DIPLOMACY: Richard Nixon's Long March to Shanghai

WHAT, if anything, did Richard Nixon bring back from Peking?

Above all, the event itself, the fact that it took place. Rarely had a U.S. President spent so long a time—a full week—in a foreign land. The visit, moreover, was to a country with which the U.S. did not even have diplomatic relations and which for two decades had been a virtual enemy. That paradox was obscured by the pageantry and (most of the time) by the warm atmosphere. As summits go, the meeting was a glittering technical success, stage-managed with precision.

Until the final communique, his negotiating sessions with Premier...

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