Nixon Goes to China (Part 2 of 3) | The Nixon Era
Whistlestop: Presidential History and Trivia
Slate Podcasts
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 30 May 2018
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode of Whistlestop travels back to July 10, 1971 when Henry Kissinger is reported to have had a terrible stomach ache while abroad but was really working covertly to promote President Nixon's international agenda.
Whistlestop is Slate's podcast about presidential history. Hosted by Political Gabfest host John Dickerson, each installment will revisit memorable moments from America's presidential carnival.
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Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank. Research by Brian Rosenwald.
Email: whistlestop@slate.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop a podcast of the presidency. I'm John Dickerson of |
| 0:06.2 | CBS this morning. This is part two of Nixon Goes to China. Our Whistle Stop is July 10th. |
| 0:15.0 | The Associated Press reports that the National Security Advisor of the United States, Henry |
| 0:19.4 | Kissinger, has a stomach disorder. |
| 0:22.4 | The report said it caused him to cancel a formal dinner in Pakistan. |
| 0:27.0 | What we later learned was that he had been stricken with a rare form of stomach disorder you can only get when you are in |
| 0:36.0 | Pakistan. Believe me, it's a local malady, a very Pakistani specific. It's known in the diplomatic |
| 0:42.1 | trade as the not being in Pakistan at all disease. |
| 0:47.0 | It has a very specific set of symptoms. |
| 0:49.0 | It manifests itself when the patient says he is in Pakistan lolling in his sickbed but is really |
| 0:54.7 | scuttling around China on a secret mission for the president to re-establish |
| 0:59.1 | ties with the communist country. Kissinger had been in Pakistan, but then he slipped away, |
| 1:05.0 | in secret to meet with the Chinese Premier Jo-En-Lie |
| 1:10.0 | to see whether there was any chance of a warming in relations with America and a |
| 1:14.3 | possible visit by the American president. |
| 1:16.6 | Kissinger told his Chinese counterpart during the meeting. |
| 1:20.3 | In 1954 Secretary Dulles |
| 1:23.0 | Secretary Dulles believed that it was America's mission to fight communism |
| 1:25.7 | all around the world and for the US to be the principal force |
| 1:28.9 | to engage itself in every struggle at every point of the world at any point of time. |
| 1:33.4 | President Nixon operates, this is Kissinger, on a different philosophy. |
| 1:37.7 | We do not deal with communism in the abstract, but with specific communist states on the |
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