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(Kissinger's chop means "Henry Carrier Pigeon.") Kissinger has been the American impresario for the China trip. But in Peking this week, he stays discreetly in the background physically, saving himself for long sessions with the President. He has a remarkable facility for deferring to the President in any public setting. The word is that Secretary of State William Rogers is handling the detailed negotiations for people-to-people contacts that will come out of the visit, while the President and Kissinger direct overall policy. It is something of a slight for Rogers, who has not even been taken along to meet Mao, but he has been slighted in protocol terms so often that his role is different from what is commonly expected of a Secretary of State. He is a gentle, loyal man who serves Nixon and he accepts his role with grace and good humor—at least in public.
The Premier arrives on the dot of 2 p.m. and is greeted by Nixon, who has been waiting outside the guesthouse where he is staying—a two-story buff brick abode filled with overstuffed chairs, paintings of public works projects and calligraphy by Mao. The pair walk quickly into the first-floor conference room and sit opposite each other at a long table covered with green. As the photographers jostle each other, clicking away, Chou laughs and says: "You must take more pictures of your President." Nixon apparently doesn't get the subtle humor or maybe he does. "Pictures are very effective," he replies.
At the arena is color of dress, color in competition. Nixon turns to his party, gesturing, pointing. Even Kissinger, way down to the left of the President, is looking intently and laughing. The audience is as disciplined as the performers; people clap almost in unison. The arena has a curious regimentation, to be sure, but color is a start. One wonders if there is not an elemental force, just as clear and sure as the day Thomas Jefferson wrote about it in the Declaration of Independence, for the U.S. And one wonders further if in the end it won't come out, no matter what, won't sweep all the Mao restraints and sameness and repression in front of it.
Fourth Day
Again, talks with Chou. The visit to the Great Wall. For Americans, the Great Wall is the wonder that is worth the journey. Richard Nixon finds it so today as he walks along the ramparts on a sun-filled morning freshened by the remains of a snowfall. Nixon brings no cavalry with lances and banners. Instead he carries his electronic entourage; television cameras, soundmen and still photographers record his every move along the winding, massive fortification that was first linked together in the third century B.C. and today stretches 1,684 miles across China.