Nixon and Mao

by Margaret MacMillan

  At Hangzhou, the Chinese called the Americans’ attention to the new terminal building at the airport, constructed, they announced proudly, in forty days by ten thousand workers. Observant reporters noticed that along the main streets, shop windows were unusually full of consumer goods. Groups of brightly dressed children were playing, apparently oblivious to the motorcade rushing past. The Nixons’ villa was on the island of Three Towers Reflecting the Moon. It was, Nixon recalled, “a bit musty but clean.” Spring comes early to Hangzhou, and the magnolias were already in bloom.12

  In spite of his strictures, Nixon was obliged to do some more sightseeing that afternoon. With Chou as their guide, he and Pat floated by boat across the lake to admire spots with names like Listening to Orioles Among the Willows. The scenery, Nixon said politely, looked “like a postcard.” Officials accompanying the party chatted about a bowl of fruit on board. The pears tasted like apples, said an American. “We have pears that taste like bananas, too,” a Chinese replied proudly. As they walked through Flower Park, Mrs. Nixon giggled at a cage of lovebirds; “Lovey dovey,” she remarked to Chou, who muttered something in Chinese. Nixon and Chou inspected one of the redwoods the Americans had presented to the Chinese people. Chou worried that it might be a bit crowded by other trees. Nixon thought the tree would grow slowly. Smiling for the cameras, the Nixons fed huge goldfish with bread crumbs thoughtfully provided by the Chinese. “I never saw goldfish that big,” Nixon commented.

  Kissinger, his labors, or so he thought, largely over, took the opportunity to stroll through one of the West Lake’s most beautiful glades. As he was gazing at the water and the distant hills beyond, Walter Cronkite appeared, dressed, Kissinger later said, as though he was going on an arctic expedition and staggering under the weight of the cameras around his neck. Reporters and cameramen were everywhere. “It was a grisly afternoon,” said the experienced journalist and old China hand Theodore White, “all organized for television crews and cameras, for symbolism and manipulation, with posts and positions roped off, stakeouts set, each journalist assigned his two square feet of observation.”

  Nixon suddenly decided to call an impromptu press conference at his villa. The shivering journalists stood outside on a terrace while he apologized for the news blackout of the previous few days. The extreme secrecy, he assured them, was at the request of the Chinese. He understood the difficulties the members of the press faced in doing their jobs. Indeed, he was going to write to their bosses and suggest they get a raise. After the White House photographers had snapped a group shot, he invited each journalist to step inside for an individual picture with him.13

  That night there was the inevitable banquet. Pat Nixon chatted brightly to the wife of a Chinese official while Nixon and Chou sat silently, with, said one journalist, “the look of men who for the moment have had more than enough of one another.” Nixon and his host, the chair of the local revolutionary committee, exchanged toasts, “mercifully brief for once.” Hangzhou, said Nixon, was rightly renowned all over the world. He hoped that the future of the Chinese and American peoples and their friendship would be equally bright and beautiful.14

  Behind the scenes, although Nixon may not yet have known it, a major storm was brewing over the communiqué. That afternoon, Rogers had shown the final version of the communiqué to his advisers for the first time. They immediately raised a number of issues. The communiqué said that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait maintained that Taiwan was a part of China. This ignored the existence of the large number of Taiwan’s inhabitants who supported Taiwan’s independence. Marshall Green, the senior official with responsibility for East Asia, was particularly horrified at the section where the United States set out its responsibilities in Asia: “Mr. Secretary, there is a serious problem.” The communiqué listed American defense commitments to, for example, South Korea and Japan, but did not mention the treaty with Taiwan. This was all too similar to what had happened in 1950, just before the Korean War, when Dean Acheson, then secretary of state, had made a speech in which he referred to the United States’ defensive perimeter as running from Alaska’s Aleutian Islands southward to include the Philippines but, crucially, had not mentioned South Korea. Many people, at the time and since, believed that this sent a signal to Kim Il Sung of North Korea and his patron, Stalin, that North Korea could attack South Korea without fear of an American response. When Green pointed out the unfortunate parallel, Rogers exclaimed, “My God, you’re right.”15

  In his memoirs, Kissinger dismissed all the concerns raised by the State Department as nit-picking and trivial. Years later his loyal assistant Winston Lord still maintained that the main impetus behind the demands that the communiqué be amended came partly from the State Department’s pique at being left out of the key negotiations in Beijing, and also partly out of a desire to make mischief by insisting on difficult terms: “They figured it would be more embarrassing to us if we didn’t get them.” Some of the State Department’s concerns, it is true, involved quite minor matters in the communiqué, but others, notably the implied renunciation of the United States’ obligation to defend Taiwan, clearly did not. Rogers tried to contact Nixon in the late afternoon, but Haldeman said firmly that the president was resting and could not be disturbed. In any case, said Haldeman, Nixon had already approved the communiqué.16

  At the banquet, Ron Ziegler, the press secretary, noticed that Green was in a grim mood and listened to his complaints. Ziegler may have contacted Haldeman. Rogers had also gotten through to Nixon himself. By the time the banquet ended, it had become clear that the communiqué could not be left as it was. “All hell has broken loose over this,” John Scali, a White House press adviser, told Green late that night, “and it is because of you.” In his villa, Nixon stormed about in his underwear. According to Kissinger, he threatened to deal with the State Department once and for all. Or was it, as Green suspected, that Kissinger had created an awkward situation with the wording on Taiwan that, if it was not rectified, was bound to cause a wave of opposition back in the United States?17

  There was nothing for it but to send Kissinger back to reopen his discussions with Qiao late that evening. Kissinger was clearly embarrassed and, at first, tried to minimize the importance of the changes he was requesting. Rogers, he said, needed to feel that he and the State Department had contributed something to the final document. It would be a good idea to have them on his side; a “mutinous bureaucracy” could cause lots of trouble for him and for Nixon. Rogers and his colleagues had been fussing about words. “All Chinese” sounded a bit ridiculous in English; perhaps the communiqué could just say “the Chinese” on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The sense was really the same. “That’s one point,” said Qiao noncommittally. “Now will you please continue.” Kissinger brought up a few minor changes, in words and punctuation. He also asked whether they might include something in the communiqué about Rogers and Ji having useful talks as well as Nixon and Chou. Then he came to the crux of the matter.

  The communiqué was a bit ambiguous, Kissinger said, when it came to United States’ commitments to its allies in Asia. It mentioned Japan and South Korea but not the Philippines or Thailand, with which the United States also had defense treaties. Kissinger carefully did not bring up Taiwan. He appealed to Qiao: “You see, it’s also a problem for you because supposing we say these two, then every other ally in the whole Pacific will say ‘what about us?’ and we will have to be issuing statements every day.” Perhaps, Kissinger suggested, they could solve the problem either by having the United States list all its commitments or by watering down the particular references to Japan and South Korea so that they did not appear to specify a military relationship.

  Qiao heard Kissinger out and merely asked for a brief recess—as Kissinger assumed, no doubt correctly, to consult Chou. In private, Qiao was furious. The Chinese did not really need the communiqué at all: “The United States comes to China and it needs the communiqué. Nixon can make his visit to China as a
tourist.” When Qiao returned, he let the Americans see something of his anger. He had thought, he said, that they were meeting just to discuss a few matters of style. The document, after all, was finished and had been approved at the highest levels. “When I sent you off early this morning I was relaxed thinking we had solved this,” he said. The Chinese and the Americans had spent huge amounts of time and energy on the Taiwan issue ever since Kissinger’s first visit in 1971. How could they reopen it now? Kissinger was deeply apologetic. His colleagues in the State Department did not realize how sincerely the Chinese had negotiated, he told Qiao, how they had made concession after concession. “If you persist in your position,” said Qiao, “there will be no need for further discussions tonight. And we will discuss it again tomorrow and the result will be no communiqué.” The Chinese could not accept any of the American suggestions on Taiwan. “Cannot be. Not a matter of words.”

  In fact, Qiao was prepared to negotiate. Both China and the United States now had a vested interest in demonstrating that they had taken a major step toward a more normal relationship. Not to issue a communiqué, after all the press reports that one was being negotiated, would mark Nixon’s trip as a failure. As Saturday night turned into Sunday morning, the two men managed to find a compromise. Qiao agreed that the United States would not mention any of its commitments at all and simply refer to its “close ties” and “support” for South Korea and its “existing close bonds” with Japan. Kissinger, for his part, dropped his attempt to change “all Chinese” to “the Chinese.” Qiao took the occasion to extract another concession; there had been a slight mistake in translation, he regretted. A sentence to the effect that neither side “will seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region” ought to have read neither side “should.” In other words, instead of a promise, Qiao wanted a moral obligation. Kissinger got the point immediately: the revised wording would allow the Chinese to accuse the Americans of behaving badly whenever they chose. After more hard bargaining and a few more changes, the two sides finally had a deal to take to Nixon and Chou. Qiao permitted himself a rare joke: “As to specific wordings, we can see to it that it is a very beautifully worded document.” Nixon was wakened early on the morning of February 27 and gave his approval. Chou called Mao’s villa in Beijing, and a secretary read the draft out to the chairman. Mao also approved the draft.18

  An exhausted Kissinger lashed out at Green later that day for getting Rogers stirred up over the communiqué. Green, for the first time in his association with Kissinger, snapped back: “Since when was the Secretary of State offering constructive criticisms defined as poor-mouthing?” Rogers rightly had done his duty to advise the President. Kissinger backed down. In any case, Rogers was now back in line after Nixon had ordered him to make sure that both he and the State Department gave their full support to the communiqué.

  Nixon had another piece of welcome news that day when a press report came in from the United States that Senator Ed Muskie, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, had broken down in tears at a press conference in New Hampshire as he denied accusations that he had made racial slurs about the state’s large French-Canadian population. “Rather fascinating” was all Haldeman put in his diary. In fact, Haldeman, and quite possibly Nixon himself, had a very good idea of what lay behind the story. Muskie, who had been attacking Nixon, with considerable success, on his failure to get the United States out of Vietnam, was a prime target of the Committee to Re-Elect the President—CREEP, as it was aptly known. CREEP, which reported directly to Nixon, carried out the usual campaign activities, such as raising funds and preparing materials, but it had another, darker, side. One of its employees was a young California lawyer named Donald Segretti who ran a corps of “pranksters” to disrupt the Democratic campaign. Their pranks were not innocent: they forged letters on Democratic letterhead, printed phony flyers, and spread slanderous rumors about Democratic politicians. The story about Muskie’s remarks in New Hampshire along with another that his wife drank and had mental troubles had been planted by the Segretti team. Muskie never recovered from that news conference in February 1972, but in the long run, although Nixon could not know it as he savored his triumph in China, another step had been taken toward the Watergate scandal.19

  On the morning of Sunday, February 27, the Americans and the Chinese flew onward to Shanghai on Chou’s plane. A giant billboard in Chinese characters greeted them: “We Will Certainly Liberate Taiwan.” The American party was housed in the elegant Jinjiang Hotel, which had been built as the Grosvenor Mansions by the great tycoon Sir Victor Sassoon in the 1930s. Nixon was on the top floor, with Kissinger on the next floor down and Rogers and his State Department advisers below that. “The symbolism,” said Green, “escaped no one.”20

  The Americans found the city a pleasant change after the austerity of Beijing and Hangzhou. Shanghai, the great seaport that had been one of the main centers for foreign trade and investment before the Communist takeover, had been badly neglected by the Communists, who mistrusted its free and easy ways, its radical traditions, and its cosmopolitanism, but it still was, as one American journalist wrote, “a real city.” Even in 1972, women in Shanghai dared to wear lipstick and bright clothes. Its streets bustled with crowds, and its shops had a greater variety of goods than those in Beijing or Hangzhou. The Americans did not know the lengths to which the authorities had gone to tidy the city up; the locals had even been ordered to take their laundry in from the racks that hung outside each apartment.21

  The local authorities in the Shanghai Revolutionary Committee had prepared a full program for the Nixons. Pat Nixon watched children’s activities at the Shanghai Children’s Palace and was serenaded by a student band playing “Billy Boy.” “We study very hard in this place,” said her young guide, “and then go back to our schools and teach the others as Chairman Mao told us.” A weary Nixon was taken off to visit the Shanghai Industrial Exhibition, formerly the Sino-Soviet Friendship Building, to admire the products of Chinese industry. Machinery could be dangerous, Nixon said: “Sometimes when you push the button it does not turn out all right.” He inspected Chinese typewriters and an early computer. “I understand philosophy,” he commented to Chou, “but computers are too complicated for me.” Chou admitted that he did not understand them either, adding, “but you have to pay attention to them.” Nixon looked up at the giant portraits of Communist luminaries. “We don’t see many pictures of Engels in America,” he noted. He peered through a magnifying glass at a minuscule piece of ivory engraved with a famous poem of Mao’s about plum blossoms reaching their height of beauty just as they are about to disappear. Chou had quoted it to Nixon in Beijing and explained that it meant that those who start something may not always be there to enjoy the result. Although Nixon had taken the initiative to reestablish the United States’ relations with China, Chou had warned, “You may not be there to see its success.” “A very unlikely event,” Kissinger had interjected hastily.22

  While the Nixons were touring Shanghai, Kissinger was having one last meeting with Qiao on the communiqué. “Is there any new question your side would like to raise?” asked Qiao sardonically. There was not. Kissinger did, however, have a request. He hoped the Chinese would exercise discretion in the way they discussed the communiqué. “It would make the realization of our common objective immeasurably more difficult if Chinese domestic propaganda or Chinese foreign propaganda or Chinese friends were to represent this as a major American defeat, or as any American defeat.” Qiao nodded. Kissinger also wanted to alert the Chinese to a couple of things. He was probably going to have to visit Japan in the next few weeks. It would, however, be a visit of no particular significance. More important, he would be having a press conference with the American journalists later that afternoon in which he was bound to be asked some awkward questions—about, for example, whether he and Nixon had made any secret deals with the Chinese or about whether the communiqué included all the topics that had been discussed. The answer to both those questio
ns would, of course, be no. To general laughter, Kissinger added, “Wherever possible I will try to tell the truth.”

  The most difficult question he expected to get would be one about whether the American defense commitment to Taiwan was still in force. He was bound to say that, yes, the commitment was still valid, but he would do so in as low-key a way as possible. If any journalists tried to follow up, he would simply say that he was not prepared to make any further comment on such a sensitive issue while he was on China’s soil. “Are you certain this is what will happen?” asked Qiao. Kissinger, who had already planted the necessary question with a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, assured Qiao that he need not worry. Qiao said that he understood the difficulties the United States faced over its treaty with Taiwan and he was most grateful for Kissinger’s forewarning of how he intended to deal with the issue. “We can only express the hope that you will be as prudent as possible.”23

  At 5:30 in the afternoon, a tired and nervous Kissinger stood in the banquet hall of the Shanghai Industrial Exhibition to sketch out the main points of the communiqué for the assembled journalists. The reporters, who had been working long hours themselves filing stories back to the United States, were equally tired. Many had initially asked to stay on in China after Nixon left; when the rumor spread through their hotel later that night that Chinese officials were walking through their hotel to offer permission, they locked their doors in a panic.