Meeting to discuss the situation in Vietnam
President Gerald R. Ford meets with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Army Chief of Staff General Frederick Weyand, and Graham Martin, Ambassador to Vietnam. 3/25/75.
The Ford Presidential Library has many resources on the events leading up to the Fall of Saigon and the impact on the Ford administration including:
Source: fordlibrarymuseum.gov
Announcing a Controversial Trip to the People’s Republic of China
On July 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon announced to the nation that the People’s Republic of China had invited him to visit China, and he had accepted. He also stated that Henry Kissinger, Assistant for National Security Affairs, had made a secret trip to Peking in order to plan for the visit. His announcement resulted in strong public reactions for and against the President’s planned trip.
Here’s a copy of Nixon’s official announcement in both English and Chinese.
Source: nixonlibrary.gov
Between April 10-17, 1971, the American table tennis team visits China. They are the first group of Americans allowed into China since the Communist takeover in 1949.
Following the trip, Henry Kissinger, Assistant for National Security Affairs, makes two secret trips to China before President Nixon’s official state visit in February 1972.
This photo of Kissinger and Winston Lord was taken during one of these visits. 10/26/71
More on how table tennis thawed relations between the the U.S. and China - Ping Pong Diplomacy
Source: presidentialtimeline.org
“If the negotiations break down tomorrow we will have to resume massive bombing.”
-Henry Kissinger letter to President Nixon, December 6, 1972
“The Christmas Bombings” - From December 18 – 29 (with a 24 hour reprieve, suggested originally by Alexander Haig, on Christmas Day) the United States Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps flew 3,420 sorties over North Vietnam including up to 120 B-52 sorties per day. In that short period, the US Air Force dropped more bombs on North Vietnam than it had in the years 1969 to 1971. Coming on the heels of weeks of optimistic reports from Paris, this massive US bombing campaign came as huge shock and drew world-wide indignation.
A week earlier, Henry Kissinger had just returned from talks with North Vietnam in Paris. The negotiations had broken down with both sides placing blame on the other. On December 14, Kissinger and Haig met with President Nixon in the Oval Office to discuss next steps. The meeting is captured on tape and is a unique record of the decision to begin a massive bombing campaign.
Listen to the meeting here - Operation Linebacker II: “The Christmas Bombings”
Source: nixon.archives.gov
Ping Pong Diplomacy
President Richard Nixon’s visit to China was sparked by a chance meeting between a United States ping pong player and a group of Chinese players at a tournament in Japan in 1971. After the United States players expressed an interest in visiting China, Mao Zedong invited them to tour the country. They became the first Americans to officially visit China since 1949.
This caught the eye of President Nixon and his advisors, most notably Henry Kissinger, who felt that despite challenges, the U.S. should work towards creating a relationship with China. Kissinger made two secret advance trips to China in 1971 before the official state visit in February 1972.
In this photo, Kissinger and his assistant (and later Ambassador) Winston Lord take a break during the secret negotiations about Nixon’s upcoming visit by – what else? – playing ping pong. China, October 26, 1971.
More - Ping Pong Diplomacy
Source: presidentialtimeline.org
September 21, 1949 - Mao Zedong announces that The Communist Party of China will lead the new Chinese government.
Twenty-six years later, Mao Zedong would shake hands with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during President Ford’s visit to China. This photo was taken on a visit to Chairman Mao’s residence in Peking by the Gerald R. Ford, daughter Susan Ford, and Kissinger. December 2, 1975.
July 30, 1975. President Ford joins leaders of 34 nations in signing the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Photo of Henry Kissinger, Leonid Brezhnev, President Ford, and Andrei Gromyko outside the American Embassy in Helsinki, Finland.
Memoirs v. Tapes: President Nixon and the December Bombings
On February 3, 1973, President Richard Nixon took a moment from managing the start of his second term to review a controversial decision he had made in the final months of his first term. In a confidential conversation with his long-time personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, the President recalled the secret back-story to his decision to initiate a massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam in December 1972. President Nixon lamented to Woods that the press blamed him for what was called “the Christmas bombing,” when, in fact, it was Henry Kissinger who had been the greater advocate for bombing North Vietnam. The President assured Woods that he had forced a reluctant Kissinger to continue the Paris negotiations when his national security advisor wanted to break off the talks and resume heavy bombing.
When Kissinger wrote his 1979 memoir of the first term, White House Years, he presented a different reconstruction of the decision-making before the December bombings. The President, he wrote, “had no trouble with my view that in case of a breakup we would have to step up military pressure. Indeed, he was eager to order an attack by B-52s on the Hanoi-Haiphong complex even before my talks resumed on December 6.”
Can newly released Nixon White House tapes, when combined with declassified documents, help resolve the contradiction between these two versions? Was President Nixon accurately recollecting the events of December 1972 when he unburdened himself to Rose Mary Woods? Or is Henry Kissinger’s detailed memoirs a more accurate recreation of the decision to launch the December bombing campaign? The Nixon Presidential Library has just opened a new web exhibit in which you can listen to President Nixon and his closest advisors discuss the Vietnam War, the progress and delays of the Paris Peace talks, and their discussions on the bombing of North Vietnam. Then you can make up your own mind about this turning point in America’s Vietnam commitment.
“HAVE FUN IN RED CHINA. HOPE THEY KEEP YOU”
-Telegram to The White House in response to President Nixon’s announcement that he would visit China. Maryann Grelinger, July 16, 1971
On July 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon announced to the nation that the People’s Republic of China had invited him to visit China, and he had accepted. He also stated that Henry Kissinger, Assistant for National Security Affairs, had made a secret trip to Peking in order to plan for the visit. His announcement resulted in strong public reactions for and against the President’s planned trip.
The messages pictured here express both the anger and admiration towards President Nixon’s decision. Next to the telegram quoted above is a letter from actor Kirk Douglas commending the impending trip as a “giant step forward, not only toward peace in Vietnam but, global peace.”
-from the Nixon Presidential Library
