Nixon and Kissinger 1968-74

The Watergate Scandal is the first thing most people think of when Richard Nixon’s name is mentioned. Whilst this was the defining point of his presidency, the shadow it casts blots out other important aspects of the years from 1968 to 1974. Nixon’s very own Cardinal Wolsey, Henry Kissinger, came to exert an enormous amount of power in the White House. He was able to bypass the normal channels of American diplomacy and attempted, with immense violence across much of Asia, to dig the USA out of a series of foreign policy quagmires. The Cold War was in deadlock, America was bogged down in Vietnam and Kissinger had to deliver to his master a foreign policy triumph, even though Nixon was for the most part disinterested in the art of diplomacy.

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