With a simple “good luck” from President Richard Nixon, Ambassador Joseph Farland set out to Pakistan, unsure of what to…
The Rough Road to Moscow for Malcolm Toon
Malcolm Toon was a fluent Russian speaker and one of the State Department’s top experts on the Soviet Union during…
The U.S. Incursion into Cambodia
When President Richard Nixon took office in 1969, he and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger vowed to find a way…
Bombing North Vietnam into Accepting Our Concessions: Christmas Bombings, 1972
President Richard Nixon ordered plans for retaliatory bombings of North Vietnam after talks to end the war in Vietnam broke…
Bad Blood: The Sino-Soviet Split and the U.S. Normalization with China
In the 1960s, in the depths of the Cold War, the world was viewed in terms of a zero-sum game:…
Ping Pong Diplomacy, April 1971 — Opening the Road to China
Following the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on the mainland, a “Bamboo Curtain,”…
Tracking China’s Political Change through Dazibao Posters
Chinese “big-character posters,” or dazibao, are handwritten posters mounted on walls and published in papers or pamphlets to communicate protest…
A Peace That Couldn’t Last – Negotiating the Paris Accords on Vietnam
Signed on January 27, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords were intended to finally end the Vietnam War, which had cost…
Pierre Trudeau: One Long Curve, Full of Turning Points
With the October 2015 election of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister of Canada, we take a look back at his father, Pierre…
The Resignation of Richard M. Nixon
Richard M. Nixon’s presidency was a tempestuous mix of stunning foreign policy achievements (his trip to China) and shameful lapses…