Steve Forbes
GOP presidential hopeful Steve Forbes launched his foreign affairs platform at the Nixon Library with a speech that reeked of Red-baiting paranoia, isolationism and assorted historical foolishness (Nov. 13).
Given the mega-wrongheadedness of his approach, one is tempted to ask, has Forbes ever set foot in China? Could he perhaps benefit from a reading list? China is transforming itself at a breakneck speed; understanding at least the fundamentals could prove helpful to anyone offering himself as a potential leader of the free world. Forbes would do well to understand that the Chinese admire and revere Americans (particularly when we’re not bombing their embassies). They cherish the memory of our defense of them against Japanese aggression in World War II.
As a longtime China watcher myself (who returned from an extensive tour of the People’s Republic just days before the Belgrade bombing), Forbes’ choice of the Nixon Library as a backdrop abounds in irony. Yes, President Nixon had his faults, but his brilliant and courageous policy of engaging with China has surely proven his greatest and most enduring legacy.
Nixon, a proud and tenacious self-made man and a prodigious scholar of history, knew when the Cold War mentality had its limitations and its dangers.
JOAN BAUER
Laguna Beach
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