NIXON and WATERGATE 1974 The Fall ( Part 10) ONE FINAL TRIUMPH , The overseas tour to the Middle East and the Summit in Moscow
Manage episode 431119173 series 3445865
In this episode we travel the world with Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. Here we see one last triumph for the President who brought peace to millions. He first visits France to restore good relations in Europe which had felt long neglected by its American ally as we had been bogged down in Vietnam for over a decade.
While President Nixon was busy there his confidant , Dr. Henry Kissinger, was shuttling through out the Middle East working to bring a stalemated conflict between Israel and two of its Arab neighbors to an end. It was called shuttle diplomacy and it was during this time that the term peace process was coined. We will tune in to the era with contemporary news reports from the time and we will hear from several of those intimately involved in these moments of high drama.
Then we will join Richard Nixon in his final triumphant visits to a Middle East he had brought balance and peace to in this tumultuous era. He was greeted, much to the shock of the American press corp, to a heroes welcome everywhere he went from a train ride across Egypt, to Saudi Arabia, and Syria to a thanks filled event in Israel as he was proclaimed the statesman of the age and thanked for his role in saving the nation by the leader of Israel himself.
Then after a brief stay at home, Richard Nixon took off again to meet Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow. There they would sign an economic agreement, limit missile sights, and lower the number of nuclear missiles, but as the effort to topple the administration at home was gaining momentum, the Soviets decided to play hard ball as they sensed Nixon's power was fading.
So while the summit was a success it would also become the first "What might have been" of what would become long list of them, as the United States would force the greatest leader it had produced so far in the last half of the 20th century from office.
And this show will leave you with a question for the ages......
184 episode