the war on Hanoi and the mining of North Vietnamese harbors, there were no objections from the Communist Chinese or Soviets. This resulted in the first military success in Southeast Asia for Nixon and swayed public opinion about the president just in time for his reelection. Nixon was also helped by SALT I(Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) where he became the first American President to visit Russia and sign “an important pact limiting the number of defensive missiles each could possess and putting a five year freeze on testing and the deployment of intercontinental missiles” (LPW, 468). This direction of peaceful diplomacy won over many voters in the 1972 election and differed greatly from Reagan’s aggressive foreign policy of the 1980’s.Ronald Reagan had a different approach to fighting Communism, rather than trying to peacefully contain it, he wanted to transcend it. His ideas were to actively pursue Communism and use a 40% increase in military spending during his first term to intimidate and forcefully attack the problem areas. “Reagan decided that spending on arms was going to be the cornerstone of his foreign policy”(LPW, 524), different from Nixon who avoided military pursuit of Communism and took care of the problems by talking to the foreign leaders. Actually, Reagan cared less about an arms treaty than his military buildup, and finally had the opportunity to demonstrate that he was not afraid to use force by invading Grenada and protecting the island and its neighbors from Communist Cuba. The invasion of Grenada was popular with the public because the unwritten rule was to win quickly and get out, nobody wanted a protracted war of any sort. Then Reagan began to slip by attacking and trying to overthrow the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua for Cuban ties, aid to Salvadoran leftists, and their reluctance to hold elections. The U.S. aggression however produced the opposite effect it w...
