Mao: The Unknown Story

Nine days before Nixon was scheduled to arrive in China on 21 February 1972, Mao passed out, and came very close to death. The prospect of Nixon’s imminent arrival helped to restore him. New shoes and clothes were made for him, as his body had become swollen. The sitting-room where he was to receive Nixon had been converted into a makeshift ward, with a large bed and medical facilities. Staff moved some of these out of the room, and screened off the bed and the other medical equipment. The vast room was lined with old books, which impressed the Americans, who did not know that many were loot from brutal house raids in the not-so-distant past.

On the morning when Nixon arrived, Mao was tremendously excited, and kept checking on the president’s progress. As soon as he heard that Nixon had reached the guest house, the Imperial Fishing Villa, Mao said he wanted to see him, straightaway. Nixon was getting ready to take a shower, when Chou, behaving “slightly impatiently,” Kissinger noted, hustled them to be on their way.

During the relatively brief 65-minute meeting (the only one between Nixon and Mao on this trip), Mao parried every attempt to engage him in serious issues. This was not because he had been ill, but because he did not want to leave a record of his positions in the hands of the Americans. Nothing must damage his claim to be the global anti-American leader. He had invited Nixon to Peking to promote that claim, not to waive it. So when Nixon proposed discussing “current issues like Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea,” Mao acted as if he were above such lesser chores. “Those questions are not questions to be discussed in my place,” he said, conveying an impression of lofty detachment. “They should be discussed with the Premier,” adding that: “All those troublesome problems I don’t want to get into very much.” Then he cut the Americans short by saying: “As a suggestion, may I suggest you do a little less briefing?” When Nixon persisted in talking about finding “common ground” and building a “world structure,” Mao ignored him, turned to Chou to ask what time it was, and said: “Haven’t we talked enough now?”

Mao was especially careful not to pay Nixon any compliments, while Nixon and Kissinger both flattered Mao fulsomely. Nixon told Mao: “The Chairman’s writings moved a nation and have changed the world.” Mao returned no thanks and made only one, condescending, comment on Nixon: “Your book, Six Crises, is not a bad book.”

Instead, Mao used banter to put Nixon and Kissinger down, exploring how much they would swallow. When Nixon said: “I have read the Chairman’s poems and speeches, and I knewhe was a professional philosopher,” Mao turned away to look at Kissinger, and started this exchange.

MAO: He is a doctor of philosophy?

NIXON: He is a doctor of brains.

MAO: What about asking him to be the main speaker today?

Mao kept disrupting his exchanges with Nixon to make remarks like: “We two must not monopolise the whole show. It won’t do if we don’t let Dr. Kissinger have a say.” This transgressed both protocol and common politeness, and was definitely slighting Nixon. Mao would never have dared to talk this way to Stalin. But, having upgraded Kissinger at Nixon’s expense, Mao did not really invite Kissinger’s views. He merely engaged in repartee about Kissinger using “pretty girls as a cover.”

Mao clearly felt he could push Nixon quite far. At the end of the visit there was to be a joint communiqué. Mao dictated one in which he could denounce America. “Aren’t they talking peace, security … and what not?” he said to Chou. “We will do the opposite and talk revolution, talk liberating the oppressed nations and people all over the world …” So the communiqué took the form of each side stating its own position. The Chinese used their space for a tirade against America (though not by name). The American side did not say one word critical of Mao’s regime, going no further than a vague and much qualified platitude about supporting “individual freedom.”

IN SPITE OF all his efforts to come across as the champion of anti-Americanism, Mao caught a lot of flak from his old allies. The fiercest came from Albania, which mattered to Mao because it was the only Eastern European regime he had detached from Russia’s orbit. Albania’s dictator, Hoxha, penned Mao a nineteen-page letter expressing his fury over what he called “this shitty business.” Actually, Hoxha cunningly used rhetoric to extract colossal amounts of extra aid, basically saying: You are consorting with the enemy, but you can buy our silence for more money. Mao paid up.