Nixon and Mao

by Margaret MacMillan

The Chinese kept the news of Kissinger’s visit secret until after he had left, but word began to spread in the inner circles of government. Zhang Hanzhi was a young official in the Foreign Ministry. She and her colleagues sensed that something was happening. Government ministers looked excited. Two of the top interpreters had disappeared. At lunchtime they reappeared and broke the news. “It was like a bomb exploding in the foreign ministry,” Zhang recalled.22

  That first day, Kissinger and Chou talked until nearly midnight. Chou opened the discussions by inviting Kissinger to make an opening statement, adding, “Besides, you have already prepared a thick book.” Kissinger hastily explained that he rarely used written notes but that he wanted Nixon to know what he was going to say. After Kissinger had gone through his summary of American concerns, it was Chou’s turn.23 The two men and their colleagues settled down for what were to be seventeen hours of conversation. They had only two days to get to know each other and develop the necessary level of trust to enable the contact that had been established with such difficulty to produce fruit.

  Chou was experienced, his diplomatic skills sharp after years of negotiating with Communist enemies, such as the Guomindang, and onetime friends, such as the Soviet Union. He also had the self-control and patience that surviving throughout the long years of war and inner-party struggle had brought. Kissinger was much younger, but he had an equal talent for diplomacy. If he was not as seasoned as Chou, he was learning quickly. The two statesmen, the old hand and the novice, laid themselves out to charm each other. Kissinger lavished praise on China, “this beautiful and, to us, mysterious land.” Oh, said Chou, “when you have become familiar with it, it will not be as mysterious as before.” Kissinger also took every opportunity to flatter Chou himself: “It is hard to believe that the Prime Minister could be anything but cool-headed.” When the question of taping their conversations came up, Kissinger demurred: “You will be so much more precise and better organized than I, that I would be shown up at a disadvantage.” That was probably untrue, replied Chou: “You are younger and have more energy than I.”24

  In those first encounters, Chou and Kissinger discovered the main areas where they agreed and disagreed. For China, Taiwan was the most important issue, while for the United States, getting out of Vietnam was of equal importance. The Chinese made it clear that although they did not intend to use force to reunite Taiwan with China, they were not prepared to see two Chinas in the world or in international bodies such as the United Nations. They wanted the United States to recognize that Taiwan was part of China and to set a timetable for withdrawing American forces. The United States, Kissinger hinted, expected that one day there would be only one China but could not say so right away for political reasons. In any case, it intended to withdraw its troops, but that was linked partly to what happened in Indochina. Once the United States was safely out of its wars there, it could dismantle many of its bases in Asia. Chou refused to be drawn into making any promises on Indochina. The peoples there must decide their own fates, he said.25 Kissinger also devoted considerable effort to reassuring the Chinese that the United States had no intention of colluding with other powers (neither the Soviet Union nor Japan was mentioned specifically) against China. Indeed, Nixon promised that the United States would not take any major steps affecting China without discussing them with the Chinese first. Chou would not be drawn into discussions of a common front between China and the United States.

  Late on the night of Kissinger’s first day in China, Chou En-lai made his report to Mao. The chairman was pleased to learn that the United States intended to start withdrawing troops and support from Taiwan. As for Vietnam, said Mao in an altruistic fashion, it was important that the United States settle it because people were getting killed there, adding, “We should not invite Nixon to come just for our own interests.” Mao also ordered Chou to make a statement the following morning on the big issues, pointing out that “all under the heaven is in great chaos.” The theme was a favorite one of Mao’s, who believed that great changes—the victory of Communism, for example—occurred when the world was in turmoil. In a fit of bravado, perhaps because he did not like the idea of Kissinger reassuring China that the United States would not collude with others against it, Mao added that Chou could tell the Americans that China was quite ready to be divided up among the United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan if they chose to invade. In fact, according to Chinese sources, Mao was relieved to hear that the United States had no aggressive intentions toward China. If that was true, the Chinese military could move even more troops north to the border with the Soviet Union.26

  The next morning, Chou arranged for the Americans to have a tour of the Forbidden City. They were taken first to a small museum to see an exhibit of artifacts dug up during the Cultural Revolution. It was a sad display, although the American visitors could not know it, in light of the wide-scale destruction of China’s cultural heritage during the Cultural Revolution. The Forbidden City was closed off to keep any Chinese from seeing the extraordinary visitors. The Americans wandered through the great imperial courtyards and some of the halls where the emperors had once maintained harmony between heaven and earth. “We absorbed,” Kissinger told Nixon, “the magnificently simple and proportionate sweeps of the red and gold buildings.” His unfortunate assistants, Lord remembers, sweated in the summer heat under the burden of their briefcases, which they dared not leave behind.27

  The meetings resumed at noon, in the Great Hall of the People. The Chinese had pointedly selected the Fujian Room, named after the province that faced Taiwan. Chou duly made a strongly worded statement that faithfully echoed Mao’s views. And perhaps he shared them; it was, after all, a difficult change of direction for an old Communist to find himself talking to a representative of the greatest capitalist power in the world. “There is chaos under heaven,” he told the Americans, who were taken aback by the change in his tone. “In the past 25 years,” Chou went on, “there has been a process of great upheaval, great division, and great reorganization.”28 The two superpowers were vying to control neutral countries and the territories that lay between them. “The Soviet Union is following your suit, in stretching its hands all over the world.”29 China, he added, was still a weak country, but it did not fear a combined attack from its three main enemies. Already it was preparing for a people’s war. “This would take some time and, of course, we would have to sacrifice lives.”30

  All over the world, the people were mobilizing. “Such resistance is stimulated by your oppression, your subversion, and your intervention.” The United States was enmeshed in Taiwan and Indochina; it was encouraging Japanese militarism; and it was conniving with the Soviets to keep a monopoly of nuclear weapons. Perhaps it was not worth Nixon’s coming to China at all if the differences between their two countries remained so great, especially over Taiwan, which was a small matter for the Americans but not for China. “Taiwan is not an isolated issue,” said Chou, “but is related to recognition of the People’s Republic of China, and it is also related to the relations of all other countries to China.” If Nixon wanted to come to China, he would have to discuss Taiwan.31

  Kissinger rallied and was equally firm back. He wanted to make it clear, he said, that the Chinese had been the first to suggest that Nixon come to Beijing, and they must decide when the time was right. On the other hand, a visit by Nixon would take China and the United States a long way toward solving the issues between them. “It also has tremendous symbolic significance because it would make clear that normal relations are inevitable.” On Taiwan, Kissinger said, he had already explained that the United States intended to withdraw its forces and that the other issues the Chinese worried about—the recognition, for example, that Taiwan was part of China—would settle themselves in due course. In time, too, relations between the United States and China would move onto a normal, peaceful footing.32

  Once Chou had said his piece, he reverted to his usual courteous self. He noted that he had followed American wis
hes in keeping the visit a secret. James Reston, the New York Times reporter who was on his way to Beijing, had found himself on such a slow train that he would not arrive until Kissinger had left. As for the American politicians who wanted to visit China, Chou said, “I have a great pile of letters from them on my desk asking for invitations, which I have not answered.” Nixon would greatly appreciate that, Kissinger said. “This is done,” Chou replied, “under the instructions and wisdom of Chairman Mao.”33

  By this point it was after 2:00 P.M. Their Peking duck was getting cold, Chou said, and the Americans might like a break. The summer heat and the tension of the morning were too much for one of the Americans, who fainted just as they moved in to lunch. Over their duck, Chou asked Kissinger whether he had heard of the Cultural Revolution. It had been a difficult period, Chou said, and at one point he had been locked in his office by Red Guards. Mao, of course, was right to have launched it. Even the violence, while it got out of hand at times, was necessary to keep the revolutionary spirit alive: “China was now firmly guided by the thought of Mao Tse-tung.” Perhaps, Chou remarked later that afternoon, Mao would talk more about the Cultural Revolution when Nixon visited, adding, “We sometimes wonder whether we can talk about such things. But Chairman Mao speaks completely at his will.” At the end of lunch, Chou, the thoughtful and gracious host, took the Americans off to the kitchens to show them how their meal had been prepared.34

  After the friendly interlude, the two sides resumed their tough debate. Indochina and the American presence there, Japan, Korea, the Soviet Union, the tension between India and Pakistan in South Asia—these subjects were to become staples of their discussions over the next years. Of more immediate concern was the question of Nixon’s visit. The Chinese, Chou said, were prepared to issue a formal invitation, but they had a concern about the timing. Would it not be better for Nixon to meet the Soviet leaders first? China did not want to create any more tension with the Soviet Union. “You saw,” he said, “just throwing a ping-pong ball has thrown the Soviet Union into such consternation.” Kissinger said that the United States expected to have a summit with the Soviet Union, possibly in the next six months. In fact, he had learned in Bangkok that the Soviets had postponed the summit indefinitely, so he decided to push for an early Nixon visit, partly as a way of putting more pressure on the Soviet Union. Kissinger suggested that Nixon should visit China in March or April of the following year. Chou agreed and said he would take the matter to Mao.35

  He regretted, Chou said, that he had to leave for an appointment, which would last until 10:00 P.M. (It was with a delegation from North Korea.) He and Huang Hua would come later that evening to continue their discussions and to work on a common announcement, both of Kissinger’s trip and of Nixon’s forthcoming one. The Americans went back to their villa at the Diaoyutai for dinner. They drafted an announcement and waited for the Chinese officials to reappear. Ten P.M. came and went with no Huang and no Chou. The Americans walked in the gardens to avoid eavesdroppers and wondered what the delay meant. “For all we knew,” wrote Kissinger in his memoirs, “the Chinese had had second thoughts.” At the very least, Kissinger suspected, the Chinese were trying to unsettle them.36 In fact, Huang was waiting for Mao to give him instructions. Sometime after 11:00, Chou appeared, full of apologies. Huang Hua would come shortly with a Chinese draft, and they could compare their wordings. Kissinger and Chou chatted for a short time, and then Chou took his leave.

  Huang finally arrived around midnight with wording that had Nixon asking for an invitation to China so that he could settle the issue of Taiwan, as a necessary first step toward normalizing relations. “I rejected both propositions,” Kissinger said later. “We would not appear in Peking as supplicants. We would not come for the sole purpose of discussing Taiwan or even simply to seek ‘normalization of relations.’”37 The wrangling went on until 1:40 in the morning, when Huang suggested that they take a short break. He disappeared, and the American group waited until nearly 3:00 A.M. before they learned that he would not be back until 9:00 A.M. The Americans were puzzled and disturbed. Their plane had to leave by 1:00 P.M. if Kissinger was to make his schedule in Pakistan, and they needed that announcement.

  Although they could not know it, Huang had rushed back to Mao’s house, only to find that the chairman had gone to bed. When Huang finally managed to see him the next morning, Mao dealt briskly with the issue of who wanted the invitation: “None took the initiative, both sides took the initiative.” The wording was now sorted out easily. Chou En-lai, “knowing of President Nixon’s expressed desire to visit the People’s Republic of China,” had duly invited him. Nixon would come sometime before May 1972. The meeting between the American and Chinese leaders was to seek the normalization of relations and to exchange views on matters of concern to both sides. “President Nixon has accepted the invitation with pleasure,” the statement would say. Kissinger, who was so deeply impressed by Chou En-lai and his “extraordinary personal graciousness,” might have been taken aback if he had heard Chou’s speech to his colleagues later that year. Nixon, said Chou, had “eagerly” asked to be invited to China, like a whore who would “dress up elaborately and present herself at the door.”38

  The Chinese agreed that the announcement would be issued on the evening of Thursday, July 15, so that the Americans could get good coverage in such weeklies as Time and Newsweek and in the weekend papers. As the Americans prepared to leave for their flight, Kissinger expressed his hopes that his visit had laid the groundwork for a new, friendly relationship between the United States and China. Chou said they had taken the first step. Kissinger had, he told Chou, been deeply moved “by the idealism and spiritual qualities of yourself and your colleagues.” Chou replied, “I suggest that we have a quick lunch.”39

  The last meal was a cheerful one, with even dour Chinese officials smiling. Chou presented the Americans with Chinese tea, “a little token,” and when they boarded the PIA plane the Americans found sets of Mao’s works in English and photograph albums of their visit. On the way to the airport, Marshal Ye talked to Kissinger about his early days fighting for the Communists. None of them on the Long March had thought that they would live to see victory. “Yet here we are and here you are,” he said.40

  “Those forty-eight hours, and my extensive discussions with Chou in particular,” Kissinger wrote in his subsequent memorandum for Nixon, “had all the flavor, texture, variety and delicacy of a Chinese banquet. Prepared from the long sweep of tradition and culture, meticulously cooked by the hands of experience, and served in splendidly simple surroundings, our feast consisted of many courses, some sweet and some sour, all interrelated and forming a coherent whole.” Kissinger found in Chou not only an intellectual equal but an extraordinary and subtle negotiator who never bothered with petty detail or with scoring points. The Chinese, Kissinger felt, were generally good to negotiate with; they laid out the main things they felt strongly about right at the start. It was such a pleasant change, he told Nixon, after the Soviets, with their pettiness, their bullying, and their bluster.41 Chou, for his part, thought Kissinger “very intelligent”; and, as he said on a later occasion to visiting American newsmen, “He can talk for an hour without giving one substantive answer.”42

  As the American party headed back toward Pakistan, their secret, amazingly, was still safe. In Rawalpindi, Farland, the American ambassador, put on a convincing display of annoyance to explain why Kissinger was late in coming down from his rest in the hills. “That stupid ass is up there in the Murree bazaar arguing about some horrible piece of rug or something, looking for bargains,” he said. On the other side of the world, in Washington, a small group in the State Department inadvertently learned the truth when Marshall Green, the assistant secretary of state for Asia and the Pacific, joked to his colleagues that Kissinger probably did not have Delhi belly at all but had gone off to China. As he spoke, Green realized what he had just said. He dashed up to see Rogers, who went pale and made him swear that he a
nd his staff would not say another word.43

  The Kissinger party finally landed in Pakistan and piled into cars to take the road coming down from Murree back to the airport. Kissinger stopped briefly to see an excited Yahya and to talk to American officials. Farland managed to get Kissinger to one side. “I got everything I wanted,” Kissinger said. “It was a total success on my part. I did a beautiful job.” At 6:00 that evening, the Americans, back on their own uncomfortable plane, took off for Tehran, where Kissinger had a brief meeting with the Iranian foreign minister and sent off a telegram. In California, Haig read its one word—“EUREKA!”—and went at once to see the president. Nixon said, “Al, I told you so. I told you so.” Forgetting all his earlier instructions about keeping communications to a minimum, Nixon ordered Kissinger to send an immediate report. “Conversations,” wrote back Kissinger, “were the most intense, important, and far-reaching of my White House experience.” He urged Nixon not to talk to anyone, not even Rogers, until he, Kissinger, was back in the United States.44

  Early on the morning of July 13, Kissinger arrived in California. He and Nixon and Haldeman, with some help from Rogers, went over the trip and how to deal with the news for the next few days. What had it meant when Chou wished Kissinger well in his negotiations with the North Vietnamese? How would the Soviet Union react to the announcement that Nixon was going to China? Should Nixon make a dramatic or low-key speech on his television appearance scheduled for July 15? Haldeman worried about press coverage. Kissinger was exhausted and perhaps a bit let down after all the excitement of the previous days. Rogers was gentlemanly and generous in congratulating Kissinger. The president was thrilled and excited and longing to spill the news. On July 14, he took the distinguished British journalist Henry Brandon and his wife around the garden at San Clemente. Nixon hinted that he was about to make a major statement and stopped to pick a white Peace rose for Mrs. Brandon. By the time he had finished struggling with the stem, the flower had almost no petals left.45