A Second Career

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter asked Leonard Woodcock to lead a mission to Vietnam and Laos for some of the most delicate negotiations in American history. Woodcock was successful. He returned to the United States with the remains of 12 American servicemen and laid the groundwork for the establishment of normal relations between the U.S. and those nations.

Leonard Woodcock became an important American statesman after he retired as president of the UAW. After a successful mission to Vietnam and Laos to negotiate the return of the remains of missing American servicemen, President Jimmy Carter asked Woodcock to head the United States Legation to the People’s Republic of China. Woodcock was able to steer through questions related to U.S.-Taiwan relations and their effect on relations between China and America. Called one of the most significant diplomatic agreements in modern history, Woodcock negotiated the normalization of relations between the two nations. He subsequently served as United States’ first Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, 1979 to 1981.

Professor Woodcock

Woodcock entered his final career in the 1980s. He became professor of political science at The University of Michigan. Along with teaching, during the 1980s and 1990s, Woodcock also led quiet negotiations between Chinese and American businesses and industries.