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Sprinkled among the talks on substantive issues will be numerous diversions, and the White House task force charged with entertainment for Teng and Co. has been under heavy siege. Soon after the President announced Teng's visit earlier this month, a fierce scramble began for invitations to the Jan. 29 state dinner. Carter was sharply criticized for his decision to invite Nixon, although he explained he did so on the ground that the disgraced ex-President had pioneered U.S. rapprochement with China. But by issuing the invitation, Carter managed to discourage Teng from his desire to visit Nixon at San Clemente. A quarrel also developed in the White House over whether to invite Ted Kennedy. Though the Senator had long been an advocate of normalization of relations with China, some of Carter's advisers were loath to let their chief share the glory with a potential rival for the presidency. They were decisively overridden by Vance, who insisted that Kennedy be seated among the 130 invited guests, who included Mondale, Kissinger, congressional leaders, Harvard Sinologist John Fairbank, Writer Theodore White, United Auto Workers President Douglas Fraser.
White House staffers could scarcely attend to preparations for the summit meetings, so besieged were they by calls from would-be banqueters. "People will kill for a ticket to the state dinner," declared one amused businessman. Sighed a senior White House official: "If we invited everyone who claims an undeniable right to come, we'd have to hold the damn thing in the Capital Center"—a reference to Washington's 19,000-seat sports arena.
Crowning the Teng festivities in Washington this week is a gala entertainment at the Kennedy Center for the Vice Premier and 600 selected guests, including Washington's Government and business elite. They will view the ballet Rodeo and excerpts from the Broadway musical Eubie and hear John Denver sing his country songs. One Washington wag suggested that Teng would probably prefer a show performed exclusively by Russian defectors: Dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov and ex-Moscow Philharmonic Conductor Kiril Kondra-shin, for example.
Teng's determination to modernize China's backward industry by the year 2000 led him to request tours of the advanced technology production lines for which U.S. industry is celebrated. During a 24-hr, swing through Georgia, he will visit the Ford Motor Co.'s assembly plant near Atlanta. His tour guide: Henry Ford II. Dinner that night at the mansion of Georgia Governor George Busbee will feature spinach soufflé, thinly sliced veal and vanilla mousse—all foods especially selected for eaters unskilled in the use of a knife and fork.