Nadia Schadlow
Recently, I found myself going through some materials about President Richard Nixon—books and copies of old speeches. I reached for one of his post-presidency books, 1999: Victory Without War, and a picture slipped out. It was a snapshot from a dinner that I had attended at his home in Wood Cliff Lake, New Jersey. He had graciously hosted the interns who had worked on the book.
The evening had begun in his library, which was just what one would imagine, filled with leather chairs, dark mahogany, and bookshelves overflowing with works of history. After appetizers, we were ushered into the dining room. It was my first “professional” dinner. The conversation was substantive: slightly formal but flowing. The former president asked us questions and seemed genuinely interested in what the twenty-somethings around the table thought, even though we didn’t know much about how the world worked.
We discussed the Strategic Defense Initiative, the START I treaty, which was then being negotiated, and Mikhail Gorbachev’s leadership of the Soviet Union.
As I continued to think about that evening, I reread his 1970 First Annual Report on U.S. Foreign Policy and realized that this month marks over a half-century since its delivery to Congress. The report, striking in clarity and realism, is remarkably relevant to today’s geopolitical environment. As the new administration gets underway, it’s worth considering the parallels.
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