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The American Presidency 1901–2000

Nixon, détente and the opening to China

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 1

Overview

Nixon Doctrine and triangular diplomacy.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

How did Nixon organise the making of foreign policy?

Numbers

How was contact with China first made public?

Key term

What is meant by détente?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    How did Nixon organise the making of foreign policy?

    Model answer

    Nixon ran foreign policy from the White House with Henry Kissinger as his National Security Adviser, largely bypassing the State Department and keeping negotiations secret even from his own officials.

  2. 2

    What was the Nixon Doctrine?

    Model answer

    The Nixon Doctrine of 1969 promised that the United States would honour its treaties and its nuclear guarantee, but would expect allies to supply the manpower for their own defence.

  3. 3

    Why did Nixon seek an opening to China?

    Model answer

    Nixon judged that exploiting the quarrel between Moscow and Peking would give the United States leverage over both, and might help to extract a settlement in Vietnam.

  4. 4

    How was contact with China first made public?

    Model answer

    A visit by an American table tennis team in 1971 was followed by Kissinger's secret journey to Peking, after which Nixon announced that he would go himself.

  5. 5

    What did Nixon's visit to China in 1972 achieve?

    Model answer

    The visit ended more than twenty years of non-recognition and produced the Shanghai Communiqué, in which both sides set the question of Taiwan aside and agreed to work towards normal relations.

  6. 6

    Why could Nixon do this when other presidents could not?

    Model answer

    Nixon's long record as an anti-communist made him proof against the charge of being soft, so he could take a step that would have destroyed a liberal president.

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