Why Did Civil War Break Out in 1642

Lack of Money One of the reasons why the civil war broke out in England in 1642 was because of Charles' lack of money. To discover the source of this, we have to go back to the beginning of James' reign. James was the first King to reign over both England and Scotland, and when he came down from Scotland it is said that he was astonished at how rich England was, while James had needed to borrow money for his travelling expenses. When James died in 1625, Charles came to the throne, and he, like his father, had very little money.Once Charles became King, the County Faction1 wanted him to go to war with the Catholics in Spain, so Charles asked them for taxes to use on the war. They refused to pay enough, so the war was hopeless, and Parliament blamed the King for this. The reason Parliament granted so few taxes was that they wanted to make sure they were called again. Charles, a firm believer in the Divine Right of Kings, thought that he should not have to rule with Parliament, and the only thing that kept him calling it was money2. One good example of the way Parliament made sure they were called back in Charles' reign was tonnage and poundage.These were duties imposed on certain imports and exports. It was normal for these duties to be decided in the first Parliament of a monarch's reign, but in the case of Charles, they only decided on it for one year, so the King would be forced to call them again. Although Charles tried to ask for more money, Parliament refused, because they believed he spent it on his favourites. Because of this, Charles had to get himself more money. He began using the Church Courts, exploiting taxes such as ‘ship money'3, and selling monopolies and titles. He also opened a Court of Star Chamber, which he used to fine people heavily to raise money.Since the judges in the Star Chamber were officials of the Crown, and there was no jury, Charles could be sure of getting a favourable result. Parliament was furious with this, and immediate ly drew up the Petition of Right, which asked the King to stop illegal taxation. The King signed it, but only because Parliament threatened to impeach Buckingham, one of the King's favourites. The quarrels about money went on, and eventually Charles decided to dissolve Parliament. He reigned without them for 11 years. When the new prayer book was brought into Scotland, a group called the Covenanters attempted to invade England.Charles called a Parliament to try and get taxes to fight the Covenanters, but they refused4, so Charles dissolved them again. He was forced to pay the Scots ? 850 a day to stop them advancing, and eventually, in 1641, his money ran out, and he had to call Parliament – he was bankrupt and at their mercy, so money was definitely a key factor in the outbreak of the civil war. Religion Another major influence in the outbreak of the civil war was religion. The religious quarrels began right at the start of Charles' reign, when Charles married Henrietta Mari a, a French Catholic.Although Charles didn't choose to marry her – his father, James, set up the marriage – the public, especially the Puritans, didn't like having a Catholic as Queen. A few extremists even saw this as a sign that Charles was secretly Catholic! After the King dissolved Parliament, he made William Laud the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1633. While Laud was Archbishop, he made many changes to the Church. Most of these changes involved beatifying the Church and bringing back robes for priests, statues and stained-glass windows. All these things reminded the English of Catholicism.In 1636, Archbishop Laud decided to introduce the English Prayer Book (which stated how services should be run) into Scotland. There was nationwide rioting, because no one wanted to follow the new Prayer Book. Scotland was a Presbyterian (Puritan) country, and they thought that the English Prayer Book was far too Catholic to use in Scotland. This eventually led to many Scots, call ed the Covenanters, marching down the country in an attempt to invade England. At this point, Charles had to call Parliament to ask for taxes to pay for the war, but was horrified to see that most of the MPs were on the Covenanters' side.Parliament agreed that the Prayer Book was too Catholic, so Charles dissolved them again, but after he ran out of money to pay the Scots (see the Money section above) he was forced to call Parliament again. Parliament first put Laud on trial, and found him guilty. Later they decided to execute Strafford on charges of organising an army in Ireland, where he governed. It turned out that this was a big mistake. As soon as Strafford was executed, the Irish Catholics rebelled against the Protestants, saying they were rebelling for the King.Although it was clear this was not true, Parliament did not trust the King when he asked them for an army, and so refused, believing he would use it to crush them instead. Foreign Affairs Another factor in the outbreak of civil war was foreign affairs. On the continent, the 30 Years War was going on, where Catholic rulers attempted to wipe out the Protestants in their countries. This fuelled people's fears that something similar might happen in England. Other foreign causes of the war were from Ireland and Scotland, and are detailed above. Charles' PersonalityAlthough it may seem unimportant, Charles' personality was a major factor in the events leading to civil war. To start with, Charles hadn't expected to be King at all – his elder brother, Henry, had been expected to take the job, but when he died suddenly in 1612, Charles became the heir to the throne. Charles also believed in the Divine Right of Kings. He thought, as his father had before him, that Kings were appointed by God, and could not be wrong. He disliked having to rule with Parliament, and thought that he should be able to do anything he liked. This caused much friction between him and the MPs. Parliament The Short Parliament When Parliament was summoned in April 1640, Charles had governed for eleven years without them5, and while this certainly went against the spirit of the English constitution, it was within the King's prerogative to do so. Charles was forced to call a parliament when the Scots rebelled. Putting an army into the field to deal with the Scots put a heavy drain on the royal finances, so Charles needed to levy a tax, which he could only do with the consent of Parliament. When Parliament met the gentry from the counties used the occasion to vent their frustration, with Harbottle Grimston and John Pym leading a catalogue of complaints.Three weeks later, Charles dissolved Parliament, blaming ‘the malicious cunning of some few seditious affected men'. This was known as the Short Parliament and it sat from 13 April, 1640, to 5 May, 1640. The war with the Scots did not fair well for Charles, but he eventually came to an agreement of ? 850 a day to keep the Scots at bay. The Long Parliamen t In order to pay this and get funds for a final settlement Charles had to summon another Parliament6. This time Charles could not afford to dismiss Parliament until he got what he wanted, and this gave Parliament an important card to play in what was to come.The Long Parliament, as it was known, sat from 3 November, 1640, for 13 years, until Oliver Cromwell suppressed it. It should be noted it was not formally dismissed until 1660, after the Restoration. Therefore, when Parliament met in November 1640, it was with a mood of constitutional reform. Of the 493 MPs elected: * 340 were anti-Court (the County Faction) * 64 were for the Court (supporters of the King) * 59 were of an unknown disposition * 17 were disabled from sitting (these were mainly of the ‘Court Camp') * The remaining 13 were probably of the Court Faction.Parliament pinned the blame for what went wrong on the King's advisors, rather than Charles himself, sending both Strafford and Laud to the Tower. Charles also tried to heal the rift by signing Strafford's death warrant, passing a bill that allowed for Parliament not to be dissolved without its own consent, a bill making ‘ship money' illegal and other bills that taken together demolished the framework of prerogative government. The Thrilling Climax All of these causes led to some key events in 1641 and 1642. It turned out that the execution of Strafford had been a mistake. Without Strafford to reign over Ireland, the Irish rebelled in 1641.This raised an insoluble problem; who would command the Army, King or Parliament? John Pym took the initiative by issuing the Militia Bill and, more importantly, the Grand Remonstrance. It listed all the things Charles had done wrong in his reign, suggested less power for bishops, and said that Parliament should have power over the Church and the appointment of Royal ministers. It was passed by 11 votes, which meant that, while most of the Commons had previously been against him, now almost half o f them supported him. However, it was after this that the King made a foolish move.On the advice of his Queen (who was used to French politics, where the King had much more power over the way the country was run), Charles decided to arrest the five ringleaders, including Pym. On 4 January, 1642, Charles attempted to get into the Commons to arrest the five MPs, and found that after he and his guards had battered the door down, the MPs had been warned and weren't there. This action turned most of Parliament against him once more, because it was held to be a breach of Parliamentary privilege7. On the next day, the escaped MPs paraded up and down London guarded by the Trained Bands, an army of part-time soldiers.

18 Interesting and Inspirational Quotes About Editing and Proofreading

18 Interesting and Inspirational Quotes About Editing and Proofreading If you think the business of writing is difficult- try editing. In fact, both writers and editors alike have a lot to say about the often-frustrating process of whittling words and emotions down to only the best. Heres our list of 18 quotes about editing that keep it real.So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.Dr. SeussKill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribblers heart, kill your darlings.Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the CraftTo me, the single biggest mark of the amateur writer is a sense of hurry.Hurry to finish a manuscript, hurry to edit it, hurry to publish it. Its definitely possible to write a book in a month, leave it unedited, and watch it go off into the world and be declared a masterpiece. It happens every fifty years or so.For the rest of us, the single greatest ally we have is time. Theres no page of prose in existence that its author cant improve after its bee n in a drawer for a week. The same is true on the macro level – every time I finish a story or a book, I try to put it away and forget it for as long as I can. When I return, its problems are often so obvious and easy to fix that Im amazed I ever struggled with them.Amateur writers are usually desperate to be published, as soon as possible. And I understand that feeling – you just want it to start, your career, your next book, whatever. But I wonder how many self-published novels might have had a chance at getting bought, and finding more readers, if their authors had a bit more patience with them?Charles FinchWriting without revising is the literary equivalent of waltzing gaily out of the house in your underwear.Patricia FullerWhile writing is like a joyful release, editing is a prison where the bars are my former intentions and the abusive warden my own neuroticism.Tiffany MadisonEditors can be stupid at times. They just ignore that authors intention. I always try to read unabridged editions, so much is lost with cut versions of classic literature, even movies dont make sense when they are edited too much. I love the longueurs of a book even if they seem pointless because you can get a peek into the authors mind, a glimpse of their creative soul. I mean, how would people like it if editors came along and said to an artist, Whoops, you left just a tad too much space around that lily pad there, lets crop that a bit, shall we?. Monet would be ripping his hair out.We never end up with the book we began writing. Characters twist it and turn it until they get the life that is perfect for them. A good writer wont waste their time arguing with the characters they create...It is almost always a waste of time and people tend to stare when you do!C.K. WebbWhen an editor works with an author, she cannot help seeing into the medicine cabinet of his soul. All the terrible emotions, the desire for vindications, the paranoia, and the projection are bottled in there, along with all the excesses of envy, desire for revenge, all the hypochondriacal responses, rituals, defenses, and the twin obsessions with sex and money. In other words, the stuff of great books.Betsy Lerner, The Forest for the TreesA good editor doesnt rewrite words, she rewires synapses.S. Kelley HarrellThis leads me to the Higher Editing. Take of well-ground Indian Ink as much as suffices and a camel-hair brush proportionate to the inter-spaces of your lines. In an auspicious hour, read your final draft and consider faithfully every paragraph, sentence and word, blacking out where requisite. Let it lie by to drain as long as possible. At the end of that time, re-read and you should find that it will bear a second shortening. Finally, read it aloud alone and at leisure. Maybe a shade more brushwork will then indicate or impose itself. If not, praise Allah and let it go, and when thou hast done, repent not. The shorter the tale, the longer the brushwork and, normally, the s horter the lie-by, and vice versa. The longer the tale, the less brush but the longer lie-by. I have had tales by me for three or five years which shortened themselves almost yearly. The magic lies in the Brush and the Ink. For the Pen, when it is writing, can only scratch; and bottled ink is not to compare with the ground Chinese stick. Experto crede.Rudyard Kipling, Something of MyselfThe first draft is black and white. Editing gives the story color.Emma HillWriting is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain. There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred pages are there. Only you dont see them.Elie WieselWhen you write a story, you are telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking ou t all the things that are NOT the story...Your stuff starts out being just for you...but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right, as right as you can...it belongs to anyone who wants to read it, or criticise it.Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the CraftAn editor doesnt just read, he reads well, and reading well is a creative, powerful act. The ancients knew this and it frightened them. Mesopotamian society, for instance, did not want great reading from its scribes, only great writing. Scribes had to submit to a curious ruse: they had to downplay their reading skills lest they antagonize their employer. The Attic poet Menander wrote: those who can read see twice as well. Ancient autocrats did not want their subjects to see that well. Order relied on obedience, not knowledge and reflection. So even though he was paid to read as much as write messages, the scribes title cautiously referred to writing alone (scribere = to write); and the symbol for Nisaba , the Mesopotamian goddess of scribes, was not a tablet but a stylus. In his excellent book A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel writes, It was safer for a scribe to be seen not as one who interpreted information, but who merely recorded it for the public good.In their fear of readers, ancients understood something we have forgotten about the magnitude of readership. Reading breeds the power of an independent mind. When we read well, we are thinking hard for ourselves- this is the essence of freedom. It is also the essence of editing. Editors are scribes liberated to not simply record and disseminate information, but think hard about it, interpret, and ultimately, influence it.Susan Bell, The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing YourselfEditing fiction is like using your fingers to untangle the hair of someone you love.Stephanie RobertsLet the reader find that he cannot afford to omit any line of your writing because you have omitted every word that he can spare.Ralph Waldo Emer sonDont cross out. (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didnt mean to write, leave it.) Dont worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Dont even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.) Lose control. Dont think. Dont get logical. Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.)Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer WithinLearn to enjoy this tidying process. I dont like to write; I like to have written. But I love to rewrite. I especially like to cut: to press the DELETE key and see an unnecessary word or phrase or sentence vanish into the electricity. I like to replace a humdrum word with one that has more precision or color. I like to strengthen the transition between one sentence and another. I like to rephrase a drab sentence to give it a more pleasing rhythm or a more graceful musical line. With every small refinement I fe el that Im coming nearer to where I would like to arrive, and when I finally get there I know it was the rewriting, not the writing, that won the game.William Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing NonfictionIve reached that final moment of editing a book- the one where the text manifests as a living breathing person and starts slugging me in the face.Richard Due

wireless2 essays

wireless2 essays Can you hear me now? Good, or See how Cingular fits you best. These are all words we hear too often or see them appear to frequently on our television sets. The question we should all ask is whether or not our cellular phone providers are providing us with the best choices and cheapest policies. I work for Cingular Wireless in Eureka, Missouri and I know Cellular providers in some areas are able to flexuate phone prices on some of their offers. I have researched some phone companies and came to the conclusion that many prices are set. Some are not. So which ones do we go to for our business? Cingular Wireless can set some prices different from others. This is because some of their prices are not posted to the consumers eyes. With our high gas prices and grocery stores increasing prices, it is not fair to the consumers to have a cellular provider who can flexulate phone prices. Cingular Wireless is able to change their prices and it is not fair. At Cingular Wireless, the motto is See how Cingular fits you best. Is this slang talking about your checkbooks, or the actual service you receive? Working at Cingular myself I have come to realize that the coverage area is the same as any other provider. No long distance and roaming fees are only offered on national rate plans. If you choose not to travel your cheapest bet is to go with the Cingular home plan. But if you choose the home plan, you are still hit with roaming and long distance fees. ...

Topic is the Vietnam war. The main thrust of your comment will be from Essay

Topic is the Vietnam war. The main thrust of your comment will be from the view point of the aggressor. For example, if WWII - Essay Example Ho Chi Minh being a communist and an aggressor, he started guerilla violence in opposition to the Japanese with the sustainability of the United States of America. Towards the end of the war, the Japanese began promoting the Vietnamese patriotism and in the end approved the country's ostensible independence. According to Caputo, in the subsequent years the Japanese were defeated and the French returned to occupy their colony (287). Viet Minh singly accepted their access into Vietnam after being assured that the country was to be granted independence as part of an agreement with the French union. However, negotiations broke down between the two warring factions and in December 1946, the French soldiers’ surrounded the city of Haiphong and compulsorily got back the capital city Hanoi. These events started the clash between the Viet Minh and the French, which resulted in the Indochina War. The French soldiers were at last defeated at Dien Bien Phu in the year 1954 (Karnow 501). D owns further illustrates that in the beginning, the United States of America had no interest in Southeast Asia and Vietnam (211). Nevertheless, it became obvious that after the World War II the globe would be subjugated by the United States of America and its allies. The Soviet Union together with its allies was at the opposite side of the fence. This isolated the communist movements as a strategy for their success. These concerns were in the end converted into the principle of domino theory; the only remaining option of containing the communist tendencies is to close them within their borders. Tonsenic asserts that these trends continued dominating the United States foreign policy for a long time (165). In 1950, to stop the spread of communism, the U.S began supplying weapons to the French military in Vietnam and financially assisting the French troops. This was meant to dismantle the Viet Minh; these operations continued into the year 1956, when highly trained advisors provided co aching facilities to the army of the newly established Republic of South Vietnam. In spite of their excellent hard work, the army of the republic of Vietnam was poorly equipped and, therefore, ineffective throughout its existence. Karnow shows how the US continued supporting the Diem regime as it battled against Ho Chi Minh’s Marxist military aggressors in the north (624). In the year 1957, a small guerrilla pressure group began to come forward in the south, led by Viet Minh’s soldiers that had not come back from the north after the accords. In 1959, these groups fruitfully pressured Ho’s administration into issuing an undisclosed resolution requesting for an equipped struggle in the south. Military personnel along with the Ho Chi Minh group began supplying weapons and troops into the south. The subsequent year, National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam began in earnest to carry on the fight (Downs 167-168). The situation continued to deteriorate in Sou th Vietnam, worsened by the corrupt regime of Diem government and the Viet Cong continued encroachment. In 1961, the Kennedy administration agreed to pump more aid, weapons, and additional financial support to the rebels. Washington had begun deliberations to force a government transformation in Saigon. In November 2, 1963, the Criminal Investigation Agency CIA of the US assisted the rebels to remove the Diem government from power. In order to mitigate the post coup d'etat chaos, President Kennedy enlarged the number of US soldiers in South Vietnam to

Organizational Change of Hilton International Term Paper

Organizational Change of Hilton International - Term Paper Example It is very important for the global company staff to communicate with diverse target audience round the clock. When restructuring jobs or refocusing the organization's direction, it is very important for the top management to clarify roles and how they support each other. Role clarification helps raise issues in a neutral manner and avoids confusion when change is in process. Special training problems are introduced for local employees to help them adapt to the new organizational environment (Hilton International 2007). With the help of the Internet, Hilton known for its patchy supply chain and bungling circulation processes will have the possibility to improve efficiency, inventory, audit control and to diminish infrastructure and operation costs by web-enabling their business online. Internet will support the hotel industry to be better equipped to handle business desires, paying attention to clients' needs, competitors and prospective partners (Hilton hits the heights of hotel 200 4), The program must then be implemented, scattered throughout the organization, monitored for effectiveness, and adjusted where necessary. The role of personal attitudes is important because they are not immediately acquired, but learned throughout life. For all people, employees and the manager, some attitudes are central such as religion or cultural norms; whereas others may change with personal experiences. In this case, the manager should take into account individual differences of employees and his personal experience (Hilton International 2007). If he had a negative experience in the past, he could apply the same management style working with other people.Management has to develop the business vision and process objectives. Senior management needs to develop a broad strategic vision, which calls for redesigned business processes. For example, Hilton hotel management looks for breakthroughs to lower costs and accelerate service that would enable the firm to regain its competitive stature in the consumer products industry (Robbins, 2004).

Sustainable water in Austrialia Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Sustainable water in Austrialia - Assignment Example e center of water administration turned from expansionary objectives and expansive scale designing ventures to economic productivity and ecological concerns. Topic Sentence 3: Green growth portrays a procedure for practical financial advancement that perceives the interrelationship, whats more, between reliance of components of the environment, economy, and society as an entirety. Cities can be outlined as water supply catchments where urban rainwater gets to be a piece of the supply in water-delicate urban areas (Smith, Vromen, & Cook, 2012). Water utilized for urban watering system and watering parks and road trees has a vital part in enhancing the liveability of Cities by cooling the urban environment (diminishing the warmth island impact) and along these lines decreasing vitality interest for cooling. Investment choices by water powers ought to be in light of adjusted social, monetary and natural examination, educated by sound logical exhortation and actualized through straightforward and contestable methods. Adoption of changes implied in the states and domains dedication to the National Water Initiative, furthermore, all the more as of late asked by the Productivity Commission, would go far to enhancing Australias gainfulness and setting the way for a green development economy in the water and related

Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency Essay Example for Free

Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency Essay Richard Nixon is one of the most controversial figures in American history. His presidency is remembered most for the Watergate scandal and his subsequent resignation but some of his foreign policies forever altered American foreign diplomacy. One of the major policies that President Nixon was responsible for was changing the nature of the United States relationship with China. He did this by setting into motion covert diplomatic actions and cultural exchanges between the two countries. Nixon’s reasons for improving relationships with the Communist regime was to force the Soviet Union to be more accommodating to American demands and to also help end the war in Vietnam. Another reason for improving relations was very personal for Richard Nixon. He wanted to show his power as an international statesman to the world and American public. American/Chinese relations for many years were friendly and involved the trade of goods and ideas. American missionaries had gone to China to build churches and hospitals. The two countries were allies against the Japanese during World War II. After the war ended the United States was not an ally of China as a whole but one political group, the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang, led by Chang Kai Shek, were in battled in a civil war with the Chinese communists who would eventually win out. Chang Kai Shek would take his government to the island of Taiwan. After the civil war, the United States only recognized Chang’s Republic of China and kept the People’s Republic of China, led by Mao Ze-Dong, out of the United Nations and other international bodies. This led to an isolation of China by a majority of the international community. The only diplomatic relations the United States had with China were through intermediary countries. While relations with the United States were sour, the Chinese relationship with the Soviet Union had quickly deteriorated. Both China and the Soviet Union were communist countries but their ideologies were very different. Their relationship slowly became strained and both countries started to build up troops along their common border through the 1960s. After the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia and released the Brezhnev Doctrine, which stated that the Kremlin â€Å"had the right to correct deviationism in other communist countries by military intervention,† the Chinese no longer considered the Soviet Union as an ally. This led to violent border clashes between the two countries in March 1969. By the end of 1969 the Soviet Union had over a million troops stationed along the Soviet/Chinese border and missiles aimed at major Chinese cities. The year before, a former republican vice-president from California, Richard Nixon, was elected president. He had made a name for him self in Congress as a leading anti-communist and he went on to serve as vice-president under Dwight D Eisenhower. Even before he was elected president, Nixon had expressed interest in opening up relations with China despite his previous negative views of communism. In 1967 he wrote an article for Foreign Affairs magazine where he stated â€Å"We simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations, there to nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates and threaten its neighbors. There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation.† After his election as President Richard Nixon decided to make China one of the primary focuses of his foreign policy. One of his primary reasons for doing this was to gain an upper hand in the now 20-year-old Cold War with the Soviet Union. The Soviets had taken over several Eastern European countries and turned them into communist states in an attempt to show the world the successes of Communism. Also by the late 1960s the United States was no longer confident that it could win a war with the Soviet Union since they had had the two decades since the Second World War to regain it military strength. This required the United States to have to change strategies in dealing with the Soviet Union. They now had to shift their focus to gaining China as an ally. The State Department in the summer of 1969 began to announce various unilateral gestures of reconciliation. Many restrictions on travel and trade were lifted. This would become know as â€Å"Ping Pong† diplomacy. It was so named after the United States ping-pong team was invited to the Chinese capital in April of 1971. During their visit the group was treated as though they were dignitaries or royalty. They played matches against the Chinese team but also visited important landmarks through out China. The American delegation was accompanied by members of the press and was closely watched by the American public. At a banquet for the visiting Americans, Chou En-Lai, the Chinese Premier told the group, â€Å"Exchanges between our two countries have been cut off for a long time but now, with your acceptance of our invitation, you have opened a new page in the relations of the Chinese and American people.† While the American ping-pong players were the talk of the media, behi nd the scenes Nixon was putting into action his plan to improve relations with China. He did this by employing his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, to make covert communications with the Chinese government. Before the Ping-Pong players had ever set foot in China and at the beginning of his presidency Nixon had Kissinger prepare a study on the feasibility of improving American/Chinese relations. Originally Kissinger was hesitant about the idea of talks with China even being quoted as saying â€Å"this crazy guy really does want to normalize relations with China.† But even Kissinger knew that an alliance between the United States and China could shift the global political powers more in favor of the United States and away from communism and the Soviet Union. One of the biggest roadblocks to improving relations with China was the issue of Taiwan. Since the Chinese civil war ended the United States had only recognized the government of the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan. So even as Nixon is trying to improve relations with communist China there is still the issue that the United States does not officially recognize the People’s Republic of China as a legitimate government. To ease some of China’s concerns, Nixon instructs his administration to terminate navel patrols in the Straight of Taiwan. Also in a radio address that Nixon gave on February 25, 1971 regarding his congressional foreign policy report he reiterated both his intention to protect Taiwan but open up talks with China. â€Å"We will search for consecutive discussions with Communist China while maintaining our defense commitment to Taiwan. When the Government of the Peoples Republic of China is ready to engage in talks, it will find us receptive to agreements that further the legitimate national interests of China and its neighbors.† A visit to China was next on Nixon’s foreign policy agenda. He announced his intentions in 1970, taking much of the world by surprise especially the Soviet Union. He negotiated this visit first by secretly sending Henry Kissinger to Beijing in July of 1971. Kissinger made this covert trip by faking illness on a diplomatic visit to Pakistan and flying to China to convey Nixon’s intention to Premier Zhou En-Lai. It was decided that President Nixon would visit the following year. On February 21, 1972, Richard Nixon became the first United States President to visit China. The following week would become known as the â€Å"week that changed the world. † President Nixon would only meet with an ailing Mao Ze-dong one time during his visit but it would set in motion events that would lead to United States recognition of Mao’s government and an end to the Cold War. The visit ended with both countries issuing the Shanghai Communiquà ©. In this document both countries pledged to work towards normalization of relations. The United States also agreed to remove military forces from Taiwan. Shortly after the delegations return from their visit to China, Richard Nixon tasked Henry Kissinger with negotiating arms treaties with the Soviet Union. With the well-publicized visit closely watched by the Soviets the United States now had more bargaining power. In 1972, Kissinger negotiated the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks. The two Cold-War super powers agreed that they would begin limiting missiles, nuclear arms, and delivery systems. With his relative success in negotiating deals with both China and the Soviet Union, Richard Nixon was hopeful that he would have the same success in negotiating a deal with North Vietnam to end the Vietnam War. Going into his re-election campaign in 1972 the United States had been at war in Vietnam for 12 years, over 50,000 had been killed, and billions of dollars had been spent. His first major policy regarding Vietnam that Nixon put into place was the Nixon Doctrine. The Doctrine had three major tenants. First, the United States would honor all of its treaty agreements. Secondly, the United States would provide a shield if a nuclear power threatened an ally or a country the United States deemed to be vital to its national security. And, lastly, the United States would provide military and economic aid to countries under treaty agreements, but the requesting nation would be expected to bear primary responsibility to provide the manpower for its own defense. The Nixon Doctrine led to the withdrawal of ground troops from Vietnam and training the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) in defense of their own country. Nixon had also hoped that his new treaties with China would help to isolate the North Vietnamese and convince them to sign a peace treaty. In 1973, a cease-fire was negotiated at the Paris Peace Accords and ended United States involvement in Vietnam. However this did not stop the spread of communism to south Vietnam. Nixon’s improved relations with China were largely unsuccessful in there being a positive resolution of the Vietnam War. While the entire episode of the Vietnam War was seen as a blemish on Richard Nixon’s Presidency he was still very concerned about his image not only among the American public but on the world stage as well. He wanted to use his visit to China to draw attention to his expertise as a global statesman. Among the people that accompanied Nixon on his trip to China was White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman. While Nixon was meeting mostly with Chinese Premier Zhou and negotiating agreements, Haldeman and Nixon’s wife Pat toured factories and schools throughout China. Mrs. Nixon was followed by a large group of press. Bob Haldeman was in charge of making their visit look very positive to the American public. Margaret MacMillan writes in her book Nixon in China, â€Å"The images flowed back to the United States, targeted for prime-time evening television. It was a presidential election year at home and Haldeman wanted to make sure that Nixon shone out as the great leader and statesman.† From the very beginning of his Presidency Richard Nixon always wanted to be seen in a positive light especially his portrayal in the media. He tasked members of his staff with combating any negative comments said about him and manage any news about him. He bordered on obsessive when it came to public image. His first week in office he formed a task called the â€Å"Five O’clock† group that was responsible for monitoring television programs for any negative comments about the President or his administration and defending them. With the Vietnam War and the protests to the end the war at the top of most news stories, Nixon needed to do something to get his name back in the limelight. Many believe that this a major factor for his motivation to reach out to China and his subsequent visit. During his time in China he made sure the entire trip was highly publicized. He did numerous photo opportunities at such places like the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. The reception his visit received by the American public was very positive. This was their first view into the isolated nation in over 20 years. This view, however, was a carefully scripted play put on by the Chinese government. This was their attempt to show a â€Å"New† China, not one that was still suffering from th e isolationist policies of the Cultural Revolution. The Chinese officials responsible for showing China in a positive way had people picnicking outside of factories in the bitter cold listening to revolutionary music and then collected the radios they were listening to after the delegation left. These inconsistencies were noticed by a Canadian member of the press to which Premier Zhou had to quietly admit that this was wrong of them to do. But the idea of a â€Å"New† China would only help President Nixon portray to the world that America and China, even with such opposite political views, could come to an understanding. His visit took the entire worlds view off of Vietnam and on to him personally while he visited China. Kissinger had pled with President Nixon to not make his trip to China a media circus because of the impact it would have internationally with America’s allies and enemies. International reaction to the visit was mixed. The United States allies were mostly disappointed that they had been kept in the dark about the new relations. The British felt particularly offended that they were not informed before hand about the dealings going on between the Americans and the Chinese. Even with the somewhat cool reception in the international community about Richard Nixon’s visit to China it was still one of the most significant moments in United States foreign policy during the Cold War. Henry Kissinger wrote in his memoir On China, â€Å" The reward for Sino-American rapprochement would not be a state of perpetual friendship or a harmony of values, but a rebalancing of the global equilibrium.† Richard Nixon helped to accomplish this by improving relations with China in an effort to change the American relationship with the Soviet Union and end the Vietnam War. While his intentions were for both personal and professional gain, either way his foreign policies remain at the top of his successes as President. Nixon’s presidency is mostly remembered of one wrought with corruption and following the Watergate scandal, he is still the only United States President to resign from office. He became known as politician that would use any means necessary to accomplish his goals but this also led to his downfall. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bundy, William. A Tangled Web: The making of Foreign Policy in the Nixon Presidency. New York, 1989. Chang, Gordon H.. Friends and enemies: the United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990. Devoss, David A. Ping-Pong Diplomacy. Smithsonian . 33. no. 1 2002 Keilers, John G. U.S. Army Military History Institute, Nixon Doctrine and Vietnamization. Last modified 2007. Accessed November 14, 2012. http://www.army.mil/article/3867/Nixon_Doctrine_and_Vietnamization/. Kissinger, Henry On China. New York: Penguin Press, 2011. Print. MacMillan, Margaret. Nixon in China: the week that changed the world. Toronto: Viking Canada, 2006. Nixon, Richard. Miller Center, Radio Address About Second Annual Foreign Policy Report to the Congress . Last modified 1971. Accessed November 14, 2012. http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3875. Nixon, Richard M. Asia After Viet Nam. Foreign Affairs, October 1967. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/23927/richard-m-nixon/asia-after-viet-nam (accessed October 18, 2012) Small, Melvin. 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