(2 of 2)
> Kissinger is said to have spent 20 of his 49 hours in Peking talking to Premier Chou. That is nothing extraordinary. One of several interview-conversations I had with him lasted from the dinner table one evening until six the next morning. I was exhausted, he seemingly as fresh as ever. "I must let you get some sleep," I mumbled. He threw back his head and laughed. "I've already had my sleep. Now I'm going to work." His night's rest had been a cat nap before dinner.
> Chou's affable manner masks viscera of tough and supple alloys; he is a master of policy and implementation with an infinite capacity for detail. Chou quickly cuts to the heart of matters, drops the impractical, dissimulates when necessary and never gambles—without four aces. In talks I have had with China's two great men, it usually is Chou who meticulously answers the main questions and Mao who enlarges the broad and dialectical view. He is a builder, not a poet.
> Whatever the Chinese may think of Nixon's motives, he has earned their appreciation by the courtesy of coming to see them, thereby according prestige to Mao Tse-tung and amour-propre to the whole people. Vassal kings of the past brought tributes to Peking, but never before the head of the world's most powerful nation.