68. Notes on a Conversation Between Secretary of State Kissinger and Time Incorporated Editors and Correspondents1
[Omitted here are Kissinger’s statements about wiretaps, Secretary Schlesinger, and the Soviet Union.]
China in dealing with us has been meticulous but there has been no advance. When I was there in November I committed a fantastic faux pas when I started talking about Confucious with the Chinese.2 [Page 458] They got excited and it led to a ½ hr argument with Chou taking the lead, arguing it had nothing to do with their world. We can now see this still is an issue.
There is enormous instability in China. Their Ambassador has been called back for months, now. Still, Mao is associated with our steps toward normalizing and Chou is the primary actor.
Whenever I read over what Mao has said to me I realize his enormous intellectual discipline. Even his jokes have meaning. He told me a joke, I missed the point and responded with one of my own. He repeated his joke, and I told another. Then for the third time he repeated his joke, to make sure I did not miss the meaning. He and Chou are integrally linked to an improved US-China relationship. It has its benefits. Thus Kosh was released on the Tuesday after we said on Friday that we expected him to be released.3
The internal problems of China are eating at the leadership. Their obsession with the Soviets is greater now than in any of my previous visits. All foreigners are in trouble. An Algerian dance group got into bureaucratic difficulty and cancelled out. Only a Canadian symphony carried through their visit. Our LO is confined to contacts with officials. A diplomat invited a Chinese official to lunch and was told he was unavailable that day or any other day.
- Source: Department of State, RG 59, Lot 89 D 436, Papers of William H. Gleysteen, Box 8132, PRC Related Papers, Jan–Mar 1974. No classification marking. Drafted by George Vest, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State for Press Relations.↩
- In the third volume of his memoirs, Kissinger says that this exchange occurred during a dinner in the Great Hall of the People. (Henry Kissinger, Years of Renewal, pp. 160–161) No record of the dinnertime conversation was found. For the unsuccessful effort by the NSC staff to verify this anecdote, see Solomon to Scowcroft, March 6, 1974; National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 528, Country Files, Far East, People’s Republic of China, Vol. 9, Jan 1, 1974–. Confucianism also became a topic of conversation during a couple of Kissinger’s more formal November 1973 meetings, although neither fits the description here. See Documents 56 and 57.↩
- See footnote 2, Document 66.↩