"We haven’t bled enough. It’s never enough for these sons of bitches."

[hifiguy]

94. One point that must be made about Nixon is that, unlike Raygun

and today's Repukes, he was not an ideologue.

Nixon was above all an opportunist who sought to make himself look like a "statesman" on the world stage. Whatever he thought would burnish the reputation of one Richard M. Nixon was what he chose to do. Nixon was as devoid of ideology as anyone can be. He was a ruthless, cold-hearted, amoral, calculating egotist who was so crooked he had to have two minions help him screw his pants on every morning, but not an ideologue. Same goes for his partner in war crimes, Kissinger.

He opened relations with the PRC for two reasons, neither of them related to corporate America: (1) To exloit the growing tensions between Moscow and Beijing. This was a Very Big Deal in the 1960s and 1970s. Nixon thought a tilt to China would set the Soviets back on their heels and make them more "cooperative" (2) because he thought that the Chinese had some influence over Ho Chi Minh and his successors. Which they did not, as even the most cursory knowledge of centuries-long hatred the Vietnamese have felt for the Chinese, who traditionally colonized Vietnam going all the way back to the time of the Trung sisters 1000 years ago, would make clear.