the president of the united states arrives at capitol airport near peking, the people's republic of chinais is the first of a series of state visits that will take the american president across the continents of europe and asia. ♪ >> president richard nixon is greeted by the premier. during the next eight days, the two nations will begin the process of slowly bridging diplomatic barriers. ♪ >> that was a big deal. that handshake was a big deal, to see richard nixon, who had been a hard line anti-communist during his whole career, who had railed against democrats for having lost china to communism in 1949, to undertake this trip, make that handshake, combined with the salt one agreements. and he did all this while he also conducted a ruthless secret bombing campaign against the north vietnamese to try to bring the vietnam war to an end. many credited nixon's foreign policy achievements with his landslide victory against george mcgovern in 1972. conservatives disagreed with what nixon was doing between 1969 and 1972. they saw it as a mistake. one of the earliest critics of detente came from