President Nixon Presented the Soviet Union with a Custom-Made Porcelain Chess Set from the People of the United States in 1972

Chess was the Soviet Union's national game, and many of its independent countries still play it today. Richard Nixon ordered a special chess set to be given to Soviet Premier Brezhnev as a gift from the people of the United States to the people of the Soviet Union before his visit to that country in 1972. The playing pieces for the set were modeled after tapestries from the 14th century called The Nine Heroes, which included figures from the Arthurian tale.

The customized set's board was three feet by three feet. The black walnut and North American curly maple used to make the dark squares were both harvested from Buck County, Pennsylvania. The objects were roughly 7 inches tall, made of porcelain, and gilded with priceless metals. The pieces' and their component parts' designs were created by the Trenton, New Jersey-based Cybis Porcelain studio. "To the People of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics From President and Mrs. Richard Nixon and the People of the United States of America, May 1972," was written on the case of the set.

Later, when Brezhnev visited the United States, Nixon met with him at Camp David and presented him with a much more thoughtful gift: a brand-new Lincoln Continental that Ford Motor Company had donated. Nixon sat in the passenger seat while the ebullient Brezhnev immediately took off in the automobile, reaching speeds of up to 60 mph on the narrow roads of the Catoctin Mountains. When the impromptu tour came to a conclusion, Nixon said, "That was something.