throughout
Europe. Among other issues, one of the most
prevalent and discussed after the conference was
that of human rights violations in the Soviet
Union.
The U.S./U.S.S.R. détente was presented as an
applied extension of that thinking. The SALT II
pact of the late 1970s continued the work off the
SALT I talks, ensuring further reduction in arms
by the Soviets and by the US. The Helsinki
Accords, in which the Soviets promised to grant
free elections in Europe, has been called a major
concession to ensure peace by the Soviets.
Détente ended after the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan (in which, rather ironically in light
of subsequent world events, the U. S. subsidized
the anti-Soviet Mujahideen fighters in the
region), which led to America’s boycott of the
1980 summer Olympics in Moscow. President
Reagan’s election in 1980, based in large part on
an anti-détente campaign (“Détente . . . isn’t that
what a turkey has with his farmer—until
Thanksgiving Day?”), marked the close of
détente and a return to Cold War tensions. In his
first press conference, President Reagan said
“‘Détente’ has been a one-way street that the
Soviet Union has used to pursue its aims.”
The Carter Administration had been supporting
human rights groups inside the Soviet Union,
and Leonid Brezhnev accused the
administration of interference in other
countries’ internal affairs. This prompted
intense discussion of whether or not other
nations may interfere if basic human rights are
being violated, such as freedom of speech and
religion. The basic disagreement in the
philosophies of a democracy and a single-party
state did not allow for reconciliation of this
issue.
Furthermore, the Soviets proceeded to defend
their internal policies on human rights by
attacking American support of countries like
South Africa and Chile, which were known to
violate many of the same human rights issues.
In July of the same year, the Apollo-Soyuz Test
Project became the first international space
mission, wherein three American astronauts and
two Russian cosmonauts docked their spacecraft
and conducted joint experiments. This mission
had been preceded by five years of political
negotiation and technical co-operation,
including exchanges of US and Russian
engineers between the two countries’ space
centers.
Trade relations between the two blocs increased
substantially during the era of détente. Most
significant were the vast shipments of grain that
were sent from the West to the Soviet Union
each year, which helped make up for the failure
of kolkhoz, Soviet collective agriculture.
As direct relations thawed, increased tensions
continued between the superpowers through
their surrogates, especially in the Third World.
Conflicts in South Asia & the Middle East in 1973,
saw the Soviet and U.S. backing their respective
surrogates with war material and diplomatic
posturing. In Latin America, the United States
continued to block any leftward electoral shifts
in the region by supporting right-wing military
coups. Neither side trusted the other fully and
the potential for nuclear war remained.
Each side continued to aim thousands of nuclear
warheads atop intercontinental ballistic missles
(ICBMs) at each other’s cities, maintain
submarines with long-range nuclear weapon
capability (Submarine-launched ballistic
United States Air Force Rome Air Development
missilesThe
or
SLBMs) in the world’s oceans, keep
Center (RADC), with the help of Raytheon, began
hundredsdesigning
of nuclear-armed
on constant
the system in 1975 andaircraft
by 1980, the PAVE
PAWS
(in reference
to PAVE, the Airborders
Force program
alert, and
guard
contentious
in Korea
name, and Phased Array Warning System), came online
and Europe
with
large
groundand
forces.
at both
Otis AFB
in Massachusetts
Beale AFBEspionage
in
Two more
PAVE PAWS
systemsas
weredefectors,
later
effortsCalifornia.
remained
a high
priority
installed in Robins AFB, Georgia, and Eldorado AFB,
reconnaissance
andin signal
Texas, but theysatellites,
were decomissioned
1995 at theintercepts
end
measured
intentions
and
of the Cold
War. The Robins
AFB attempted
system was movedto
to gain
Clear AFB,strategic
Alaska, and restarted
in 2001 to provide full
advantage.
coverage defense to the whole of the western US. And
combined with the BMEWS, all but a small fraction of
the South West is protected from attack.
The 1980 American presidential election saw
Ronald Reagan elected on a platform opposed to
the concessions of détente. Negotiations on
SALT II were abandoned.
APPENDIX
Today’s
Members of the
“Nuclear Club”
Country
United States
Russia
United Kingdom
France
China
India
Pakistan
North Korea
Israel
Warheads active/total
Date of first test
CTBT status
The five nuclear-weapon states under the NPT
16 July 1945
2,150 / 7,700
Signatory
(“Trinity”)
29 August 1949 (“RDS1,800 / 8,500[
Ratifier
1”)
3 October 1952
160 / 225
Ratifier
(“Hurricane”)
13 February 1960
290 / 300
Ratifier
(Gerboise Bleue)
16 October 1964
n.a. / 250
Signatory
(“596”)
Non-NPT nuclear powers
n.a. / 90–110
18 May 1974 (“Smiling
Non-signatory
Buddha”)
28 May 1998 (“ChagaiNon-signatory
I”)
n.a. / <10 9 October 2006
Non-signatory
Undeclared nuclear powers
n.a. / 100–120
n.a. / 60-200
Unknown (possibly 22
Signatory
September 1979)
Fini