Date of Award

5-2020

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Degree Program

History

Department

History

Major Professor

Dr. Günter Bischof

Second Advisor

Dr. James Mokhiber

Third Advisor

Dr. Andrea Mosterman

Abstract

Scholarship on George H.W. Bush tends to regard his career with the State Department in the context of traditional presidential biography. His tenure as Ambassador to the United Nations thus becomes a line-item on a presidential resume with little significance beyond its usefulness as a political credential. This paper situates Bush’s voice as it appears in his personal diary into one of the widescreen events of Sino-American rapprochement, the conclusion in 1971 of the long-simmering conflict over Chinese representation at the U.N. (CHIREP) between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the American-backed Republic of China (ROC). As chief of the U.S. Mission to the U.N. (USUN) in 1971 the fight over CHIREP represents George H.W. Bush’s “first bleeding,” a baptism into both the ecology of international diplomacy and a sustained, imbricate relationship with the People’s Republic of China.

Rights

The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.

Available for download on Saturday, June 07, 2025

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