Mao: The Unknown Story

As part of the recognition package, Nixon offered to get Peking into the UN straight away: “you would get the China seat now,” Kissinger told Chou when proposing this behind-the-scenes fix, adding that “the President wanted me to discuss this matter with you before we adopted a position.”

And there was more, including an offer to tell the Chinese everything about America’s dealings with Russia. Kissinger: “Specially, I am prepared to give you any information you may wish to know regarding any bilateral negotiations we are having with the Soviet Union on such issues as SALT [Strategic Arms Limitation Talks].” A few months later Kissinger told the Chinese: “we tell you about our conversations with the Soviets; we do not tell the Soviets about our conversations with you.”

Along with this came top-level intelligence. Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller was reported as being “almost mesmerised at hearing … the amount of sensitive information that we had made available to the Chinese.” The intelligence included information about Soviet troop deployments on China’s border.

Kissinger also made two commitments on Indochina: to pull out all US forces, mentioning a twelve-month deadline; and to abandon the South Vietnamese regime, promising to withdraw “unilaterally” even if there were no negotiations — and that US troops would not return. “After a peace is made,” Kissinger said, “we will be 10,000 miles away, and [Hanoi] will still be there.” Kissinger even made a promise that “most, if not all, American troops” would be out of Korea before the end of Nixon’s next term, without even trying to extract any guarantee that Mao would not support another Communist invasion of South Korea.

Mao was being given a lot, and on a platter. Kissinger specifically said that he was not asking China to stop giving aid to Vietnam, and Mao was not even requested to soften his bellicose anti-American tone, either in the world at large or during the meetings. The minutes show that Chou was hectoring (“you should answer that question … you must answer that question”), and constantly referring to “your oppression, your subversion, and your intervention.” He in effect suggested that Nixon must make more and more concessions for the privilege of coming to China, and being allowed to recognize Peking. Kissinger did not ask for reciprocal concessions. Chou’s outlandish claim that China was not “aggressive”—“because of our new [Communist] system,” no less — went unchallenged. And Chou’s reference to American “cruelties” in Vietnam earned no reproof about Mao’s cruelties in China. On a different occasion, when North Vietnam’s negotiator had obliquely criticized the Nixon administration, Kissinger had shot back: “You are the representative of one of the most tyrannical governments on this planet …” Now, Kissinger described Chou’s presentation as “very moving.”

When Mao heard the report of the first day’s talks, his ego soared, and he remarked to his top diplomats that America was “changing from monkey to man, not quite man yet, the tail is still there … but it is no longer a monkey, it’s a chimpanzee, and its tail is not very long.” “America should start its life anew,” he proclaimed, expanding on his Darwinian approach, viewing America as a slowly evolving lower primate. “This is evolution!” Chou, for his part, compared Nixon to a loose woman “tarting herself up and offering herself at the door.” It was now, during this first Kissinger visit, that Mao drew the conclusion that Nixon could be manipulated, and that Peking could get a lot out of America without having to modify its tyranny, or its anti-American ranting.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER KISSINGER’S secret visit, it was announced that Nixon had been invited to China and had accepted. Kissinger returned to Peking in October 1971 to prepare for the president’s visit. His second trip coincided with the annual UN vote on China’s seat, which Taiwan held, and the public presence in Peking of the president’s top adviser turned the tide. On 25 October, Peking displaced Taipei in the UN, giving Mao a seat, and a veto, on the Security Council.

This was just over a month after the flight and death of Lin Biao. The news that there had been a plot to kill him had left Mao in a state of deep depression. Taiwan’s defeat and Nixon’s coming visit lifted his spirits immeasurably. Laughing broadly and joking, he talked for nearly three hours in full flow to his top diplomats. Looking at the UN vote, he declared that: “Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Canada, Italy — they have all become Red Guards …”

Before China’s delegates left for the UN, Mao made a point of reminding them that they must continue to treat the USA as Public Enemy No. 1, and fiercely denounce it “by name, an absolute must.” He wanted to make his debut on the world stage as the anti-American champion, using the UN as a new platform.