Assignment: China - "The Week That Changed The World"

this very moment through the wonder of telecommunications more people are seeing and hearing what we say than on any other such occasion in the whole history of the world the announcement I shall now read is being issued simultaneously in Peking and in the United States [Music] you [Music] here's the way it was when the president began his great adventure in Washington this morning ABC's Sam Donaldson reporting it was gloomy and cold with snow threatening but an Arctic blizzard couldn't have dampened President Nixon's high spirits on this morning on a chilly day in February 1972 President Richard Nixon the ultimate anti-communist cold warrior left Washington for Beijing the heart of communist China the government of the People's Republic of China in the government of the United States have had great differences we will have differences in the future but what we must do is to find a way to see that we can have differences without being enemies in war for the President and the reporters accompanying him the China trip was a journey into the unknown I just found myself thinking what is President Nixon getting into what is the United States of America getting into and what are we journalists getting into and then you know what am I getting into with his on Air Force One Nixon staffers including Dwight Chapin who managed the president's schedule had set up a TV to watch live coverage of the departure they well understood how important the press was to the success of the trip we always had a purpose the purpose would underscore a presidential initiative and coupled with that would be what you would call a media plan and we would figure out what we would want to have be the headline the picture the story and the caption the story here was Richard Nixon trying to counter the Soviet Union and perhaps help the u.s. extricate itself from the war in Vietnam reversing two decades of American hostility to Mao Zedong's China [Applause] the cautious rapprochement had begun a year earlier in April 1971 when the Chinese suddenly invited an American ping-pong team competing at a tournament in Japan to visit Beijing and allowed a handful of American reporters to cover the trip among them NBC's longtime Asia correspondent John rich it's been an incredible afternoon Chinese cheering Americans clapping hands Americans and Chinese holding hands a remarkable display of warmth and goodwill I knew that would when your street point even invited in it I knew that was a big change and that was an important story I realized it was a big move on their part that they wanted to improve relations with her with the u.s. three months later President Nixon sent his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger in utmost secrecy to Beijing at the invitation of premier Joanne ly the hope was to arrange a presidential visit Winston Lord accompanied Kissinger we were adding uncharted waters we hadn't had any contact with the Chinese for over two decades we had been at war in Korea we had constant propaganda exchanges and mutual isolation and so there was a chance that this trip would not be successful obviously Nixon and Kissinger were terrified news of the trip would leak out to reporters so to raise expectations and have all this drama never go down the tubes would have been unfortunate but more specifically if word got out in advance first in the United States those who were fiercely against any reproach multi Chinese and the clothes I want lobby would be you know invading the White House and pressuring us either to call it off or constraining what we could do but kissinger's mission remained secret until Nixon's stunning announcement that he would visit China knowing of President Nixon's expressed desire to visit the People's Republic of China premier Chou Enlai on behalf of the government of the People's Republic of China has extended an invitation to President Nixon to visit China at an appropriate date before May 1972 President Nixon has accepted the invitation with pleasure this represented extraordinary breakthrough with a great diplomatic gamble from the start Nixon was obsessed that the press with which he had a famously hostile relationship would sabotage his China initiative even during Kissinger secret trip Nixon was furious at the New York Times Times columnist James Reston had been in China at the same time and had been granted an interview with premier Joanne ly Jo said nothing about Kissinger's presence but an angry Nixon in a conversation he secretly recorded with his aides ordered a White House freeze on all contact with The Times I want the goddamn staff to understand that the blackout on the time just total we are not going to get anything out of Reston except the bad shaken he did us in he did his best to do us in he didn't turn out that way particularly schoeneweis cooperation max Frankel was then The Times Washington bureau chief when they published the interview with Joe and Lai Reston had dared to ask the Chinese how they felt about having this classic read Bader now becoming their negotiating partner and Nixon read that and decided in his particularly paranoid manner that this was that they're going to sabotage my my new relationship with China by calling me a red betteru yet as the China visit approached the White House knew the press coverage was crucial the Chinese however had their own doubts about the US media yahweh was then a young official at the chinese foreign ministry's information department we had the korean war between US and china and animosity of the Cold War China of course was suspicious of everything the US a lot of people are still very skeptical I suspicious for the president above all and for Kissinger they wanted this dramatic event to be covered as widely as possible by the American media not to mention the worldly view the Chinese of course have been incredibly paranoiac and secretive and controlling the press completely and never been used to having poppy any more than one press attache a company of hon leader so you had these two cultural and political giants of clashing here head phooey was a senior producer at the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and the Chinese were very very limiting in how many journalists were able to go so on a normal presidential trip in those days you'd have 150 200 journalists some technicians some other other people not not all reporters but on this trip the Chinese severely limited the number after difficult negotiations conducted primarily by Kissinger himself Beijing agreed to visas for 87 US journalists and several dozen technicians they were exchanges semi humorous in which Kissinger would joke about we're invading them with a meteor army and I don't think they had a clue I don't think they had any idea what was about to fall upon him Ron Walker was Nixon's chief advanced man responsible for setting up all presidential events in the weeks before Nixon's departure he made two trips to China trying to work out every detail including how to deal with the press we totally they're going to be obnoxious they're going to get here they're going to want to cover this they're going to want to do this they're going to want to do that and you've got to set the ground rules we'll help you will help enforce it but you've got accommodate us as we'll try and help accommodating you meanwhile in newsrooms across America there was intense jockeying among reporters desperate to get on the historic trip Dirk Halsted was a photographer for United Press International we're talking about people who would very happily push their own mothers under the wheels of the plane I to get on that trip they had limited numbers of places for the news media so as the trip closer and the interest built in New York suddenly there are non technicians vice presidents presidents executive producers all jumping on the band bandwagon and signing on as sound men electricians Richard Solomon was a China specialist on Kissinger staff the American press and media officials were crawling over themselves one when young lady approached someone in the administration and said only half-joking who do I have to sleep with to get on the Nixon China trip for his part Nixon vowed to exclude reporters from the newspapers he most disliked the New York Times and The Washington Post Nixon had said nobody from The Times somebody on his staff whether Kissinger or other saner heads said you can't do that this is the International newspaper etc and somehow they prevailed and he reluctantly allowed one seat for China Stanley Carnot had been the Washington Post chief Asia correspondent Nixon doesn't want me on the trip because I'm working for the Washington Post he doesn't like the Washington Post so I'll show you the list with Nixon's handwriting running through my name absolutely not eventually Nixon's press secretary Ron Ziegler and his chief of staff HR Haldeman convinced the president he could not keep Carnot off the China trip it would not be unlike him to say dammit we're not going to let him go on that trip to China then that would start a process he would say dammit he's not going to go on that trip to China and he would say that to Ziegler Ron would wait a couple of days go back to Haldeman and say you know we really can't do that this is not right and Haldeman would go back in and raise it with mr. Nixon President Nixon and he'd say well you know that's how I felt but you know if he's got to go he's gotta go with less than a month before Nixon's departure however the White House and the cha knees had not been able to agree on key questions concerning the press including how the army of reporters would file their stories we took in three scenarios the first scenario was bringing in three 747s where the network could file and and the wires photos could be moved the next scenario was to bring in three transmission trucks large football kinds of that we could run satellites around town the third one was a model of a transmission center for reasons of national pride the Chinese rejected Walker's first two ideas but in just three weeks they built their own transmission center which the u.s. TV network pool then equipped ABC news producer Robert Seigenthaler was the pool coordinator they built to our specifications a television station just won't totally unfurnished and the u.s. pool took a 707 full of television equipment and that's how we arrived in China as Nixon set out for China a half dozen reporters made up the White House pool traveling with him on Air Force One we had two other newspaper guys and a camera crew the accommodations were on pool on Air Force one were strictly coach we had a desk a table in front four seats facing each other and no place to sleep technicians set on a couple of seats in the back so you really didn't want to be pool on Air Force One it was a chore except when chair for was one is heading to Shanghai and then on to Peking then without Holy Cal we're going to be among the first there the rest of the press corps traveled on two specially chartered planes they had to 707s that the White House had chartered one was a TWA 707 and that was named knee Hal one eye which is Chinese for hello and a second plane was a Pan Am clipper and that was named knee how to I that they had to start worried about well who was going to be on which plane and of course reporters all Dini how one is the plane that they wanted to be on crossing the Pacific the mood on board was almost giddy it was pretty much a party atmosphere of you know wow I'm finally aboard the plane we're going to China China closed for all these years it was a little bit the feeling we're leaving Earth and going deep into the cosmos of some distant planet I knew nothing about China nobody had any idea what it really looked like it really was like going in the moon what are we going to see we had no idea what to expect Barbara Walters of NBC's Today Show had her own anxieties she was one of only three women reporters making the trip and had little experience covering foreign affairs when I was asked to go and cover it for NBC I was amazed scared because I'd never been in the level you know with the big guys with the Eric severide's and the Teddy White and the water Cronkite's and so on Cronkite of course was the anchor of the CBS Evening News Eric severide was one of CBS's most famous correspondence and commentators and Theodore White had covered China in the 1940s for Time magazine but White was the exception most of the reporters knew little of China their perceptions shaped by nearly a quarter century of isolation and hostility most of the guys on the reporters on a trip knew nothing about China they knew nothing up until then the idea was mad Satan ate babies for breakfast so to speak there had been this exaggerated caricature of the way the Chinese were that they had dia that the communist system had essentially dehumanized as Air Force One descended towards Beijing Nixon and his staff were well aware of how crucial the first TV images would be in setting the tone for the entire trip central number one we knew the war I was going to see this event and it was going to be huge because we were opening a door to a billion people that had been isolated and the president said this is just this is just not good so everything we did was for that was for that camera well it was very clear that upon arrival that we would have the president and mrs. Nixon down that stairs and that that picture with Cho and Lai would be an incredibly important picture I mean that that was the establishing shot in virtually every newspaper the next morning waiting at Beijing Airport the reporters to wondered about the moment I was you know I had in mind John Foster Dulles refusal in the 1954 Vietnam conference his refusal to shake Joanne lies hand and so I was particularly eat straining to see Nixon shaking Joanne lies hand at the airport and I remember having to struggle to get it to get the right view of that because I was going to make a point of it in my story the arrival was broadcast live by all the American networks I felt what I always feel and find like a great relief that I was working I'm not sure I I don't think I had a view that this was a wonderful historical occasion I mean to me and the may have been in the back of my party but I in black of my head but I was very grateful that the plane stopped where we had been told it would stop what the reporters didn't know was that even the choice of color for Pat Nixon's coat had been made with the cameras in mind we knew that everything was all in that muted grays and brown and greens that that army green and so forth the only thing in red were the propaganda signs that said you know rung it running capitalist pigs or something that we're anti-american so the idea came you know let's mrs. Nixon oughta wherever she needed a heavy coat because it's February and a red coat might be really sets it apart and make a statement and it did mrs. Nixon's coat caused a problem for CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite he told me just before the plane pulled up to a stop he told me and the engines were running so he had a show he said I'm I'm colorblind tell me what color Pat Nixon's coat is if it's either greener or pink because I'm colorblind between those two colors and so I said fine and as it happened she indeed was wearing a pink coat coming off the plane apart from premier Joe a handful of other officials the Chinese Army Band and a guard of honour which Nixon reviewed the welcome was decidedly low-key and it remained so as Nixon his entourage and the press corps headed into Beijing our ride into town and and what it was like the fact that there were not people lined up in the street the fact that there were no Chi is this was an airport ceremony unlike any I had ever experienced in a foreign country you know there were no welcomed Nixon signs there were no people lining the streets to see him come in it was like sliding in the back door in the middle of the night for a president used to pomp pageantry in crowds the austere reception left Nixon's aides and a skeptical press wondering about the prospects for the visit in Tiananmen Square in front of the gate of heavenly peace there was no large buildup of people we set up cameras in Tiananmen Square and as we went through that camera went well because we flew right through there wasn't one person on the street when the Nixon motorcade came into Tynan square you would have expected that the site of a big American limousine couple of limousines and all the the escort vehicles that were growing by with the American flag flying from the you know flying from the fender that that would have attracted some attention it did not would you ask these people why they have come to Tienanmen square this morning hi yes come when you went to the tea gave us camera Kazuma whatever console Ella and our Louisville is passing by nearby the Chinese had set up a filing Center Henry Brad shirt one of the few genuine China hands making the trip was the now-defunct Washington Stars Hong Kong correspondent they had set up a good system they had lots of teletype operators there you wrote your stuff up on a typewriter and handed it to him they say it out that was standard and that all over the world at that time this was before you had any better communications you couldn't took telephone stories out telephone lines weren't be good you just had to type on the centum Nixon was taken to the Diaoyu ties state guesthouse the official schedule called for arrests followed by a formal meeting and then a banquet with Joanne Lai our after we got to the guest house and landed me being Nixon Kissinger the rest of us to our surprise Joe and like came back and said - kissing - and I was there the Chairman would like to see the president right away now this caught us off guard joined line just came and took the president and Henry we have one agent with him and we had no clue as to where he was going the invitation was for Nixon Kissinger and one notetaker Kissinger brought his assistant Winston Lord William Rogers Nixon Secretary of State although on the China trip was excluded as he had been throughout the negotiations that led to the visit part of an ongoing power struggle between Kissinger and the State Department over who would control the management of the president's foreign policy the meeting with Mao lasted an hour the two leaders talking mostly in generalities but the mere fact it took place meant Mao had given his blessing to a new relationship with the US we were delighted as a beginning because this was saying to the Chinese audiences and the cadres and the people and the world that even not knowing how the negotiations on the communique and everything else on the trip was going to come out he was putting his positive stamp on it but Lords participation in the meeting and the exclusion of Secretary of State Rogers had created an embarrassing PR problem for Nixon and Kissinger after it's finished the Chinese come in with a communique saying about who was there including myself and pictures of all of us and Nixon and Kissinger said to Joe and I and to Mao mr. Lord was never at this meeting take him out of the communique stake him out of all the press releases all the pictures because they figured number one if it was just Nixon and Kissinger and Rogers wasn't their Secretary of State that was humiliating enough but to have a third person who was Kissinger special assistant instead of Rogers was really too much and I understood this the Chinese I don't think figured out what was going on Lord was cropped out of all the pictures years later the Chinese gave him the originals the episode highlighted the internal tensions on the US side that would soon come to a head even as Nixon's entourage struggled to keep the press in the dark they held serious and frank discussions taking part on the American side was dr. Henry a Kissinger President Nixon's advisor for national security affairs taking part on the Chinese side were premier of State Council showing live deputy director protocol of the foreign ministry flying high Chile and the interpreter was tang when Shin can you tell us specifically what the topics were that we're discussed now I'm not prepared to give you any information about the meetings at this time that no American journalists were allowed to cover the meeting left the reporters furious was announced that the you know the president had gone to see Chairman Mao I don't remember the exact sequence here but he's gone to see Chairman Mao and it was well what presses with him there is no press with him I would say the discontent and disappointment in the press corps was including myself a very high and there were complaints where their ever complaints are saying how could you do this we come all this way we come halfway around the world and this is a case of you're manipulating the news that you're controlling the news for Nixon it didn't matter he had the image he wanted the first meeting with Mao by an American leader then Chou Enlai takes him from there to the planet first planetary session at the Great Hall of people and we don't have any press there all of a sudden we get the word there at the great you know at the end and that well we hauled ass and got over there as fast as we could but the get got the pool in there immediately as the Nixon Joe meeting ended the press corps was assembled on the steps of the Great Hall to watch the president arrived for a welcoming banquet another set-piece event designed for American TV this is a CBS News special report the president in China banquet in the Great Hall they timed events so that because of the 12 hour time difference between events here in Washington and Beijing that there would be evening events for example the the banquets that would be timed for the the morning television shows and so Americans would be having their breakfast coffee watching Nixon and Joe and light toasting at an evening banquet in Beijing and all of that was very carefully organized it was breakfast time in the u.s. viewers saw Nixon and Joe and light toast each other and talk about a new relationship in conclusion I propose a toast to the health of President Nixon and mrs. Nixon to the health of our other American guests to the health of all our friends and comrades present and to the friendship between the Chinese and American people the obvious and surprising warmth as Nixon exchanged toasts with Joanne Lai and other officials was evident to u.s. television viewers and it was exactly what the White House wanted we knew that there were going to be toasts and the clicking of the glass and that was what we were after that was the shot the next day after a brief photo opportunity Nixon and Kissinger began negotiations with Joe on a communique that would form the basis of a new us-china relationship both sides agreed on the need for secrecy they were very very very very hush light put it diplomatically cautious about that but Joe had ensured that the official people's daily highlighted the Mao meeting and Nixon's presence in Beijing today's edition of the communist party control newspaper people's daily remove the question mark by coming up with full front-page coverage including three photographs and two banner headlines on the Nixon visit Chinese are telling their people through these papers which is circulated to millions on the streets about as much as the Nixon White House is telling American newsmen about the substance of his private talks this paper has about the same line as the White House that the two met with Frank and serious talks no more substance about details of the talks is given here than the American press is being told we go to Dan Rather and Bernard Kalb in Peking well then we've been here in Peking out a couple of days and we've seen each day provide its own sensation the Chinese now and I think for the first time any clear that they have a very large stake in these talks with the real business of the summit taking place behind closed doors the reporters were left to cover mrs. Nixon or offered carefully controlled visits to various Chinese work units we would each be given a menu of events first thing in the morning you can pick quite literally one from column a and one from column B you can go to the Chinese Korean people's friendship commune or you can go to such-and-such a hospital and observe an opera being done you know with nothing more than those little needles being manipulated mrs. Nixon's first foray was to the kitchen of the Beijing hotel would you be kind enough to describe our audience some of the beautiful foods you saw inside our food is going with it that I eat different the trees these were things that didn't have to do with politics but had to do with the way a society lives that were brand-new to us indeed it was also knew that ABC brought in Harvard China scholar Jim Thompson to show anchor Howard K Smith how to use chopsticks chopsticks I would eat lightly I couldn't make anything stick show me how you do that Stanley I'm told that mr. Kissinger has improved his technique but no one knows that the president has taken chopstick lessons yet on the second night the president and his party were invited to the theater to see a revolutionary ballet created by John Chang Chairman Mao's wife she was a former actress more radical than Mao or Joe and opposed to accommodation with the West she was my second a third wife she was much younger she was in charge of the Cultural Revolution she said this is what you're listening to this is what you're going to be watching this is what you're going to be taught in the school she was when it had to do with culture jjang jjang Madame Mao played probably a more important role than her husband the ballet was broadcast live by the u.s. networks ABC's Ted Koppel is there and we'll call him in now for a report on just what is taking place good morning Frank this opera as are all the operas that are currently in favor and the People's Republic of China has none too subtle political theme [Music] when it ended Nixon flanked by Joann lie on one side and John King Joe's bitter political rival on the other flapped politely later when asked his opinion by reporters the president struggled to find something positive to say the ballet was a was of course as we all know had its message the morning after the ballet it's snowed went to the window and it was just before dawn but just a plain of thousands many thousands of Chinese men and women with rudimentary rakes and brushes they were cleaning the streets and sidewalks of the snow by hand and I sat at the window in transfixed all with all kinds of questions going through my head saying look at the scene embed this scene Dan you've never seen anything like this before what moves them to do this what gets them to do this how can this be happening and I sat there literally transfixed for a very long time to watch that the press had been warned about Beijing's cold weather we all went out we bought these long johns that became what we wore every day that we were in China the problem with that was that most of the time we were there we were in these overheated state halls and we would just absolutely be baking inside these long johns and there was no laundry facilities so within a day or two we couldn't stand to be near each other all the reporters accompanying Nixon were assigned Chinese government minders they served as translators and guides but were also there to keep the press in line the minders were uptight they were all very tight they were seeing these alien people their instructions were don't let them go where they're not supposed to go and I remember the one thing of interest I got out of our interpreter was it do me a favor every place I go I like to hear what the local humor is tell me a Chinese jerk and I would get these vacant stares and I'd say you know a joke something to make you laugh and the answer I got over and over was I don't know any jokes but Barbara Walters managed to convince her interpreter to do an on-camera interview it was very difficult to get the Chinese to respond they were so indoctrinated to just say give you the same party line by using my own experience I have a little girl at home right and and I miss her do you miss your children then well my children are not with me or my little girl goes to school with boys and girls do you know my children go to school the girls go with the the boys go and now all of this was not on camera but all of this was a way of warming them up one of the interpreters even got in trouble because he was helping in that work a lady I don't you know had to say the name but we told everybody don't interview the staff well this lady and took this interpreter and went to the studio and motion to the camera and in here all the lights turning on he said no I can't all be interviewed but he was on on the television already photographers and technicians had their own minders who struggled to make sense of the complex technology being used to cover the visit on the day that Nixon arrived at the airport the pool van that was transmitting the arrival images I they went through their coverage and the Chinese minder was just amazed as director we know cut to camera one let's have camera three bing bang bang bang and all the stuff and at the end of that transmitting session I the minder turned to the director in the van he says well I think I understand almost everything I understand about the feed and the bird and I but there's one thing you kept saying that I don't understand can you please tell me what is this audio despite the drama as Nixon's visit progressed the reporters became increasingly frustrated at their inability to get beyond staged events and photo opportunities if you complained and we did complain the reaction from the White House press representatives with Nixon administration were they'd shrugged their shoulders and said you know we're in China and we have to do things the Chinese way a few of us badgered the hell out of our so-called hosts our minders I guess is the right word that we that we were getting sick and tired of these late on events and was there no chance at all to engage some real people the result the Chinese late on a visit to a people's commune perhaps no single aspect of life in communist China has received more publicity and less understanding in the United States than that of the commune the red star people's commune which is on the outskirts of Peking is reputed to be one of the best in China which quite obviously is why we were brought here some journalists including Robert Keatley of the Wall Street Journal were taken to Beijing University where they met the vice chairman of the Revolutionary Committee an American educated physicist this was an intelligent accomplished man who was well known in his field the and he sat there and described how thanks to the thoughts of Chairman Mao they had reorganized the university and let in workers and peasants in because nobody almost nobody was there the school was basically shut down it was just all nonsense and I just feel sorry for him because you know he couldn't believe a word he said when the Washington Post Stanley Carnot asked about the fate of Nia you anza a prominent Cultural Revolution activist at Beijing University he got nowhere when I asked the question about new ADA in ya1 zoo and you're at the table with them and so you start asking questions whatever happened the name went to mr. Karno have you tried this squab there this such one screen so boy they kept ducking every question some reporters decided to elude their minders and strike out on their own and managed to shake the minders and there were several of them for just a couple of minutes and got around it what couldn't have been more than three-quarters of a block around the corner from the hotel into a small shop and the camera crew joined me there we had had a little plan where the camera crew would go in one direction I would go in another direction and the camera crew would even split up trying to make it difficult for the minders and the plan was we meet up around the corner which we did and going to this small shop the minders came in just as weeds were starting to to videotape with the camera rolling the minders clearly were looking at one another saying well we don't to be on camera intruding on the other hand this is not supposed to be happening the minders then moved in and made it clear you know you're not supposed to be here you've got to get back to the hotel tensions also began to emerge between the print reporters and their TV counterparts pretty frustrating because it was all about television and I wasn't in TV we became factionalized because the print people wanted some real contact wanted to really get to talk to some Chinese people as as per the episode at the University and we wanted some sense of the real plumb is he going on whereas the TV people were transmitting pictures that that were in in themselves sufficient novelty to satisfy their curiosities and their needs well the print people were very were very put out with us I mean people you know the whole New York Times team headed by max Frankel I you know Teddy White who had written the definitive stories about China and here were we on before they was and they were very versed for at the heart of the tension the fact that the White House recognizing the power of television had designed the trip with TV coverage as a top priority we knew daily how the trip was covered we knew hourly how the trip was got we would get reports from back from the our media operation in the White House what Nixon really wanted was a television extravaganza he didn't want print reporters he didn't care about print report he cared about television he want a television extravaganza no where was the impact of television more evident than when Nixon visited the Great Wall it basically looked like the post picture postcard does that you always say it blend forever and it was higher than anyone thought so the cameramen with all of the hefty gear and so forth was breathing hard to get up and we kept up with everyone but there were photo ops and they had the best possible camera positions when dan Rather learned that CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite would cover the event he was furious I wasn't happy about it Walter Cronkite who was the anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News and the face of CBS News at that time he was going to go to the wall so what was said to me is Dan you're going to stay back in Beijing and you will handle some of the subsidiary coverage I wouldn't say that I blew a gasket over that but I was not happy CBS had issued us very nice coats and hats and long underwear because it was going to be so cold in China but Cronkite had a pair of electric socks like duck hunter would wear and the socks kept shorting out on the images were in fact spectacular Nixon was left almost at a loss for words I think that you would have to conclude that this is a great wall from the wall Nixon headed for another famous site the ming tombs when Nixon went to visit Ming tomes for instance you know the Beijing Foreign Affairs Bureau at that time was led by a military representative because I was not very far from the Cultural Revolution he ordered some schoolchildren all dressing the best sweaters colorful sweaters given each person a transistor radio this was late February damn cold out there and here were all these Chinese wearing their you know their warmest gear but they were there taking photographs of one another listening to the radio having a picnic and I thought to myself I mean this is really done fixing visited the ming tombs today he found an idyllic scene people with the great masses sitting around in their sunday finery there were just a couple of things wrong with the picture though these people were we bought here so that they could be seen by the Nixon party and photographed by the goal of the moon traveling with the president these pictures are in short of put up job so I told my crew when the bus comes to pick us up we're not getting on the bus just go hide behind that building over there and we'll come out I want to see what happens to the crowd and sure enough as soon as the reporters left trucks came cadre came by with baskets they picked up all the tape recorders they picked up all the cameras they picked up all the portable radios right put him in the baskets they loaded the people on the trucks and off they went he can tell it's the stage thing I felt so embarrassed as well as a lot of my colleagues and in fact Henry Kissinger told me later that after our piece aired and we showed that that he received an apology from Jo and ly who said that was really kind of ham-fisted of us and I'm sorry that we did that the next day as the cameras rolled in the snow fell Nixon toured the Forbidden City another compelling photo opportunity Nikolas Platt was on the trip as an aide to Secretary of State William Rogers the White House was choreographing it and the Chinese understood exactly what they were trying to do and was very very um supportive of their efforts Nixon kept close tabs even discussing the Forbidden City TV images with Jo and lies I don't know how it came off and talking about it was beautiful indeed with a presidential election scheduled in the US for November 1972 some correspondents began to feel they were little more than props in a giant Nixon campaign commercial it's an election year and the fact that all of this was happening at the beginning of 1972 was hardly lost on us and so to that extent we're part of a partisan propaganda effort this had all the trappings and all the inner core of a campaign trip no doubt that we were on a reelect President Nixon campaign trip the frustration of the press was compounded because the reporters were getting almost no details about Nixon's talks with the Chinese there was nothing at all they met oh well are they they met for 20 minutes they met for two hours they met in such-and-such a hall some of those who were present just the bare bones what we wanted to know is did they discuss Taiwan did they discuss the Soviet Union did it discuss military matters did they discuss future trade but as they left Beijing to cover Nixon's next stops the scenic resort of Hangzhou and in Shanghai the press remained in the dark about the negotiations preoccupied instead with the quirks of the Chinese system it was totally totally foreign and I remembered that I had asked for hot water because in those days I was boiling my contact lenses and every time I asked for hot water they sent me tea there was a particularly embarrassing incident involving a young aide to Nixon's press secretary Ron Ziegler named Diane Sawyer now the evening news anchor at ABC pharrell on the bus and just that the bus was ready to leave the airport a Chinese guy came running out of the hotel and he had a he had pantyhose in atena he and it was he was clearly agitated he thought someone had left this behind in their room at well it was Diane Sawyer who came forward in the bus to claim that but I guess she had just thrown him away I don't know but in those in those dark days in China a poverty-stricken country still the notion that somebody would throw away perfectly good pair of pants there just didn't cross this guy's radar screen at all by this point the reporters have been working around the clock for days as the only correspondent for the new York Times max Frankel was struggling most days there were three articles there would be a news article and a news analysis and then the notebook and that was that took most of the night you know I was living on aspirins and I discovered that aftershave lotion was very good for waking you up just to keep awake I would go back to my room briefly and they had tangerines they were delicious tangerines and we had all brought stock slicker I hadn't mud at those days I was drinking Jack Daniels so I'd go back to my room and grab a couple of tangerines and a Jack Daniels and then go back into the dark room continue processing film well remember this poor miner had to be up as long as I was up and about the third night of this about five o'clock in the morning I came out of dark room and a minder was like sprawled on the floor and for the dark room and he said please mr. Halstead you must get some rest you're going to die soon if you don't get some rest NBC's Barbara Walters was having a particularly tough time resented and shunned by many of her male colleagues I sort of aggravated them the fact that I was a woman that I hadn't paid my dues and Associated Press the United Press the way they did the fact of the fact that they thought that I was getting special treatment and the most difficult part of it for me was at night when we weren't working nobody asked me to come and have dinner with them nobody said you want to have a beer just as well I didn't like beer I found it a very important trip but I was very lonely I really had no one to share it with in their private meetings Nixon and Kissinger had reached agreement with the Chinese on a communique the sticking point had been Taiwan the island nine miles off the Chinese coast ruled by mouths old enemy Jean kai-shek he lost the civil war that brought the Communists to power the Americans in Chinese found a formula to acknowledge Beijing's claim to the island while stressing the US commitment to resolving the issue peacefully but the text of the communique wasn't shared with Secretary of State Rogers I thought that there was difficulty in drafting the Shanghai communique between the American delegation and the Chinese what I didn't realize is that the problems within the American delegation when Marshall Greene who was on the trip objected to the Cavalier way that they brushed off Taiwan Marshall Greene was the State Department's top Asia expert and they were not acting out of pique they would just might afternoon when looked at it analytically and I said there's some mistakes here and there are some wording changes that really need to be made and some issues that need to be raised the main one which Greene and Rogers raised with Nixon and Kissinger during the president's stop in Hangzhou had to do with Taiwan Kissinger had agreed on language reiterating Washington's mutual security treaties with Japan and South Korea while there was no reference to u.s. treaty obligations to Taiwan Kissinger had also accepted China's demand to include the phrase all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait agree that there is one China Green argued that not all people in Taiwan accepted this view there was significant concern and there was a lot of tension it was tension with the president there was tension within the staff there was tension in terms of how it was going to be interpreted back at home among conservatives and so it was a very very delicate several hours because she's furious Nixon was furious but you know if you don't show the pros what you're doing there's a chance that maybe you got something wrong however the Chinese would not agree to drop the word all and refuse to accept any reference to the US Taiwan defense treaty Kissinger eventually agreed to eliminate the section on US security commitments altogether the word all remained in the document the agreement was unveiled in Shanghai Nixon's last stop it became known as the Shanghai communique the president's conservative critics were bitterly opposed one newspaper wrote they got Taiwan we got egg rolls but that was a minority view eminently skillful because it finessed the whole issue it it allowed us to sidestep Taiwan and get on with the business of forming a relationship with the mainland I think indeed for the President and for most Americans the power of the images was much more important than the details of the communique Nixon knew he was going to get this political windfall beyond his greatest wishes that whether they had a communicate or tyndall mats and important for their political foreign foreign affairs reporters but for the generalists like me he had already hit the home run like their viewers the reporters were captivated by what they saw in China was China the mystery the the dragon the hidden Kingdom secret country etc etc and the television was a WoW because everything in China wherever you put your camera you got exotic pictures it was a kind of a love affair with an earlier China that didn't exist anymore you know the exotic China Marco Polo all of that stuff and they were equally captivated by the charm of premier Joanne lai premier happy with the talk to me I do we've all got nagashi huh boom buddy so llama it's already has been stated in the communique has a different Buddha posture I don't have anything more to add we also had a conversation join live was saying how badly how desperately China needed to upgrade its education system they need to move from being a closed society with a closed education system to learning what they could from other education systems and also emphasizing the best of their own it was a deep and meaningful conversation with Joanne Lyon which are treasure to this day Nixon and his entourage said their farewells to Jo and other Chinese officials at Shanghai Airport there was also a farewell banquet laid on for the exhausted reporters I literally fell asleep on my plate I mean you know I conked over the table and somebody had to revive me it was pretty exhausting I counted it up later it was thirty-five thousand words in in eight days the crew of the Pan Am press charter served us hamburgers and hot dogs on the way out of Shanghai and hotdogs never tasted better from old China hands like Theodore White to the vast majority who'd never been there or covered the country the reporters heads were spinning as they tried to process what they'd seen Nixon called it the week to change the world and it was it you know it was a it was a big event this is what's important it changed our view of China but it also changed China's view of the United States I think from the pictures it introduced the American American public to almost a Magic Kingdom the impact of television on an American Owens was extraordinary China has suddenly come alive and all the rest is commentary the Nixon trip to China I was without any doubt the most important presidential trip ever I you know with the exception of a president going to Mars I mean nobody is going to be able to do a trip like that again [Music] and and [Music] very single banner for the president I did take Chinese well it's been a while to that kind of ceremony [Laughter] [Music]

Channel: USC U.S.-China Institute

Views: 166,678

Keywords: Richard, Nixon, Richard Nixon (US President), US, United States Of America (Country), USC, USC Annenberg School For Communication And Journalism (Educational Institution), China (Country), us-china, relations, People's Republic, balance, global, power

Id: uyCZDvec5sY

Length: 58min 52sec (3532 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 25 2012