Public school really did us wrong by not teaching my generation enough about Nixon, LBJ, and Carter. Any books about Nixon or any other President post WWII up to the fall of the USSR would be appreciated. I mainly want to see how each president reacted and dealt with the Soviets.
Two things, 1 Generally, US policy vis a vis the USSR did not change significantly from administration to administration petty politics being subsumed to the greater national interest. Though there is evidence that Nixon played politics with the Vietnam Peace Process to his own advantage in the 72 election so this is not a hard rule. But the evidence for this is in recent events where Obama continued many of the Bush policies regarding the war in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
2 It took Nixon to go to China, Sometimes a right wing President can be the only one to make a peace deal just as it was Kennedy that got embroiled in Viet Nam.