RN

by Richard Nixon

  “If the United States is gone from Asia, gone from Japan,” I said, “our protests, no matter how loud, would be like firing an empty cannon. We would have no effect, because thousands of miles away is just too far to be heard.

  “Now I realize that I have painted here a picture which makes me sound like an old cold warrior,” I continued, and Chou laughed softly. “But it is the world as I see it, and when I analyze it, it is what brings us, China and America, together, not in terms of philosophy and not in terms of friendship—although I believe that is important—but because of national security I believe our interests are in common in the respects I have mentioned.”

  The Chinese regarded the Soviet Union with a mixture of utter contempt and healthy fear. Chou was completely aware of the symbolism and impact of my coming to Peking before going to Moscow, and he thoroughly enjoyed the fulminations of the Soviet press against my visit. “You have come here first,” he said, “and Moscow is carrying on like anything! They are mobilizing a whole mass of their people, their followers, to curse us. But let them go on. We don’t care.”

  Later on, when he had loosened up considerably, he told an amusing story that he said took place during a Sino-Soviet border flare-up in 1969. “We had a hot line between the Soviet Union and ourselves then,” he said, “but it had already become cold because the Kremlin never used it. At the time of the Chen Pao border incident, however, Kosygin picked it up and called us. When our operator answered, he said, ‘This is Premier Kosygin. I would like to speak to Chairman Mao.’ The operator, completely on his own, said, ‘You are a revisionist, and therefore I will not connect you.’ So Kosygin said, ‘Well, if you will not try to reach the Chairman, will you please connect me with Prime Minister Chou.’ But the operator gave the same unauthorized reply and broke the connection.”

  About halfway through the meeting Chou took some small white pills. I guessed that they were for his high blood pressure. I was impressed by his mental acuity and his stamina; I noticed that some of the younger men on both sides became drowsy as the afternoon lengthened and the translators droned on and on, but despite his seventy-three years Chou remained alert and attentive throughout the four-hour session.

  “The most pressing question now is Indochina, where the whole world is watching,” he said. “The Democratic Party tried to put you on the spot by alleging that you came to China to settle Vietnam. Of course this is not possible. We are not in a position to settle it in talks.”

  I said that I fully understood the limitations of our talks and that I had no illusions about being able to settle the Indochina war in Peking. “This is simply an issue in which the only gainer in having the war continue is the Soviet Union,” I said. “They want us tied down, because they want to get more and more influence in North Vietnam as a result. From all the intelligence we get, they may even be egging on the North Vietnamese to hold out and not settle.”

  Chou made clear that, in his opinion, the later we withdrew from Vietnam, the more difficult and unsatisfactory the withdrawal would be for us. He knew the tenacity of the North Vietnamese. “Ho Chi Minh was a very old friend of mine,” he said. “I knew him in France in 1922.” Chou pointed out that I had admitted that de Gaulle acted wisely in withdrawing from Algeria; despite the domestic political difficulties that a similar decision would cause me, he felt that it was nonetheless the right thing to do regarding Vietnam. He said, “Our position is that so long as you are continuing your Vietnamization, Laosization, and Cambodianization policy, and as long as they continue fighting, we can do nothing but to continue to support them.”

  When I summarized the American position, I said: “Let me cut away the eight points, the five points, and the thirteen points and all the other points and come right down to what our offer really is. If I were sitting across the table from whoever is the leader of North Vietnam and we could negotiate a cease-fire and the return of our prisoners, then all Americans would be withdrawn from Vietnam six months from that day. And let me also point out that when this was suggested to the North Vietnamese as far back as the middle of last year, they rejected it and insisted there had to be a settlement in which we had to impose a political settlement as well as to resolve the military side.”

  I said, “I realize that there are views to the contrary, but when a nation is in a position like we are in, where around the world there are nations that depend on us for their defense, if we did not behave honorably we would cease to be a nation worth having as a friend, and which the people of the world could depend upon as an ally.”

  While I was in these meetings with Chou, Pat carried out a full schedule that included visits to the Peking Zoo and the Summer Palace. When we met at the guesthouse that evening, she remarked that although the Chinese she had met were gracious and eager to cooperate, she felt that our reception was somehow restrained. She had been kept from meeting people, and the only contact she had had with anyone other than her official guides was on a visit to the kitchen of the Peking Hotel. We discussed the tremendous problems our visit presented to the Chinese leadership, not just in terms of their relations with the Soviet Union, North Vietnam, and the entire Communist world, but also in terms of their own internal politics. Two decades of virulent anti-American propaganda could not be undone overnight, and the Chinese masses would take time to assimilate the new line emanating from Peking.

  That night we were taken to the Peking Opera by Chou and by Chiang Ching, Mao Tse-tung’s wife. They had arranged a special performance of the theatrical extravaganza The Red Detachment of Women, which she had devised and staged.

  From briefing material I was aware that Chiang Ching was an ideological fanatic who had strongly opposed my trip. She had led a checkered and contradictory life, from her younger days as an aspiring actress to her leadership of the radical forces in the Cultural Revolution of 1966. For many years she had been Mao’s wife in name only, but there was no better name in China, and she had used it for all it was worth to build up her personal faction of supporters.

  As we settled into our chairs, Chou mentioned that in 1965 Khrushchev had come to a performance of this show and had sat in the very place I was now sitting. He suddenly became flustered and corrected himself: “I mean Kosygin, not Khrushchev.”

  While we waited for the overture to begin, Chiang Ching told me about some American authors she had read. She had enjoyed Gone with the Wind and had seen the motion picture. She mentioned John Steinbeck, and she asked me why another of her favorite authors, Jack London, had committed suicide. I couldn’t remember, but I told her that I thought it was alcoholism. She asked about Walter Lippmann and said that she had read some of his articles.

  Chiang Ching had none of the easy humor or warmth of Mao, Chou, and the other men I met. I had observed the same characteristic in the young women who acted as interpreters and in several others we met during our week in China. The women of the movement, it struck me, were more humorless and more single-minded in their total dedication to the ideology than were the men. In fact, Chiang Ching was unpleasantly abrasive and aggressive. At one point that evening she turned to me and in a challenging voice asked, “Why did you not come to China before now?” Since the ballet was in progress at the time, I did not respond.

  I had not been particularly looking forward to this ballet, but after a few minutes I was impressed by its dazzling technical and theatrical virtuosity. Chiang Ching had been undeniably successful in her attempt to create a consciously propagandistic theatre piece that would both entertain and inspire its audience. The result was a hybrid combining elements of opera, operetta, musical comedy, classical ballet, modern dance, and gymnastics.

  The story deals with a young Chinese woman in prerevolutionary times who leads her townspeople in a revolt against an oppressive landlord. Emotionally and dramatically the production was superficial and artificial. In many respects, as I noted in my diary, it reminded me of the ballet Spartacus that we had seen in Leningrad in 1959—in which the ending was changed
so that the slaves won.

  After each evening’s social event Kissinger would meet with the Vice Foreign Minister and go over each new draft of the official communiqué word by word. Sometimes Chou would join them; sometimes Kissinger would walk across the small bridge connecting the two guesthouses and report to me on the progress they were making or the problems they had run up against. As a result of these nocturnal negotiations, few of us got very much sleep, and Kissinger got hardly any.

  Taiwan was the touchstone for both sides. We felt that we should not and could not abandon the Taiwanese; we were committed to Taiwan’s right to exist as an independent nation. The Chinese were equally determined to use the communiqué to assert their unequivocal claim to the island. This was the kind of disagreement that our formula for drafting the communiqué was supposed to take into account: we could state our position and they could state theirs. In this case, domestic political considerations led Kissinger and me to try to convince the Chinese of the necessity of exercising moderation.

  We knew that if the Chinese made a strongly belligerent claim to Taiwan in the communiqué, I would come under murderous cross fire from any or all the various pro-Taiwan, anti-Nixon, and anti-P.R.C. lobbies and interest groups at home. If these groups found common ground on the eve of the presidential elections, the entire China initiative might be turned into a partisan issue. Then, if I lost the election, whether because of this particular factor or not, my successor might not be able to continue developing the relationship between Washington and Peking. In the official plenary sessions with Chou, therefore, I spoke very frankly about the practical political problems a strongly worded communiqué on Taiwan would cause me.

  We knew that no agreement concerning Taiwan could be reached at this time. While both sides could agree that Taiwan was a part of China—a position supported by both the Peking and Taiwan governments—we would have to oppose the use of military force by Peking to bring Taiwan under Communist rule.

  Our lengthy discussions resulted as we expected: we could only agree to disagree and to reflect our differences in the communiqué. Thanks largely to Kissinger’s negotiating skill and Chou’s common sense, the Chinese finally agreed to sufficiently modified language.

  One reason we found the Chinese appeared to be so agreeable to deal with was their total lack of conceit or arrogance. Unlike the Soviets, who ritually insisted that everything they had was the biggest and the best, the Chinese were almost obsessed with self-criticism and with seeking advice on how to improve themselves. Even Chiang Ching, when I told her how impressed I was with her ballet, said, “It is good to know that you find it acceptable, but tell me how you would go about improving it.” As Chou continually referred to their need to understand and overcome their imperfections, I could not help thinking of Khrushchev’s boastful bombast and how much healthier the Chinese approach was. Of course, I knew that it was only an approach, a conscious decision to view themselves in this way, and that in fact they were absolutely convinced of the ultimate superiority of their culture and philosophy, and that in time it would triumph over ours and everyone else’s.

  However, I found myself liking these austere and dedicated men. When Pat and I toured the Forbidden City, our host was the seventy-two-year-old Minister of Defense, Marshal Yeh Chien-ying.

  Diary

  He was a totally delightful man with great inner strength. He made the interesting comment that the American music and the Chinese music seemed to fit in together, and that American and Chinese journalists hit it off well. I think he is totally correct in this respect, particularly where Americans have a little depth and subtlety and are not the abrasive, loud types that would grate upon the Chinese. One of the benefits of our relationship is that Americans today, as distinguished from the late nineteenth-century Americans, are very different from the Europeans, the British, French, Dutch, et al. We have no sense of arrogance—we honestly, almost naïvely, like people and want to get along with them. We lack often a sense of subtlety but that will come after we’ve had a few hundred more years of civilization. It is the subtlety of the Chinese which is most impressive to me. I had read about it and heard about it, and seen it in quotations. Chou En-lai, of course, adds to Chinese subtlety the far-ranging experience of a world diplomat.

  On our third night in Peking, Pat and I were taken to a gymnastics and table tennis exhibition.

  Diary

  The gymnastic event was a colorful spectacle and, as was the case with the ballet the night before, had the feeling of enormous dedication and singleness of purpose in the whole production.

  The way that they brought out their equipment, and the opening march with the red flag, was strikingly strong. The appearance of both the girls and men, as well as, of course, up to the superb Ping-Pong event left an impression that was not only lasting, but also foreboding.

  Henry could not be more right in his warning that as the years went on, not only we but all the people of the world will have to make our very best effort if we are to match the enormous ability, drive, and discipline of the Chinese people.

  When I went to bed that night I found that I could not get to sleep. At five o’clock I got up and took a hot bath. I climbed back into bed and lighted one of the Chinese-made “Great Wall” cigars my hosts had thoughtfully provided, and sat puffing on the cigar and making notes about the events of the momentous week.

  On Saturday, February 26, we flew with Chou in his plane to Hang-chow, in eastern China. By this time he and I were talking quite freely to each other.

  Diary

  Chou En-lai and I had a very interesting conversation on the way to the airport in Peking. He spoke of Mao’s poem which he wrote on returning to his hometown after thirty-two years. He returned to the point he has made quite often, that adversity is a great teacher. I related it to adversity generally, and pointed out that an election loss was really more painful than a physical wound in war. The latter wounds the body—the other wounds the spirit. On the other hand, the election loss helps to develop the strength and character which are essential for future battles. I said to Chou that I found that I had learned more from defeats than from victories, and that all I wanted was a life in which I had just one more victory than defeat.

  I used also the example of de Gaulle in the wilderness for a period of years as a factor which helped to build his character. He came back with a thought that men who travel on a smooth road all their life do not develop strength.

  Chou said that I had a poetic turn of mind like Mao, when I had in my last toast said that it was not possible to build a bridge across 16,000 miles and twenty-two years in one week. Much of the Mao poetry, of course, is simply a colorful and vivid example.

  He referred again to his admiration for Six Crises, and I jokingly said that he shouldn’t believe all the bad that the press said of me, and that I would follow the same practice with regard to him.

  Hangchow is built around large lakes and gardens. In the days when the emperors used it as a summer resort, it was known as the most beautiful city in China. I knew that Mao enjoyed taking vacations there and staying in an exquisite old palace that had been turned into a government guesthouse.

  Even though we were in Hangchow in the cloudy off-season, it was easy to see why Mao was drawn to the city. Mountains rise mistily in the background, and the lakes are full of lotus flowers. The pagoda-like guesthouse, with its sloping green tile roofs, was set in the middle of a lake on an island called “Island of Three Towers Reflecting the Moon.” It was rather musty, but it was immaculately clean, and Pat and I later agreed that our stay there was the most delightful interlude of the trip.

  During the more than fifteen hours of formal talks I had with Chou we covered a wide range of issues and ideas. Since all our discussions during this trip were so frank, it was understandable that the Chinese were nervous about the possibility of leaks. I am sure that Chou had no trouble imagining the propaganda use the Kremlin would have for the transcripts of our talks. During a
discussion of the internal opposition to some of my decisions during the Indo-Pakistan war, Chou referred to the Jack Anderson leak. “The records of three of your meetings were made public because all sorts of people were invited,” he remarked with a sardonic smile. I felt a real concern beneath his bantering tone. In fact, in our first conversation on the way in to Peking from the airport, Chou had mentioned how important the Chinese considered confidentiality in our relationship, and Chairman Mao had made the same point very emphatically during our meeting.

  To assuage Chou’s fears, I outlined the strict procedures we planned to follow to keep our future contacts secret. “The Prime Minister may think we’re being too careful,” I said, “but as you know, we had the Pentagon Papers from the previous administration, and we’ve had the Anderson papers from this administration. Dr. Kissinger and I have determined that this will never happen in the new relationship that we have established with your government.”

  I said I was determined that when the fate of our two countries—and possibly the fate of the world—was involved, we would be able to talk in confidence.

  When we began to talk about the situation in the Middle East, Chou jokingly said, “Even Dr. Kissinger doesn’t want to discuss this problem, because being Jewish he is afraid that they suspect him.”

  I said, “My concern in the Middle East—and, incidentally it is Dr. Kissinger’s too, because while he is Jewish he is an American first—our concern is much bigger than Israel. We believe the Soviet Union is moving to reach its hands out in that area. It must be resisted. That is why we took a position in the Jordanian crisis, for example, warning the Soviets that if they move aggressively in that area, we will consider our own interests involved.”

  I emphasized that my visit had bipartisan support and that other visits by Democrats as well as Republicans would now be perfectly in order. “As I have indicated to the Prime Minister, it is important to have policy carried forward whoever sits in this chair next year,” I said. “Under our system, I may be here next year, and I may not. I want to be sure that whether a Democrat or Republican occupies the presidency, this beginning we have made is carried forward. It is bigger than any one party or any one man. It involves the future for years to come.”