Video: 'Nixon in Moscow - 1972 | Movietone Moment | 22 May 2020)'

(Monday, May 22, 1972, 3:55 p.m. Moscow Standard Time; during the Moscow Summit (1972), part of the Cold War) — Richard M. Nixon became the first United States President to visit Moscow (and only the second President, after Franklin D. Roosevelt, to visit the Soviet Union), as he and Henry Kissinger arrived this afternoon to begin a summit meeting with Leonid I. Brezhnev, the Secretary General of the Communist party.

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Nixon began his week-long summit meetings earlier than expected when a talk of almost two hours with Brezhnev was added to the day’s schedule at the Soviet leader’s invitation.

Nixon, who flew to Moscow from a two-day stay in Austria, emphasized in the private meeting and his public remarks the agreements on space cooperation, nuclear arms limitation and trade that he hoped to win or set in motion during the week.

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But he also took his pleas for restraint in Vietnam directly to the Soviet leadership. At a dinner given in his honor later this evening at the Kremlin, Nixon would express his belief that “with great power goes great responsibility” and added a pointed allusion to Soviet aid to North Vietnam:

“We should recognize further that it is the responsibility of great powers to influence other nations in conflict or crisis to moderate their behavior.”

Arriving at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport this afternoon, Nixon received a correct and restrained public welcome as he had in Beijing last February. As was the case in Beijing, he was welcomed by government leaders but not by the party leader.

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But unlike his experience in Beijing, where only small groups of people gathered to watch him pass, there were thousands of Russians some estimates said 100,000 in all—lining both sides of Lenin Prospekt, a major avenue, as he and his entourage sped by to guest quarters in an annex of the Great Kremlin Palace in the heart of Moscow. Still, by Moscow standards, the public turnout, too, was restrained for a major foreign visiting dignitary.

The unexpected meeting with Brezhnev, the Soviet party leader, soon after the President’s arrival was also reminiscent of his Beijing experience — his unexpected talk with Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese party leader, shortly after reaching the Chinese capital.

In the first hours here of Nixon’s week-long visit, the Soviet leaders told him that however much they might be concerned by American actions in Vietnam, they were as ready as he for businesslike talks on issues between the two nations.