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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating!,
This review is from: American Experience: Nixon (DVD)
Full disclosure: I'm a Clinton Democrat. But this biography was fascinating. Nixon did a lot of good and a lot of bad over the course of a long and complicated political career. Don't let the running time scare you away -- there's never a dull moment. This is definitely a "Thank goodness for PBS" moment.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best President Ever,
By
This review is from: American Experience: Nixon (DVD)
Richard Nixon died on April 22, 1994. His family held a funeral service five days later, on April 27. Robert Dole gave a speech at the funeral.
"I believe the second half of the 20th century will be known as the age of Nixon," said Senator Dole. "It is true that no one knew the world better than Richard Nixon. And as a result, the man who was born in a house his father built would go on to become this century's greatest architect of peace." "Strong, brave, unafraid of controversy, unyielding in his convictions, living every day of his life to the hilt, the largest figure of our time whose influence will be timeless -- that was Richard Nixon," said Senator Dole. It is ironic that Senator Dole spoke so highly of Richard Nixon. Most Americans do not have a favorable opinion of his presidency. Most Americans remember Nixon for Watergate. Historians take a similarly dim view of his presidency. I think Senator Dole has a better understanding of history than the historians and the public. Nixon ended the Vietnam War. But not only did he end the war, he ended it in a way that brought lasting peace to East Asia. Nixon could have ended the war much sooner. The terms of the peace agreement signed in January of 1973 were almost identical to the terms that the Johnson administration nearly achieved in the fall of 1968. The Johnson administration may have been able to achieve those terms, had the Nixon campaign not intervened. The Johnson administration had been negotiating with the Vietnamese in Paris since May of 1968. Henry Kissinger participated in those negotiations. On October 31, Kissinger told the Nixon campaign that there had been a breakthrough in the negotiations. A peace agreement seemed like a done deal. America would stop bombing Vietnam and final negotiations would start. But three days before the election, South Vietnamese President Thieu failed to attend negotiations. Nixon persuaded him not to. We may not have achieved anything more in Vietnam by prolonging the war, but the Nixon administration did achieve other things. And it may have needed to prolong the Vietnam War to achieve those things. Besides ending the war, the Nixon administration achieved two other crucial objectives. It returned Okinawa to Japan and it began the process of normalizing relations with China. America controlled the islands of Okinawa after World War II. Japan demanded that America return those islands. You cannot overstate the importance of this issue for Japan. "The importance of the issue in this country was emphasized by Premier Eisaku Sato yesterday when he stated that the postwar period will not have ended and Japan will not have achieved complete independence until she regains control over Okinawa and the Soviet-held islands in the Kurile group that Japan claims," said the New York Times. From the start, the Nixon administration told Japan that America would return Okinawa. But interestingly, Japan adopted a negotiating strategy that delayed an agreement. On January 14, 1969, Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato discussed the reversion of Okinawa with Ambassador Takezo Shimoda, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Shigeru Hori. In that meeting, they talked about whether or not Japan should allow America to store its nuclear weapons in Okinawa after the reversion. Ambassador Shimoda argued that America would insist on maintaining a nuclear arsenal on Okinawa. "A `homeland-level' reversion could well be achieved quickly, but if we argue for a `denuclearized reversion' as a condition for reversion, I believe that a rapid decision will be extremely difficult to obtain, given the current international situation," said Ambassador Shimoda. America had its reasons for wanting to keep nuclear weapons on Okinawa. America had to maintain a nuclear deterrent that North Korea considered credible. Without a credible nuclear deterrent, North Korea might have invaded South Korea, starting another Korean War. America told Japan this much in a meeting between Takeo Miki and Alexis Johnson on May 27, 1968. During that meeting, Johnson said that North Korea monitored American capabilities and that America needed to store its nuclear weapons on Okinawa to maintain those capabilities. Nevertheless, in the meeting held in January of 1969, Prime Minister Sato instructed Ambassador Shimoda to negotiate for a denuclearized revision of Okinawa. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hori thought Prime Minister Sato had made a bold decision. "I realized that Sato had displayed true leadership, executing a once-in-a-lifetime decision," said Hori. Japan probably took this position to prolong the negotiations. Keeping the Okinawa issue open gave Japan a certain amount of leverage over America. By not reclaiming Okinawa immediately, the Japanese public could maintain its anger at America for keeping what belonged to them. Japan could use that anger as a threat to end its relationship with America. Japan needed to maintain this threat because Japan wanted at least two other things, in addition to Okinawa. "One of the most serious and long-standing strains in the Japanese-American relationship has resulted from the popular feeling in Japan that, because of geographic propinquity to China, long and close cultural association, and economic interests, Japanese have much more reason than Americans to seek fuller and friendlier ties with Communist China, but are prevented from doing so by their close association with a stubborn and shortsighted America," said Edwin Reischauer, the former American ambassador to Japan. Japan also wanted changes in Indochina. France had colonized Indochina before World War II. At the end of World War II, Japan helped the Vietnamese Communist Party overthrow the Nguyen Dynasty. On August 15, 1945, the day that Japan surrendered, the Communist Party of Vietnam concluded its second national congress and adopted a resolution proclaiming its intention to seize power in Vietnam. Over the next few weeks, the party led uprisings in Hanoi, Thua Thien-Hue, and Saigon. On August 30, 1945, Bao Dai abdicated his thrown and on September 2, the same day that Japan participated in the surrender ceremony on the Missouri, Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence of Vietnam. The next day, Japan ousted the French government in Vietnam. France tried to reestablish colonial rule over Vietnam after the war, but failed. It fought the Vietnamese for nearly eight years. I am sure that Japan wanted a similar outcome in Cambodia. But in the immediate aftermath of World War II, France did not have the same problem in Cambodia that it had in Vietnam. Richard Nixon seemed willing to change that. In his October 1967 article in Foreign Affairs, Nixon argued that America needed to involve itself in the countries next to China. "Only as the nations of non-communist Asia become so strong -- economically, politically and militarily -- that they no longer furnish tempting targets for Chinese aggression, will the leaders in Peking be persuaded to turn their energies inward rather than outward," said Richard Nixon. "And that will be the time when the dialogue with mainland China can begin." During the Vietnam War, Cambodia allowed the North Vietnamese to establish military bases inside its territory, near the border. The Nixon administration started bombing those bases in 1969. We also helped overthrow the Cambodian government. On March 18, 1970, Lon Nol deposed Norodom Sihanouk in an American backed coup. Japan probably wanted to wait for Nixon to overthrow the regime in Cambodia and to make his trip to China before resolving the Okinawa issue. It appears that America tried to short circuit this tactic. On April 30, 1969, the NSC held its own meeting on the reversion of Okinawa. During that meeting, the American government made the decision to allow a denuclearized reversion to occur as a last resort. "If we obtained a satisfactory understanding for the use of the bases for the defense of Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, Nixon would return Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty and take into account Japanese sensitivities on the nuclear issue-in other words, he implied that he might not insist on the right to store nuclear weapons in Okinawa," said Henry Kissinger. The New York Times leaked this decision, presumably to put pressure on Japan. But Japan called their bluff, according to Priscilla Clapp. "No indication has been found, however, to suggest that the Japanese negotiating team either noticed or placed much faith in the New York Times report," said Priscilla Clapp. "Whatever expectations may have existed on either side of the negotiating table, the circumstances behind this intricate process demonstrate a principal lesson of diplomacy-namely, the need to acquire as much information as possible about conditions in the country with which one is negotiating," said Wakaizumi Kei. In a summit between Richard Nixon and Eisaku Sato held in November of 1969, America did agree to return Okinawa. This summit did occur before Nixon made his historic trip to China. But the two sides didn't agree on the exact date for the reversion until later, after they completed negotiations on another issue - textile export restrictions. America wanted Japan to restrict its textile exports. It wanted an agreement on textiles by the end of 1969. It didn't get it. Both sides fought over this issue very strenuously for a few years. "For Kissinger, his involvement in the U.S.-Japan textiles negotiations was to become a source of `later regret,' and he and I were not the only participants who expressed (or rather were made to express)... Read more ›
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