REPARTEE WITH MAO

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The visit to Peking, writes Kissinger, "became the last normal diplomatic enterprise before Watergate engulfed us. "He returned to Peking nine months later, in November 1973. By then, a U.S. Congress that was increasingly challenging the authority of the President had voted to forbid all American military action in Indochina. With this prohibition, Kissinger notes, "our principal bargaining leverage was lost." As a result, an American proposal for a cease-fire in Cambodia was aborted—the Khmer Rouge had no need to negotiate for something that had already been handed to them by Congress—and Chou Enlai, who had agreed to lend China's weight to the proposal, was seriously embarrassed. The Chinese, says Kissinger, were "no longer sure of how steady or reliable a partner we would prove to be." Nonetheless, on Nov. 12, Mao again summoned Kissinger, along with two American colleagues and Chou, to a meeting.

Mao greeted us with his characteristic mocking, slightly demonic smile. He looked better than I had ever seen him, joking with my companions David Bruce and Winston Lord about Bruce's age (then 75), Lord's youth (36) and his own seniority over both of them. He was 79.

During this meeting Mao substituted precision for his characteristic allusions. He began by asking what Chou and I had been discussing.

"Expansionism," replied Chou, making clear that containing the Soviet Union remained the top priority for China. "Who's doing the expanding, him?" inquired Mao, pointing at me—as if all this were new to him and Chou had not been reporting daily. "He started it," answered Chou, "but others have caught up." Mao went along cheerfully with Chou's implication that the Soviets were now the principal threat, but he discouraged any undue sense of danger that might tempt accommodation. The Soviets' courage, he said, did not match their ambitions, as demonstrated during the Cuban missile crisis and America's alert during the previous month's Mideast war. He illustrated his contempt for Soviet leaders by the story of his enlustrated his contempt for Soviet leaders by the story of his encounter in 1969 with Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin, who had come uninvited to Peking airport to discuss the easing of Sino-Soviet tensions:

"I [told Kosygin] that I originally said this struggle was going to go on for 10,000 years. On the merit of his coming to see me in person, I will cut it down by 1,000 years. Another time [a Rumanian official] came also to speak on behalf of the Soviet Union. This time I again made a concession of 1,000 years. You see, my time limit is becoming shorter and shorter, and when the Rumanian President Ceauşescu came two years ago, and he again raised the issue, I said: 'This time I can make no more concessions.' " Committed now to a struggle of 8,000 years, the Chairman saw no point in tactical maneuvers. Of course, a million Soviet troops right up against the Chinese border discouraged thoughts of flexibility.