The First

NIXON LIBRARY
By Paul Musgrave
E Except for its name, there was little
remarkable about the modest library that
stood in the neighborhood of Yuen Long
on the outskirts of Hong Kong from 1954
until 1977. It held only a few thousand
books and employed just one librarian,
the President wanted his Vice President to
be “publicly associated with something
other than Red-baiting.”
Changing Nixon’s image would be a
challenge. He owed his extraordinary
political climb from freshman congress-
tant, it would allow him to transform the
position of Vice President—long regarded
as a political dead end—into a high-profile
post. His plans for the trip were accord-
ingly ambitious. Starting on October 5, he
and his party, which included his wife, Pat,
and its patrons were mostly schoolchild- man to Vice President in six years almost would spend more than two months
ren, farmers, and shopkeepers. Never- entirely to his aggressive anticommunism. abroad and visit 19 countries, as well as
theless, the humble building was a monu- He had won his seats in the House in 1946 Hong Kong (then a British colony) and
ment to Richard Nixon. and the Senate in 1950 by charging that the U.S.-administered Japanese prefecture
The library was also a relic of the cre- his opponents were soft, at the very least, of Okinawa, none of which had ever
ation of Nixon’s reputation as an expert in on Communists, and he had become received a visit from an American Pres-
foreign affairs, the cornerstone of his cam- nationally prominent in 1948 through his ident or Vice President before.
paigns for the White House and his public investigation of former FDR aide The announcement of the tour trig-
defenders’ view of his administration. It and alleged Soviet spy Alger Hiss. But, as gered a flood of invitations, including one
began in large measure with his world Nixon must have recognized, presidential from Arnaldo de Oliveira Sales, an ethnic
travels as Vice President, including infa- candidates needed to be associated with Portuguese businessman who was pres-
mous trips to Latin America in 1958 more substantive matters. ident of the Hong Kong Junior Chamber
(where he faced violent pro-Communist The trip offered Nixon a chance to rein- of Commerce. Nixon accepted, partly
mobs) and the Soviet Union in 1959 (where vent himself as a statesman. Just as impor- because he was a former Jaycee himself
he dueled with Nikita Khrushchev). Those
trips, however, might not have happened
without his first, successful tour of Asia
and the Middle East in 1953—a story told
in the records at the Richard Nixon
Presidential Library and Museum.
Just 40 years old, Nixon had been
Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President for
only a few months when, at a National
Security Council meeting in March 1953,
Eisenhower asked him to take a major trip
through Asia later that year. Decades later,
Nixon implausibly asserted that Eisen-
hower sent Nixon instead of going him-
self because the President knew little
about the region. At the time, he declared
instead that the President intended to
show Asian leaders that the new adminis-
tration took their concerns more serious-
ly than had Dean Acheson, President
Truman’s secretary of state. More persua-
sively, Stephen Ambrose, a biographer of
both Nixon and Eisenhower, argues that

Opposite: Chinese students and others pose before

the Nixon Library in Yuen Long, Hong Kong, in 1957.
Local Jaycees named the neighborhood library after
the U.S. Vice President upon his visit there in
November 1953.
Right: Beatrice H. Holt, a USIA librarian in Hong
Kong, visited the Nixon Library in Yuen Long in 1955
to celebrate the agency’s donation of 160 books.
USIA publications are on the table.

The First Nixon Library Prologue 43

(indeed, he made a point of including
Jaycee representatives in many of the
countries he visited) but more important-
ly because the club, composed of civic-
minded businessmen, would be a safely
pro-American audience.
Nixon used invitations like Sales’s strate-
gically. He would later boast that he had
forced the State Department to schedule
events where he could meet “as many dif-
ferent kinds of people as possible”—stu-
dents, workers, and intellectuals as well as
politicians and government officials. In
practice, the events ran more like cam-
paign rallies than state visits. At one point,
halfway through the trip, a frustrated
Nixon instructed his administrative assis-
tant Rose Mary Woods and other aides in
his party that “I want crowds at the air-
ports—want the schedules to be printed
in the newspapers—insist on this!” He
took an intense interest in the media as
well, requesting special arrangements for a
Life magazine photographer so that he
could take pictures “which will properly
characterize the trip” and telling his aides
to let the press know that the locals had
been impressed that Nixon shook hands
A delegation of visitors at the Nixon Library in Hong Kong in 1965.
44 Prologue
with them. (The latter effort succeeded:
Time soon printed a glowing quote from
an “accompanying official” explaining that
Nixon “create[d] a sensation” when he
shook hands with “dumbfounded specta-
tors” along his parade routes.)
There were few causes for such com-
plaints in Hong Kong. Nixon’s arrival on
November 5 was dramatic—indeed, spec-
tacular. His Air Force Lockheed Constel-
lation was escorted by 12 Royal Air Force
Vampire fighter jets as it approached the
runway of Kai Tak Airport, which jutted
into Victoria Harbor. At the airport, the
Americans received a 19-gun salute and an
official greeting. Nixon broke away briefly
from the official itinerary to shake hands
with some members of the public who had
come to greet him.
Hong Kong was not the most
prominent stop on Nixon’s trip;
he had far more important diplo-
matic errands to attend to on
other legs of his journey (in-
cluding delivering messages
from Eisenhower to South Korea
and Taiwan to refrain from uni-
laterally starting wars), and his
words in other cities would attract much
greater media attention (including those
from his brief layover in Hawaii, where he
made a strong statement in favor of state-
hood for the territory). But Hong Kong’s
status as a British colony and its sheer
proximity to mainland China made it
inherently significant.
The combination of those issues made
for a knotty diplomatic problem. As
Nixon moved through his schedule on
November 5 and 6, he heard criticisms of
the Chinese Communists, but he also
faced complaints about the American ban
Richard Nixon visited the library named after him in
1966, as reported in a local newspaper. He applaud-
ed the local Jaycees’ educational efforts and prom-
ised that more books would be provided by the
United States Information Service.
Summer 2009
on trade with the People’s Republic of
China, which had crippled Hong Kong’s
economy. Strong statements by Nixon
against the “Peking regime” could thus
backfire, as the capitalists in the colony
strongly hoped to hear that they could
resume their historical role as the front
door to the Chinese markets.
Such concerns weighed on Nixon’s
mind on the morning of November 7 as he
prepared his remarks for that day’s Jaycee
luncheon at the Peninsula Hotel, which
had become the venue for what was billed
as the major policy address of his visit. He
surely discussed the dilemma with the
Left: Snowpine Liu, the Nixon Library representative,
maintained contact with Nixon through the years. In
his March 16, 1968, letter he congratulated candidate
Nixon on his victory in the New Hampshire pri-
mary. Right: Liu was photographed with the
President and administrative assistant Rose Mary
Woods during his visit to the Oval Office on
February 7, 1969.
The First Nixon Library
colony’s governor, Alexander Grantham, in
a private meeting that morning. Sometime
that morning, either as a result of his talks
with Grantham and others or as a product
of his own substantial political instincts,
Nixon hit on a formula to paper over the
difficulties. He delivered it at the luncheon
before an audience of 500. After an intro-
duction by Sales, Nixon took his audience
on a tour d’horizon of American foreign
policy, arguing that its foundation was
“peace” and that Washington must main-
tain a leading role in the United Nations.
Essential to the success of that policy and
the victory of the free nations was the
strong alliance between the United States
and the United Kingdom, which was help-
ing to defend Hong Kong and its free-
doms.The other half of the Nixon formula
was simply to ignore the trade issue. It was
not the subtlest solution, but the American
consul general wrote in his official report
that the largely British audience almost
universally accepted it anyway—and that
Nixon’s conversation with Grantham had
a calming effect on the governor’s later
public statements about the embargo.
As a good host, Sales had arranged for
gifts for the Vice President (an ivory ele-
phant) and Mrs. Nixon (an embroidered
dress length). As he presented them to
the Nixons, Sales announced that the Vice
President had just given him permission
to have the Jaycees’ next children’s
library named after him. The library,
under construction in Yuen Long, was the
11th to be built by Jaycees, which had
made a project of providing for under-
privileged children around the colony.
Nixon could hardly have refused the
offer, since during the speech he had
praised the Jaycees and the Rotarians
(who were cosponsoring the luncheon)
for their local projects helping young
people, which he said contributed to
international peace.
Prologue 45
 The Nixons left the luncheon and spent Back in Hong Kong, work proceeded on over the library’s fundraising and opera-
some time traveling around the colony the addition to the building in Yuen Long tions. Liu, who had attended American uni-
before an evening reception. They left the that was to hold the future Nixon Library. versities and had taught in Chinese schools,
next morning and rejoined the rest of their It was dedicated on February 28, 1954, asked Nixon for help in obtaining a visa to
tour, which had more than a month left to and Nixon sent Sales a telegram to be read the United States. There is no response to
run and which included meetings with, at the ceremony: “There is nothing that that request in the files, but Nixon’s office
among others, the emperor of Japan, the gives me more pleasure than to have my corresponded with Liu over the next
prime minister of India, and the shah of Iran. name associated with your new children’s decade. From time to time, Nixon made
They returned to Washington on December library. . . . I can think of no factor more small but significant financial contributions
14 to an elaborate welcoming to the library, which (with the
ceremony at National Airport, Richard Nixon Elementary
followed by a formal call on School in his hometown of
President Eisenhower at the Yorba Linda, California) was
White House. one of the few institutions to
The press reaction was all bear his name. He also sent
that Nixon could have hoped the library a copy of a biogra-
for. The favorable editorials phy, This Is Nixon, by re-
around the country filled porter James Keogh, who later
two folders in his files and became President Nixon’s
included positive comments head speechwriter.
from the Washington Post, After losing the 1960 presi-
Philadelphia Inquirer, Wash- dential campaign to John
ington Star, and New York Kennedy and the 1962
Herald Tribune, which wrote California gubernatorial el-
that Nixon’s trip proved that ection to Pat Brown, Nixon
he “could speak with knowl- moved to New York City to
edge and precise familiarity become the lead partner in a
with the President’s ideas major law firm. Part of
and projects” because “no Nixon’s work with the firm
previous Vice-President has involved traveling around the
been brought so intimately world to meet with clients, a
into the highest counsels of convenient reason for the for-
the administration in power.” mer Vice President to keep
Nixon topped off the himself in the public eye by
rounds of congratulations a making pronouncements on
week later with a television foreign policy at home and
and radio address. He talked abroad. He made several such
about American interests in passes through Hong Kong,
the region, not least the meeting with Liu on three
Korean peninsula, and the Plans for expansion and relocation of the Nixon Library in 1969 raised security concerns occasions and visiting the
importance of American diplo- that it would become a high visibility target five miles from the Chinese mainland. Henry library himself in 1966.
macy, instead of American mili- Kissinger advised in his April 19, 1969, memo (page 1 here) that the library be moved to In February 1969, just
tary power, to making pro- the Yuen Long town hall, to which President Nixon agreed. three weeks into Nixon’s
gress with the peoples and presidency, Liu called on the
governments of the countries he had visit- important to a free, independent, and President in the Oval Office, where they
ed. The core of his argument was that the prosperous Asia than the opportunity for met and talked about the library’s future.
United States had to continue to resist the the youth of Asia to learn the truth, untar- Liu proposed raising funds to expand the
expansion of Communism, especially that nished by Communist propaganda.” library and give it a permanent, independ-
of the Chinese Communists, whom he A local notable named Tang Kin Sun and a ent home. Nixon was noncommittal, but
called “the basic cause of all of our trou- volunteer named Snowpine Liu, a Liu enthusiastically began soliciting
bles in Asia.” Nationalist refugee from the mainland, took donors by telling them the President sup-

46 Prologue Summer 2009

ported the plan, which alarmed lower-
level officials. The U.S. Information
Agency, which had informally supported
the library for some time, argued instead
for moving the library into the Yuen Long
town hall, then under construction. Such a
move, USIA director and longtime Nixon
associate Frank Shakespeare argued,
would bolster American standing in Hong
Kong while also denying “a high visibility
target five miles from the Chinese main-
land for Leftist [protesters].” The State
Department later chimed in with its own
concerns that Liu had been seeking dona-
tions from individuals tied to the
Nationalist government on the island of
Taiwan, which the department worried
could cause “very considerable embarrass-
ment” to the United States by politicizing
what had formerly been a politically neu-
tral cultural organization.
In classic Nixon administration style,
the issue was staffed out, and the unlikely
bureaucratic vehicle for resolving the con-
troversy over the future of the reading
room was the National Security Council
under the direction of Henry Kissinger. In
an April 1969 memorandum, Kissinger
summarized the options: leaving the
library in place, providing funds to trans-
fer it to the Yuen Long town hall, or com-
mitting the U.S. government to raising
$100,000 to build the new, independent
library building. Kissinger, echoing the
State Department and USIA, recommend-
ed moving the library to the town hall;
President Nixon agreed, and directed that
USIA inform Liu of his decision. (Iron-
ically, Kissinger later complained that
bureaucratic politics tended to produce
options papers that narrowed the scope
for presidential decision-making by pre-
senting “two absurd alternatives as straw
men bracketing [the bureaucracy’s] pre-
ferred option—which usually appears in
the middle position.”) Liu backed off from
his independent proposal, and the library
was moved into the Yuen Long town hall.
In June 1971, Shakespeare met with
Nixon in the Oval Office and discussed an
inspection tour of USIA facilities in East
The First Nixon Library
Asia. During the meeting, which was cap- of 1972, and then the mounting pressures
tured on the Nixon taping system, of Watergate—could no longer afford the
Shakespeare told Nixon that he had visit- luxury of taking an interest in the Hong
ed the Nixon Library. “I went in there and Kong institution. The library’s end came,
there must have been 150 young children unnoticed, in 1978 when its collection
quietly reading,” Shakespeare told the was transferred to the Yuen Long munici-
President. “You know, if you went to a pal government and became the core of
library where there are American kids, the Yuen Long Public Library. At the same
there’s always that little hubbub of noise time, Nixon was drafting his memoirs and
and students shooting spitballs. Those preparing to embark on a broader project
Chinese kids are amazing. They sat there of rehabilitating his reputation based on
and you couldn’t hear a sound. . . . It’s his mastery of foreign affairs, a topic he
attractive, it’s well decorated, it’s light, it’s discussed in the memoirs. It was as a
airy, and it’s very well used.” Nixon mur- result of the 1953 trip through Hong
mured his approval. Kong and the rest of Asia, Nixon wrote,
Soon thereafter, the administration— “that I knew that foreign policy was a
engrossed successively by the opening to field in which I had great interest and at
mainland China, the reelection campaign least some ability.” P
NOTE ON SOURCES
The principal sources for the linked stories of the Nixon Library in Hong Kong and the Vice
Presidential career of Richard Nixon are the pre-presidential files in the Richard Nixon Presidential
Library in Yorba Linda, California. The vice presidential trip files and correspondence files, including
many otherwise difficult-to-find media clippings (such as the JCI World, a newsletter of the interna-
tional Jaycees), document Nixon’s relationship with Arnaldo de Oliveira Sales and Snowpine Liu in the
1950s as well as visits to the library by Nixon associates, such as Henry Kearns, assistant secretary of
commerce for Eisenhower and later Nixon’s head of the Export-Import Bank. Newspaper and maga-
zine coverage of the 1953 trip includes Time, “Names Make News,” November 16, 1953, and “By the
old Pegu Pagoda,” December 7, 1953; “Good Will in Asia,” Philadelphia Inquirer, December 15, 1953;
“Here Comes the Traveler,” Washington Star, December 15, 1953; “Mr. Nixon Reports,” Washington
Post, December 25, 1953; and “Mr. Nixon Returns,” New York Herald Tribune, December 15, 1953.
Other sources include Tzu Jan Jih Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper whose coverage of Nixon’s trip,
along with other papers’, was translated by the State Department and included in the trip files.
The newly processed “Wilderness Years” collection, also in Yorba Linda, are indispensable for trac-
ing the reconstruction of Nixon’s political career and reputation as a statesman during the years
between his defeat by Pat Brown in the 1962 California gubernatorial race and his triumphal victo-
ry in the 1968 presidential campaign. The file includes other clippings on Nixon’s trips, including
“Get to Know the U.S. Better, Nixon urges” from the Hong Kong Standard.
The construction of Nixon’s image as an expert in world affairs is treated by his biographers, includ-
ing Stephen Ambrose in Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913–1962 (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1987) and David Greenberg in Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image (New York: W.W.
Norton, 2003). Nixon’s memoirs (RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon [New York: Grosset & Dunlap,
1978]) cover his relationship with foreign policy and with Eisenhower while Henry Kissinger’s reflec-
tions on his time with Nixon (White House Years [Boston: Little, Brown, 1979]) offer an insider’s select-
ed views on the foreign policy machinery of the administration. The administration’s files on national
security and foreign policy are virtually all, for the moment, in the Nixon Library at College Park,
Maryland; much of the material on the Hong Kong Nixon Library and Snowpine Liu, including copies
of State Department, National Security Council, and U.S. Information Agency memoranda, is available in
the formerly confidential special files. The taped
Author
conversation between Nixon and Frank
Shakespeare is number 527-8 from June 22, 1971. Paul Musgrave is special
The proceedings of the Hong Kong Legislative assistant to the director of the
Council are available online at www.legco. Richard Nixon Presidential
gov.hk/; the reference to the consolidation of the Library and Museum in Yorba
Nixon Library with the Yuen Long town hall Linda, California, and a Ph.D.
comes from the question time of Wednesday, student in government at Georgetown University
January 25, 1978. in Washington, D.C.
Prologue 47