Mao: The Unknown Story

Mao’s disenchantment immediately became apparent to the Americans. Meetings were canceled by the Chinese side, and cooperation sagged. Sino-US relations became “substantially frozen,” Kissinger noted, and his next trips to China “either were downright chilly or were holding actions.” He did not see Mao for two years, and, unbeknownst to Kissinger, Mao was constantly bad-mouthing him to his close circle, and even to ex-British prime minister Heath in 1974: “I think Henry Kissinger is just a funny little man. He is shuddering all over with nerves every time he comes to see me.” On 21 October 1975, when Kissinger saw Mao again, to negotiate a visit by Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, he offered American military assistance, clearly expecting that Mao was still interested. But Mao brushed the offer away: “As for military aspects, we should not discuss that now.” When Ford visited China later that year, Mao was amicable, but uninvolved.

MAO’S FURY AND disappointment were mainly vented on Chou. During Kissinger’s watershed visit, in November 1973, the secretary of state noticed that Chou “seemed uncharacteristically tentative”; “the old bite and sparkle were missing.” As soon as Kissinger left, Chou’s subordinates in the Foreign Ministry, including close associates who had worked with him for decades, were forced to attack him to his face for weeks on end, for alleged failings in dealing with the Americans. Chou’s cancer had just returned, and he was passing large quantities of blood in the midst of these sessions. Mao kept himself informed about Chou’s miserable state through two young female upstarts in the Foreign Ministry who enjoyed an intimate relationship with him: one was his niece, the other his English-language interpreter, Nancy Tang.

Mao also unleashed his wife, who accused Chou of “capitulating” to the Americans. When Chou tried to defend himself, she interrupted him: “You really are a blatherer!”

During these weeks of torment, Chou kept working. On 9 December he was present when Mao met Nepal’s king and queen. After the royal couple left, Mao said to Chou with a smirk: “Premier, haven’t you been having a tough time being done in?” “The premier is really pitiful. Done in so sorrily by these few hussies.” When Chou left, the “hussies”—Mao’s niece and Nancy Tang — berated Mao: “How can you possibly say this about us?” Mao acted coquettish: “But it’s true, it’s all your doing!” He was having fun tormenting Chou.

An official photograph was published of the meeting with the Nepalese, which shows Chou sitting on a hard chair normally reserved for a junior interpreter, on the edge of an arc of armchairs for the distinguished. This was more than petty humiliation. In the Communist world, placement was the most potent signal of a top leader’s rise or fall. People began to avoid Chou’s staff.

Eventually, Mao passed the word that Chou was not to be hounded further. Having played with Chou’s dignity and energy, Mao still wanted to have his services on call. Chou’s last major contribution to Mao’s foreign policy was to supervise the seizure from South Vietnam in January 1974, of the strategic Paracel (aka Xisha) Islands in the South China Sea, before they fell into the hands of Peking’s Vietnamese “comrades.”

At this time, Chou was losing so much blood that he needed twice-weekly transfusions. The blood often clogged his urethra so that he could not pass urine, and his doctors saw him jumping up and down and rolling from side to side in agony, trying to loosen the coagulated blood. Even in this state, he was still pursued. During one transfusion, a message came summoning him to a Politburo meeting at once. His physician asked for twenty minutes’ grace to finish the transfusion. Minutes later, another note appeared under the door, this time from Chou’s wife, saying: Please tell the premier to go. Chou showed only a flicker of anger as he said: Pull the needle out! As the doctors learned later, there was nothing urgent.

The doctors’ entreaty to Mao for proper surgery met with a brutal reply on 9 May 1974: “Operations are ruled out for now. Absolutely no room for argument.” Mao intended to let the tumor eat Chou to death unimpeded. Chou himself then practically begged, via the four top leaders designated by Mao to supervise his medical “care.” At this point, Mao reluctantly gave his consent: “Let him see Tun Razak and then we’ll talk about it.” Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, was due at the end of the month, and Chou went into the hospital on 1 June — after he had signed the communiqué establishing diplomatic relations with Malaysia. It was only now that he was allowed his first proper operation, two years after his cancer had been diagnosed. This delay made sure that he died nineteen months later, and before Mao.