Nixon in China by Margaret Macmillan

Author:Margaret Macmillan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PENGUIN GROUP (CANADA)

13

Getting Ready

IN FEBRUARY 1972, Ron Walker, head of the White House advance team, arrived in China with his party of nearly a hundred technicians and specialists to prepare for Nixon’s visit. They took with them tons of equipment and emergency supplies, from American toilet paper to whisky, to a world where there were, in those days, no ice cubes, no telexes and no hamburgers. They found the Chinese hospitable, polite and very concerned to make the Nixon trip a success. What exactly did the President eat for lunch? What temperature would he like his villa to be?

Both sides found their new relationship challenging, occasionally difficult and frequently bewildering. What, asked a young interpreter who had heard the Americans’ favourite song, ‘American Pie’, did the line about the Father, Son and Holy Ghost mean? An American who tried to explain was startled when the interpreter said she had never heard of Jesus. From time to time, the Chinese joined the Americans to watch movies brought out from the United States, such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. One day, to much embarrassment, a Chinese official walked in on a showing of The Graduate, just as Mrs Robinson was undressing. There were potentially more serious incidents, like the evening a homesick technician smoked too much of the marijuana and drank too much of the vodka he had brought with him and set his hotel room on fire.1

Walker, codenamed Road Runner after the hyperactive cartoon character, was used to dropping in on cities and towns around the world and bullying and cajoling the locals to make sure that every detail for a presidential visit, including thorough press coverage, was in place. This time, he complained to Washington that he was finding it hard to get clear answers to all his demands and questions. When the Chinese head of protocol demurred over a particular arrangement, Walker snapped back, ‘I don’t give a rat’s ass what you say, we’re going to do it this way. We always do it this way.’ The Chinese was puzzled: ‘What’s a rat’s ass?’ When it gradually dawned on him, there was a major crisis and a senior official had to fly out from Washington to smooth everything over.2 The agreement that Nixon would visit China was the first, most important step, but there were many times in the next few months when it looked as though the visit might never take place. The minuet, in Kissinger’s description, was performed on the edge of a cliff, by dancers who were never quite sure what moves others were about to make.

After Kissinger’s first secret visit, the Chinese and the Americans used the Paris channel to talk about everything from refuelling the American aircraft to relations with the Soviet Union. In October, Kissinger travelled back to Beijing, this time openly, as the Chinese had requested, to start drafting the joint communiqué which was to be issued by both sides at the conclusion of the President’s visit and to continue work on the arrangements for Nixon’s trip.

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