The Richard Nixon Experience

Send a text The final night opens with actor Jimmy Stewart and First Lady Pat Nixon. Then Congressman Gerald Ford introduces Vice President Spiro T. Agnew who will in turn bring out Richard Nixon for the main event. Then Richard Nixon will deliver his acceptance speech for a second term as President. At that moment, Richard Nixon sat on top of the world. He was closing in on a victory of not only...

Send a text If the McGovern campaign had been a textbook example of what could go wrong would, the Nixon campaign ran like a well oiled machine.  If you listen to the journalist covering the convention they sound like they are covering the great turtle race.  They are audibly struggling to keep things interesting. But if you love the pomp and circumstances of a national convention, which I do, you...

Send a text In this episode we open with the real power player in the Democratic Party of 1972, Senator Ted Kennedy. He would step up to nominate George McGovern.  Then George McGovern will step up to the podium in the wee hours of the morning to make his case to the nation as to why they should trade in Richard Nixon for him. It would be the high mark for a campaign that would end up with a shock...

Send a text This episode starts off the conventions of 1972 with the Democrats. While 1972 was not 1968, it was still a textbook example of what not to do. Poor George McGovern was in a campaign best described as if it could go wrong it did.  He had come from out of nowhere to be the front runner for the nomination going into the convention but he still had not won it. He would wrestle with his op...

Send a text President Richard Nixon's Address to the nation and to a joint session of Congress on June 1, 1972, would mark the arguable high point of his amazing political career. Fresh off two successful summits, first in Peking, China and then in Moscow, in the Soviet Union. President Nixon was poised to change the chess board of the world in 1972.  It was an incredible moment when all seem...

Send a text SUMMIT IN MOSCOW.  On May 22, 1972 Richard Nixon was the first American President to set foot inside the Kremlin as he and Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev would hold the first Summit meeting. It would lead to various treaties and the start of a thaw in Cold War relations between the two world Super Powers. It was there in Moscow that the two nations signed the SALT 1 agreement, the Strat...

Send a text After President Richard Nixon returned from China he would have to catch up on all he missed as the Democratic Party began its campaign to challenge him in earnest.  It would be a race that would feature one of the great come from nowhere candidates in all of American history, South Dakota Senator George McGovern.  He would be up against Senator Edmund Muskie, the presumed frontrunner,...

Send a text In this episode we witness President Richard Nixon's triumphant return to the United States. But it was not without real worry about how the trip and the Shanghai Communique would be received by millions of Americans who had spent a lifetime fearing the Chinese.  It went better than Nixon could have imagined and though Watergate would derail the effort for a while by 1979, the Adm...

Send a text While China represented mystery, exotic locales, and an entirely different cultural experience for Americans watching back home on television.  There was still a lot of work being done on the trip itself. There was a lot at stake for both countries and for allies around the world who were watching and worrying about what it all would mean for peace and world order.  This was especially...

Send a text Chairman  Mao was the great father figure of China. But it was Zhou Enlai who was the great diplomat of China. He was a man of enormous vision and also he was a man of an extraordinary ability to see problems and fix them with extraordinary skill. As we will learn on our next episode on the Shanghai Communique.  He knew how to smooth out the rough edges and make situations not only wor...

Send a text During the week that President and Mrs. Nixon were in China there were several staged tours arraigned for the party and at those events there were often staged people too.  This is the story of the wandering adventures of the party and the press corp as they traveled around China all the while President Nixon and Zhou Enlai were busy negotiating out the Communique from the trip.  They...

Send a text Somethings never change, and one of those things that will never change is the troublesome issues the press can create by trying to get into mischief and question everything they see. This was very true with the traveling press corp as they were bused around China.  The Chinese tried to contain them but it was to no avail and they managed to find a good story or two while they were the...

Send a text In a trip planned and choreographed to the minute, an enormous surprise happened with in hours of the President's arrival.  Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai showed up at the guest house where President Nixon was staying and whisked him away with only Henry Kissinger, his aid Winston Lord, and one Secret Service Agent in tow.  Bob Haldeman recorded in his diary his worry at having the Pr...

Send a text "One story about the famous meeting with Richard Nixon remained a secret for many years, until Nixon’s memoirs appeared. The story began in the mid-50’s, when America and China had no diplomatic relations, and there was great hostility between the two nations. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, at a meeting in Geneva, deliberately snubbed Zhou Enlai, refusing to shake his hand...

Send a text Finally the door has been opened to China. President Nixon would send a group of young men under the supervision of 34 year old Ron Walker to China to lay the groundwork for the historic visit. They would find it immensely rewarding but not without many frustrations as they entered a world that was totally foreign to the one they left.  A world where technology was behind, a world wher...

Send a text In this episode we look backwards at how the China initiative came together. Richard Nixon had envisioned reaching out to China long before he became President of the United States. He wrote an article for Foreign Affairs magazine in 1967 where he talked briefly about Asia after Vietnam and the importance of reaching out to China. There were hints in his inaugural Address about buildin...

Send a text The opening of our Season 2 look at the Administration of Richard Nixon begins with the signature event of his time in office., the opening to China.  It marks the beginning of a season of triumph for America and for Richard Nixon. It begins with a journey into the unknown because China and the United States had had no diplomatic ties for a quarter of a century. In fact, China had bee...

Send a text In our Season 1 finale we look at several of the initiatives that Richard Nixon began at the end of 1971 that we are still benefitting from or are impacted by today.  In 1971 Richard Nixon changed the monetary system for the United States ending the Breton Woods system and taking the United States off the Gold Standard. It was a dramatic economic move that is still debated. It certainl...

Send a text In this episode, we cover two of President Nixon's major accomplishments; giving 18 year old citizens the right to vote and initiating the opening to China.  First, we listen as Richard Nixon signs the 26th Amendment into law in front of a White House full of young people.  Then we listen in on a call between Henry Kissinger and President Nixon on a wide range of subjects involvin...

Send a text It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.  On June 12, 1971, the daughter of President and Mrs. Nixon, Tricia Nixon married Edward Cox at a White House ceremony in the Rose Garden. It was a wedding celebrated by not only the Nixon and Cox families but by the entire nation. President Nixon said of the day "It was a day we were all just very happy" It was a truly...

Send a text This episode begins just after President Nixon delivers his powerful speech going through the campaign in Laos and the advancements our side is making in extricating ourselves from the Vietnam War. It was a powerful moment for President Nixon.  Recently, another documentary titled "Nixon at War" , attempted to smear President Nixon for his conduct of the operation and that he...

Send a text One of the low moments of the Vietnam War is covered in this episode. It was the moment in the plans to Vietnamize the Vietnam War that we conducted an operation with only South Vietnamese troops on the ground and we provided air support. In the end, our side got walloped.  This happened in an operation in which our side went over the border into neighboring Laos to finally stop the Co...

Send a text In this episode we talk about the contents of the historic tapes of the Nixon Administration. We address the negative parts that are so familiar to the public. Nixon's remarks about Women, Gays, Jews, African Americans, his rages, and his intemperate remarks, all caught on a voice activated tape recorder that caught his every word every time he entered a room.  We will also discus...

Send a text In this episode, we finally be at the moment that the taping system was installed. It was a fateful decision, and it would eventually lead to the fall of the Nixon Administration. The tapes have been used to attack the President and portray him as an awful person. For the most part, only the worst of the worst of these tapes have been promoted to the public. President Nixon allowed the...

Send a text Starlight, the Secret Service Codename for First Lady Pat Nixon, was absolutely perfect as a way to describe Mrs. Nixon. She lit up every room that she entered. She was a First Lady who quietly went about accomplishing things in ways often unseen and under appreciated. Yet, despite her reluctance to be in the spotlight the American people still responded to her spirit and to her many c...