Excerpt from "Remarks at Andrews Air Force Base on Returning from the People's Republic of China, February 28, 1972"

Originally published in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1972, published in 1974

"Peace means more than the mere absence of war. In a technical sense, we were at peace with the People's Republic of China before this trip, but a gulf of almost 12,000 miles and 22 years of noncommunication and hostility separated [us].… We have started the long process of building a bridge across that gulf.…"

While U.S. president Richard M. Nixon (1913–1994; served 1969–74) in 1969 and 1970 was trying to remove the United States from the Vietnam War (1954–75), tensions between the People's Republic of China (PRC), or simply China, and the Soviet Union were at an all-time high. Along their 3,000-mile (4,828-kilometer)...