head the delicate diplomatic mission, Carter insisted that he needed a negotiator. In a 2000 speech at the White House to celebrate 20 years of Most Favored Nation status, Carter said: One of the choices I had to make was whom to send to China to begin the secret negotiations with Deng Xiaoping; he was the unquestioned ruler of the nation. And I chose a man who was the senior statesman of the American labor movement, Leonard Woodcock—respected by, I guess, every working man and woman who was a member of a union or not in this country, and he was also respected by all those who had dealt with him from the management side. And he was my personal representative in Beijing. Leonard Woodcock, working directly with me from the White House, negotiated successfully the terms for normalization of diplomatic relations. And on the first day of January, 1979, we formed those relationships. That year, Leonard Woodcock, still highly conversant with, and whose heart was attuned to, the labor movement of America, negotiated the first trade agreement, Most Favored Nations agreement, with China, in 1979. And now for 20 years, each year the Congress has confirmed his decision, and mine. Personal life Woodcock married Loula Martin, with whom he had three children, in 1941. He was remarried in 1978, to Sharon Tuohy, a nurse working with the American delegation in China. He later taught political science at the University of Michigan, living in Ann Arbor with Sharon until his death on January 16, 2001. Woodcock had three children, Leslie Woodcock Tentler (professor of history), Janet Woodcock (photographer) and John Woodcock (ret. Lt Col, USAF); two daughters-in-law (Carol, framer, partner of Janet and Susan, married to John) and a son-in-law (Thomas Tentler, professor of history); and three grandchildren, Sarah Tentler (speechwriter and political advisor), Daniel Tentler (lawyer) and Gregory Tentler (professor of art history). Archival records The archival records of Woodcock can be found mostly at the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs. Notable are the UAW President's Office: Leonard Woodcock Records and UAW Vice-President’s Office: Leonard Woodcock Records, two extensive collections that document his time as an executive with the UAW. The materials include Woodcock’s personal correspondence, photographs, official memorandum, and other various record types. Additional repositories with historical materials chronicling Woodcock are the Bentley Historical Library and the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum. References "Woodcock,