February 21, 1972: President Richard Nixon visits China

February 21, 1972, approximately 9:00 AM local time (8:00 PM February 20 on the U.S. East Coast): Air Force One touches down in Shanghai, beginning the visit of President Richard Nixon, and First Lady Pat Nixon, to the People's Republic of China.

This would have seemed impossible until very recently. Nixon had made his political name as one of the foremost anti-Communists in the U.S. Congress, and had remained a dedicated Cold Warrior. Nominated for Vice President by the Republican Party in 1952, he pointed to the Communist Revolution in China in 1949, on the watch of President Harry S Truman, a Democrat, and was one of many Republicans who asked the key question: "Who lost China?"

President Chiang Kai-shek, the country's corrupt dictator, lost China. Not Truman, or any official working for him. (The Republicans tended to rotate the blame among those officials.) Things had gotten to the point where the Communists, led by Mao Zedong (his name usually written as "Mao Tse-tung" in those days), seemed to the people of China like the better option.

In 1960, after years of threatening the offshore island of Taiwan, to which Chiang and his Nationalists had fled, 2 much smaller islands, Quemoy and Matsu, were threated by mainland China, or "Red China." Those islands became a key part of that year's Presidential debates between Vice President Nixon, now nominated for President, and the Democratic nominee, Senator John F. Kennedy.

President Kennedy and, after his assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson were accused by Republicans of being "soft on Communism," including Red China, including not going harder in the Vietnam War for fear of angering the much larger nation. In 1964, on LBJ's watch, China "joined the club": They successfully tested a nuclear weapon.

Nixon tried again in 1968, and was elected President. On July 15, 1971, he stunned the world by announcing that an agreement had been reached for him to visit China the following year. The world's most famous anti-Communist visiting the world's largest Communist nation? He may have been the only President, or potential President, with the credibility to do it.

Nixon was met by Chinese officials upon touching down in Shanghai, and then made the final leg of the flight to the capital, formerly known in the West as Peiping, then known as Peking, now Beijing. He was met by Premier Zhou Enlai (whose name was then usually written in the West as Chou En-Lai).

That afternoon, Nixon met with Chairman Mao. Knowing that Mao had led a successful revolution, and was a student of history, Nixon asked him about an event that began 183 years earlier: "What do you think of the French Revolution?" Mao, taking the long view as many Asian leaders tend to do, said, "It is too soon to tell."

That night, Zhou hosted Mr. and Mrs. Nixon at a banquet in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Nixon and Zhou met each day of the tour, and visited the Great Wall on February 24. On the 27th, Nixon and Zhou released the Shanghai Communiqué, announcing their intention to work toward the normalization of their relations, without affirming the status of Taiwan. The archconservative wing of the Republican Party never forgave Nixon for this. The Nixons returned to America the next day.

Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev took notice of Nixon's outreach to China, and, not wanting China to surpass his country as America's foreign policy priority, invited him to Moscow for a summit. On May 26, Nixon and Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement, what became known as SALT I, including the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that lasted for 30 years.

By "triangulating" the Soviets and the Red Chinese against each other, Nixon achieved more to bring the Cold War to a victory for the West in 3 months than any other President did in 4 or even 8 years. Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan did what they had to do to stand up to the Soviets; and Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan each took steps toward "thawing the Cold War."

But Nixon, with the aid of National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger -- whom he trusted more than, and eventually appointed to replace, Secretary of State William P. Rogers -- showed the kind of deft operation that made all further Cold War gains considerably easier to achieve.

As this was going on, the Democratic candidates to replace Nixon were campaigning in the New Hampshire Primary, and looked weak and indecisive by comparison. Nixon essentially won the election in China.

Unfortunately, he didn't see it that way, and took the actions that led to the Watergate break-in in June. Had he been as smart at running his re-election campaign as he was at running his foreign policy, he would have been able to serve out his 2nd term. Instead, he had to resign about halfway through it, because he made himself a crook.

In the years to come, "Nixon goes to China" became a phrase meaning, "This person is the only person who could do this action." It was used when Ronald Reagan, also an intense anti-Communist, signed a treaty with the Soviet Union, reducing each country's nuclear stockpile. It was used when Bill Clinton, a very liberal Democratic President, signed a welfare reform bill. And it was used in Britain, when Tony Blair, the 1st Labour Party leader to become Prime Minister in a generation, fused traditional Labourite ideas with those of the Conservative Party to form a "Third Way."

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February 21, 1972 was a Monday. Baseball and football were out of season. And no NHL games were played that day. Only 1 game was played in the NBA: The Baltimore Bullets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 102-101 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). Archie Clark scored 30 points for the Bullets, the team now known as the Washington Wizards.

There were 2 games played in the American Basketball Association. The New York Nets beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 104-95 at the brand-new Nassau Coliseum. And the Utah Stars beat the Pittsburgh Condors, 149-140 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City.

Zelmo Beaty scored 63 points for the Stars. That was a new ABA record, but it didn't last long: Larry Miller scored 67 for the Carolina Cougars against the Memphis Pros on March 18. At the time, that was a record, in any league, for a guard. Beaty also had 15 rebounds.

The Condors folded at the end of the season. The Chaps became the San Antonio Spurs in 1973. They, the Nets, the Denver Nuggets and the Indiana Pacers were brought into the NBA in 1976. The Stars moved to become the Spirits of St. Louis in 1974, and were not part of the 1976 mini-merger.