786 Chapter 29 From Camelot to Watergate: 1961–1975
Nixon’s shocking announcement triggered many
campus demonstrations. One college where feeling
ran high was Kent State University in Ohio. For sev-
eral days students there clashed with local police;
they broke windows and caused other damage to
property. When the governor called out the National
Guard, angry students showered the soldiers with
stones. During a noontime protest on May 4 the
guardsmen, who were poorly trained in crowd con-
trol, suddenly opened fire. Four students were killed,
two of them women who were merely passing by on
their way to class.
While the nation reeled from this shock, two stu-
dents at Jackson State University were killed by
Mississippi state policemen. A wave of student strikes
followed, closing down hundreds of colleges, including
many that had seen no previous unrest. Moderate stu-
dents by the tens of thousands joined with the radicals.
The almost universal condemnation of the inva-
sion and of the way it had been planned shook Nixon
hard. He backtracked, pulling American ground troops
out of Cambodia quickly. But he did not change his
Vietnam policy, and in fact Cambodia apparently stiff-
ened his determination. As American ground troops
were withdrawn, he stepped up air attacks.
The balance of forces remained in uneasy equilib-
rium through 1971. But late in March 1972 the North
Vietnamese again mounted a series of assaults through-
out South Vietnam. Nixon responded with heavier
bombing, and he ordered the approaches to Haiphong
and other North Vietnamese ports sown with mines to
cut off the communists’ supplies.Détente with Communism
But in the midst of these aggressive actions, Nixon
and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger
devised a bold diplomatic offensive, executed in
nearly complete secrecy—from even the State and
Defense Departments! Nixon and Kissinger made an
effective though not always harmonious team.
Abandoning a lifetime of treating communism as a
single worldwide conspiracy that had to be contained
at all costs, Nixon decided to deal with China and
the Soviet Union as separate powers and, as he put it,
to “live together and work together” with both.
Nixon and Kissinger called the new policy détente, a
French term meaning “the relaxation of tensions
between governments.” But détente was not an
expression of friendship so much as an acknowledg-
ment that for decades the policy of containment had
driven China and the Soviet Union closer together.
First Nixon sent Kissinger secretly to China and
the Soviet Union to prepare the way for summit
meetings with the communist leaders. Both the
Chinese and the Soviets agreed to the meetings.
Then, in February 1972, Nixon and Kissinger,
accompanied by a small army of reporters and televi-
sion crews, flew to Beijing. After
much dining, sightseeing, posing
for photographers, and consulta-
tion with Chinese officials, Nixon
agreed to promote economic and
cultural exchanges and supported
the admission of communist China
to the United Nations. (Since the
founding of the United Nations,
the United States had recognized
only the Republic of China—
Taiwan.) As a result, exports to
communist China increased sub-
stantially, reaching $4 billion in- Among other American
products, Coca-Cola was intro-
duced to the Chinese, marketed
under a name meaning “tasty hap-
piness.” Nixon’s visit, ending more
than twenty years of adamant
American refusal to accept the real-
ity of the Chinese revolution,
marked a dramatic reversal; as such
it was hailed throughout the world.
In May 1972 Nixon and
Kissinger flew to Moscow. This
National Guardsmen firing into a crowd of antiwar protesters at Kent State University killed four
students and injured eleven others. The shootings triggered massive demonstrations and
protests across the nation.