Chinese
marshal received Top Secret intelligence briefing from Kissinger
in 1972, member of four marshals who told Mao "play the American
card" in 1969
"History
Declassified: Nixon in China" premieres December 21, 2004, 10 p.m.
EST, on Discovery Times Channel (digital cable by Discovery and
the New York Times)
ABC News Productions based
show on National Security Archive documents,
Interviewed
Kissinger, Haig, Lord, Smyser, and China
Experts
Washington D.C., Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - The
first TV documentary based on the fully declassified record of
President Nixon's historic trip to China in 1972 premieres tonight
on the Discovery Times Channel at 10 p.m. EST. Titled "History
Declassified: Nixon in China," the show combines previously secret
U.S. documents gathered by the National Security Archive with
newly available evidence from Chinese files to reveal details of
the dramatic diplomacy that remained hidden for 30 years.
Shown on television for the first time are
the secret initiatives on the Chinese side that began as early as
1969, when a group of four marshals recommended that Chairman Mao
"play the American card" against the Soviet threat and even
undertake high-level talks with the U.S.
One of the four marshals then sat across from national security
advisor Henry Kissinger during the most secret single meeting of
the 1972 Nixon trip, when Kissinger briefed the Chinese in detail
on Soviet troop movements - details so sensitive even the U.S.
intelligence community was kept out of the loop. The transcript
only emerged in 2003 after appeals by the National Security
Archive. "My jaw dropped when I saw what these discussions had
covered," says Tom Jarriel, who reported on Nixon's trip for ABC
News, in the documentary.
Produced by ABC News Productions for the Discovery Times
Channel (the digital cable venture of Discovery Channel and the
New York Times), the documentary features interviews with
key players and eyewitnesses Henry Kissinger, Winston Lord, Dick
Smyser, Alexander Haig, James Lilley, and Jarriel, together with
commentary from China experts such as University of Virginia
professor Chen Jian and Georgetown University professor Nancy
Tucker, along with National Security Archive director Thomas
Blanton.
"The new documents are rewriting the history of that amazing
breakthrough, of what we thought we knew," comments Blanton on
screen in the program. "But the new evidence also serves as a
reminder of the use and abuse of government secrecy."
The Archive today posted ten of the documents cited in "History
Declassified: Nixon in China," including an excerpt from the four
marshals' report, transcripts of telephone calls (telcons) between
Nixon and Kissinger, a front page photograph in the People's
Daily intended by Mao as a signal to the Americans (which
they missed), and the transcript of Kissinger's 1972 intelligence
briefing to Marshal Ye Jianying.
Documents
Note:
Many of the following documents are in PDF format.
You will
need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
Document 1: Front page of People's Daily,
translation of Richard Nixon's inaugural address, 28 January
1969
Source: Library of
Congress
On the orders of Mao Zedong, People's Daily published
a translation of the full text of Nixon's inaugural address. In
the address, Nixon said, "Let all nations know that during this
administration our lines of communication will be open. We seek an
open world--open to ideas, open to the exchange of goods and
people--a world in which no people, great or small, will live in
angry isolation." Nixon may have intended this as a signal to
Beijing because in a Foreign Affairs article in 1967
discussing the need to normalize relations with China, he had
written "There is no place on this planet for a billion of its
potentially able people to live in angry isolation." By publishing
the inaugural address in Chinese, Mao was returning the signal,
although it remains to be seen if anyone at the White House
noticed it.
Document 2: Memorandum of conversation between
Ambassador Agha Hilaly and Harold H. Saunders, 28 August
1969
Source: Nixon Presidential
Materials Project. National Security Council Files. Box 1032.
Cookies II (Chronology of Exchanges with PRC Feb. 1969- April
1971)
This is a record of NSC staffer Harold Saunders' discussion
with Ambassador Hilaly of Nixon's meeting with Pakistani President
Yahya Khan during Nixon's trip to Asia on 1 August 1969. So far no
U.S. account of the meeting has surfaced but Ambassador Hilaly
debriefed Harold Saunders on the discussions several weeks later.
Hilaly's account of the meeting showed Nixon asking President
Yahya to "convey his feelings to the Chinese at the highest level"
that he believed that 1) "Asia can not move forward if a nation as
large as China remains isolated," and 2) the United States would
not be "party to any arrangements designed to isolate China." With
this conversation, Nixon had taken the first step toward opening a
secret channel through Pakistan that would later prove
decisive.
Document 3: Xiong Xianghui, "The Prelude to the
Opening of Sino-American Relations," Zhonggong dangshi
ziliao [CCP History Materials] No. 42 (June 1992),
excerpts
In the early 1990s, Xiong Xianghui published the first
historical account, along with documents, of a special study group
tasked by Chairman Mao in 1969 to review China's strategic policy.
Xiong, formerly an aide to Zhou Enlai, had been the secretary to
this group, which consisted of four marshals, senior military
figures who had been sent to inspect factories during the Cultural
Revolution. The four marshals first focused on relations with
Moscow just as the Sino-Soviet border clashes were breaking out;
although they saw the Soviets as dangerous, they doubted that
Moscow intended to launch war against China. After Lin Biao gave a
speech harshly attacking U.S. and Soviet imperialism, Mao asked
the marshals to think outside the box about U.S. and Soviet
policy. The four marshals initially doubted that the Soviets and
the Americans would act against China either separately or
jointly. When the border fighting intensified in August 1969,
marshals Chen Yi and Ye Jianying worried about a confrontation
with Moscow and proposed playing the "card of the United States."
In a separate report, Chen proposed high-level talks with the U.S.
in order to solve basic problems in the relationship. The fourth
line of the third page reproduced here includes the text about
playing the American card. (Note
1)
Document 4: Front page of People's Daily,
25 December 1970, showing from left, Edgar Snow, interpreter Ji
Chaozhu, Mao Zedong, and Lin Biao, at a reviewing stand facing
Tiananmen Square on 1 October 1970
Source: Library of Congress
In another attempt to signal to the U.S. government but also a
domestic audience about the need for a new relationship with the
United States, on 1 October 1970 (National Day), Mao had
journalist Edgar Snow stand by him at the Gate of Heavenly Peace
during the parade. Several months later, Snow met with Mao for
five hours of talks on 18 December 1970 during which the Chairman
said the following:
[T]he foreign ministry was studying the matter of
admitting Americans from the left, middle, and right to visit
China. Should rightists like Nixon, who represented the monopoly
capitalists, be permitted to come? He should be welcomed
because, Mao explained at present the problems between China and
the US would have to be solved with Nixon. Mao would be happy to
talk with him, either as a tourist or as
President.
A week later, perhaps to reaffirm that something was afoot with
Sino-American relations, People's Daily published a
picture of Mao and Snow from the National Day event. While the
China expert Allen Whiting proposed going to Switzerland to
debrief Snow about his trip to China and meetings with the
leadership, John Holdridge, the China expert on Kissinger's staff,
advised against that on the grounds that Snow was a leftist. Had
the debriefing gone ahead, Nixon could have learned that Mao had
invited him to China, months before Snow made it public in
Life magazine at the end of April 1971. (Note
2)
Document 5: Record of Nixon and Kissinger Telephone
Conversation (Telcon), April 14, 1971. With Hand-written
annotation, "April 18?" [April 14 date is accurate
because it is consistent with the events of the
day]
Source: Henry A. Kissinger Telephone
Conversation Transcripts (Telcons), Nixon Presidential Materials
Project, National Archives II, College Park, MD., box
29.
On April 14, 1971, only days after the visit of the U.S. ping
pong team to China, Nixon announced measures to liberalize trade
and travel restrictions affecting China. In this conversation,
Nixon and Kissinger discussed the press reaction to the initiative
as well as the possible impact of a new China policy on U.S.
relations with Chiang Kai-shek's Taiwan. While Nixon regretted
that the United States would have to let Taiwan down by developing
a relationship with China, he opined that "it better take place
when they've got a friend here rather than when they've got an
enemy here." As Kissinger put it, "we have to be cold about
it."
Document 6: Message from Zhou Enlai to Nixon, 21
April 1971, rec'd 27 April 1971, responding to Nixon's 16 December
1970 message
Source: Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National
Security Council files, box 1031, Exchanges Leading Up to HAK Trip
to China - December 1969-July 1971 (1)
Conveyed through the Pakistani channel, this message from Zhou
Enlai affirms the "willingness" of the Chinese government to
"receive publicly … a special envoy of the President of the U.S.
(for instance, Mr. Kissinger)" to make possible the "high-level"
talks needed to restore U.S.-China relations.
Document 7: Record of Nixon-Kissinger Telephone
Conversation, 27 April 1971 8:18 p.m.
Source: Record Group 59, Department of State Records.
Subject Files of the Office of People's Republic of China and
Mongolian Affairs, 1969-78. Box 4. 1969-71: Chinese Initiative -
Third Party Messages
Only a few hours after the Pakistanis delivered Zhou's message,
Nixon and Kissinger discussed possible candidates for the "special
envoy." Although Zhou had suggested Kissinger (as well as
Secretary of State Rogers and Nixon himself), Nixon mentioned a
number of candidates: Nelson Rockefeller, George H. W. Bush, and
Alexander Haig, among others -- but not Kissinger. It was not
until the next day that Nixon told Kissinger that he would be
going to China. Besides assessing candidates for special envoy,
Nixon and Kissinger also discussed the implications of the China
initiative for Vietnam. "We will end Vietnam this year," Kissinger
declared.
Documents 8A and B:
A: Message from Zhou Enlai to Nixon, 29 May 1971
(copy of original in Zhou's handwriting)
B: Message from Zhou to Nixon, 29 May 1971, with
commentary, as transmitted and copied by Ambassador Hilaly for the
White House
Source: Nixon Presidential Materials Project, NSC files,
box 1031, Exchanges Leading Up to HAK Trip to China - December
1969-July 1971 (1)
The possibility of a U.S. envoy arriving in Beijing became more
tangible with this message suggesting possible dates and means of
transportation, either Pakistani or Chinese aircraft. Zhou was not
convinced about the necessity for secrecy but offered to keep the
visit secret "if secrecy is still desired." Whatever the
circumstances were, Zhou wanted Nixon and Kissinger to know that
he "warmly looks forward to the meeting with Dr. Kissinger in
Beijing in the near future." (Note
3)
Document 9: Memorandum of conversation between
Kissinger and Zhou, 9 July 1971, 4:35-11:20 PM, with cover memo to
Kissinger, from Winston Lord, 29 July 1971
Source: Nixon Presidential Materials Project, NSC files,
box 1033, China HAK Memcons July 1971
Upon their arrival in Beijing, Kissinger and his party were
whisked away from the airport and taken to the Great Hall of the
People for a series of intensive meetings. The first one was
decisive because Kissinger made the assurances on Taiwan that the
Chinese saw as a precondition for normalization. During earlier
discussions with Kissinger, Nixon had been reluctant to give up
too much ground on Taiwan but he knew that the success of the trip
depended on U.S. admission that it did not seek "two Chinas" or a
"one China, one Taiwan solution." In this conversation, Kissinger
did not accept Zhou's formulation that "Taiwan was a part of
China" but he nevertheless tilted toward it by declaring that "we
are not advocating a 'two Chinas' solution or a 'one China, one
Taiwan' solution." Kissinger also stated that "as a student of
history, one's prediction would have to be that the political
evolution is likely to be in the direction which Premier Zhou
Enlai indicated to me," that is, the restoration of Taiwan to
China. Kissinger's declaration on Taiwan prompted Zhou to say what
he had not yet said, that he was optimistic about Sino-American
rapprochement: "the prospect for a solution and the establishment
of diplomatic relations between our two countries is hopeful."
Document 10: Memorandum of conversation, 23 February
1972, 9:35 a.m.
Source: Nixon
Presidential Materials Project, NSC Files, HAK Office Files, box
92, Dr. Kissinger's Meetings in the PRC During the Presidential
Visit February 1972
The possibility of a Nixon trip to China had been reaffirmed
during Kissinger's secret visit. During the months between the
secret visit and Nixon's February 1972 trip, Kissinger tilted U.S.
policy closer and closer to China in order to strengthen the U.S.
posture toward the Soviet Union. As a sign that the United States
was committed to friendly relations with Beijing, during the Nixon
visit, Kissinger provided Marshal Ye Jianying, one of the four
marshals (see
document 3) with a top secret intelligence briefing
on Soviet force deployments at the Chinese border. As Kissinger
pointed out, the briefing was so secret that not even senior U.S.
intelligence officials knew about it. (Note
4)
Notes
1. Chen Jian, Mao's China and the Cold
War (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2001),
245-249. The first English-language publication of the four
marshals' story was in Chen Jian and David Wilson, "All Under the
Heavens is Great Chaos': Beijing, the Sino-Soviet Border Clashes,
and the Turn Toward Sino-American Rapprochement," Bulletin of the Cold War International History
Project 11 (Winter 1998): 155-175.
2. Chen Jian, Mao's China, 254-259;
Raymond Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet
Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, D.C., Brookings
Institution, 1994), 254-255.
3. For discussion of Zhou's letter, see Chen
Jian, Mao's China, 265.
