237. Memorandum From Alfred Jenkins of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant (Rostow)1
SUBJECT
- Is Mao Engaged in Tactical Backtracking?
Events of the last couple of days have the smell of something rather big having happened in Peking. Unquestionably an effort is being made to curb the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, at least for the present:
- —Red Guards have again been urged to return home and this time appear to be complying;
- —primary and secondary education are to be resumed;
- —widespread humiliation of errant leaders and cadre is to cease and reliable elements in the party apparatus are to be won over rather than attacked;
- —the military, having for the most part not responded to the plea to support revolutionary rebel take-over, is now moving in on the side of simply maintaining public order;
- —spring planting in the countryside is to be emphasized at the expense of political activity;
- —the xenophobic spree has been turned off like a faucet, at least for the present.
These developments follow a brief period wherein the Army was tested with far less than satisfactory results from the Maoist viewpoint. I believe this to have been only the last in a series of surprises for Mao concerning [Page 518] the magnitude of his opposition, as he has successively turned during the Cultural Revolution to the several major elements in the society. He has increasingly suffered from a classical phenomenon of a regime of this sort: the difficulty of receiving accurate reports, either from the home or the foreign front, which would often be unflattering to one who has been deified.
If because of the test results of the Cultural Revolution Mao is now forced to face reality and curb that Revolution far short of its goals, his prestige will again have suffered severely. Having built revolutionary fires, he may even find it difficult to lower the temperature of the Revolution to the desired degree. Animosity has obviously been greatly heightened among the split leadership and Mao’s methods in conducting the Revolution have contributed to sharpening the large opposition which he has progressively uncovered in each phase of the Revolution.
As Lin Piao’s activity and perhaps even prestige has sunk, Chou En-Lai’s has risen. However, while Lin is less obviously heir apparent, Chou is not yet in that role. Chou may be smart enough not to aspire to being heir apparent, when it is not now apparent what he would be inheriting! He is emerging stronger, but I still look upon him as a first class “DCM” to a “political appointee”—which may yet turn out to be a military self-appointee.
What can be said is that the forces of moderation (in domestic policy) are on the march and are not likely to be stopped. If those forces should coalesce and become articulate, I believe the peasants, the most important element not yet appreciably tested, may support them. For never have so many worked so hard for so little—after having been promised so much for so long.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, China, Vol. VIII. Confidential. Copies were sent to Jorden and Ropa. Rostow sent a copy to the President with a covering note of the same date. A handwritten “L” on the covering note indicates that it was seen by the President.↩