Strengthening U.S.-Japanese Ties

Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato meets with President Nixon at the Western White House in San Clemente on January 6, 1972. In 1971, Washington and Tokyo maintained a strong economic and security relationship, but as with any alliance, the relationship was tested by...

The Challenge of Peaceful Desegregation

  An excerpt from a 1969 statement by both Robert H. Finch, Secretary of the Department of Health Education and Welfare, and John N. Mitchell, Attorney General, gives us a perspective on the challenges still facing the nationwide integration of schools since the...

Support from General Abrams

At the onset of 1969, the Nixon administration had yet to form a definitive plan to bring peace to Vietnam, largely as a result of the North Vietnamese’s continued intransigence and a time period occupied by necessary fact gathering and policy option studies....

Reforming The Selective Service

Today the Selective Service system is on stand-by. Every male in America between the ages of 18 and 25 must register with the Selective Service System, but never has any individual since the Vietnam War era been conscripted into service. The first and last experience...
Planning the Surprise – Media and the Trip to China

Planning the Surprise – Media and the Trip to China

Often termed “The Week that Changed the World,” President Nixon’s 1972 trip to China was founded upon intense planning. Geopolitics were at the fore, but society’s reaction to the trip formed a complementary component, and great strategy went into determining the role...