US-China Cold War Collaboration: 1971-1989 (Routledgecurzon Studies in the Modern History of Asia)

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US–CHINA COLD WAR COLLABORATION, 1971–1989 S. Mahmud Ali

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US–China Cold War Collaboration, 1971–1989

S. Mahmud Ali

ISBN 978-0-415-35819-4

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US–China Cold War Collaboration, 1971–1989

After more than four decades the Cold War suddenly ended with the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union. Almost simultaneously China emerged variously as a pariah state, a likely peer-rival to the sole superpower, the USA, and a potential disruptor of international stability. This text discloses hitherto unknown aspects of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, revealing a secret strategic alliance between the USA and China during the Cold War’s final decades. Extensive primary resources are used to provide an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the USA and China, identifying the bases on which the alliance emerged; the growing mutual concern of a ‘Soviet threat’. S. Mahmud Ali argues that despite diplomatic fluctuations between the two countries, there remained a shared commitment to collaborate against Soviet interests in Africa, Central America and across Asia. The text goes even further to reveal their close consultations on conflicts in Vietnam, the Middle East, Cambodia, Angola, and, most effectively, Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, highlighting the extent and depth of secret collusion between the two governments and their intelligence services. The level of mutual distrust makes it hard to imagine China and the USA as secret partners, working together during the final stages of the Cold War. However, Ali uses documentation from the three capitals to tell this tale of intrigue and conspiracy at the highest level of the international security system. US–China Cold War Collaboration brings a new dimension to the current literature, deepening our understanding of a key aspect of the Cold War – its end. S. Mahmud Ali works for the BBC World Service and is author of Cold War in the High Himalayas (RoutledgeCurzon, 2000).

Routledge studies in the modern history of Asia

1 The Police in Occupation Japan Control, corruption and resistance to reform Christopher Aldous 2 Chinese Workers A new history Jackie Sheehan 3 The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia Tai Yong Tan and Gyanesh Kudaisya 4 The Australia-Japan Political Alignment 1952 to the present Alan Rix 5 Japan and Singapore in the World Economy Japan’s economic advance into Singapore, 1870–1965 Shimizu Hiroshi and Hirakawa Hitoshi 6 The Triads as Business Yiu Kong Chu 7 Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism A-chin Hsiau 8 Religion and Nationalism in India The case of the Punjab Harnik Deol 9 Japanese Industrialisation Historical and cultural perspectives Ian Inkster 10 War and Nationalism in China, 1925–1945 Hans J. van de Ven

11 Hong Kong in Transition One country, two systems Edited by Robert Ash, Peter Ferdinand, Brian Hook and Robin Porter 12 Japan’s Postwar Economic Recovery and Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1948–1962 Noriko Yokoi 13 Japanese Army Stragglers and Memories of the War in Japan, 1950–1975 Beatrice Trefalt 14 Ending the Vietnam War The Vietnamese communists’ perspective Ang Cheng Guan 15 The Development of the Japanese Nursing Profession Adopting and adapting western influences Aya Takahashi 16 Women’s Suffrage in Asia Gender nationalism and democracy Louise Edwards and Mina Roces 17 The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902–1922 Phillips Payson O’Brien 18 The United States and Cambodia, 1870–1969 From curiosity to confrontation Kenton Clymer 19 Capitalist Restructuring and the Pacific Rim Ravi Arvind Palat 20 The United States and Cambodia, 1969–2000 A troubled relationship Kenton Clymer 21 British Business in Post-Colonial Malaysia, 1957–1970 ‘Neo-colonialism’ or ‘disengagement’? Nicholas J. White 22 The Rise and Decline of Thai Absolutism Kullada Kesboonchoo Mead

23 Russian Views of Japan, 1792–1913 An anthology of travel writing David N. Wells 24 The Internment of Western Civilians under the Japanese, 1941–1945 A patchwork of internment Bernice Archer 25 The British Empire and Tibet, 1900–1922 Wendy Palace 26 Nationalism in Southeast Asia If the people are with us Nicholas Tarling 27 Women, Work and the Japanese Economic Miracle The case of the cotton textile industry, 1945–1975 Helen Macnaughtan 28 A Colonial Economy in Crisis Burma's rice delta and the world depression of the 1930s Ian Brown 29 A Vietnamese Royal Exile in Japan Prince Cuong De (1882–1951) Tran My-Van 30 Corruption and Good Governance in Asia Nicholas Tarling 31 US–China Cold War Collaboration, 1971–1989 S. Mahmud Ali 32 Rural Economic Development in Japan From the nineteenth century to the Pacific war Penelope Francks 33 Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia Edited by Karl Hack and Tobias Rettig 34 Intra Asian Trade and the World Market A. J. H. Latham and Heita Kawakatsu 35 Japanese–German Relations, 1895–1945 War, diplomacy and public opinion Edited by Christian W. Spang and Rolf-Harald Wippich

US–China Cold War Collaboration, 1971–1989

S. Mahmud Ali

First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2005 S. Mahmud Ali Typeset in Baskerville by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-415-35819-1

Contents

List of tables Preface Acknowledgements List of abbreviations

viii ix xii xiii

1

Prologue

1

2

Gathering momentum

17

3

A new beginning

42

4

A hyperactive interregnum

80

5

Consolidation amid fluidity

119

6

Building China’s national power

137

7

The Afghan war

166

8

The Soviet denouement

189

9

Epilogue

209

Notes Bibliography Index

229 269 272

Tables

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

US arms licences for China US arms deliveries to China DoD’s authorisation requests Soviet Far-Eastern deployments Soviet Pacific Fleet combatants CIA expenditure for the Afghan war US estimate of Soviet combat equipment losses 1979–86 Soviet defence expenditure 1979–91 US defence expenditure through the 1980s US–China trade 1985–90

148 148 154 161 161 180 182 198 199 227

Preface

History may not, as Henry Ford would have it, be bunk, but it is limited. Historical narratives are selective. Historians choose events, actors, acts of commission and omission, and establish, suggest or disprove causal links. Apart from primary and secondary evidence reinforcing ‘findings’, such accounts are only subject to peer review. A difficulty in evaluating the validity of these ‘findings’, or of assumptions of ‘historical truth’, is that access to principal actors and primary evidence of what they did or said at a particular moment is limited. States and ruling elites have evolved as a system guarding information to the death. In some cases, those breaching the bounds of ‘official secrecy’ pay with their lives. Actors often conceal information, or issue statements that are only partially correct, or only divulge some information. Some official statements conceal more than they reveal; others deceive more than they enlighten. Some documents are, therefore, of modest value. Differentiating between evidence of limited, and substantial, use demands knowledge that may be unavailable to the seeker after the truth. Prying loose relevant evidence in such an environment is difficult. Accounts of what actually went on occasionally emerged through partial easing of restrictions in the post-Cold War period. Some show what passed as the history of the second half of the twentieth century was superficial, or inaccurate. Little has changed since the Berlin Wall came down – barring a brief opening of ex-Soviet archival windows. Comprehensive accounts of the period remain elusive. Even when fresh primary documents are unearthed, these may offer only a fragmentary picture. Their links to other such partial evidence may have to be conjectured; ignorance of what is missing can drive the exercise in contrary directions. Equally worrisome – uncertainty in evaluating authenticity and significance imposes the need for substantial interpretative skills. The danger of inadvertent engagement in intellectual shadow-boxing cannot be overlooked. These difficulties offer no excuses for not trying. This narrative is just one instance of efforts around the world to piece together what little apparently reliable evidence there is to establish what happened, when, who the actors were, their motives, and the consequences of their action.

x

Preface

Despite the difficulties, some links are widely accepted. This account does not question them. For instance, for much of the second half of the twentieth century, the USA was considered the most powerful state actor. The Soviet Union was a peer-rival with ideological and military power of considerable potential. These two superpowers saw in each other the gravest threats to their national security. Their rivalry defined their policies, and those of their allies. In a ceaseless quest to expand influence, each side reached out to the ‘non-aligned’ ‘third world’, subjecting it to intense tensions, often deepening existing regional cleavages or local fissures. ‘Peripheral’ competition led to ‘proxy warfare’ in distant lands, taking some pressure off the ‘central’ confrontation. Such campaigns scarred many parts of the ‘third world’, making their situation worse. The bipolarity at the ‘centre’ of the international security system was especially dangerous because of the massive nuclear and thermonuclear arsenals held by the rival groups, and the possibility that even minor incidents could escalate into conflict with global consequences. As each party sought to deter an attack by the other, and build additional capacity to remain just a little ahead of its rival, instability was built into the system; a search for greater security generated greater insecurity. Efforts to reduce tensions, build confidence, secure control should confrontation escalate to conflict, and limit the damage, led to protracted, arcane and secret negotiations between the superpowers. The patchy results often confirmed the status quo, or allowed the rivals to build up – rather than down – force levels. The superpowers avoided direct conflict, but worried less about proxy campaigns in Indochina, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, southern Africa, and Central America. This trend ended in the late 1980s when changing threat perceptions, and domestic compulsions, transformed the security milieu. This account does question several assumptions inherent in much of the burgeoning Cold War historiography. One of these is that the Cold War was primarily a confrontation between the US-led NATO, and the USSR-led Warsaw Pact. Another is that the West ‘won’ the Cold War because the Soviet system, in the end, proved no match for the US–NATO combine. This narrative seeks to pull together evidence suggesting the rather unexpected and rapid demise of the Soviet Union had more complex reasons, some a function of a secret strategic alliance between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. This alliance put such clandestine pressure on the Soviet state that by focusing its declining ‘surplus’ into non-productive defence and security sectors, it eviscerated itself. The difficulties described earlier make the task especially challenging, since neither the USA nor the PRC admits to colluding against the USSR. Evidence is patchy and Beijing has remained particularly secretive. However, over the past seven years, documentation from the three capitals has been brought together to tell this tale of intrigue and conspiracy at the highest level of the international security system.

Preface

xi

This, therefore, is an account of covert campaigns by a secret alliance few acknowledged even existed. This is far from a complete story, but it offers a basis for more detailed research which alone can deepen understanding of a key aspect of the Cold War – its end.

Author’s note US government documents cited in this work are quoted in their original form. All Soviet documents are translated by Western academics. Most Chinese documents are from translated versions published by the Communist Party of China archives, or by the Chinese State Council. Spellings of names, especially Chinese ones, vary widely in many of these documents. Where names appear in direct quotes, they are spelt as in the original documents. Elsewhere in the text, usage has been standard.

Acknowledgements

This work was triggered by documents discovered in 1994–97 while I was researching for my last publication, Cold War in the High Himalayas. Primary material I then chanced upon suggested key aspects of the triangular dynamics shaping the apex of the international security system in the final decades of the Cold War did not quite mesh with conventional wisdom, and deserved study. Since then, the project has benefited enormously from the help and encouragement of many colleagues and associates. A few must be mentioned. The late Professor Michel Oksenberg, a key player in the Carter Administration’s decision to build on the Nixon legacy on China, encouraged the project as ‘serious scholarship’. Following his death, Mark Kramer at Harvard became the leading champion of the work, reading early drafts, making suggestions, and encouraging me to ignore failures. Many others made direct contributions: Banning Garrett shared his doctoral dissertation; Dingli Shen offered documents; Odd Arne Westaad read and discussed early drafts; Peter Mangold suggested sources and publishers; I.M. Destler sent out transcripts of the National Security Council Project he co-chaired with Ivo Daalder; archivists at various Presidential Libraries and the National Archives and Records Administration patiently responded to repeated inquiries; the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies allowed me to exploit their publications. This is a tiny proportion of the contributors who have helped and encouraged me, and I am indebted to all of them. As for the work itself, however, I alone am responsible for what it says about our understanding of this particular aspect of the Cold War.

Abbreviations

AAM ABM ACDA AECA AEW ALCM APC ARVN ASEAN ASW ATGW AWACS BMD BMDO CCP CFE Chicoms CIA CINCPAC CMC CPC CPSU CSCE CWIHP C3I DCI DIA DMZ DoD DRA ELINT FBI FM FNLA

Air-to-air missile Anti-ballistic missile Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Arms Export Control Act Airborne early warning Air-launched cruise missile Armoured Personnel Carrier Army of the Republic of Vietnam Association of South East Asian Nations Anti-submarine warfare Anti-tank guided weapon Airborne warning and control system Ballistic missile defence Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Chinese Communist Party Conventional forces in Europe Chinese Communists Central Intelligence Agency Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Central Military Commission Communist Party of China Communist Party of the Soviet Union Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Cold War International History Project Command, control, communication and intelligence Director of Central Intelligence Defense Intelligence Agency Demilitarized Zone Department of Defense Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Electronic intelligence Federal Bureau of Investigation Field Manual National Front for the Liberation of Angola

xiv

Abbreviations

FRG FY GAO GATT GLCM GNP GRC GRU ICBM IIM INF INR IRBM ISI ITAR JCS KGB KHAD KMT LDP MAAG MAD MBFR MBRL MBT Memcon MFA MFN MIA MIRV MLRS MoU MPLA MRBM M3DEA NASA NATO NCO NIE NORAD NPC NSA NSC NSDD NSSD

Federal Republic of Germany Fiscal Year General Accounting Office General Agreement on Tariff and Trade Ground-launched cruise missile Gross national product Government of the Republic of China Soviet military intelligence Inter-continental ballistic missile Inter-agency intelligence memorandum Intermediate-range nuclear forces (Bureau of) Intelligence and Research Intermediate-range ballistic missile Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate International Traffic in Arms Regulation Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of State Security Afghan intelligence service Kuomintang Party Liberal Democratic Party Military Assistance and Advisory Command Mutual assured destruction Mutual balanced force reduction Multiple-barrelled rocket launcher Main battle tank Memorandum of conversation Ministry of Foreign Affairs Most favoured nation Missing in action Multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle Multiple-launch rocket system Memorandum of Understanding Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola Medium-range ballistic missile Master Defense Development Data Exchange Agreement National Aeronautics and Space Administration North Atlantic Treaty Organization Non-commissioned officer National intelligence estimate North American Air Defense Command National People’s Congress National Security Agency National Security Council National security decision directive National security study directive

Abbreviations NSSM OECD OPEC OSS PD PDPA PLA PLAAF PLAN PLO POL POW PRC PRM PTBT R&D RDJTF ROC RPG SAC SALT SAM SBRL SCC SDI SEATO SIGINT SLBM SNIE SRBM SSM Telcon TOA TOW TTBT UAE UAV UN UNITA USAF USGPO USLO USS USSR WSAG

xv

National security study memorandum Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Office of Strategic Services Presidential directive People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan People’s Liberation Army People’s Liberation Army Air Force People’s Liberation Army Navy Palestine Liberation Organization Petrol, oil and lubricants Prisoner of war People’s Republic of China Presidential review memorandum Partial Test Ban Treaty Research and development Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force Republic of China Rocket-propelled grenade Strategic Air Command Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Surface-to-air missile Single-barrelled rocket launchers Special Coordinating Committee Strategic defence initiative South-East Asia Treaty Organization Signals intelligence Submarine-launched ballistic missile Special national intelligence estimate Short-range ballistic missile Surface-to-surface missile Telephonic conversation Total obligational authority Tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided anti-tank weapon Threshold Nuclear Test Ban Treaty United Arab Emirates Unmanned aerial vehicle United Nations National Union for the Total Independence of Angola United States Air Force United States Government Printing Office United States Liaison Office United States Ship Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Washington Special Action Group

1

Prologue

An unarmed EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft flying in the airspace over China Sea was struck by a Chinese fighter and, of course, for a while we had 24 of our great personnel detained. Some ask why are we conducting surveillance against another nation? My answer to that is, ‘That’s what we do.’ We are vigilant, we are watchful because we know that our interests and those of our allies in the region may be challenged; we must be ready.1 (General Hugh Shelton, Chairman, JCS, July 2001) The firm struggle by the Chinese government and the people against US hegemony has forced the US government to change from its initial rude and unreasonable attitude to saying ‘very sorry’ to the Chinese people for the plane collision. In dealing with this incident with the United States, China has fully displayed its manner as a great power in safeguarding world peace and struggling unyieldingly against power politics . . . The struggle between the pursuers and opponents of hegemony and the unipolar world is a long-term and complicated one and it will not be completed through one event or one round of encounters.2 (Renmin Ribao, April 2001)

Comments like these made by US and Chinese officials in 2001 showed how fraught relations had become. Although the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, assured his Chinese hosts in July 2001 that Washington did not consider Beijing a ‘strategic peer-competitor’, the substance of US policy, reflected in the FY2002 defence budget presented just then, suggested otherwise. US–Chinese ties became controversial in the 1996 US presidential campaign; but major fissures had appeared shortly after the June 1989 Tiananmen Square events when horror and loathing swept the West generally, and the USA in particular. Demands for ‘punishing’ Beijing became vociferous. Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton managed, despite public anger, to restore a measure of ‘normalcy’. Post-Tiananmen sanctions were diluted by both.3 The mid-1990s changed that. Sharp exchanges over the Taiwanese president’s visit to Cornell University, Chinese missile ‘tests’,

2

Prologue

and exercises around Taiwan in 1995 and 1996, and the US naval response to the latter suddenly highlighted the possibility of a clash between the two forces. Reports of alleged People’s Republic of China (PRC) efforts to influence the outcome of the 1996 US presidential elections, and the second Clinton Administration’s policies, appeared in the press. Now, debates between those who wished to see a robust approach to Chinese human rights, intellectual property rights and trade policy records, and those who supported the Administration’s ‘constructive engagement’ policy, became an exchange of vitriol. The publication of the ‘Cox Commission Report’, the ‘mistaken’ bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the ‘Kosovo war’, alleged PRC espionage in US missile and nuclear warhead arenas, the arrest on espionage charges of US physicist Wen Ho Lee, and of several US nationals in China – all pushed relations downward. Presidential candidate George W. Bush’s characterisation of China as a ‘strategic competitor’ during the 2000 campaign, and his post-election pursuit of ballistic missile defence, widened the breach, deepening mutual anxieties. The collision of an EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft with a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) interceptor in April 2001 brought mutual perceptions to their nadir since diplomatic relations were established in 1979. This level of mutual distrust between the two establishments, and between influential elite factions in both countries, makes it difficult to imagine the two countries as secret partners, working closely in a clandestine alliance designed to weaken a common adversary, the Soviet Union, for nearly two decades. And yet, the record gleaned from official documents from the three capitals demonstrates the existence of such a covert coalition, highlighting its effectiveness and its significant, if unacknowledged, contribution to the demise of the Soviet Union, and the coterminous end of the Cold War. This work traces the tortuous path Washington and Beijing travelled in the closing decades of the Cold War, focusing on their covert collaboration against Moscow. US policy toward China was mixed throughout the twentieth century, with wild swings across the spectrum ranging from semi-colonial repression through military alliance followed by benign neglect, to active hostility, to barely concealed animosity. Inconsistencies became apparent after the antiJapanese front between Chiang Kaishek’s nationalist Kuomintang Administration and Mao Zedong’s communist rebels fell apart following Japan’s surrender. US support for the Kuomintang Party (KMT) burgeoned as the civil war between the two factions resumed. Under the Sino–American Cooperative Organization Agreement, the USA shipped materiel worth $17.66m to the KMT4 between VJ Day and 2 March 1946. Washington transferred 131 naval vessels worth $141.31m under Public Law 512 as a grant.5 Between 1 January 1948 and 31 March 1949, the USA gave away ordnance worth $60.60m to the KMT, and sold war material6 worth another $5.30m. The 80th Congress passed the ‘China Aid Act’ as PL472 which instructed

Prologue

3

that a sum of $338m was ‘to remain available for obligation for the period of one year following the date of enactment of this Act’. Another $125m was offered ‘for additional aid to China through grants’.7 In addition, between VJ Day and 30 June 1948, Washington shipped combat hardware worth over $781 million to the KMT under the Lend–Lease Act.8 The volume and value of these transfers underscored the depth of US commitment to the KMT regime. When the latter fled to Taiwan in October 1949, it was not just the bulk of this ordnance that was lost – along with it went considerable US ‘face’ and honour, which became apparent as the debate over ‘who lost China’ raged in Washington. The centre of the nearly unipolar post-war world was unable fully to reconcile itself to this defeat. Efforts began to undermine what many in Washington viewed as a local agency of an expansionist communist leadership in Moscow.9 Even when in the last two decades of the Cold War Washington overcame its sense of betrayal and outrage at the ‘loss’ of China, significant sections in the USA remained uneasy over the approach to Beijing. However, China loomed too large on the Asian scene and could not be ignored. Future historians would credit Richard Nixon and his Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Henry Kissinger, with initiating the ‘China card’ discourse in American Cold War strategy, but China’s potential as a likely counterpoise to the Soviet Union appeared in US thinking two-and-a-half decades earlier. Truman was the first US President to stress the useful role China could play in the adversarial post-war dynamic to help protect US interests. He wrote to his Secretary of State, James Byrnes, ‘We should rehabilitate China and create a strong central government there. We should do the same for Korea. Then we should insist on the return of our ships from Russia and force a settlement of the Lend–Lease debt to Russia. I’m tired of babying the Soviets.’10 Truman maintained Roosevelt’s ‘honest broker’ initiative to forge an anti-Japanese, Chinese Nationalist–Communist coalition, which saw several US envoys – General George Marshall among them – being sent to China. Many Office of Strategic Services (OSS) officers, too, worked with Communist commanders like Zhang Wenjin and Han Xu in Chungking, Yenan and elsewhere in the 1940s.11 These Red Army men rose to senior positions in the late 1960s, but the bitter civil war and the Communists’ victory had broken contact between the USA and Mao’s PRC; the records of wartime associations disappeared into dusty Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) depositories. The choices made by the PRC, shaped by US support for the KMT, deepened the breach. Shortly before forcing the Nationalists to flee from the mainland, Mao made clear his inclinations in the context of the emerging global bipolarity: We belong to the anti-imperialist front headed by the USSR and we can only look for genuine friendly aid from that front and not from

4

Prologue the imperialist front . . . We also oppose the illusion of the third road. Not only in China but also in the world without exception one either leans to the side of imperialism or the side of socialism. Neutrality is a camouflage . . . This is to ally with the Soviet Union.12

A turbulent transition In December 1953, Vice President Nixon had advised Eisenhower to ‘normalise’ relations with China, but his proposal sank without a trace. He revived it during his second bid for the presidency, outlining his prospective China policy in a Foreign Affairs article in 1967. The emphasis on China was reflected in the CIA’s briefings to the Nixon team early on. The CIA set up a liaison office in New York to brief the President-elect and his transitional staff. On 9 December 1968, Nixon’s Special Assistantdesignate, Henry Kissinger, demanded detailed briefing on ‘the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, the state of US–Chinese relations, the US–USSR strategic arms balance, and the Arab Israeli conflict’ from the CIA liaison officer.13 Two days later, Kissinger and senior aide Lawrence Eagleburger were briefed. They asked for more details on several topics including ‘the prospects for a meeting in Warsaw of Chinese and American representatives’.14 Making contact with Beijing was high on Nixon’s agenda. While Kissinger would earn the subsequent accolade for the opening to China, Nixon drove the process. As President, Nixon preferred formal briefings and written papers; he rarely spoke to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) personally. DCI William Colby later wrote about the single such exchange – ‘I remember only one private conversation with him; it occurred when he phoned to ask what was happening in China and I provided a quick summary off the top of my head.’15 Nixon’s China initiative fell into a pattern of policymaking in which he set the agenda and directed its execution.16 Shortly after inauguration, Nixon sent Kissinger a memo on 1 February 1969 asking, ‘How do we establish relations with China?’17 One National Security Council (NSC) staff recounted: The challenge on China was to work on two tracks. First, secretly, we had to get in touch with the Chinese, with whom we had no contact. And this was done through various channels and was totally, very carefully, restrictively handled out of the White House. But second, there was the function of publicly signalling the Chinese and other audiences that we were prepared to move in a different direction on our China policy.18 Another NSC staff recalled Nixon asked Kissinger for an early national security study memorandum (NSSM) on China:

Prologue

5

the NSSM had something in it that Henry had never heard of. I don’t think many of us had ever heard of it. It had to do with pig bristles for shaving brushes, which the Chinese produce. As the first gesture that he picked out of the damn NSSM was the pig bristles. We took the pig bristle imports off the list of prohibited imports. It was the first signal that something was afoot.19 Other signals followed. US diplomats sought contacts with their Chinese counterparts in Warsaw and Bucharest. Nixon and Kissinger filtered information from them before it reached the State Department. A number of such meetings produced limited advances – Beijing agreed to receive a US envoy to discuss the Taiwan issue, but the big break came with Pakistan’s intermediation nearly two years into Nixon’s first term. His initiative could not have been better timed. Whatever the motives driving the initiative, the almost inevitably triangular linkages informing great power dynamics were evident early on. As Moscow–Beijing polemics hardened, events in Czechoslovakia triggered Chinese anger. Dubcek’s ‘Prague spring’ was becoming the kind of ‘revisionist’ departure from Marxist orthodoxy that Beijing accused Moscow of. However, when Soviet forces led a Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, Chinese commentary severely criticised Moscow. Mao expressed concern to foreign leaders about the possibility of war spreading.20 Anxiety may have sensitised him to US signals. In the autumn of 1968, China agreed to resume the long-stalled Warsaw talks. On 20 January 1969, Nixon talked in his inaugural speech of US willingness to develop relations with all countries. When the editors of Renmin Ribao and Hongqi sought permission to print anodyne excerpts from that speech, Mao instructed that the full text be published.21 This unprecedented move signalled to readers at home and abroad that Beijing saw changes ahead. Events moved swiftly after this. Almost timed to match the launch of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) 9th National Congress, Soviet and Chinese border guards clashed on Damansky/Zhenbao island on the Ussuri river in early March. Xinhua reported: At 9:17 AM on March 2, large numbers of fully armed soldiers, together with four armoured vehicles and cars, dispatched by the Soviet border authorities, flagrantly intruded into the area of the Zhenbao island, which is indisputably China’s territory, to carry out blatant provocations against the Chinese border garrisons on normal border patrol duty. They first opened cannon and gunfire, killing and wounding many Chinese soldiers. The Chinese border garrisons were compelled to fight back in self-defence when they reached the end of their tolerance. The grave incident was entirely and solely created by the Soviet authorities.22

6

Prologue

Another clash occurred on the island on 15 March; Mao ordered each county to establish a militia battalion or regiment to ‘supplement the field army. When the war breaks out, it will not be enough to rely upon the annual conscription.’23 The CPC Congress focused on the border conflict and the danger of escalation. Mao told the first plenary session to prepare for war with the Soviet Union. He was also remarkably critical of what he now saw as the excesses of the Red Guards’ campaign across China.24 As border tensions mounted and further Soviet deployments were reported, Mao asked four of the PLA’s ten marshals – Chen Yi, Ye Jianying, Xu Xiangqian and Nie Rongzhen – to study the international security situation and report to the CPC’s leadership at the end of the Congress. Zhou’s senior aide, Xiong Xianghui, was assigned to help the marshals write their report. The team met six times in June and July, submitting their report to Zhou on 11 July. It analysed the dynamics informing US–USSR relations, and between those powers and China. By equating hostile attitudes of ‘US imperialists’ and ‘Soviet revisionists’ toward China, the marshals enabled Beijing to consider both powers equally threatening. This intellectual leap was aided by the marshals saying while the USA was unlikely to attack China, the Soviet Union was. It is unlikely that the US imperialists will rashly launch or enter a war against China. The Soviet revisionists have made China their main enemy, imposing a more serious threat to our security than the US imperialists. The Soviet revisionists are creating tensions along the long Sino–Soviet border, concentrating troops in the border area and making military intrusions. They are creating anti-China public opinion, creating chaos on the international scene, while at the same time forcing some Asian countries to join the anti-China ring of encirclement with a ‘carrot-and-stick’ method. All these are serious steps that the Soviet revisionists are taking in preparations for a war of aggression against China . . . Both China and the United States take the Soviet Union as their enemy thus the Soviet revisionists do not dare to fight a two-front war.25 This line of argument suggested that China build bridges to the USA if it too wished to avoid a two-front war. Events encouraged this hypothesis. A war with the Soviet Union appeared imminent in August; the CPC Central Committee ordered general mobilisation in the Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Heilongjiang border provinces. Later in 1969, national mobilisation followed. The order also sought to end internecine fighting triggered by the Cultural Revolution between the Red Guards and the PLA, and among Red Guard factions. Mao saw the latter as a challenge to his efforts to counter a much bigger external threat.26 All ‘class enemies’ who threatened the PLA were targeted for neutralisation. The Cultural Revolution was effectively ended.

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7

While Beijing and Moscow edged toward conflict, Nixon made a roundthe-world trip in July/August. In Guam, he announced the ‘Nixon doctrine’, a new policy of fighting communist threats by offering material help to threatened client-states who must themselves battle the enemy. The announcement presaged a reduction of direct involvement in Indochina by sharing the burdens of collective defence – a significant shift in the ‘containment’ strategy. It was reported in detail in China. These developments may have persuaded Moscow to pull back from the brink. Premier Kosygin, returning from Ho Chi Minh’s funeral in Hanoi, flew in to Beijing for an airport conference with Zhou on 11 September. The two sides agreed to maintain the status quo on the border, avoid military conflict and contact between border forces along disputed stretches, and let them negotiate if disputes arose. An exchange of letters confirmed the measures, and the crisis dissipated. However, Beijing’s insecurity was not allayed; Mao again tasked the four marshals to report on China’s strategic options. Their analyses shaped subsequent decisions.27 They suggested that Beijing exploit opportunities presented by recent events: The Soviet revisionists are scared by the prospects that we might ally ourselves with the US imperialists to confront them . . . In the struggle between China, the United States, and the Soviet Union, the United States hopes to utilise China and the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union hopes to exploit China and the United States, so that one of them will gain the utmost strategic advantage. We must wage a tit-fortat struggle against both the United States and the Soviet Union . . . The US imperialists have suggested resuming Sino–American ambassadorial talks, to which we should respond positively when the timing is proper. Such tactical actions may bring about results of strategic significance.28 The starkly realist language of the reports set the intellectual tone and strategic context in which Mao and Zhou rationalised policy changes. They were aided by the coincidence of Nixon’s expressions of interest and the outcome, unbeknownst to Beijing, of similar analyses in Washington. Support for a radical shift came from Chen Yi’s addendum to the marshals’ 17 September report: Because of the strategic need for dealing with the Soviet revisionists, Nixon hopes to win over China. It is necessary for us to utilize the contradiction between the United States and the Soviet Union in a strategic sense, and pursue a breakthrough in Sino–American relations. Thus, we must adopt due measures, about which I have some ‘wild’ ideas. First, when the meetings in Warsaw are resumed, we may take the initiative in proposing to hold Sino–American talks at the ministerial or even higher levels, so that basic and related problems in

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Prologue Sino–American relations can be solved . . . Second, a Sino–American meeting at higher levels holds strategic significance.29

US intelligence services kept a close watch on the border clashes, reporting new skirmishes in China’s Xinjiang province in May 1969.30 The US view was that the Chinese were ‘provocateurs’, trying to pre-empt major Soviet threats by highlighting these at home and abroad, thus offsetting Chinese vulnerability in the period following the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia. US analyses suggested Chinese insecurity and the need for internal cohesion in the wake of the Cultural Revolution were driving Beijing. But Moscow, too, was seen as obdurately unhelpful – ‘Given Peking’s frame of mind and the methods it has chosen to demonstrate fearlessness, Soviet obduracy may be met only by more Chinese provocations.’31 Nixon and Kissinger worked on relations with the Soviet Union and China, and bringing the Vietnam War to an end, from the White House,32 but the State Department knew the Administration’s priorities. Secretary of State William Rogers spoke publicly on the advantages of improving US–PRC links, which agitated Moscow. A Soviet diplomat accosted John Holdridge of the State Department in June to ask exactly what Rogers had meant, whether the Warsaw meetings were about to resume, and if the two countries were making contact anywhere else.33 Soviet anxiety over possible US–PRC rapprochement offered opportunities Nixon and Kissinger would exploit. Just before the Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin, flew to Moscow in July for consultations, Kissinger invited him to the White House, and discussed US foreign policy focusing on superpower relations. Dobrynin’s memorandum of conversation (memcon) to Foreign Minister Gromyko suggested Dobrynin understood Kissinger’s efforts to convey Washington’s seriousness in pursuing ‘normal’ bilateral ties. Kissinger discussed the Middle East, the Vietnam war, and possible simultaneous ratification of the recently concluded Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He also pointedly mentioned US efforts to stay ‘neutral’ in the Soviet– Chinese confrontation: Kissinger said that they of course don’t mind improving relations with China and are ready to take ‘reasonable steps’ forward in this direction, but this process must have a bilateral character. Nevertheless, a thorough analysis of the last CPC decisions and of the ensuing events, according to Kissinger, didn’t in any way prove to Americans that Beijing leaders were ready to carry out a more peaceful policy towards the USA.34 Kissinger played on Soviet anxieties with subtlety and brutal candour: We understand, he went on, that in Moscow, evidently, there are people who think that the USA and China can somehow come to an

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understanding in opposition to the USSR. In its world historical aspect and taking into consideration different countries’ past experience, this concept can sound convincing enough. Nevertheless in this concrete situation, if we speak on behalf of the US government, putting the question this way, asserted Kissinger, would not satisfy the interests of the US itself. Of course it would be hypocritical, went on Kissinger, to assert – and you wouldn’t believe us all the same – that your growing disagreements with the Chinese upset us.35 Kissinger suggested that as the President’s National Security Adviser, he influenced Nixon’s policy priorities, and that it would be mutually advantageous to operate through him – a ‘back channel’ – when Moscow wished to pursue key issues, rather than through State. Moscow was also alerted to Washington’s awareness of Soviet vulnerability to the fluidity in the security environment caused by Soviet–Chinese tensions. Shortly after this meeting, Nixon and Kissinger embarked on an extended trip – issuing the Nixon doctrine en route – returning via Romania, prising the Warsaw Pact carapace open. In Pakistan, Nixon asked its military ruler, Yahya Khan, to take a confidential message to Beijing expressing his interest in developing relations beyond the limited exchanges being resumed in Warsaw. General Khan agreed, providing Nixon with a rationale for the future US ‘tilt’ towards Khan’s repressive policies in rebellious East Pakistan in 1970–71. In Islamabad, Kissinger talked with Pakistani officials involved in Pakistan’s close links to China, among them the air force Commander-inChief, Air Marshal Nur Khan. He had recently met Zhou Enlai in Beijing. Kissinger sought Khan’s views on China’s strategic perspectives and confirmation if Zhou had actually said, as reported by Prague Radio, that Beijing was ‘prepared negotiate with United States if US forces were withdrawn from Taiwan’.36 Nur Khan said this was entirely credible although the six hours of talks he had held with Zhou focused on Chinese anxieties over a possible Soviet attack. He quoted Zhou as saying, ‘Soviets deliberately provoking Peking by trying extend their territory beyond recognized boundaries. Chinese Communists (Chicoms) even prepared accept thalweg border provided in “unequal treaties” of Tsarist days. However, would not tolerate further extension which Soviets now trying to achieve.’37 Nixon and Kissinger kept their ‘opening to China’ card close to their chest, with only a few NSC staff privy to their thoughts. The State Department too was reviewing China policy, and Moscow was so anxious that it made an extra-ordinary proposition on 18 August 1969. Boris Davydov, Second Secretary at the Washington embassy, invited William Steerman of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research to lunch; he began by asking if US efforts to improve relations with China ‘were aimed at an ultimate Sino–American collusion against the USSR’. Steerman assured him this

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was not the case. Davydov’s next question, however, was totally unexpected: (he) asked point blank what the US would do if the Soviet Union attacked and destroyed China’s nuclear installations. I replied by asking him if he really meant this to be a serious question. He assured me that he was completely serious.38 Davydov said two objectives would be served by such an attack – ‘First, the Chinese nuclear threat would be eliminated for decades. Second, such a blow would so weaken and discredit the “Mao clique” that dissident senior officers and Party cadres could gain ascendancy in Peking.’39 The implications of this Soviet initiative troubled Washington. Soon, reports arrived of further clashes between Soviet and Chinese troops along China’s Xinjiang borders. State officials recommended a series of steps to the Secretary, and advised US diplomats overseas to look out for similar Soviet approaches.40 When Nixon and Kissinger received all the analyses, they sent Moscow a clear signal that Washington would not countenance a major attack on China, far less a nuclear one. The handling of the issue did, however, reveal serious differences between the NSC and State. This began the process which would culminate in Rogers’ eventual departure. Opposing views came to the fore in several memoranda issued by the two agencies vying to shape Nixon’s strategic pursuits. One of two papers influenced Kissinger and a third, Nixon. The first of these was from Allen Whiting, an intelligence analyst and Kissinger’s former academic colleague. Kissinger asked him for advice on the Sino–Soviet schism. Whiting’s report, dated 16 August 1969, proved important.41 It said Moscow’s force deployments and political behaviour indicated ‘an increasing probability of a Soviet attack on China, presumably aimed at destroying China’s nuclear capability. A Sino–Soviet war raises the risk of nuclear weapons being used by one or both sides’. Whiting recommended several steps, primarily to reassure Beijing: (1) an identical Presidential letter to the Soviet and Chinese leaders; (2) a stand-down for all US and Government of the Republic of China (GRC) military intelligence operations except for those absolutely essential to determining major changes to Chinese force dispositions; (3) if a Soviet attack does occur, US initiatives aimed at bringing China’s case before the UN; (4) a lifting of our trade embargo against China to make it identical with that against Russia.42 The other memorandum was from an NSC aide, William Hyland. Admitting he represented a minority view, Hyland said the USA faced two choices – ‘the first approach – strict impartiality – seems likely to break

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down completely in the execution, and the second – shading toward China – could have major consequences in our relations with the USSR’. Analysing the relative merits of the PRC and the USSR, he advised, ‘There is a considerable danger that by trying to be slightly sympathetic towards Peking we will court a massive over-reaction from the USSR and still accomplish very little in the eyes of this or any other Chinese leadership.’43 Hyland’s memo had little immediate impact. Secretary of State Rogers wrote to Nixon on 10 September, saying Davydov’s exchanges with Steerman may not have reflected Soviet efforts to probe US reaction to a possible attack on Chinese nuclear facilities. Rogers discounted the possibility of a major Soviet assault on China, concluding: the Department’s analysts judge that the chances of this particular course of action are still substantially less than fifty-fifty and that Sino–Soviet conflict, if it does occur, might more likely result from escalation of border clashes. That assessment seems reasonable to me.44 The memo lay with the NSC until, two days later, staffers Helmut Sonnenfeldt and John Holdridge sent Kissinger a draft memo to be forwarded to Nixon. This draft demolished Rogers’ arguments, recommending that the President ask State to ensure consistent US responses to Sino–Soviet issues. Kissinger returned the draft on 19 September, asking for a revised version.45 He sent this revised memo as a covering note for Rogers’ note, to Nixon, ten days later. Kissinger wrote, the Soviets may be using us to generate an impression in China and the world that we are being consulted in secret and would look with equanimity on their military actions. I believe we should make clear that we are not playing along with these tactics, in pursuance of your policy of avoiding the appearance of siding with the Soviets.46 On the benefits of clarity, he added: The principal gain in making our position clear would be in our stance with respect to China. The benefits would be long rather than shortterm, but they may be nonetheless real. Behavior of Chinese Communist diplomats in recent months strongly suggests the existence of a body of opinion, presently submerged by Mao’s doctrinal views, which might wish to put US/Chinese relations on a more rational and less ideological basis than has been true for the past two decades.47 Kissinger asked for presidential authorisation ‘to ask the Department of State to prepare instructions to the field setting forth guidance to be used with the USSR and others, deploring reports of a Soviet plan to make a

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pre-emptive military strike against Communist China’. Nixon approved, instructing, ‘Base it on “reports which have come here – etc”.’48 The US ‘tilt’ toward China in the Sino–Soviet confrontation was formalised. From now on, US policy was informed by a clear preference for the PRC, but building the Cold War’s most substantial covert coalition would prove long and arduous. The State Department, reluctant to risk US–USSR relations by taking initiatives toward China, was, nonetheless, persuaded by late 1969 that Nixon was determined to ‘seek friendlier and “more normal relations” with Peking and to bring the Chinese out of their international isolation’.49 Marshall Green, making this point, noted that the White House had contacted Beijing using ‘the Pakistanis, the Cambodians and the French to our knowledge and possibly others as well’. While the bureaucracy moved slowly to reflect presidential will, Nixon’s request to Pakistan’s President, Yahya Khan, began bearing fruit. Pakistan’s Information Minister, Sher Ali, called on Kissinger on 10 October. Kissinger asked Ali to inform the Chinese that the USA planned to withdraw two destroyers from the Taiwan Strait; given the high priority Beijing placed on the reduction of US military presence in the area, this was to signal goodwill. When Sher Ali returned home, Yahya Khan was visiting Iran. He returned in early November and learnt about Kissinger’s request. Yahya Khan called in the Chinese ambassador and said, on the basis of his conversation with Nixon in August, he felt the USA was keen to normalise relations with China and to this end planned to withdraw two destroyers from the Taiwan Strait. The ambassador replied, ‘The US always “double-talked”. The Ambassador cited China’s shooting down of a US intelligence plane. President Yahya asked the ambassador to convey President Yahya’s view to Chou En Lai.’50 In mid-December, Sher Ali wrote to Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington, Agha Hilaly, reporting Beijing’s response: ‘They appreciate our role and efforts. As a result they had let off the two Americans the other day.’ These were two US yachtsmen arrested for entering Chinese waters without permission, and recently released. Hilaly asked Kissinger if there were any substantive issues that Yahya Khan could raise during Zhou’s forthcoming visit to Pakistan. Kissinger said that once the visit’s date was confirmed, he would suggest a substantive topic: The Pakistanis could tell the Chinese now that the US appreciate this communication and that we are serious in our desire to have conversations with them. If they want to have these conversations in a more secure manner than Warsaw or in channels that are less widely disseminated within the bureaucracy, the President would be prepared to do this.51 Yahya Khan and Zhou Enlai held detailed talks in early 1970. Once Zhou left Pakistan, Khan’s attention was focused on serious domestic dif-

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ficulties. Polarisation between Pakistan’s physically distant and culturally distinct wings created a crisis. Despite domestic preoccupations, Yahya Khan continued to facilitate US–PRC proxy exchanges. Nixon and Kissinger explored several routes to Beijing. In the New Year, State Department announced a new round of talks in Warsaw on 20 January 1970. China was referred to as the People’s Republic, a first. The following day, Under Secretary of State, U. Alexis Johnson, wrote to Deputy Secretary of Defense, David Packard – ‘We are, of course, anxious to avoid giving the Chinese any pretext of cancelling or breaking off this meeting and will want to make the meeting itself as productive as possible.’52 He noted that State had asked the CIA to hold off any U-2 overflights from Taiwan before the meeting, and requested the Department of Defense (DoD) to avoid any Pacific Command aircraft or warships breaking the US-proclaimed limit of 50 and 25 miles respectively.53 Packard replied the DoD had asked the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific (CINCPAC), Admiral McCain, to avoid any risky action.54 At the meeting, Ambassador Stoessel informed the Chinese envoy Lei Yang that the USA wanted to reduce its military presence in Southeast Asia, and was prepared to change its policy toward Taiwan. Washington would be willing to send an envoy to Beijing, or receive a Chinese emissary, for further talks. Lei promised immediately to convey the message to Beijing, and the two agreed to meet again a month later. But bureaucratic inertia almost destroyed the prospects for progress as covert violations of Chinese airspace by US aircraft continued. A few days before the 20 February meeting, PLA anti-aircraft gunners on Hainan shot down a US drone. Despite self-criticism, Washington decided not to apologise in case the Chinese side raised the issue in Warsaw. Lei Yang had more important points to make to Stoessel when they met in February. Two days before that second session in Warsaw, Nixon reported to the Congress the steps he had taken to ease strains with China.55 The rationale behind these initiatives was: In the long run, no stable and enduring international order is conceivable without the contribution of this nation of more than 700 million people . . . Our attitude is clear-cut, a lasting peace will be impossible so long as some nations consider themselves the permanent enemies of others.56 Aiming at audiences beyond Capitol Hill, Nixon assured everyone: Our desire for improved relations is not a tactical means of exploiting the clash between China and the Soviet Union. We see no benefit to us in the intensification of that conflict, and we have no intention of taking sides. Nor is the United States interested in joining any condominium or hostile coalition of great powers against either of the large Communist countries.57

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The impact of these comments remains unclear, but Mao may already have made up his mind. At the Warsaw meeting, Lei Yang told Stoessel, ‘If the United States government wishes to send a representative of ministerial rank or a special envoy to Beijing (to discuss the withdrawal of American military forces from the Chinese territory of Taiwan), the Chinese government will be willing to receive him.’ This convergence of messages coming via Pakistani and Romanian channels, and in Warsaw, suggested that Beijing would seriously consider negotiating a change in US–PRC relations. However, Zhou’s stipulation that the agenda be limited to ‘the withdrawal of US forces from the Chinese territory of Taiwan’ was not considered very helpful. This was when PRC–USSR relations took a turn for the worse – possibly modifying the Chinese conditionality. The day after the Warsaw session, Leonid Brezhnev condemned China’s ‘antiUSSR campaign’. An editorial in the Renmin Ribao that day called for the overthrow of the Soviet government. The following day, three major Beijing papers attacked the ‘Brezhnev doctrine’ and the Warsaw Pact’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Around this time, the CIA too reported ‘signs of life in Chinese foreign policy’, noting a spurt in Beijing’s diplomacy after years of inaction. The CIA’s explanation for this revival was Chinese anxieties triggered by the invasion of Czechoslovakia, border clashes with the Soviet Union, and the decline of the Cultural Revolution’s disruptions. The report cautioned, Although Peking’s diplomatic focus against Soviet pressure is clear for now, Chinese foreign policy is essentially built on a house of cards that could tumble or shift significantly over the next few years. A substantial alteration in Peking’s present foreign approach could, therefore, result.58 Motives behind Nixon’s focus on Big Power relations, exploiting Soviet–PRC differences and developing links with Beijing, were disparate. But the need to end the unpopular war in Vietnam, and bring about ‘peace with honour’, loomed large. The Vietnam issue was equally important to China, if for different reasons. That conflict pushed the two sides closer together. The year 1969 had been a particularly bad one for US and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces. Some estimates suggested that the US and its allies suffered over half a million casualties, dead and wounded, that year. Of them, 230,000 were US troops.59 This level of bloodletting was unsustainable and Nixon was determined to end the conflict. The ‘Nixon doctrine’ enunciated in Guam was designed to reduce US burdens of global policing, prepare client-states to take up a bigger share of the costs of defending themselves, and also signal to Beijing that Washington had no ‘containment’ designs against China. He succeeded on all counts. Ambassador Dobrynin urged Gromyko to respond to Nixon’s proposals as put forward by Kissinger, and Moscow

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generally softened its stance toward the USA. As Kissinger’s secret talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris started bearing fruit, Soviet military assistance to North Vietnam fell.60 Beijing’s position, too, shifted in 1969–70. Until the Tet offensive, Mao had criticised North Vietnam’s willingness to talk to the USA, urging Hanoi to fight on, and promising continuing aid. And although Beijing had decided on a strategic switch, regionally and tactically, it still reacted angrily to developments threatening its influence. Even in 1970, General Lon Nol’s US-supported coup in Cambodia, and growing US intervention in that country and Laos, provoked bitter reaction in Beijing. Mao wrote: Unable to win in Vietnam and Laos, the US aggressors treacherously engineered the reactionary coup d’etat by the Lon Nol Sirik Matak clique, brazenly despatched their troops to invade Cambodia and resumed the bombing of North Vietnam, and this has aroused the furious resistance of the Indo-Chinese people. I warmly support the fighting spirit of Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, Head of State of Cambodia, in opposing US imperialism and its lackeys.61 US–PRC covert exchanges stalled until US intervention in Cambodia ended in June 1970. Such hiccups aside, the broad sweep of Chinese diplomacy, especially its clandestine elements, had changed direction. Nonetheless, debates raged within the CPC leadership over revising PRC policy toward the USA, and these would eventually trigger a putsch by Marshal Lin Biao, Vice Chairman, and Mao’s anointed successor. But Mao’s mind had been made up by the autumn of 1970, and Lin became a marginal distraction. This emerged in Mao’s talks with North Vietnamese leader Pham Van Dong in September. Mao’s view of the global strategic environment was more optimistic than it had been recently.62 He appeared to be preparing the Vietnamese for a Chinese volte-face. He described Kissinger as a ‘stinking scholar’ and ‘a university professor who does not know anything about diplomacy’. Given the imminence of visits by US envoys, and the praise Mao was going to lavish on Kissinger, this may have been diplomatic emollient for Hanoi’s leaders. Mao also said, ‘The Americans still want to go to Beijing for talks. It is what they propose. They said that Warsaw was not suitable and we replied that if they wanted to go to Beijing, just go.’63 But progress was unsteady and never certain. Events in the Middle East distracted Washington in the summer and autumn of 1970. The PLO, guerrilla groups under the leadership of Yasser Arafat’s al Fatah, sought to build an operational base in Jordan against Israeli occupation of Palestine. Around half of Jordan’s population was of Palestinian descent. Despite ethnic, religious and cultural bonds between the refugees and their hosts, Jordan’s pro-Western monarchy discouraged Palestinian militancy. In September 1970, tensions between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Jordanian army led to clashes.

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With the USA and the West supporting Israel, the Palestinians relied on Moscow and Beijing for diplomatic backing and military supplies. Their insurrection against Amman thus took on the colours of a Cold War conflict. Palestinian militias engaged the Jordanian army in pitched battles, causing losses on both sides. Syrian forces, strong backers of the PLO, deployed units close to the Jordanian border; some may have entered Jordan before being pushed back. The Soviet Union provided both diplomatic and material support to Syria during this brief operation. In the end, Jordan’s military, aided by a Pakistani brigade already in the kingdom, defeated the militias. The PLO was forced to leave Jordan. Most Palestinian units, including Arafat’s leadership council, moved to Lebanon. Before PLO units left Amman, however, Jordan’s position did appear shaky, particularly with Soviet-backed Syrian forces on the borders. This was when ‘the Soviet Union had to be addressed relatively vigorously and the United States had to indicate positive support of our de facto ally, Jordan, in order to redress a balance’.64 This episode deepened US belief that Moscow was a dangerous rival, reinforcing pressures to build bridges to potential allies like China.

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I am prepared to give you any information you may wish to know regarding any bilateral negotiations we are having with the Soviet Union on such issues as SALT, so as to alleviate any concerns you might have in this regard. So while these negotiations will continue, we will attempt to conduct them in such a way that they do not increase the opportunity for military pressures against you.1 (Henry Kissinger to Zhou Enlai, July 1971)

Nixon had an unsigned message sent to General Vernon Walters, US Defense Attaché in Paris, in June 1970, to be read out to the Chinese ambassador – the USA was keen to discuss important matters of mutual interest with China; if Beijing designated a representative, Washington would raise substantive issues with him. Walters saw the PRC envoy in late summer and again at a Pakistani reception on 7 September, and said he had a message for Beijing. On both occasions, the Chinese said he would return with a response, but did not. On 9 September, the CIA’s ‘daily briefing’ for the President reported, ‘Our Consulate General at Hong Kong reports some new mobility in Peking’s conduct of foreign relations which may present opportunities for improving relations.’ Nixon scribbled, ‘K – should you not try again on your Walters contact with the Chinese in Paris? Or do we have an offer outstanding.’2 Kissinger replied that attempts were under way ‘to open a channel through the Dutch, but I do believe if we are to have any success it will be through Paris’. He awaited Beijing’s response. The Dutch channel went cold; there was no message from Paris either. Kissinger launched another initiative. During a clandestine trip to Paris for the Vietnam talks, he called on a French friend, Jean Sainteny. Sainteny had excellent contacts with the French establishment, and diplomats from the two Vietnams, Cambodia and China. He briefed Kissinger on the Indochinese situation; Kissinger gave him the US bottom line for a peace accord. He also asked if Sainteny ‘could set up a channel with’ Ambassador Huang Zhen.3 Sainteny agreed to try, and report progress via NSC staff W. Richard Smyser.

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Beijing’s decision to suspend contacts during the US incursion into Cambodia worried Nixon. His vision of a restructured global security architecture rested on bridges being built between Washington and Beijing. He sought to reassure Mao and Zhou of his determination to improve US–PRC relations. Early in October, he told Time magazine, ‘If there is anything I want to do before I die, it is to go to China.’ That wistful comment may have softened the mood in Beijing. While Nixon and Kissinger waited for signs of life in Paris, two promising intermediaries, the leaders of Romania and Pakistan, arrived. Nixon saw General Yahya Khan on 25 October and Kissinger reflected the President’s appreciation in his report on the meeting.4 Nixon assured Khan that despite Congressional pressures, Washington would extend both economic and military aid. Khan was thankful for $100m recently offered, and several B-57 bombers transferred to Pakistan. He spoke of Pakistan’s constitutional tribulations, suggesting Pakistanis were not ready for a parliamentary system although that is what the country’s 35 political parties demanded. Nixon said, ‘I hope you keep a strong Presidency as in France.’ Khan replied, without such a system ‘Pakistan would disintegrate.’ Nixon then broached China. Khan explained how his forthcoming trip to Beijing had come about. Nixon said, It is essential that we open negotiations with China. Whatever our relations with the USSR or what announcements are made I want you to know the following: (1) we will make no condominium against China and we want them to know it whatever may be put out; (2) we will be glad to send Murphy or Dewey to Peking and to establish links secretly.5 Khan said he had been asked to establish secret links earlier; Beijing wanted to know if Washington wished to set up a ‘hot line’ like the one with Moscow. Nixon said no, he was willing to send envoys to Beijing to discuss important bilateral issues. Meetings could take place in mutually convenient locations, such as Rawalpindi or Paris. Nixon would like to send Kissinger, but if he was too busy, someone else would be sent to establish high-level contacts. Khan promised to explain this to the Chinese. Two days later, Nixon described the US position on Indochina, and his search for peace, to Nicolai Ceausescu. Kissinger, providing details, explained the state of play in the Paris talks, stressing Hanoi’s ‘intransigence’. He said if North Vietnam negotiated seriously, the USA would reciprocate. However, if Hanoi sought a military imposition, ‘we would respond with extremely forceful measures’. Then he relayed Nixon’s message that Washington sought to establish ‘political and diplomatic communications with the People’s Republic of China’.6 These communications should be free from any ‘outside pressures or questions of prestige

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and that we do not believe that we have any long-term clashing interests’. Ceausescu was unhappy with the threat to Hanoi, but would pass on the other missive to China, and convey Beijing’s response. Nixon’s anxiety to move quickly led Kissinger to try to contact Beijing through many channels – and then, pick the most reliable one. In November, Jean Sainteny wrote General Huang Zhen had returned from Beijing – ‘I have good relations with him and that it would doubtless be possible for me to speak to him along the lines we envisaged in our conversation.’7 Before ‘the Paris line’ got any farther, information arrived from Pakistan. Yahya Khan had been to China in early November, but the complexities of Pakistani politics, compounded by natural calamities, occupied him. On 9 December, Pakistan’s Ambassador, Agha Hilaly, visited the White House, dictating a note from Yahya Khan. Khan had conveyed Nixon’s message to Zhou Enlai who, after three days of deliberations with Mao and Lin Biao, replied China sought negotiations. Taiwan and the Straits of Taiwan were ‘an inalienable part of China’, occupied by ‘foreign troops of the United States for the last fifteen years’. Negotiations had produced no results. ‘In order to discuss this subject of the vacation of Chinese territories called Taiwan, a special envoy of President Nixon’s will be most welcome in Peking.’8 Khan added Zhou’s consultation with Mao and Lin suggested Nixon’s message was taken seriously. The absence of vehement criticism of the USA during Khan’s Beijing trip also suggested a modification of China’s view of the USA.9 Nixon approved a reply noting that on 20 January the US envoy in Warsaw had proposed to his Chinese counterpart that direct talks be held in either Beijing or Washington; the latter conveyed Beijing’s willingness to receive a senior US envoy. In light of Zhou’s comments to Yahya Khan, Nixon now wished to initiate ‘a higher-level meeting in Peking. The meeting in Peking would not be limited only to the Taiwan question but would encompass other steps designed to improve relations and reduce tensions between our two countries’.10 He assured Zhou US policy was to reduce its forces from the region, including Taiwan, as tensions diminished. He suggested a preparatory meeting between senior US and Chinese officials in Rawalpindi or elsewhere to work out the ‘modalities’ of the proposed ‘higher-level’ meeting in Beijing. It was assumed Pakistan would pass on the reply to China. Yahya Khan was distracted by domestic concerns as polarisation between the two wings threatened national cohesion. He assigned his Foreign Secretary, Sultan Mohammed Khan, to act as the intermediary between Beijing and Washington. Just before Christmas, 1970, Sainteny saw Huang Zhen in Paris and conveyed Kissinger’s message. ‘Although he received the idea with a certain reserve, my interlocutor transmitted it to his board of directors. This board has so far apparently not made its response known.’11 In early January 1971, Romanian Ambassador Corneliu Bogdan reported to

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Kissinger that after seeing Nixon, Ceausescu had sent Vice Premier Gogu Radulescu to Beijing and Hanoi. Zhou’s response was: The communication from the US President is not new. There is only one outstanding issue between us – the US occupation of Taiwan. The PRC has attempted to negotiate on this issue in good faith for 15 years. If the US has a desire to settle the issue and a proposal for its solution, the PRC will be prepared to receive a US special envoy in Peking.12 Zhou said since Nixon had visited Bucharest and Belgrade, he would be welcome in Beijing, too. Kissinger noted a confirmation of Yahya Khan’s missive; he felt Beijing was willing to negotiate despite the Indochina war. However, Nixon scribbled on Kissinger’s memo, ‘I believe we may appear too eager. Let’s cool it. Wait for them to respond to our initiative.’13 Bogdan told Kissinger he was going to Bucharest and wondered if there were any further messages. Kissinger explained how ‘interesting’ Zhou’s message had been, but gave no new instructions.14 Pakistan was the channel now. Nixon’s initiative generated some activity; the two sides seemed to be edging toward mutual comprehension. Then, in February, US and ARVN forces entered Laos in ‘the Route 51 incursion’, chasing North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units out of the Laotian panhandle; Beijing suspended exchanges via Pakistan. Nixon insisted the invasion ‘should not be interpreted by Communist China as being a threat to them’. Beijing did not respond, but Nixon’s second annual report to Congress delivered a fortnight after the invasion assuaged Chinese sensibilities. It was the first time that a US President referred to the mainland as the People’s Republic of China – signalling a desire to move toward normalising relations. Nixon also recounted his administration’s moves in this direction since his last report.15 US opinion had not yet gelled behind an opening to China; Nixon explained his grand-strategic vision – ‘an international order cannot be secure if one of the major powers remains largely outside it and hostile toward it’. So, the decade’s biggest challenge was to draw the PRC ‘into a constructive relationship with the world community’. He offered to begin ‘a dialogue with Peking. We cannot accept its ideological precepts, or the notion that Communist China must exercise hegemony over Asia. But neither do we wish to impose on China an international position that denies its legitimate national interests.’16 Washington lifted restrictions on US nationals travelling to China. By the end of February 1971, Mao and Zhou had decided to respond to Nixon’s overtures, although no one in the USA knew this at the time. The shift was strategic. China’s rulers were polarised between those, especially ‘left-radicals’ led by Lin Biao, who saw themselves as the true inheritors of ‘Maoism’, and anti-Soviet elements led by Zhou, and Mao himself. The

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latter faced two challenges – persuading CPC–PLA leaders that strategic collaboration with the USA served China’s interests; and to persuade Asia’s communists that this shift would not signify an abandonment of principles. Vietnam received particular attention. In March, Zhou flew to Hanoi to reassure Le Duan and Pham Van Dong that despite flexibility toward Washington, China would continue to support Vietnam in the war. As for the anti-Soviet alignment underpinning imminent changes, Zhou explained Beijing’s anxieties: If we take the Soviets’ side, they will control us. And if there is disagreement between us, we should talk it out on the basis of independence and self-reliance. If we establish a world-wide people’s front that includes the Soviets, they will control this front.17 Momentum gathered in April 1971. US and Chinese table tennis teams were attending a tournament in Tokyo. The latter unexpectedly invited their American counterparts on an all-expenses-paid trip to China. On 10 April, 20 US citizens, including five journalists, arrived in the first such visit since 1949. US media extensively covered the team’s week-long trip. Zhou Enlai personally received the guests, saying, ‘You have opened a new chapter in the relations of the American and Chinese people.’ As this comment was reported across the USA, Nixon told American newspaper editors he had suggested that his daughter Julie and her fiancé, David Eisenhower, spend their honeymoon in China. He hoped he could visit China ‘some time’ although he was not sure he could do that as President: The long-range goal of this administration and of the next one, whatever it may be, must be two things: one, a normalization of the relations between the Government of the United States and the Government of the People’s Republic of China, and two, the ending of the isolation of Mainland China from the world community.18 Nixon’s use of the PRC’s official title indicated his determination to establish diplomatic relations; his second point made it clear that after years of mustering opposition to Beijing’s entry to the United Nations (UN), the USA was changing its policy. Two days earlier, Nixon had announced several additional measures to ‘create broader opportunities for contacts between the Chinese and American peoples’.19 In mid-April, the Directorate of Intelligence and Research at the State Department reviewed Beijing’s ‘People’s Diplomacy’ initiative, suggesting China wanted to project an image of reasonableness to the middle segments of US opinion, strengthen forces favourable to improving US–PRC relations, and reinforce the possibility of Chinese accession to the UN in 1971. Ray Cline, Director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research

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(INR), assessing Beijing’s likely motives, concluded China would invite more non-governmental visits by American citizens and increased trade with the USA.20 On the same day, Nixon announced measures easing US–PRC non-official contacts. Stressing the importance of these steps, Nixon had his Press Secretary, rather than State Department, announce the measures:21 • • •

•

expediting visas of Chinese nationals wishing to visit the USA relaxing currency controls to enable Beijing to use dollars ending restrictions on US oil companies providing fuel to aircraft and ships proceeding to China except for Chinese-owned or flagged carriers touching North Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba, and allowing US-owned vessels to carry Chinese goods between nonChinese ports, and call at Chinese ports.

Nixon asked for a review of the goods and items that could be traded directly between the USA and China. He announced, ‘After due consideration of the results of these changes in our trade and travel restrictions, I will consider what additional steps might be taken.’ As the White House’s clandestine contacts gathered pace, the need for co-opting the key bureaucracies into potentially dramatic developments became urgent. On 19 April 1971 Kissinger issued NSSM124; Nixon wanted a review of US options in improving relations with China, and possible reaction of Moscow and Tokyo.22 The NSC Interdepartmental Group for East Asia was told to submit a draft report by 15 May for consideration by the ‘Senior Review Group’ chaired by Kissinger. The review suggested three ‘Groups’ of possible measures,23 pointing out the strains these would impose on US–Taiwan relations. NSSM124 may have been part of Nixon’s efforts to nudge key bureaucracies toward a more supportive position behind the China initiative. The Administration maintained a coherent approach to China although the Departments of State and Defense, and the CIA, did not know the details of the White House’s contacts with Beijing via Islamabad. Officials revealed that in 1970–71, Romanian Vice-Premier Radulescu had carried US messages to Zhou Enlai – a channel since discontinued. However, Pakistan’s active role was not disclosed. Secretary of State Rogers told the press that a visit to Beijing by Nixon ‘might well be possible’ if improvements in relations continued. Nixon himself told journalists, ‘I hope and, as a matter of fact, I expect to visit mainland China sometime in some capacity.’ On 27 April, Life magazine published a December 1970 interview with Mao by Edgar Snow which explained Nixon’s bullishness on his prospects of a visit to Beijing. Mao said President Nixon was welcome to visit China for talks ‘either as a tourist or as President’. He said, ‘True, Nixon is a “monopoly capitalist”, but he should be welcomed because at present the problems between

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China and the USA would have to be solved with Nixon.’ Mao pointed out the ‘Taiwan question’ was ‘created by Truman and Acheson’, not Nixon. On domestic issues, Mao conceded foreign reports of chaos during the Cultural Revolution were true. But Beijing’s focus remained on perceived threats from the north. While Sino–Soviet ideological differences were irreconcilable, the two neighbours could eventually settle their problems ‘as between states, but the polemics would have to be carried on for 10,000 years if necessary’.24 Nixon got Kissinger to draft a message for Sainteny to be delivered by General Walters. Sainteny was to read out this letter, along with an unsigned letter from Kissinger, to Ambassador Huang Zhen. The contents of this message were to be passed on to Beijing. Walters was not to see the unsigned letter, but he was to ensure it was taken back once it had been read to Huang. General Alexander Haig, Kissinger’s Deputy, explained this sequence to Walters in a covering letter which, along with the attachments, was handed to NSC staffer David McManus who was to fly out to Paris. The message to Beijing was that the establishment of a confidential communication channel between US and Chinese leaders had now become necessary. Its purpose would be to bring about an improvement in US–Chinese relations fully recognizing differences in ideology. On the United States side, such a channel would be known only to the President and his Assistant for National Security Affairs, and would not be revealed to any other foreign country.25 If the Chinese were interested, initial contacts would be with Walters. Later, Kissinger himself would fly to Paris. The message was never delivered. That evening, Ambassador Agha Hilaly arrived in the White House with Zhou Enlai’s reply to Nixon’s message of 5 January, sent via Yahya Khan. Zhou cryptically explained the delay – ‘Owing to the situation of the time it has not been possible to reply earlier to the message from the President of the USA to the Premier of the People’s Republic of China.’ He did not mention Taiwan. And he offered to invite Nixon himself to visit Beijing: At present contacts between the peoples of China and the United States are being renewed. However, as the relations between China and the USA are to be restored fundamentally, a solution to this crucial question can be found only through direct discussions between high-level responsible persons of the two countries. Therefore, the Chinese Government reaffirms its willingness to receive publicly in Peking a special envoy of the President of the US (for instance, Mr Kissinger) or the US Secretary of State or even the President of the US himself for direct meetings and discussions.26

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Zhou suggested that the modalities, and agenda, of these visits be decided using Yahya Khan’s good offices. A jubilant Kissinger enthused, ‘This is the most important communication that has come to an American President since the end of World War II!’ He and Nixon discussed appointing a special envoy. Nixon asked if Nelson Rockefeller fit the bill. Kissinger said he ‘wouldn’t be disciplined enough’, but that he, Kissinger, ‘might be able to hold him in check’. Nixon asked about George Bush. Kissinger was emphatic, ‘Absolutely not, he is too soft and not sophisticated enough.’27 Nixon agreed. Ambassador David Bruce was considered the most suitable but his involvement in the Paris peace talks made it difficult for him to go. They did not discuss Zhou’s suggestion that Kissinger himself come, but Nixon’s delight was evident in the comparison he made: ‘The difference between them and the Russians is that if you drop some loose change, when you go to pick it up the Russians will step on your fingers and the Chinese won’t.’ Kissinger agreed – ‘The Russians squeeze us on every bloody move.’ The impact of this development on Nixon’s first priority – ending the Indochina war – weighed heavily. Kissinger assured him, ‘Mr President, I have not said this before but I think if we get this thing working, we will end Vietnam this year. The mere fact of these contacts makes that.’28 They planned Nixon’s news conference scheduled two days later and how he could mention China without revealing details. Nixon asked that Kissinger request Zhou not to invite any other Americans before he replied to Zhou’s message. Kissinger asked Ambassador Hilaly to transmit Nixon’s preliminary response to Yahya Khan. Nixon thanked Khan, and asked him to thank Zhou for his recent message; Nixon would ‘soon be replying to it in the same spirit’. Yahya Khan was to pass an additional comment to Zhou as his own observation: I feel that President Nixon is very anxious to handle these negotiations entirely by himself and not to let any politician come into the picture until a government-to-government channel is established. My Ambassador in Washington thinks this is because President Nixon will find it more difficult to move quickly in the matter if American politicians come into it. Therefore, it would be best until President Nixon’s reply is received and an American envoy is designated for these discussions if the Chinese government would not discuss the matter with any American politician.29 Yahya Khan called in the Chinese Ambassador in Islamabad on 1 May, handing the message for direct transmission to Zhou. Some discordant notes were, however, emerging. Nixon’s commission assessing US policy options regarding the future of the China seat in the UN suggested Washington support the membership of both the PRC and Taiwan – a twoChina policy. Also, State Department advised that legally, Taiwan’s future

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was an unsettled issue – something Beijing would not countenance. State’s spokesman said ‘the two Chinas’ could negotiate their problems with each other – language challenging Beijing’s stand. At his press conference, questioned on both US–China policy and China’s possible entry into the UN, Nixon reiterated that the USA could not ignore the PRC and ought to normalise relations with it. Another US goal was to end Beijing’s international isolation. Various options to these ends were being considered and when a decision was taken, he would announce it. But ‘progress is not helped in this sensitive area by speculation that goes beyond what the progress might achieve’.30 Refuting suggestions that Washington was playing a ‘China card’ against Moscow, Nixon said the USA sought good relations with both the USSR and China; world peace demanded good relations between them, too. He insisted, ‘I hope, and, as a matter of fact, I expect to visit Mainland China sometime in some capacity – I don’t know what capacity. But that indicates what I hope for in the long term.’31 Nixon’s determination to pursue the China initiative with only Kissinger aware of the various strands occasionally led to different agencies working at cross-purposes. Secretary Rogers, Nixon’s friend, was one source of such problems. In late April, he spoke in London stressing the legal position on Taiwan and China, popular in the US Foreign Service. When Agha Hilaly came to the White House on 5 May to confirm that Yahya Khan had passed on Nixon’s preliminary response to Zhou’s 21 April message on 1 May, he told Haig that Beijing received Nixon’s reply at a time when the Chinese establishment was reacting to such ‘adverse’ comments being made by senior State officials.32 Concerns that US diplomacy lacked coordination questioned the coherence of US policy. By then, however, Nixon had decided Kissinger would be the best candidate for meeting Zhou. Things had progressed far enough for concrete action. If a US envoy were to meet Chinese leaders via Pakistan, then the US Ambassador there had to know, and help the process. For the meeting to succeed, Nixon felt, State Department could not have an inkling of what was going on. Ambassador Farland would have to be advised outside his department’s ‘loop’. In early May, he was holidaying in Palm Springs where Kissinger briefed him on the exchanges via Yahya Khan, Zhou’s latest message, and Nixon’s decision that Kissinger visits Zhou. The meeting would be in Pakistan or southern China, accessible from northern Pakistan. Kissinger got the US Navy to install secure communications links in Karachi. He visualised arriving in Pakistan on a Friday, getting Yahya Khan to host him over the weekend which would allow a 24-hour meeting in three sessions with the Chinese, and then proceed to Tehran on Monday. Farland felt it would be better to hold the meeting in China so that the meeting could be recorded by the Chinese rather than the Pakistanis. Kissinger instructed Farland to discuss his travel plans with Yahya Khan in Islamabad.33 Farland sought urgent aid for Pakistan, suggesting a $250m loan to sustain it for the next six months. ‘Ambassador Farland

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also felt that Germany, Great Britain and possibly also Japan should be apprised of our determination to save Pakistan and asked to adjust their policies to support our position.’34 He asked Kissinger to get Ambassador Keating in Delhi to tone down his criticism of Pakistan. Islamabad’s role in US–PRC secret diplomacy enmeshed its domestic travails in superpower complexities as new polarities crystallised. On 10 May, Nixon and Kissinger prepared a reply to Zhou’s message. Hilaly was invited to the White House, where the unsigned missive was handed to him: President Nixon agrees that direct high-level negotiations are necessary to resolve the issues dividing the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China. Because of the importance he attaches to normalizing relations between our two countries, President Nixon is prepared to accept the suggestion of Premier Chou Enlai that he visit Peking for direct conversations with the leaders of the People’s Republic of China. At such a meeting each side would be free to raise the issue of principal concern to it.35 Nixon proposed a preliminary Zhou–Kissinger meeting, to work out ‘the circumstances which would make a visit by President Nixon most useful, the agenda of such a meeting, the time of such a visit and to begin preliminary exchanges of views on all subjects of mutual interest’. Shortly after Hilaly transmitted the message to Islamabad, US–Soviet talks on limiting strategic defensive and offensive weapons climaxed. Ten days after Hilaly’s unheralded visit to the White House, Nixon announced the USA and the USSR would concentrate on reaching agreements on these weapons. As strategic arsenals played a critical role in maintaining mutually credible deterrence, such agreements would have ramifications beyond bilateral relations. Kissinger telegraphed Farland a message of reassurance for Zhou via Yahya Khan. Referring to negotiations with Moscow on the deployment of anti-ballistic, and offensive, missiles, he said, ‘The two sides are taking this course in the conviction that it will create more favourable conditions for further negotiations to limit all strategic arms.’36 Kissinger added: President Nixon wishes to emphasize that it is his policy to conclude no agreement which would be directed against the People’s Republic of China. Mr Kissinger is prepared to include this issue and related questions on the agenda of the proposed meeting with the designated representative of the People’s Republic of China.37 Two days later, Farland confirmed that Yahya Khan had passed on Nixon’s message to Beijing’s envoy on 19 May. Khan was happy with the details of Kissinger’s planned visit and offered to ‘lay on complete clandestine operation providing transportation to destination, including Peking

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via PIA aircraft on either Hindukush or Dacca route’.38 Farland now handed Yahya Khan Kissinger’s message for Zhou on the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and anti-ballistic missile (ABM) negotiations and was assured ‘he realized the import thereof and would transmit soonest’. At the end of May, Hilaly brought another message from Zhou to Nixon. It came with a four-point assessment by Yahya Khan advising Kissinger that the meeting with a Chinese leader would take place in China; Pakistan would make necessary travel arrangements.39 Zhou’s message was in a handwritten note from Yahya Khan, confirming Beijing’s acceptance of the White House’s terms for the first, secret, high-level US–PRC meeting: Premier Chou En Lai has seriously studied President Nixon’s messages of April 29, May 17th and May 22nd 1971, and has reported with much pleasure to Chairman Mao Tse Tung that President Nixon is prepared to accept his suggestion to visit Peking for direct conversations with the leaders of the People’s Republic of China. Chairman Mao Tse Tung has indicated that he welcomes President Nixon’s visit and looks forward to that occasion when he may have direct conversations with His Excellency the President.40 Zhou invited Kissinger to represent Nixon in the first, secret, meeting in preparation for the President’s visit. He suggested the talks be held in Beijing, that Kissinger arrive between 15 and 20 June 1971 and that he fly directly from Islamabad to a Beijing airport ‘not open to the public’. The US envoy could either fly on a Pakistani airliner from Islamabad, or a Chinese aircraft could be sent there to fly him out. Zhou estimated that the two-way flights and talks would take three or four days. If Kissinger needed to install special telecommunications links during his visit, he would be welcome to bring these along. Zhou felt since it would be difficult to keep Kissinger’s trip a secret, he could visit openly. However, if Washington desired secrecy, Beijing would ensure it. ‘When the talks have yielded results, the two Sides may agree to a public announcement to be made after the meeting, if it is so desired.’41 Details of Kissinger’s trip were to be worked out with President Yahya Khan, who himself made several points. Khan had impressed upon Zhou Washington’s insistence that the first high-level meeting be secret and Zhou had agreed to this. He then suggested an itinerary for Kissinger: a: Dr Kissinger arrives on a D Day. b: After a 24 hour stop in Islamabad and a meal with me, he will ostensibly make a trip to a place not open to public in the Northern region. In actual fact, a Pakistani Boeing will carry him along the Northern route direct to Peking from Islamabad. The time of flight will be approximately seven hours. On completion of the mission, Dr Kissinger will return to Islamabad to resume his onward journey. If Dr

28

Gathering momentum Kissinger would find it helpful, I am considering sending a high level Pakistani with him to Peking.42

Kissinger handed Nixon’s response to Hilaly on 4 June. Nixon appreciated Zhou’s invitation to Kissinger, and Yahya Khan’s good offices in conveying it. Because of the ‘shortness of time available and his need to arrange a suitable pretext for his travel’, Nixon asked that Kissinger ‘arrive in China early on July 9 and leave on July 11’.43 He reiterated that Kissinger would be authorised to discuss ‘all issues of concern to both countries preliminary to President Nixon’s visit to China’, stressing the need for strict secrecy. He described the trip as ‘a hopeful first step in improving relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China’.44 The response arrived a fortnight later. Hilaly wrote to Kissinger quoting Yahya Khan and sent a slip of paper confirming Zhou’s acceptance of Kissinger’s 9–11 July itinerary. Khan wrote: The above message from Peking seems to clinch the issue finally. Please assure our friend that absolute foolproof arrangements will be made by us and he need have no anxiety on this count. I will be expecting him in Islamabad on July 8 – mid-day.45 The message arrived on 19 June. Kissinger’s aides spent 20 June considering the next step, what role Farland should play, and future Pakistani involvement. Kissinger decided to thank Hilaly for the excellent service he and President Khan had provided. From now on, the Americans would make substantive arrangements – ‘We will keep Ambassador Hilaly fully informed as we go along, and we of course appreciate the indispensable role that he and his government are playing.’ But Farland would be the US contact with Islamabad.46 Kissinger cabled his itinerary to Farland via the CIA’s ‘special channel’. He and his team would spend three days in Saigon, ‘followed by low key orientation visit to Bangkok, New Delhi, and Rawalpindi plus stopover in Paris to see Bruce on way home’.47 Farland was to work out with the Pakistanis Kissinger’s official schedule in Islamabad. Keeping State out of the ‘loop’, Farland regularly cabled queries to Kissinger. His last cable narrated the cover story for Kissinger’s Beijing trip. Kissinger was to feign illness toward the end of a banquet hosted by President Yahya Khan on 8 July, and return to his residence for medication. Next morning, his hosts would take him to a hill station outside Islamabad for recuperation. In fact, early next morning, Kissinger ‘accompanied on side trip only by Lord, Holdridge, Smyser and two Secret Service reps’, would be driven to the nearby Chaklala airbase to board a Pakistani airliner and fly to Beijing. ‘Saunders will stay in Pendi for business there. Halperin will go to hill station with Farland and third Secret Service rep.’48 NSC staff Morton Halperin, wearing Kissinger’s hat

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and sunglasses, would accompany Farland to the hill station while Kissinger flew into history. He would return to Chaklala on 11 July, ‘be driven to guest house by circuitous route to simulate return from hill station’, call on President Yahya Khan, and depart. NSC staff prepared briefing papers for the Beijing talks – on bilateral relations, Chinese representation in the UN, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, the ‘threat from the Soviet Union’, and Taiwan. Kissinger summarised these for Nixon who discussed his views with Kissinger and Haig on 1 July. Earlier that day, Hanoi had issued a seven-point peace proposal modifying their earlier positions, and Nixon began by saying no solution ‘tantamount turning over to 17 million South Vietnamese to communist rule’ was acceptable.49 On China, he gave detailed instructions on what should be emphasised in Beijing and what left unstated. On UN membership, Kissinger was to ask what the Chinese wanted and how they wished to proceed. On Japan, Kissinger would point out that many Asian countries were anxious about Tokyo’s future direction and, if the USA withdrew from the region too rapidly, as Beijing apparently wished, Japan could rearm. This would result in ‘a resurgent Japanese bellicosity with considerable danger for all’.50 On Taiwan, Kissinger was not to suggest that Washington would abandon its Republic of China (ROC) allies; he was to downplay the cancellation of planned trips to Taipei by Vice President Agnew and Defense Secretary Laird, saying the Nixon doctrine provided for US help to countries that helped themselves. Therefore, US military presence in some of these countries would end sometime. Nixon added, ‘the overall statement with respect to Taiwan should be somewhat more enigmatic’. He wanted ‘a somewhat heavier emphasis on the Soviet threat’ than Kissinger suggested. Kissinger feared Beijing might divulge to Moscow what was said about them. Nixon said the US should state the facts, not offer interpretations. Kissinger should quote press reports that ‘there are more Soviet divisions on the Chinese border than those arrayed against all of the NATO pact countries’.51 Nixon asked Kissinger to ‘build on three fears: fears of what the President might do in the event of continued stalemate in the South Vietnam war; the fear of a resurgent and militaristic Japan; and the fear of the Soviet threat on their flank’.52 Nixon’s expectations before a US–PRC summit were: the release by Beijing of all US prisoners, a token shipment of US grains to China, some progress on resolving the Vietnam war; following the summit, perhaps an agreement to establish a ‘hotline’ linking the two capitals, and an agreement on preventing accidental nuclear war. Finally, Kissinger would insist Beijing was ‘to institute a severe limit’ on visits by other US politicians before Nixon’s arrival. Nixon clearly envisioned his China initiative and drove it, defining the contours of America’s emerging China policy.

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Secret rendezvous Early on 9 July, Kissinger and a few aides boarded a PIA jetliner in the company of a couple of PLA security officers at Chaklala, and flew to China.53 Huang Hua, China’s ambassador to Canada and a senior aide to Zhou Enlai, received them at a Beijing airport. Over the next two days, extensive talks with Zhou focused on building close strategic links in a fluid and threatening environment. Despite differences, the two sides identified shared interests. Formally, the two states sought to normalise relations; their objective was to secure mutual support against the common Soviet adversary. Long sessions covered the spectrum of bilateral and global concerns. Historic on several counts, these laid the foundation of the security parameters of US–PRC relations. The presence beside Zhou of Yeh Chienying, Vice Chairman of the Military Affairs Commission and one of the marshals who, with Zhou, had urged building bridges to the USA in 1969, underscored the talks’ strategic basis. Zhou’s presence reflected Chinese self-confidence. Despite opposition from senior CPC members, he worked with Mao to reshape Beijing’s foreign policy. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was still consuming much of China’s emotions and energies; Zhou gambled that building links to the USA would refocus national attention in more productive directions. He mentioned Moscow’s recent criticism of himself as ‘the dictator of bureaucracy and warlords’ in the first session; this stress on a common adversary resonated with Nixon’s instructions to Kissinger. Their conversation flowed easily. Kissinger laid out Nixon’s agenda, adding events in South Asia as an area of shared interest. Pakistan’s military crackdown on Bengali autonomists in East Pakistan had led to the flight of millions to India. The civil war threatened to expand as Indian involvement became clearer. For Kissinger, the crucial point was assuring Zhou that the USA was not teaming up with the USSR against China: I know you are concerned about collusion, or what you call collusion, of other countries against you. Let me say now that we will never collude with other countries against the People’s Republic of China, either with our allies or with some of our opponents. Of course, you may believe that the objective consequences of our actions will bring about collusion, no matter what we say. But we will consciously strive to avoid this.54 Reciprocating goodwill and candour, Zhou traced the development of US–PRC relations, stressing Beijing’s attempts to improve them. He pointed out that US and Chinese diplomats had met 136 times in Geneva and Warsaw since 1 August 1955, to no effect. He mentioned the US position on Taiwan shifting from accepting that it was China’s internal matter, to a more recent statement by the State Department spokesman that

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Taiwan’s status was ‘still unsettled’. Kissinger interjected, ‘He hasn’t repeated it!’ to much Chinese laughter. Zhou said Washington could only engage Beijing comprehensively: in recognizing China the US must do so unreservedly. It must recognize the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China and not make any exception. Just as we recognize the US as the sole legitimate government without considering Hawaii, the last state, as exception to your sovereignty, or still less, Long Island. Taiwan is a Chinese province, is already restored to China, and is an inalienable part of Chinese territory.55 Kissinger noted two-thirds of US military forces in Taiwan, related to the Indochina war, would leave when the war ended. The remainder was for Taiwan’s defence. As US–PRC relations improved, it, too, could start being withdrawn. He revealed this Presidential decision had not been released, ‘and so should be treated with great confidence’. Also, the USA had ended the Taiwan Strait Patrol, removed a squadron of aerial tankers from Taiwan, and reduced military advisers by 20 per cent, indicating ‘the general direction of our intentions’. Zhou insisted US recognition of Taiwan being a part of China was ‘the crucial issue’; Kissinger’s comment that the USA did not advocate either a ‘two Chinas’ solution or a ‘one China, one Taiwan’ solution made the prospects for US–PRC relations ‘hopeful’. Zhou stressed the USA had to treat China as an equal, but the establishment of diplomatic relations was not ‘an absolute’ necessity for a Nixon–Mao summit. Kissinger said Washington needed time to resolve the Taiwan issue; if the Indochina war ended, the USA could ‘settle the major part of the military question’ within Nixon’s first term. The ‘political question’ of Taiwan’s future could ‘certainly’ be settled ‘within the earlier part of the President’s second term’. Beijing took this timeframe as the datum on which to calculate the pace of ‘normalisation’. On the Indochina war, Kissinger said the USA wished to so negotiate its end that Hanoi found it worthwhile to honour the terms. He revealed his secret trip to Paris on 31 May, and the proposal he had made to Hanoi’s delegates: • • • • •

Washington would set a date for complete withdrawal of its forces. There should be a ceasefire across Indochina. All prisoners should be released. The Geneva Accords on Indochina should be respected. Subsidiary provisions for international supervision and prevention of infiltration.

Kissinger added that at another secret meeting on 26 June, Le Duc Tho offered a nine-point response slightly different from Hanoi’s earlier

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seven-point proposal. Zhou asked what the US objections were; Kissinger explained Hanoi’s deadline of 31 December 1971 was too short – an agreement could be reached within the next twelve months. Also, while Washington would provide post-war aid, it rejected reparation demands. The sticking points were demands that ‘we overthrow the present government in Saigon’, and Hanoi’s rejection of a region-wide ceasefire: we are prepared to withdraw completely from Indochina and to give a fixed date, if there is a ceasefire and release of our prisoners. Secondly, we will permit the political solution of South Vietnam to evolve and to leave it to the Vietnamese alone. We recognize that a solution must reflect the will of the South Vietnamese people and allow them to determine their future without interference. We will not re-enter Vietnam and will abide by the political process.56 Kissinger said Nixon believed ‘the time for peace has come’. Zhou explained the historical basis of Hanoi’s doubts about US sincerity – Washington’s decision not to sign the 1954 Indochina accords but its announced plans to adhere to those, and then succeed France as the preeminent foreign force in Indochina, King Bao Dai’s ouster, and the assassination of General Diem and his brother. Kissinger agreed all foreign forces should withdraw, allowing the Indochinese people to decide their own future. He insisted it was in China’s interest that the USA did not abandon its principles so that Beijing saw Washington as a reliable partner not driven by local, tactical, interests. Perspectives clearly differed. Zhou said if the USA was keen to end the war, it should promptly withdraw. He asked Washington to accept blame for expanding the war into Cambodia in 1970, and Laos in 1971. The USA was ‘rearming the Japanese militarists’, with Tokyo racing to implement its Fourth Defence Plan which was ‘drawn up according to the Joint Communiqué of President Nixon and Prime Minister Sato’. He asked, ‘What attitude toward peace is that? Isn’t that a threat?’ Zhou said the people of Cambodia would not recognise the Lon Nol regime. Kissinger replied there were 50,000 North Vietnamese troops in Cambodia before the US operations; the USA had not been involved in Lon Nol’s coup. Zhou asked why, if the USA had decided to withdraw from Indochina, it did not do so directly, and not sustain the unpopular regimes of General Thieu in Saigon and General Lon Nol in Phnom Penh. Kissinger said the USA could not ‘participate in the overthrow of people with whom we have been allied, whatever the origin of the alliance’. Zhou avoided details – ‘China is a friend’ of Indochinese states, and ‘their leaders must make their own decisions’. China only had ‘technical advisers’ in Vietnam, to build roads, railroads and bridges. To protect them, the PLA deployed anti-aircraft batteries. Zhou said the situation in Vietnam, as far as PLA troops were concerned, was very unlike the one in Korea; Chinese person-

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nel would return from Vietnam as soon as their construction assignments were completed. Zhou asked that US military presence in Korea be ended. Kissinger replied the USA was ‘willing to sign an agreement with you on the basis of the Five Points of Peaceful Co-existence’. He explained the need for deliberate movement in changing the international security environment, but if US–PRC relations developed, and South Korean troops returned home after the Indochina war, ‘I would think it quite conceivable that before the end of the next term of President Nixon, most, if not all, American troops will be withdrawn from Korea.’57 Zhou said Nixon was right in stating the USA was globally overstretched, and needed to consolidate its strength. While the USA spent $700 billion on defence in the 1960s, Japan spent very little and had become a formidable economic power with considerable military potential. Zhou mentioned US expenditure on the Marshall Plan and the Lend–Lease arrangements to make his point. Kissinger explained post-War US policy, driven by military-security concerns and idealistic motivations, leading to a global spread of engagements. He stressed the difficulty of retrenching during the conclusion of ‘a very painful and difficult war’. Zhou said the USSR was following US footsteps in pursuing an expansive strategy; Moscow would face the same difficulties the USA confronted. Kissinger replied it was Soviet action which produced US responses. Both expressed concern over a strengthening Japan. Not entirely endorsing Zhou’s analysis of Japan’s ‘expansionist tendencies’, Kissinger insisted US–Japan defence ties restrained Tokyo. If Japan militarised, ‘which it will do if it feels forsaken by us, and if it builds nuclear weapons, as it could easily do, then I feel the fears which you have expressed could become real indeed’.58 The two sides established a framework for further discussions. The session lasted several hours; Zhou remained ever the attentive and hospitable host. As the meeting wound up, he announced arrangements for sightseeing trips in the Forbidden City. The next session would be held the following afternoon. Kissinger’s team spent the first half of 10 July being shown round the Imperial Palace and other buildings on the grounds. Talks resumed around midday, lasting nearly six hours. Zhou began by responding to Kissinger’s points from 9 July. Noting Nixon’s recent comments on the emergence of five power centres – the USA, the USSR, Western Europe, China and Japan, he said China was not yet an economic power; Beijing would strive to develop its resource base and productive capacity over the next few decades but ‘will not join in the ranks of the superpowers’.59 On withdrawal of US forces from Taiwan, Zhou said, despite Nixon saying he sought friendship with China, the protracted process would hold back reconciliation. He repeated Beijing’s demands:60 •

The PRC Government must be recognised as the sole legitimate government of China.

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• •

Taiwan must be acknowledged to be an inalienable part of China. The USA must not support a ‘two Chinas’ policy or a ‘one China, one Taiwan’ policy and not support the ‘so-called’ Taiwan Independence Movement. The USA should not again say that the status of Taiwan was ‘undetermined’.

•

Left unresolved, these issues would fester; if not addressed during Nixon’s trip, ‘then what would be the result of his visit?’ However, this was not a precondition, but a ‘certain direction of effort’ should be apparent. Zhou expressed unhappiness over South Asia, especially ‘more propaganda from the Indian side’. He noted a recent Soviet statement hoping India and Pakistan would peacefully resolve their differences; but he did not trust Moscow. India–Pakistan tensions had risen over the civil war in East Pakistan. Large arms deliveries to India troubled China, Pakistan’s ally. Concerned that Zhou felt Washington acquiesced in ‘Indian aggression’, Kissinger pointed out that both the USA and China were supplying Pakistan. Zhou had other worries – ‘the Middle East, Europe, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic Sea or the Atlantic’, as well as Japan, Korea, and Indochina. But Beijing’s real fears were: The worst would be that China would be carved up once again. You could unite, with the USSR occupying all areas north of the Yellow River, and you occupying all the areas south of the Yangtse River, and the eastern section between these two rivers could be left to Japan.61 Zhou said if this happened, the Chinese would mount a people’s war, costing time and many lives. He spoke fervently of US ‘aggression’, and ‘oppression’, especially in Indochina. Since the USA was concerned with its dignity, honour and face, it should consider those of the Vietnamese, too. Washington should withdraw ‘lock, stock and barrel’ from Indochina ‘on your own initiative’ as the most honourable step. But he was most scathing on Taiwan. If Washington did not very clearly adopt a policy of friendship with the PRC, ‘but take one step and look before taking the next step, then the consequences would be that Japan would go into Taiwan’.62 Zhou focused on Japan’s $16bn Fourth Defence Plan; Tokyo was raising forces exceeding its defence needs. On South Asia, Zhou said China could not ‘sit idly by’ if India continued pressing Pakistan. This was one area where PRC–US convergence was apparent. Zhou said although Pakistan was militarily much smaller than India, should Delhi provoke a war, given Pakistan’s higher ‘morale and fighting capacity, India itself would be the victim’. On Kissinger’s arms control agenda, Beijing rejected the Soviet proposal for a ‘five-power nuclear conference’; China had not signed any nuclear arms agreements, and would continue testing – ‘we do so to break the nuclear monopoly

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and to fight against the nuclear blackmail of certain great powers’. The Chinese tests were limited, and Beijing would never initiate nuclear warfare, but the best option was complete nuclear disarmament. Zhou did not know what US and Soviet teams discussed in Geneva, but the US defence budget rose annually, as did turmoil around the world. On bilateral links, Zhou said working through third parties was awkward; he would welcome another visit, preferably by Kissinger himself, on a more extended trip. Kissinger’s response was built around the need for patience and understanding: ‘We should not destroy what is possible by forcing events beyond what the circumstances will allow.’63 He agreed gradual moves toward normalisation carried contradictions but revealed Nixon was planning to announce the USA was withdrawing its opposition to Beijing’s accession to the UN by majority voting; but expulsion, presumably Taiwan’s, would require a two-thirds majority. This would enable China to join the Security Council. As soon as it mustered a two-thirds majority, it could have Taiwan expelled from the UN. Zhou said China had lived outside the UN for 21 years and did not attach much importance to membership; he could not accept this proposal. Kissinger assured him Washington would not let Japan move into Taiwan, nor support an independence movement there. He asked Zhou pass to him any information to the contrary. Nixon was the only US politician who could build this initiative without being destroyed by the ‘China lobby’. Zhou said he had not responded to other US politicians seeking invitations to visit China, and would not until Nixon’s summit ended. Over lunch on Peking Duck, Zhou expressed anguish over the Cultural Revolution’s turmoil virtually splitting China asunder. He admitted Mao and others had not foreseen the ‘extent of the disturbances’ and that a number of soldiers had been killed. But he appeared relieved that the Revolution’s critics, such as Liu Shao-chi, the ‘leader of the oppositionists’, had been struck down. The campaign’s proponents and Zhou did not share any affection, but his comments underscored the deep wounds the Revolution’s violent catharsis had inflicted on China. When formal talks resumed, Kissinger said the USA was anxious to see peace restored to Indochina, but needed a ‘transition period between the military withdrawal and the political evolution. Not so that we can reenter, but so that we can let the people of Vietnam and of other parts of Indochina determine their own fate’.64 Washington would accept agreed limits to external military support to regional parties during this period, and ‘The United States will abide by the determination of the will of the people.’ Zhou said the details of US withdrawal ought to be negotiated with Hanoi; China would support the ‘people of Indochina’ as long as they faced foreign forces. Zhou criticised US support for the Thieu and Lon Nol regimes and reiterated Chinese support for Hanoi’s seven-point proposal. Kissinger’s comments on Japan and the USSR followed Nixon’s

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instructions – Japan must be able to defend itself. The USA would oppose ‘military expansion by the Japanese. Indeed, I believe that in the area of relations between large countries, our interests and yours are very parallel’.65 Kissinger stressed ‘Soviet military adventurism’ which was ‘essentially between you and the USSR’. There was no possibility of the USA plotting with the USSR and Japan to carve up China. He assured Zhou the forces Beijing deployed to halt possible US attacks could be redeployed ‘more usefully elsewhere’. Looking to the future, Kissinger pledged, ‘If we want to reduce some of the chaos in the world, then I believe that in relations among large countries the United States will be your supporter and not your opponent.’66 This was the first US pronouncement that, in global security terms, Washington would be Beijing’s ally, not an adversary. Defense Secretary Laird, visiting Tokyo and unaware of Kissinger’s presence in Beijing, had just stated Japan should ‘look to its own nuclear weapons for protection’. Kissinger said this statement, not authorised by the White House, would never be repeated. He reiterated the offer to ‘discuss with you, if we can find the means, any proposal made by any other large country which could affect your interests, and that we would take your views very seriously’. He offered any information Zhou might want on US–Soviet negotiations on SALT or other issues concerning Beijing. Reinforcing the leverage Nixon had mentioned, he added, ‘So while these negotiations will continue, we will attempt to conduct them in such a way that they do not increase the opportunity for military pressure against you.’ Kissinger stressed the mutuality of US–PRC views, interests and concerns over South Asia, their friendship for Yahya Khan’s government, and unhappiness with India’s role – ‘We want the people of India to develop their own future, but we also want them to leave their neighbours alone.’ On Moscow’s proposal for a five-power disarmament conference, he understood Beijing’s refusal to attend; Washington would participate, but move slowly. Negotiating limits on strategic arms concerned the superpowers, but Beijing would be fully briefed. Kissinger explained the urgency of establishing reliable, confidential communication channels for emergency consultations. Ambassador David Bruce was the best US man to carry messages back and forth. However, both agreed public visits by diplomats would make it difficult to maintain confidentiality. Zhou described the tribulations of the CPC’s ideological disputes, and factional strife over the previous half-century. Many leaders had faltered and fallen; only Mao survived. And he responded to Nixon’s initiative. After Nixon suggested that his daughter and son-in-law consider spending their honeymoon in China, Mao instructed that Kissinger be invited for this mission. On the Nixon–Mao summit, Zhou asked if Nixon had considered visiting Moscow, or inviting Soviet leaders to Washington, first. He would rather a superpower summit preceded a US–PRC one. He was ‘not afraid of a big turmoil’, but ‘Ping Pong diplomacy’ had deeply troubled

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Moscow and he was not keen to ‘create such a stir’. Kissinger said Nixon had been invited by Soviet leaders, and he could go over in the next six months. Zhou suggested Nixon visit China after 1 May 1972. Kissinger pointed out with the presidential campaign beginning in May, the timing could be seen as an electoral ploy. He recommended March or April 1972. Zhou said he would ask Mao but wondered if a Moscow summit first would still be considered. Kissinger explained that many practical matters could be discussed with Soviet leaders, but the ‘regular business’ with Moscow was not comparable to the historic turning point in US–PRC relations. They agreed that Nixon’s China assignation would take precedence. Marshal Yeh and Ambassador Huang would work with Kissinger on the announcement to be made on Nixon’s visit, and a public trip to Beijing by a US envoy, to finalise preparations. The teams met after dinner to discuss respective drafts. Zhou was inexplicably detained, and the visitors had gone to bed when the Chinese side returned to the guesthouse. Zhou was spending a lot of time with Kissinger, and may have been catching up. Preparing the Chinese draft, too, could have taken time. The possibility of divided opinion within the leadership about this dramatic shift, with consequences for the alreadystrained relationship with Moscow, could not be discounted. Zhou’s comment to Kissinger at their final meeting about the US gifts for Mao, Lin Biao and Zhou hinted at this. The Premier acknowledged receiving the gifts, and ‘immediately went on to say that he and Mao sent their regards to the President, and did not mention Lin Piao in this respect’.67 This suggested Lin did not endorse Mao’s decision to respond so positively to Nixon’s China initiative. Events that shook China eight weeks later reinforced this hypothesis. They worked out Kissinger’s departure the following day. Zhou meticulously pointed out that a 1 p.m. departure meant the US team would have to leave the Guesthouse at 12.20 rather than 12.30 p.m.! Kissinger once again assured Zhou that China faced no military threat from Taiwan, which could not invade the mainland without US support. He asked for any information Zhou might have on aggressive activities of the Taiwanese military, and on the Taiwan Independence Movement. Kissinger then said, should a US–Soviet agreement be reached on the future of Berlin or on limiting strategic arms, the leaders ‘would meet to sign it. But we will not arrange a meeting in the abstract unless there is a specific occasion for one’. He wanted Zhou to understand this could happen in six months, but no fixed plans existed. He stressed if a US–USSR accord were to impact on China, Zhou would be kept informed – ‘We have so far refused any proposal that could be applied to nuclear countries other than the US and the Soviet Union.’68 Zhou asked about Berlin; Kissinger explained how the USA sought to reduce tension over the city. Zhou said when the Soviet Union attacked China on Zhenbao Island on the Ussuri River, it was creating an incident

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to ‘undo’ the Berlin crisis and ‘to escape their responsibility over Berlin’. Kissinger said he could not make a judgement on this, but on the Xinjiang clashes, he learnt a lesson. He had assumed that in Chinese–Soviet disputes, ‘the Chinese were always the aggressors’. But then he noticed that clashes took place: three miles from the Soviet railhead and 200 miles from a Chinese railhead. It then occurred to me that the Chinese military leaders would not have picked such a spot to attack. Since then I have looked at this problem with a different perspective.69 Zhou explained Sino–Indian differences over Ladakh – China occupied the 5,000 metre-high ‘Aksai-Chin Plateau of Singkiang’ while India held the Ladakh region below. China built a road across the plateau linking Xinjiang with Tibet’s Ali district. No British colonial map showed the plateau as Indian territory and ‘Nehru was only able to provide a claim on the basis of a map drawn by a British traveller’. For three years after the road had been built, Delhi ‘didn’t know about it’. In 1956, Nehru raised the issue with Zhou but there was no agreement. In December 1959, an Indian patrol was sent ‘crawling up the steep slopes to attack our post’. The Indians suffered heavy casualties, and Moscow said, ‘The Chinese committed aggression against India . . . This was the first such anti-China statement from the USSR.’70 It heightened PRC–USSR tensions. Also, just before going to Camp David in June 1959, Khrushchev ‘tore up the Soviet agreement on atomic cooperation with China’, a ‘gift’ to Eisenhower, along with Moscow’s support for Delhi against Beijing. Visiting Beijing later in 1959, Khrushchev criticised the CPC as ‘roosters who like to fight’. Confronted on these issues, Khrushchev’s ‘totally illogical’ response confirmed Chinese outrage. The schism became irreversible. Kissinger said Washington only learnt this in the 1960s. Two ‘working sessions’ on the draft announcement followed – one beginning at midnight, the other, next morning. Huang Hua led the Chinese in the first session, Marshal Yeh joining in later. The Chinese wanted the announcement to indicate ‘the President had asked for invitation to visit China’. Kissinger pointed out although Nixon had expressed such a wish, ‘it was the Chinese who had actually proposed such a visit’.71 They settled on a mutually expressed desire for a summit. The Chinese wanted the summit to focus on the ‘normalization of relations’; Kissinger asserted it would ‘be beneficial to Asian and world peace’. This was eventually accepted. The hosts sought a break at 1.40 a.m. Later, Kissinger was advised the next session would begin around 9 a.m. Marshal Yeh brought back his team just before 10 a.m., to discuss specific phrases and the summit’s timing. Both ‘clearly made an effort to find mutually acceptable compromises’.72 Kissinger described the intricacies of US media coverage and how the announcement’s timing could either ensure maximum exposure, or

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prevent it. Thursday evening US time was ideal ‘for more intelligent coverage of the event in the American Sunday newspapers and the weekly news magazines’. Premier Zhou arrived to say 15 July would be a little too early – could the announcement be delayed by a few days? Kissinger stressed the need to get the weekend press to cover the announcement in detail – hence Thursday. Zhou conveyed Mao’s advice that ‘Before May’ for Nixon’s visit meant ‘anytime during this period, including this winter’. He asked that before the summit, a senior US envoy make a public visit to China. Kissinger agreed. Zhou suggested that confidential contacts be made through Ambassador Huang Zhen in Paris. Kissinger said General Walters would be the White House’s point-man. They decided that Walters would call Huang on 18 July and work out arrangements. Zhou wanted Nixon to spend at least five days in China. Kissinger felt that was too long; perhaps ‘up to’ five days. They agreed Nixon could visit one or two places outside Beijing. Kissinger wanted to restrict the US press delegation; Zhou suggested ten journalists, leaving it to Nixon to determine his entourage. The summit’s agenda would be finalised during the public visit by a US envoy, but discussions would cover the ground Zhou and Kissinger had. Zhou said Yahya Khan should be informed that his channel would still be used – ‘We have a saying in China that one shouldn’t break the bridge after crossing it.’ Kissinger got Zhou’s tacit assurance that no US politician would be invited before the summit. On the proposed agreement renouncing force, Zhou said this was linked to Taiwan. He would brief Hanoi on relevant issues after the summit was announced. Kissinger would brief Huang Zhen on the SALT agreement so that Beijing could discuss specific points with Washington, especially prevention of accidental wars. Zhou showed no interest. They agreed to end the Warsaw talks. Kissinger requested ‘a favour’, pardon and release of four US prisoners. Zhou promised to consider this. He then made a few points, beginning with Taiwan – repeating Chinese concerns about US forces, the US–ROC Defense Treaty, the Taiwanese independence movement and the possibility of Japanese forces following behind departing US troops. Kissinger repeated his assurances, hoping the issue would be resolved peacefully. Zhou sounded pleased with Laird’s retraction of comments made in Tokyo, and was very flexible on the Summit’s timing – any time including November 1971 would be fine. But describing Kissinger’s UN formulation as ‘temporarily one China, one Taiwan’, Zhou said Beijing had to reject it. He repeated concerns over Japanese military activities, the impact of economic growth on the revival of ‘Japanese militarism’, and tensions on the Korean peninsula, reiterating support for Hanoi in the Paris peace talks. He then informed Kissinger of a major India–Pakistan artillery duel in East Pakistan on 9 July, and an attempted coup against King Hassan of Morocco on 10 July. Zhou’s final point was on Pakistan – ‘Please tell President Yahya Khan that if India commits aggression, we will support Pakistan. You are also against

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that.’ Kissinger said Washington could not take military action but would do its best to dissuade India from attacking Pakistan. In Islamabad, Kissinger telegraphed General Haig, asking him to inform Nixon that a summit had been scheduled any time from December 1971 onward; an announcement would have to be made at 10.30 p.m. ‘D.C. time’ on 15 July. Maintaining secrecy until then was crucial. Kissinger was excited. His comment – ‘Conversations were the most intense, important, and far reaching of my White House experience. Principal host spent 17 hours with us’73 – said it all. His 27-page report to Nixon summarised the discussions with Zhou, referred to Nixon’s agenda, and described the ebb and flow of exchanges. He wrote, ‘The talks brought about a summit meeting between you and Mao Tse-tung, covered all the major issues between the two countries at considerable length and with great candour, and may well have marked a major new departure in international relations.’74 The summary hinted at Kissinger’s regard for Zhou.75 The concluding section looked beyond the official: this visit was a very moving experience. The historic aspects of the occasion; the warmth and dignity of the Chinese; the splendor of the Forbidden City, Chinese history and culture; the heroic stature of Chou En-lai; and the intensity and sweep of our talks combined to make an indelible impression on me and my colleagues.76 Kissinger the realist saw difficulties, too. Profound differences and long isolation separated them. Beijing would be tough on sensitive issues like Taiwan. If relations turned sour, they would be implacable foes. But their ‘inward security’ allowed them to function as ‘meticulous and reliable interlocutors’. And the outcome was substantial: the process we have now started will send enormous shock waves around the world. It may panic the Soviet Union into sharp hostility. It could shake Japan loose from its heavily American moorings. It will cause a violent upheaval in Taiwan. It will have major impact on our other Asian allies, such as Korea and Thailand. It will increase the already substantial hostility in India.77 The risks were known, and manageable, however. The alternative, continued isolation from one-quarter of ‘the world’s most talented people’, was unacceptable. Kissinger ended on a flourish: ‘Our dealings, both with the Chinese and others, will require reliability, precision and finesse. If we can master this process, we will have made a revolution.’ He was right. Nixon’s announcement the following day did shake up the post-war framework of international relations. Most dazed were Administration officials. The need to explain the secrecy was strong. Nixon summoned White House staff four days after he told the world he had accepted an invitation to visit Beijing:

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The China meeting will abort if there is not total secrecy. We can’t control the Congress, but we can control the Cabinet and the staff. You may wonder, why does it hurt to say ‘it’s a great coup’, ‘it will drive the Soviets up the wall’, ‘it will help us in Vietnam’, and so forth? The answer is that the way to make sure they don’t happen is to speculate that they will. The Chinese will have to react.78 The initiative’s import was clear, as was who envisioned and drove it: they are one-fourth of the world’s population. They’re not a military power now but twenty-five years from now they will be decisive. For us not to do now what we can do to end this isolation would leave things very dangerous. Even a total détente with the Soviets would mean nothing if the third power was isolated.79

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A new beginning

We would be prepared at your request, and through whatever sources you wish, to give you whatever information we have about the disposition of Soviet forces.1 (Henry Kissinger to Huang Hua, December 1971) We must ask ourselves why the Soviets have more forces on the border facing you than on the border facing Western Europe . . . The question is which danger the People’s Republic faces, whether it is the danger of American aggression or Soviet aggression.2 (Richard Nixon to Mao Zedong, February 1972) So long as the objectives are the same, we would not harm you nor would you harm us. And we can work together to commonly deal with a bastard.3 (Mao Zedong to Henry Kissinger, February 1973) The destruction of China by the Soviet Union, or even a massive attack on China by the Soviet Union, would have unforeseeable consequences for the entire international situation . . . We have some ideas on how to lessen the vulnerability of your forces and how to increase the warning time, and I repeat that it has to be done in such a way that it is very secret and not obvious.4 (Henry Kissinger to Zhou Enlai, November 1973)

Henry Kissinger’s July 1971 clandestine trip to Beijing marked a shift at the apex of the international security system. Until then, geopolitics had been dominated by the bipolar confrontation. The superpowers faced off such destructive arsenals that others could only shudder from the sidelines. The frozen solidity of nuclear deterrence built upon ‘mutual assured destruction’, with decisions shaped by a zero-sum competition, limited their room for manoeuvre. Threats of incidents spiralling into crises coloured a culture of anxiety. Against this backdrop, Kissinger’s flight to Beijing introduced fluidity. An emergent tripolarity generated systemic flux. The probability of an

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emerging great power joining hands with one of two rival superpowers challenged the bipolar encrustation. There was now a game to be played, negotiations to be held, deals to be made, support to be sought and given, and a new strategic architecture to be fashioned. Possibilities, unthinkable days ago, suddenly beckoned. Kissinger would later describe the Chinese leadership as ‘cold, pragmatic bastards’. Beijing’s view was similar. Shared interests drew the two together; Washington offered gifts Beijing could not refuse. The transcripts of the Kissinger–Zhou meetings exceeded 500 pages.5 Kissinger could not have offered anything without presidential authority. The fact that during his 1972 trip Nixon praised those earlier talks suggests Kissinger had done the President’s bidding. Nixon’s assurances to Mao and Zhou that he would ensure the confidentiality of their exchanges, and that Secretary of State Rogers was excluded from substantive talks, indicated their sensitivity. Secrecy was maintained over US–PRC strategic collaboration long after the Soviet Union’s demise. Efforts to unveil the substance of Washington–Beijing cooperation have only partially succeeded.6 Shared anxiety over Soviet military power was the critical drive behind this collaboration. China’s fears had deepened since the 1969 border clashes. Perceived immediacy of the threat, and Beijing’s inability to meet it unaided, pushed Mao and Zhou toward this radical departure. In Washington, too, continuing drain of blood and treasure in Indochina, the emergence of Japan and Western Europe as major actors, fears for America’s future supremacy, and Nixon’s predilections for realpolitik drove his accommodation with Beijing. His view of superpower relations explained this: • • •

• • •

We are ideological adversaries, and will remain so. We are political and military competitors, and neither can be indifferent to advances by the other in either field. We each stand at the head of a group of countries whose association we value and are not prepared to sacrifice to an improvement in Soviet–American relations. We each possess an awesome nuclear force created and designed to meet the threat implicit in the other’s strength. We both conduct global policies. Unless prudence is used, this can create new tensions and areas of conflict in our relations. Both our peoples are acutely conscious of almost half-a-century of sharp hostility.7

Nixon repeatedly pledged, ‘our policy is not aimed against Moscow’. He explained why he would not play a ‘China card’ – ‘Others have suggested that we should use our opening to Peking to exploit Sino–Soviet tensions. We have consistently explained to all parties that we will not attempt to do so because it would be self-defeating and dangerous.’8 Nonetheless,

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Kissinger offered Beijing intelligence on Soviet deployments along Chinese borders, briefing Zhou Enlai and PLA commanders, using Soviet radio intercepts and US satellite imagery. After China replaced Taiwan at the UN, Beijing’s envoy there received similar briefings. The process was reinforced during Kissinger’s second trip in October,9 as the two sides worked out details of Nixon’s planned visit. This level of strategic intimacy was reserved for only a few NATO allies. Controlled by Kissinger, this exchange of tactical and strategic intelligence with a still-formally hostile power could only have proceeded under presidential authority. The antiSoviet basis of the relationship was formalised early on. However, neither leadership enjoyed elite consensus supporting such a radical departure in relations. Senior figures in both capitals worked secretly, sharing little with bureaucratic factions. In this, the USA was more successful. Nixon and Kissinger operated at the apex of a tightly knit NSC; Nixon personally led the process.10 Mao and Zhou faced many influential critics at home and abroad. Shortly after seeing Kissinger off at Beijing airport in July 1971, Zhou flew to Hanoi to brief Vietnamese allies. Having earlier criticised their decision to negotiate with the USA, Zhou had to acknowledge secretly entertaining Nixon’s National Security Adviser. Le Duan, subtly scathing, criticised the USA rather than China.11 He quickly visited Moscow, seeking reassurance. On his way back, Le Duan saw Zhou in Beijing; Zhou reiterated support for Hanoi’s position against the USA, but sounded lame.12 Domestic criticism was more serious. Marshal Lin Biao led the dissenters. Anointed Mao’s successor, Lin commanded Beijing’s conservative quarters, especially the PLA’s upper rungs. Senior officers had extended their influence since 1969 when, faced with the Soviet threat and growing Red Guard violence, Mao had ordered the army to crush Red Guard resistance. Lin’s acolytes so penetrated the bureaucracy that Zhou expressed grave dissatisfaction.13 However, the CPC hierarchy, state organs and PLA rank-and-file did not support Lin. Having failed to convince Mao of the ideological ‘impurity’ of his policy shift, Lin and four other members of the Politburo – the PLA Chief of Staff, the Commander of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Commissar, and the Chief of Logistics – took over the PLA’s supreme command in early September. Confusion reigned over the fate of Mao and Zhou. However, using Mao’s name to secure support, Zhou aroused resistance among PLA formations. A successful counter-coup followed on 11–12 September. Victory at home was matched by success at the UN. After years of debate, in October 1971, the General Assembly voted to replace the ROC with the PRC. As before, the Secretary of State and the US ambassador to the UN sought support for Taiwan. But just before the vote, Kissinger’s well-publicised second trip to Beijing stole the thunder from such efforts. US officials who saw Taiwan as a bastion of anti-communist struggle,

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viewed Kissinger’s timing as White House sabotage designed to get China into the UN.14 In China, pro-Lin PLA officers were arrested. Some were executed; others received long sentences. Lin’s failure led to his flight, with family members and aides, on 12 September. Their Trident crashed in Mongolia, killing all nine on board.15 Mao and Zhou reasserted their authority but were constrained – Beijing was unable to defend shared US–PRC interests in a major regional conflict. The moral issues in the Bangladesh war had been clouded by big-power involvement. Washington and Beijing supported Pakistan’s military government despite the legal and constitutional ambiguities of the latter’s case. Moscow and Delhi had signed a treaty of friendship providing for military support during war. Protestations on Islamabad’s behalf notwithstanding, Beijing watched Pakistan being dismembered by Soviet-supported India. China’s rhetoric against Indian ‘expansionism’ and Soviet ‘social imperialism’ was shrill, but apart from providing weapons to Pakistan, and furnishing regional weather data to the USA, China did little.16 Washington noted the impotence of its prospective coalition partner. But the domestic cost of the PLA’s support was greater. Having defeated Bonapartist tendencies, Mao and Zhou were forced to pander to the PLA. Early in 1972, using the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee, and the State Council respectively, they issued an appeal to ‘strengthen the unity between the army and the Government’. They asked compatriots ‘to support the army and give preferential treatment to the families of army men and to support the government’, pointing out, ‘the people are also the source of the People’s Army and (a) guarantee for victory. The People’s Liberation Army should [for its part] modestly learn from the people throughout the country’.17 A day earlier, Brigadier General Alexander Haig and presidential spokesman Ron Ziegler had arrived in Beijing to finalise the details of Nixon’s February visit. On 6 January, they saw Zhou Enlai. The following day, China carried out a 20kT nuclear test at Lop Nor in Xinjiang. The test symbolised the restoration of the Mao–Zhou duopoly, and Beijing’s determination to defend China’s interests with nuclear might. It may also have indicated militarisation of the policymaking processes. November 1971 was a testing month. Beijing and Washington sought to overcome the resonance between regional conflict in South Asia and the Cold War’s triangular confrontation. Delhi had enjoyed close ties to Washington since July 1947 when Jawaharlal Nehru signed the first of several security cooperation accords with the USA.18 This relationship was premised on shared antipathy toward China, reinforced after the 1959 Tibetan insurrection, and consolidated during the 1962 India–China war. However, with Nixon seeking friendship with Beijing, India was no longer a strategic asset; US–Indian covert cooperation ceased. Delhi turned to Moscow; five weeks after Kissinger’s secret trip, India signed a treaty of friendship with the USSR. Any Chinese intervention that Pakistan could

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have hoped for in a war with India was pre-empted. This strategic finesse did not endear Delhi to Beijing or Washington. Nixon wanted to help Yahya Khan’s beleaguered military government, and to convince Beijing he was a reliable ally. The State Department, Congress and the Democratic Party pointed to the constitutional strength of the Bengali case. However, Nixon and Kissinger focused on the ‘big picture’ of strategic imperatives, accusing India of trying to dismember a UN member-state.19 They despatched Task Group-74, led by the USS Enterprise, from the US 7th Fleet. TG74, shadowed by a Soviet flotilla, entered the Bay of Bengal on 16 December, as Pakistani troops surrendered to Indian forces. When the futility of the exercise became clear, TG74 was ordered back. Bangladesh marked the first dismemberment of a UN member-state by third-party military intervention, establishing a potentially destabilising precedent. A setback for the putative US–PRC coalition, it may have generated resolve never to give in again. In the last stages of the war, Kissinger opened a back channel with Beijing. Earlier, he had appointed General Walters in Paris as a secret conduit. When Huang Hua arrived at the UN as China’s envoy, Kissinger began meeting him at CIA safehouses in New York. Huang relayed messages between Zhou and Kissinger. The meeting on 10 December focused on the Bangladesh war. Kissinger assured Huang – ‘We tell you about our conversations with the Soviets; we do not tell the Soviets about our conversations with you. In fact, we do not tell our own colleagues that I see you.’20 He described US measures to help Pakistan. Nixon had warned Brezhnev on 6 December, ‘Support of Indian aggression endangers the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States.’ Brezhnev proposed a cease-fire and negotiations between Pakistani and Bengali leaders. On 10 December, Pakistan’s General AAK Niazi sought a ceasefire; Nixon cautioned Brezhnev that without a cease-fire, ‘We would have to conclude that there is in progress an act of aggression directed at the whole of Pakistan, a friendly country, toward which we have obligations.’21 Nixon cancelled $87m in loans, $72m in food aid and $31m in military assistance to India. Kissinger told Huang he was advising Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey that if they sent US-supplied arms to Pakistan, Washington would protest but understand. He provided TG74’s order of battle, and mentioned the Soviet flotilla tailing it. But his key offer was on Soviet deployments near China: We only have information about the general disposition, and we collect it at irregular intervals by satellite. But we would be prepared at your request, and through whatever sources you wish, to give you whatever information we have about the disposition of Soviet forces.22 Kissinger conveyed Nixon’s pledge – ‘If the People’s Republic were to consider the situation on the Indian subcontinent a threat to its security,

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and if it took measures to protect its security, the US would oppose efforts of others to interfere with the People’s Republic’.23 Nixon was assuring Zhou that the USA would protect China from Soviet threats. Kissinger discussed options with Huang, asking China for ‘military help’. He said Pakistan was being ‘punished because it is a friend of China and because it is a friend of the United States’. He expressed ‘particular affection for Pakistan because we feel they helped to reestablish contact between the People’s Republic and the United States’. Kissinger would ask Pakistan’s emissary, Z.A. Bhutto, to take Huang’s advice on future action.24 But the exercise failed. Pakistan’s dismemberment, and the formative coalition’s ‘defeat’, may have reinforced the urgency of Nixon’s groundbreaking trip to China.

A world-class show Shortly before embarking on his summit, Nixon explained the initiative to Congress: •

•

•

It was in US, and global, interest that China played ‘its appropriate role in shaping international arrangements’. Only then would it have a stake in them; only then would they endure. China and the USA could be flexible if they did not consider each other permanent enemies. There were ‘no clashes between our fundamental national’ concerns. China and the USA shared many parallel interests and could do much together.25

Nixon balanced diverse expectations – not raising too many hopes, not revealing agreements reached and commitments made, not causing anxiety attacks in Moscow or Tokyo. He focused on ‘the historic significance of this journey’ – ‘We are talking at last. We are meeting as equals. A prominent feature of the post-war landscape will be changed. At the highest level we will close one chapter and see whether we can begin writing a new one.’26 His visit succeeded dramatically. Mao received him shortly after arrival. Their exchanges, easy and humorous, ranged widely. These set the tone for substantive talks with Zhou. Mao admitted that ‘there is a reactionary group which is opposed to our contact with you. The result was that they got on an airplane and fled abroad’.27 Candour indicated mutual confidence and the seriousness both attached to the initiative. Nixon offered to discuss ‘the future of Japan, the future of the subcontinent, what India’s role will be . . . and the future of US–Soviet relations’,28 in addition to Taiwan, Vietnam and Korea! He wished to share his world view, developing parallel approaches, founding cooperation on a realpolitik assessment of shared anxieties. Nixon admitted that for many years his views of China

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were antagonistic, but he recognised Beijing’s foreign policy was more important to Washington than its domestic politics.29 He insisted that China not worry about US ambitions; Beijing faced enemies closer to home. Moscow deployed larger forces along China’s borders than in the West. ‘The question is which danger the People’s Republic faces, whether it is the danger of American aggression or Soviet aggression. These are hard questions, but we have to discuss them.’30 Mao agreed the USA and China had few reasons for animosity but suggested substantive issues were best discussed with Zhou; he restricted himself to ‘philosophical issues’, flattering Kissinger. Nixon and Zhou agreed to operate on several levels. Secrecy was of the essence. At the first plenary session, Zhou was candid about the need for confidentiality: It is not very easy for me to answer their [media] questions in the middle (of the talks). Nor am I very adept at briefing conferences like Mr Kissinger. Because if I were to hold such briefing conferences I might tell the truth about what went on and then I would not be abiding by good faith.31 Both leaders were anxious to restrict attendance at the crucial sessions. Zhou established two strands – Secretary Rogers would meet Foreign Minister Chi Peng-fei to thrash out ‘normalisation’ issues. ‘But for basic matters, we must depend on Mr President and ourselves to solve. It goes without saying it involves all kinds of relationships as well as the question of the Taiwan situation.’32 These ‘private’ sessions would be the trip’s highlight, extending the chemistry binding Kissinger with Zhou to Mao and Nixon, laying the foundations of US–PRC relations under five successive US administrations. Zhou spelt out the Foreign Ministerial agenda – ‘the problems of normalization of contacts, or trade, culture, scientific (and) technology’; Nixon raised the role of Moscow: I know the Prime Minister will want to discuss, and we will want to discuss with him, not only Taiwan but the problems of Southeast Asia, Korea, South Asia, and then related problems in the Pacific area . . . For example, we cannot discuss a critical area like South Asia, and India, without evaluating the policy of the Soviet Union toward that area. And the same can be said about the whole problem of arms control.33 Zhou said Beijing did not consider itself a big power but the massive Soviet deployment along China’s frontiers did indicate its stature. Aware of the Taiwan issue’s significance, at the first ‘private’ meeting with Zhou, Nixon confirmed five principles of a still-secret policy earlier conveyed by Kissinger.34 Nixon pledged to withdraw two-thirds of US forces on Taiwan

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‘as the situation in Southeast Asia is resolved. I have made that decision. And the reduction of the remaining third of our military presence on Taiwan will go forward as progress is made on the peaceful resolution of the problem’.35 Noting his domestic difficulties over the China initiative, Nixon said US–PRC interests converged on maintaining US military capability in Europe, Japan and the Pacific. ‘I believe the interests of China are just as great as those of the US on that point.’36 He then focused on his core rationale – the ‘Soviet threat’. Moscow had moved ahead in nuclear arms at ‘a very alarming rate’; he was determined that Washington would not fall behind. Repeating the ‘danger’ to China from Soviet forces bigger ‘than it has arrayed against the Western Alliance’, Nixon offered an intelligence briefing for his hosts.37 Kissinger assured arrangements for this had already been made. Nixon thus validated intelligence exchanges, confirming covert collaboration as a key aspect of relations. Nixon explained his ‘hard line against India and for Pakistan’ in the Bangladesh war – ‘we were speaking not just to India or Pakistan but also – and we made them aware of it – to the Soviet Union’. The need for superpower ‘balance’ drove Nixon’s policies: If the US were in a position of weakness vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, whatever policy the US followed would have much less credence with the Soviet Union. For the US to be able to inhibit the Soviets in areas like the subcontinent, the US must at least be in a position of equality with the Soviet Union.38 Nixon accepted criticism that he was ‘sacrificing India, the second biggest country in the world, because of our desire to go forward with the China initiative’, but for him, the latter was far too important. The USA and China should maintain influence with Delhi instead of leaving the field to Moscow. With this was interwoven US global military presence as a counterpoise to Soviet threats to Beijing and Washington. In short, pragmatic self-interest demanded US–PRC collaboration against the USSR. Zhou was circumspect in explaining China’s world view, US–PRC differences, and historical inconsistencies in Washington’s China policy. He criticised the superpowers for devoting massive resources to armaments, threatening world peace. His ‘worst case’ scenario shocked his guests: ‘The worst possibility is . . . the eventuality that you all would attack China – the Soviet Union comes from the north, Japanese and the US from the east, and India into China’s Tibet.’39 Zhou accepted Nixon’s assurance that the USA had no ambitions in China, that the ‘genuine desire of your people’ was peace. He said Moscow’s vocal criticism of ‘US–PRC collusion’ showed who the real enemy was. But he stressed China’s support for ‘Vietnam and the whole of Indochina’. He asked Nixon to emulate de Gaulle’s ‘bold action’ in Algeria and withdraw from Indochina; US presence would increase

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Moscow’s influence. He said as long as the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia ‘continue fighting, we can do nothing but continue to support them’. But he agreed that Vietnam was not Korea; Beijing would not send combat troops to Indochina. He even downplayed Taiwan – ‘We have already waited over twenty years . . . and can wait a few more years.’40 Nixon said US forces in Vietnam numbered below 100,000; he would soon order further cuts effectively ending military involvement.41 However, he would not countenance withdrawal without a negotiated settlement: ‘If I were sitting across the table from whoever is the leader of North Vietnam and we could negotiate a cease-fire and the return of our prisoners, all Americans would be withdrawn from Vietnam six months from that day.’42 Nixon had proposed this in 1970 but Hanoi demanded the removal of the Saigon authorities. ‘That we can’t do’ – Nixon would not join US enemies to overthrow US friends. As for his expectation of China, he was frank: A strong China is in the interests of world peace at this point. I don’t mean to suggest that China should change its policy and become a superpower. But a strong China can help provide the balance of power in this key part of the world – that is desperately needed. Then, too, I have a selfish reason – if China could become a second superpower, the US could reduce its own armaments.43 Zhou Enlai laughed in polite self-deprecation.

Laying the foundations Nixon was effusive in his speech at the banquet on that first evening. He talked of the historic nature of his visit and how it strengthened world peace. He went round the tables toasting and shaking hands with all the dignitaries present. Zhou Enlai responded with his more restrained vision of China building relations with all countries, including the USA, on the basis of the Panchshil, the five principles of peaceful co-existence.44 Using an earth–satellite station installed for this purpose, US TV networks broadcast the proceedings live, in colour, to viewers back home. This was the first such coverage of a presidential event abroad for most Americans; the dramatic locale and occasion made a stirring impression. The two leaders resumed substantive discussions, beginning with South Asia. Having ‘lost’ Bangladesh, Nixon wished to sound Zhou out on future action. Zhou asserted that in 1962 India had initiated war; Nixon and Kissinger joined him in praising a Western account suggesting this indeed was the case. Zhou mentioned Sino–Soviet animosity influencing Sino–Indian relations, insisting Indian action was instigated by Khrushchev who ‘tore up’ a Sino–Soviet nuclear cooperation agreement in June 1959, just before his Camp David summit with Eisenhower. Anger at Moscow’s support for Delhi notwithstanding, Zhou hoped the USA

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would ‘reach agreements with the Soviet Union on disarmament and other matters. We have even expressed the wish that you visit the Soviet Union first’.45 Nixon sought Zhou’s views on recognising Bangladesh; even Bhutto, now Pakistan’s President, ‘could see that we would have some advantage in not leaving the field clear to the Soviet Union in that region’. Nixon indicated that if Indian forces left Bangladesh by 24 March as scheduled, he would consider according recognition. Zhou explained Pakistan’s tactical errors, dissipating rather than concentrating force, staying on the defensive rather than going on the offensive, and not striking within the first ten days of the Indian offensive. He balanced his critique of General Yahya Khan with praise for his help in building US–PRC links.46 Nixon said he would decide on recognising Bangladesh only if Indian forces withdrew; Kissinger would keep Zhou posted. Zhou pointed out that UN resolutions demanded withdrawal of both Indian and Pakistani forces from each other’s territory; he suggested Washington pursue this objective, and assist Pakistan. Nixon agreed, but said Congressional and popular opposition was strong. Had Pakistan been given more military help, India would not have ‘been tempted to win what they thought was a cheap victory. But that is water over the dam’. Zhou said Islamabad’s policy toward East Pakistan ‘had many errors. But because this was their internal matter we could only give advice and nothing more’.47 They then discussed policies pursued by Nehru and Indira Gandhi, the unacceptability of maps being changed by force, and the complexities of Kashmir. Nixon urged an invitation from Beijing to Senate leaders to visit China, securing bipartisan support for his initiative. He wished to ensure the policy would endure irrespective of who won the November elections. Zhou agreed. A review of global issues began with Korea. Both agreed to ‘exert influence’ to restrain respective allies on the peninsula. On Japan, Nixon’s initial comments were so sensitive that these were expunged from the record. Zhou said Japan’s past dependence on foreign raw materials and overseas markets had led to military expansion. He hoped a peaceful, democratic Japan, friendly to the USA and China, would be a force for peace, but he worried about Japan’s military potential. Nixon assured him that the US–Japan alliance restrained Tokyo; without it, the economic giant would resent being a military pygmy, and militarise. So, the US–Japan military partnership boosted regional security. Nixon then repeated his offer; he understood China’s leaders must protect it from invasions and said US–PRC relations would ensure that. Such help ‘is in our own self-interest. It is in the interest of the United States that China be a strong independent country and that China’s neighbors not engage in carving it up’.48 He was prepared to act militarily against Moscow to defend China in 1971 despite the risks of global escalation.49 This was the message he had Kissinger convey via Huang Hua. Nixon sought Zhou’s views on the forthcoming US–Soviet summit, assuring him Washington

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would reach no agreement with Moscow without consulting Beijing. He also offered to sign agreements with China similar to any reached with the USSR.50 He had just issued a trade policy ‘to put China and the Soviet Union on an absolutely equal footing’. Nixon asked why Moscow condemned his China trip. Zhou explained China was sharply critical of ‘Soviet expansionism’. Since Moscow’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, China called the USSR ‘social imperialists’, quoting Lenin; Moscow could not contest the detested appellation. Zhou recounted Soviet pressures on China starting with the 1969 border clashes, and how these were rooted in Czarist ‘unequal treaties’ that Lenin had ‘abolished’. When border talks began in 1964, Moscow sought to ratify the Czarist boundaries. China had resolved frontier issues with all its neighbours except the Soviet Union and India; these countries were ‘cooperating in this’. Zhou recounted the Chinese version of the March 1969 clashes, subsequent talks, and the massive Soviet deployments – ‘So when they feel the necessity of relaxing tensions they come and have negotiations, and when they want to raise tension they cease negotiations.’ He grasped Moscow’s fears: ‘They are really very frightened that the US and China are coming closer. They always think we are trying to put them on the spot.’51 Zhou said China was building socialism at home; expansionist acts would threaten this effort. There was a lot to do; the ‘greatest potential we have is our land’, but only a ninth of it was cultivated; little fertiliser was used. Pressed on the ideological root of Soviet–Chinese antipathy, Zhou admitted, ‘We don’t even recognize them as belonging to the socialist camp.’ They discussed differences over Khrushchev’s denigration of Stalin, Moscow’s treatment of Albania, and negotiations with Washington over the Partial Test Ban Treaty – Moscow pressed Beijing to support the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) although China had no nuclear weapons then. Zhou said in October 1964, after Khrushchev’s fall and China’s first nuclear test, he tried to rebuild relations, but ‘The policies pursued by Brezhnev were the same as those of Khrushchev.’ Kissinger said Soviet hysteria over US–PRC summitry was because Moscow took a long view, feared China’s military potential and worried that US support could strengthen Beijing’s challenge to Moscow’s leadership. Nixon said Washington should be willing to negotiate with Moscow, but never allow a repetition of Pakistan’s fate. He assured Zhou he would not let his meetings in Beijing ‘become an embarrassment to China in its relations with the Soviet Union’. But following the South Asian experience, he would be firm with Moscow, a stance Moscow respected.52 Nixon agreed the superpowers’ large nuclear arsenals were ‘a waste’ in a world with so much hunger. He sought arms control with Moscow; the USSR only agreed to negotiate when the USA increased its strength, and increased its own forces when Washington restrained itself. He insisted the USA would not ‘fall behind’ the Soviet Union in strategic power. The

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proposed SALT treaty was a limited agreement that excluded intermediate-range missiles; details of the two superpowers’ nuclear arsenals, and details of the superpowers’ discussions which Kissinger had shared with Zhou, were ‘totally reliable’. Kissinger added that when US–Soviet talks resumed and there was ‘any development, I will inform you through our regular channels. With the President’s approval, I will inform you of our position so that there will be reliable information’.53 Zhou said China did not wish to repeat the superpowers’ wasteful expenditure on strategic weapons. He sympathised with the USA given the challenges of reducing ‘very large piles’ of nuclear arms – SALT would be as difficult as the Sino–Soviet border negotiations. It was not all work, however. Cultural events and sight-seeing leavened schedules. Media coverage reflected the Nixons’ exhilaration on the Great Wall while Kissinger and Lord negotiated the draft communiqué with Ch’iao Kuan-hua. At formal talks that evening, Zhou reported Moscow’s comments about the summit: ‘They claim that our two sides are discussing how to oppose the Soviet Union, to conclude an anti-Soviet alliance. In Moscow they are making that proposition.’54 He briefed Nixon on the agreed communiqué. A key point was that both sides renounced ‘hegemony in the Asia–Pacific region’. On this, Zhou mentioned Japan, and Nixon, the Soviet Union. They agreed that ‘to the extent that each of us can, that we will resist efforts of others to seek hegemony’. Differences over Indochina remained – Zhou said China would support its allies as long as fighting continued. Nixon said he was determined to withdraw US forces but only after US prisoners of war (POWs) were retrieved and a negotiated settlement reached.55 He hoped that, unlike Moscow, Beijing would not discourage Hanoi from negotiating seriously. Zhou replied, he was impressed with Kissinger’s twelve secret meetings with the North Vietnamese in Paris since 1969, and favoured negotiations since then. On Korea, the two leaders were united on ensuring Japanese forces did not replace US ones – Nixon said Tokyo would not be allowed to deploy its troops to either Taiwan or Korea. Zhou said Beijing did not trust Eisaku Sato, pinning its hopes on his successor for normalising China–Japan relations. He reported Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko told Takeo Fukuda ‘that within five years you will see a conflict between China and the Soviet Union that would be even bigger than that which occurred in the Chen Pao Island incident’.56 Gromyko added Japan could have its four northern islands back if a peace treaty were signed, but not while Sino–Soviet border talks continued – such a return would favour China. Nixon said, ‘The Soviet Union has never returned anything to anybody’ – Japan would never regain the islands. Nixon compared the results of US aid to Japan, Germany and India – unlike the former, India lacked the drive to utilise aid for development. Zhou, more sympathetic, said Pakistan needed more help, and Beijing hoped to be alerted before Washington recognised Bangladesh. Asking,

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‘Don’t believe the press’, Nixon repeated his stance on the Bangladesh war – he wanted to prevent Moscow’s intervention elsewhere, like the Middle East. ‘It involved the principle whether big nations supported by the Soviet Union would be allowed to dismember one of their small neighbors. Once that principle is allowed, the world would be unsafe.’57 Zhou asked about peace efforts in the Middle East. Nixon said given the complexities, he did not expect a settlement in the foreseeable future. He thought Moscow was ‘playing for a dominant role in the Mediterranean. It is playing for the gateway to Africa, as well as playing for total influence in the Middle East’. Nixon had already warned the USSR during the Jordanian crisis, ‘that if they move aggressively in that area, we will consider our own interests involved’.58 At the final private session in Beijing, Zhou returned to Sino–Soviet relations – ‘We face a situation of great tension between China and the Soviet Union, but it won’t be difficult to solve if there is truly an intention to solve it.’ China was ‘willing to solve the boundary question if it is not done under the threat of force’. Beijing did not have territorial claims, nor would it impose its will on Moscow. But their ‘disputes on principle’ were ‘bound to continue’.59 In 1964–65, Pakistan’s President, Ayub Khan, had conveyed a Chinese commitment to avoid provocations, and a warning that if foreign forces entered China, the Chinese would defend themselves, to both Soviet and US leaders. Beijing said, ‘What we say counts.’ Also, an airborne or missile attack on China would be considered war; ‘you should not think that you could get away with that. Our attitude toward the Soviet Union at the present time still consists of these four points’.60 Zhou said if Soviet leaders asked about Beijing’s stance toward Moscow, Nixon might tell them that neither the USA nor China sought hegemony in the Pacific belt and neither wants ‘other powers to do so, and that also includes them’. Nixon replied he would not discuss US–PRC relations in Moscow without Zhou’s approval. Zhou wondered at Moscow’s ‘pathological’ opposition to US–PRC contacts. Nixon said Moscow wanted US–PRC tensions to persist.61 His own motives for the initiative were: In the very delicate power balances in the world . . . the United States . . . would not gain by trying to stimulate conflict between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic. The People’s Republic would not gain, the Soviet Union would not gain, and we would not gain by trying to stimulate conflict between the others. That is the ideal, but in practicality we realize that the real world is very different than the ideal, and that is what we are concerned about, the real world.62 The real world occasionally intervened. Zhou asked why the USA did not get Israel to return occupied Arab lands, and Portugal to give up its colonies. Nixon explained alliance obligations, Israel’s security impera-

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tives, and Washington’s belief in majority rule being constrained by the strategic need to support North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally Portugal. Although the USA and China might vote differently at the UN on these issues, their objectives were the same. Nixon requested Zhou to consider freeing a prisoner, US pilot Richard Downey, whose old mother was ill, and might soon die. Zhou offered to do what he could. The plenary session at Beijing airport the following morning was for the benefit of the media, and Foreign Ministers Chi and Rogers. Nixon and Zhou stressed their candour in identifying differences, while confirming some common ground. Rogers and Chi detailed the mechanics of maintaining contacts so as to ‘clear up misunderstandings’. Visa procedures, people-to-people contacts, trade and exchange of sportsmen, scientists and ‘medical personnel’ were mentioned. Zhou added ‘cultural exchanges’, and Nixon, ‘teachers’. Zhou asked Nixon to get Ziegler to brief the press. The party then flew on to Hangchow, combining sightseeing with finalising the Joint Communiqué. That proved complicated. When the draft agreed by Kissinger and Ch’iao Kuan-hua was brought before Rogers and Marshall Green, Green demanded changes. This was embarrassing for the Americans. Nixon had to agree to a revised draft which was transmitted overnight to Mao for his endorsement. Only then was the Shanghai Communiqué finalised. The final ‘private’ meeting was in Shanghai, before the ceremonial proclamation of the Communiqué. Nixon wanted to know how he could send private letters to Mao and Zhou. Kissinger said Ambassador Huang in New York was ‘the secret channel’. Contacts using General Walters in Paris had become ‘visible’ but the New York channel would remain secret.63 Nixon briefed Zhou on his action plan, pledging not to divulge their exchanges on the Soviet Union, Japan and India, stressing the need for restraining differences over ‘issues like Vietnam and African problems’. He asked that ‘personal references’ be avoided so that critics of this initiative received no ‘ammunition for their guns which they have pointed at us’. But for Nixon, ‘perhaps the most important point’ was: the enormous importance of not giving the Soviet Union any grounds to launch attacks of rhetoric against the People’s Republic due to the fact that this meeting has occurred . . . The Prime Minister can be sure I will be meticulous and also will not violate any confidence and will do nothing to cause embarrassment to China as a result of our meetings.64 Zhou reciprocated with similar assurances: With regard to some things we have discussed secretly and in our secret meetings, that is not only regarding the questions of the Soviet Union, Japan and India but also things we have decided to do but not

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He summarised the realpolitik bases of the US–PRC joint venture: As for what we mean by secrecy, that does not mean that we have something unspeakable or that we are engaged in schemes or plots against third countries. On the contrary that cannot be done, and it is better not to speak about that. Because we wish to achieve better possibilities but at the same time we prepare against the worst possibilities. This is only a precaution against the worst possibility.66 Nixon’s response echoed Zhou’s pragmatism – ‘What we have to do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst.’67 Vietnam remained a sore point. Zhou regretted US bombing of North Vietnam just before and during Nixon’s visit. Surprised, Nixon assured him such missions had been prohibited during the trip. Zhou specified the areas where US bombs had fallen; embarrassed, his guests promised to ‘check’. The group then travelled to the airport. There, watched by the televised world, the two leaders issued the Shanghai Communiqué, an unusual document enunciating both differences and accord.68 It was the first document laying the formal foundations of US–PRC relations, an innocuous statement of shared interest merely hinting at the subtext guiding covert collaboration.

Fear and loathing in Moscow Nixon’s China trip was the culmination of secret diplomacy backstopped by interagency reviews managed by Kissinger. In Beijing, the shift was led by Mao and Zhou, supported by trusted PLA commanders. Lin Biao questioned the move, and lost a battle fighting it. The context was pragmatic and strategic. For Nixon, ‘Communist China’ was a reality which Washington had to come to terms with. The loss of blood and treasure in Indochina, the trauma inflicted on US society, growing Soviet prowess, the rise of Japan and Western Europe as major economies, and the opportunities generated by Sino–Soviet differences, recommended a dramatic shift. Radically rebuilding the global security architecture required institutional support which the US bureaucracies did not volunteer. With a strong NSC team, Nixon drove his China initiative personally.69 He was anxious to end the war and ‘bring the boys home’, but his country’s global position imposed restrictions. Determined not to preside over visible US decline, Nixon almost willed to creation a multipolar security structure balancing on links among existing and emerging power centres. The superpowers struggled for advantage in a bipolar world

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largely frozen by nuclear deterrence. Nixon and Kissinger saw the USA losing its energies in distant conflicts, with the home base getting unsettled; the Soviet adversary built up its arsenal, denying Washington autonomy of action. Washington alone could no longer bear the burdens of the ‘free world’. Nixon’s Guam Doctrine was a paradigm with Washington sharing the costs of keeping the peace with allies. Japan, NATO–Europe and, crucially, China, would collaborate in facing Soviet muscularity. A new concert was being fashioned with Vietnamisation, détente and SALT its instruments. Maintaining leadership, securing predictability, and avoiding catastrophic war required this world of alliances. Nixon engaged Kissinger and the NSC to realise this vision. Soon after inauguration, Nixon asked Kissinger to initiate secret negotiations with Hanoi. He used bombing raids over Northern targets and, later, in Cambodia, to press Hanoi toward a deal. They sought Soviet and, later, Chinese support in encouraging Hanoi to accept US proposals. Pressure to end the war mounted. By the summer of 1971 Nixon was studying US casualty figures weekly, pestering NSC staff,70 comparing data, analysing trends, and monitoring changes. Hanoi’s ‘intransigence’ and domestic urgency drove Nixon toward improved relations with Beijing, and Moscow. Major shifts in global alignments demanded close supervision and secrecy. Rogers and his State Department were cut out of the policymaking ‘loop’. Ambassador Dobrynin and his superiors viewed darkly Nixon’s efforts to create and lead a multipolar front against Moscow. Their fears of renewed containment by encirclement in Europe and Asia agitated Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) Politburo members. Lin Biao’s failed coup, his death in Mongolia, and Beijing’s claims that he had Soviet links,71 raised Sino–Soviet tensions. Divisions between PLA commanders who saw the Soviet Union as the more immediate threat than the USA, and an influential minority who questioned that judgement, tested cohesion. But Mao and Zhou held steadily on course, responding to Nixon’s initiative, and securing time and strategic space in which to develop China’s ability to counter dangers in an unpredictable world. The coincidence of these events with South Asian polarisation over the ‘Bangladesh War’, and Nixon’s China initiative, caused resonances between regional and global fissures, sharpening existing cleavages. Nixon’s eagerness to fashion a better-balanced and more manageable world triggered insecurity in the Kremlin. CPSU commentary around Nixon’s China trip was severely critical of ‘collusion’ between two adversary powers against Soviet interests. One Soviet commentator saw ‘evidence of a desire both in the Peking leadership and in certain quarters in Washington to use the process of development of American–Chinese contacts to the detriment of a relaxation of international tensions’.72 As Nixon arrived in Beijing, another Moscow editorial stressed the threat to ‘socialist solidarity’.73 Despite the secrecy shrouding the ‘private’ Nixon–Zhou discussions,

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Moscow saw a military coalition being forged by its rivals. On Nixon’s last day in Beijing, the Soviet Ministry of Defence complained, China was taking ‘purely military measures to prepare for war, such as the development and stockpiling of modern weapons, widespread military construction in border districts, and military training of the population through the system of people’s volunteers functioning even in peacetime’. The Soviet General Staff alleged, in Chinese trade with the West ‘a greater and greater proportion consists of goods of a strategic character: non-ferrous and rare metals, equipment and materials necessary for the production of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery, and even military equipment’.74 Washington had loosened trade restrictions, encouraging European allies to follow suit, but Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries were not selling China strategic material and combat hardware. If Moscow was trying to pre-empt such moves, it failed. Three days later, having reviewed the Shanghai Communiqué, Soviet analysts were relieved that it stressed ‘essential differences between China and the USA’.75 Nixon insisted the USA and China would not build a condominium – ‘We shall not negotiate the fate of other nations behind their back and we did not do it in Peking. There were no secret deals of any kind.’ Soviet response the following morning was, ‘The entire progressive world, along with the condemnation of the activities of American imperialism against the peace and freedom of peoples, also condemns the Maoists for having entered a dangerous plot with the ruling circles of the United States.’76 Washington noted Soviet anger targeted Beijing’s ‘betrayal’ of its ‘socialist fraternity’. After all, Nixon was scheduled to visit Moscow in May and conclude major arms control agreements. Meanwhile, the USA reopened a semi-secret channel of communication in Paris – ambassadors Arthur Watson and Huang Zhen began weekly meetings. However, the true ‘back-channel’ was in New York; the CIA arranged clandestine meetings between Kissinger and China’s UN envoy. Exchange of intelligence on Soviet military deployments and activities, and details of US–Soviet arms negotiations, continued. The two sides did not vote together at the UN. Nonetheless, prior consultation allowed each to appreciate the other’s compulsions, avoiding unpleasant surprises. Moscow’s difficulties became apparent as Nixon’s visit approached. Anxious to reap détente’s rewards, and concerned over a coalescing US–PRC coalition, Soviet leaders blew hot and cold in the same breath. Brezhnev questioned Nixon’s assurance that the USA and China only discussed bilateral relations – ‘How else can one assess the statement made at a banquet in Shanghai that “our two peoples tonight hold the future of the world in our hands”?’77 Brezhnev pointed to rising Western defence allocations, ‘especially in long-term programmes of strategic armaments’. This made arms control more attractive. Brezhnev said Moscow attached

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‘serious importance to the Soviet–American strategic arms limitation talks. The key to their success is the recognition by both parties of the principle of equal security of the sides and readiness to genuinely adhere to this principle’.78 Anxious to neutralise US–PRC collusion, Brezhnev offered to change Sino–Soviet relations. If Beijing rejected the socialist basis of ties, Moscow was ‘ready to develop Soviet–Chinese relations on that basis too’. He despatched Deputy Foreign Minister Leonid Ilychev to resume border talks in Beijing. US–PRC collaboration was forcing Moscow to ease up on both fronts. The coalition strategy was working! Pressure mounted on Nixon, too. With elections approaching, he had to act seriously in concluding the SALT and ABM talks. Behind formal exchanges in Geneva, Kissinger conveyed the US bottom line using Dobrynin’s ‘back-channel’.79 Preparing to travel to Moscow for agreements on strategic offensive and defensive weapons, Nixon demanded comparative analyses of superpower capabilities. The national intelligence estimate (NIE) on Soviet foreign policy80 reported rough parity in strategic arsenals gave Moscow confidence to pursue its global interests. The USA was still the principal threat, but a new danger was emerging; China constrained Moscow, undermined its leadership, and kept it off balance ideologically. ‘It unquestionably concerns the Soviets that China’s ability to challenge them in all these ways would be all the greater in circumstances of Sino–American rapprochement.’81 Moscow feared problems with China more than US–Soviet ones; Beijing’s growing military power would reduce Soviet room for manoeuvre, increasing those of its rivals; US–China collaboration would severely limit Soviet options.82 US reverses in South Asia appeared to have partly been mitigated. The US intelligence community was not involved in Nixon’s China initiative, but once his determination to effect this shift became clear, it highlighted the strategic advantages. The NIE saw Soviet discomfiture at the fluid security environment as one drive behind Moscow’s reasonableness. It pointed to many variables shaping Soviet policy toward the USA; ‘Crucial among these will be Moscow’s appraisal of US intentions and its assessment of developments in the triangular relationship involving the US, China, and itself.’83 Another NIE concluded that ideological differences, growing military confidence, and Moscow’s global ambitions made rivalry with Washington inevitable. These drives were moderated only by the risks in ‘unmodulated policies’. Soviet military objectives were, ‘preserving the security of the homeland; maintaining hegemony over Eastern Europe; and fostering an image of strength in support of a strong foreign policy aimed at expanding Soviet influence’.84 Trends favouring Moscow emerged in 1970–71 when the dollar value of US and Soviet defence and research and development (R&D) expenditure intersected, with Soviet budgets rising, and US allocations falling.85 Although Moscow was not planning a ‘bolt from the blue’ nuclear first strike, its capacity for large-scale military operations was growing. Sino–Soviet tensions offered some respite: ‘Since 1965 the

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Soviets have tripled their ground forces opposite China, and the buildup is continuing.’ Moscow had 370,000 troops in 42 divisions near China, and planned to deploy 780,000 men in 48 divisions, with 1,100 combat aircraft. This force could capture Manchuria, Inner Mongolia or large parts of Xinjiang. Soviet divisions were preparing for nuclear attacks; most had nuclear-capable rockets, and ‘there are four brigades equipped with 160mile-range tactical ballistic missiles’. Moscow had also placed 500-mile Scaleboard and 300-mile Shaddock mobile missiles near China.86 It had already targeted strategic missiles and bombers against China and planned to deploy the same number of tactical nuclear weapons against China as it had against NATO. Armed with analyses, Nixon was ready for Moscow.

A Chinese circus of sorts Taiwan, given no notice of Nixon’s China initiative, was shaken. But Taipei had friends in Congress and in the Republican right wing. The President pursued strategic objectives from the White House; secondary policy he left to the principals. Thus Rogers received the ROC ambassador, James Sheng, in early March, assuring him the Shanghai Communiqué did not weaken the 1954 US–ROC defence treaty. Rogers was not privy to Nixon’s secret commitments to Zhou. Sheng may, therefore, have received more reassurance than he was entitled to. At the end of March, Hanoi deployed large forces to South Vietnam; Washington resumed bombing. Condemning this ‘widening’ of operations, Hanoi instructed its chargé d’affaires in Beijing, Nguyen Tien, to call on Zhou. Zhou criticised US attacks: This certainly will not work . . . No matter where the United States will bring the war to, it will suffer from heavy strikes. China firmly supports the serious stand of the DRV government, and will try its best to support the Vietnamese people to carry the anti-American patriotic war to its end.87 However, that very day, a Chinese table tennis team arrived in the USA on a two-week visit, playing several matches and being entertained across the country. President and Mrs Nixon lavished hospitality upon the visitors at the White House. Just before their arrival, Washington had sent a pair of rare musk oxen to China as a gift; Beijing responded with two giant pandas. But Washington also ‘escalated’, bombing Hanoi and Haiphong on 16 April, the first such missions since 1968. In May, Nixon arrived in Moscow, discussed issues from arms control and détente to grain exports and Jewish emigration with Brezhnev, concluded the SALT I and the ABM treaties, and acknowledged strategic parity. China was not on the agenda, but Brezhnev handed Nixon a draft

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harking back to earlier talks on collaborating against China. Nixon said he needed to study it. He sent Kissinger to Beijing ‘to promote normalization’. Kissinger briefed Zhou on the Moscow talks and the two treaties. He said the agreements reduced dangers of nuclear war, serving everyone’s interest, and that US–PRC relations were key to the new security architecture Nixon was fashioning. Zhou also received the promise of ‘serious’ negotiations with Hanoi in Paris, but Kissinger said the USA could not accept Hanoi’s demands for ousting President Thieu.88 Kissinger kept Zhou informed of talks with Moscow in secret rendezvous with Huang Hua, passing copies of documents exchanged between the superpowers on strategic weapons, regional security, and European stability. On 26 July, he handed to Huang Brezhnev’s draft ‘mutual nuclear nonaggression treaty’. Huang brought Kissinger Beijing’s reaction in early August: ‘This is obviously an attempt . . . to . . . monopolize nuclear weapons, maintain nuclear superiority and make nuclear threats’ against other countries, and ‘force them into spheres of influence of either this or that hegemony so that the two hegemonies may have a free hand in dividing up the world and manipulating the destinies of countries of the world at will’.89 Insisting such a treaty would be ‘impermissible’, Huang hoped ‘the US side will give serious consideration to this’. Kissinger said China’s views were very important. He accepted Beijing’s analysis of the proposal’s consequences, but refuted the motivation Beijing imputed. He reinforced Chinese insecurity by insisting all the agreements Moscow had recently signed were aimed at isolating China: the period of greatest danger in this respect is likely to come in the period 1974–76. We believe also that it is against your interests to permit the establishment of an hegemony in Eurasia dominated from Moscow. And therefore, it is in our interest to resist this without any formal agreement simply out of our own necessity.90 Kissinger said the USA could not increase Western pressure on Moscow because of its European allies; Washington and Beijing had to deepen relations so that: it is plausible that an attack on you involves a substantial American interest . . . In order to have a plausible basis and in order to avoid giving the Soviet Union the pretense of claiming that they are being encircled, we want to do enough with the Soviet Union to maintain a formal symmetry. It is a very complicated policy, but it is a very complicated situation.91 Huang said nuclear weapons ought to be banned. As a first step, nucleararmed states should commit not to use these, a demand challenging the nuclear deterrence theory. Kissinger doubted Moscow would agree, but

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on the Soviet draft, he was comforting – ‘You can assure the Prime Minister now that we will not accept the Soviet proposal.’92 Meanwhile, Hanoi, anxious to maintain links to both Beijing and Moscow following Nixon’s visits, sent a stream of envoys seeking reassurance. First came its representative at the Paris talks, Xuan Thuy, and Viceminister Ly Ban. Xuan Thuy informed Zhou that Hanoi was prepared to continue fighting for unification but it would take every reasonable opportunity to negotiate. Zhou said whether the war would continue, or be ended through talks, would be ‘determined in the four crucial months from July to October of this year’.93 Five days later, Le Duc Tho met Zhou, who agreed that fighting a war while holding talks was acceptable – China did so during the Korean War. Paraphrasing Kissinger, Zhou asked the Vietnamese to stop refusing to talk to General Thieu.94 He advised Le Duc Tho to ‘play for time with a view to letting North Vietnam recover, thus getting stronger while the enemy is getting weaker’.95 In October, the Paris talks reached agreement. Washington suspended bombing; three days later, Kissinger announced ‘peace is at hand’. Zhou’s presentation of the US case had proved persuasive. Despite progress in Paris, fighting continued. But Nixon had presented the US electorate with gifts – the opening to China, détente with Moscow, and ‘success’ in talks with Hanoi. On 7 November, a grateful USA returned him to office with the greatest Republican landslide in history. Nixon lifted a 22-year-old ban on travel to China, but administered heavy punishment on a recalcitrant Hanoi. Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers returned to North Vietnamese skies. This ‘Christmas bombing’ was the heaviest in the war. Two weeks later, Hanoi showed enthusiasm in the talks; Nixon ended the raids. It was during this period that the National Liberation Front’s ‘foreign minister’, Nguyen Thi Binh, came to Beijing. Mao pledged China’s continued support but also urged a negotiated settlement, cautioning against critics of negotiations: ‘Some so called “Communists” say that you should not negotiate, and that you should fight, fight for another 100 years. This is revolution; otherwise, it is opportunism.’96 The Chairman of the North Vietnamese National Assembly, Truong Chinh, also sought Chinese advice. Zhou told him Nixon was ‘truly planning to leave. Therefore, this time it is necessary to negotiate seriously, and the goal is to reach an agreement’.97 However, Hanoi needed to prepare for setbacks before then. Three days later, ‘Christmas bombing’ ended, and talks resumed in Paris. Next, Le Duc Tho arrived. Zhou’s message was the same – ‘the US is still willing to get out from Vietnam and Indochina. You should persist in principles while demonstrating flexibility during the negotiations. The most important [thing] is to let the Americans leave’.98 With Kissinger stressing the Soviet ‘threat’ to China, and Zhou urging Hanoi to negotiate ‘seriously’, an agreement was signed in January 1973, imposing a cease-fire. Nixon could finally ‘bring the boys home’.

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However, domestic politics once again impacted on foreign policy. Ever since Johnson ordered the CIA to verify Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports that ‘international communism’ and foreign intelligence services had infiltrated the anti-war movement, the Agency had run domestic surveillance operations. The story broke after five men, linked to the Committee for the Re-election of the President, were held for breaking into the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate building on 17 June 1972. Two ex-CIA officers, E. Howard Hunt and James McCord, were implicated. DCI Richard Helms had expanded the CIA’s ‘Project Resistance’ and ‘Operation Chaos’, presumably contributing to the Watergate scandal. Now, he distanced himself from the illegal operations, appointing Executive Director, William Colby, to investigate the CIA’s domestic activities. Congressional inquiries portrayed the CIA as the executive branch’s sleazy underbelly. Having handed over most foreign policy authority to Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor, and granted Johnson the War Powers Act, Congress now wanted to retrieve some of that power. After US failures in Indochina, and the coup against Chile’s President Allende, the CIA became a symbol of abuse of power. In early February 1973, Nixon fired Helms, who became ambassador to Iran, an act for which Washington was obliged to the Shah. Nixon appointed James Schlesinger as DCI with a brief to ‘cleanse’ the CIA. In July 1973, Schlesinger was appointed Defense Secretary; William Colby became DCI. The reshuffle had unanticipated effects on foreign policy. Kissinger now had a cabinet colleague combining intellectual rigour and a determination to defend the DoD’s policy prerogative. Kissinger moved to define the boundaries of his realm. Following the Paris peace accord, he flew to Beijing on a ‘thanksgiving’ trip. Mao saw him directly, mixing pleasantries with doubts in US pledges of friendship: let us not speak false words or engage in trickery. We don’t steal your documents. You can deliberately leave them somewhere and try us out. Nor do we engage in eavesdropping and bugging. There is no use in those small tricks. And some of the big maneuvering, there is no use to them too.99 Mao said the CIA was ‘no good for major events’; Kissinger agreed. Mao brought up the Soviet Union, referring to his 1972 summit with Nixon. Kissinger said their two countries faced the same danger; they had to use different methods sometimes, but the objectives were the same. Mao agreed: ‘That would be good. So long as the objectives are the same, we would not harm you nor would you harm us. And we can work together to commonly deal with a bastard.’100 Mao hoped the USA, Western Europe and Japan would cooperate on ‘fundamental’ issues, i.e. in opposing Moscow. Kissinger said the Europeans’ short-term views did not help. Mao

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said the USA had egged Germany to fight Russia but now, ‘I suspect the whole of the West has such an idea, that is to push Russia eastward, mainly against us and also Japan.’101 Kissinger assured him this was not US policy, that Washington would maintain its military presence in Europe. He described US global deployments, detailing land, naval and air force strengths in various theatres. He addressed Mao’s shaken confidence in US resolve against Moscow: It is very important that you and we understand what we are going to do and coordinate our actions, and therefore we always tell the Prime Minister what our plans are in various areas of the world so that you can understand the individual moves when they are made.102 Mao complained the USA was not giving Japan due importance – Kissinger ought to do more – both substantively and ‘for their face’. US conduct could push Tokyo toward Moscow. Kissinger agreed that ‘would be very dangerous’. Despite ill health, Mao devoted much time to security issues. If Moscow attacked, Beijing had no alternative to ‘people’s war’ – letting Soviet forces deep into China, and then waging guerrilla war. War would be devastating, with massive loss of lives and resources. Kissinger assured him: If they attack China, we would certainly oppose them for our own reasons . . . So if a real danger develops or hegemonial intentions become active, we will certainly resist them wherever they appear. And as the President said to the Chairman, in our own interests, not as a kindness to anyone else.103 Mao urged consolidation of alliances linking ‘the US–Japan–Pakistan– Iran–Turkey and Europe’ to check Soviet expansionism. Kissinger said Washington had ‘a very similar conception’. The visit, one of six Kissinger made as National Security Adviser, was significant. Through him, Nixon thanked China’s leaders for their help in securing an agreement with Hanoi, restoring domestic consensus, redesigning the international security system, allowing the USA to recuperate from exhausting engagements and re-establish dominance. It also formalised the decision to open liaison offices in Washington and Beijing – de facto embassies – before relations could be ‘normalised’. It also allowed Chinese leaders privately to air grievances, and Kissinger to reassure them. Zhou said the liaison offices would handle ‘general public exchanges’, but ‘confidential and urgent matters’ would be exchanged between Kissinger and Huang Hua. Mao offered to send large numbers of Chinese students to study in the USA – it would not matter if some stayed back. He felt exasperated enough by domestic difficulties to joke about the dangers of having ‘too many women’, offering to send millions of them to the

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USA. Kissinger was being treated to candid insights into Chinese power politics. Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, led left-wing resistance to initiatives by Mao and Zhou. Vexed by this ‘domestic’ problem, Mao vented frustration in politically incorrect jocular outbursts.

An Indochinese smorgasbord Zhou and Kissinger discussed Cambodia at length. General Lon Nol, the Army Commander, had ousted Prince Sihanouk in 1970. Sihanouk’s ‘neutralist’ policy had maintained a balance between conflicting tendencies within and forces without. He let Vietnamese communist fighters use north-eastern Cambodia as a sanctuary, and cross Cambodian tracks as part of their ‘Ho Chi Minh trail’; he allowed proUS forces to use Port Sihanoukville in the Mekong delta. Nixon, enraged by ‘enemy’ use of Cambodian territory, ordered secret bombing of north-eastern Cambodia. This became public, scandalising Washington. Pressure also built within Cambodia to act against the Communists. A move to assert Cambodian sovereignty coalesced within the army under Lon Nol, and may have been reinforced with covert US support. Allegations of the CIA’s involvement in the Cambodian coup had polarised the country. Lon Nol was seen by Beijing, Hanoi, and by Sihanouk, as a despicable US agent. Since his ouster, Sihanouk lived in Beijing, travelling widely, seeking support for restoring his authority and Cambodian neutrality. He spoke and wrote freely, expressing undying love for the PRC and his outrage at betrayals by former aides. Hosts to both Sihanouk and new strategic partners in Washington, Chinese leaders were in a delicate position in 1973. Zhou had called on Sihanouk in January to apprise him of the Paris peace accord to be signed three days later. He praised the final draft, especially a clause stipulating ‘the problems of the three Indochina countries should be solved by the three countries themselves’. Zhou said, ‘If this is true, the agreement is better than the previous one. This means that other countries cannot interfere with (the affairs of the three Indochinese states).’104 Nine days later, Zhou saw Pen Nouth, Sihanouk’s closest adviser. The Paris Accord had been signed and Kissinger’s imminent arrival scheduled. Zhou needed to brief his Cambodian guests on the accord’s positive outcome, and show how improved US–PRC relations advanced Sihanoukist interests. Zhou invoked Mao’s name in justifying Chinese support for the agreement: Chairman Mao said – It is good that the Vietnamese–American agreement lets the American troops leave Vietnam. This agreement is a success. After the withdrawal of American troops, including American naval, air and land forces, and after the withdrawal of American military bases, it is easy to deal with Nguyen Van Thieu.105

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Pen Nouth said Sihanouk would not negotiate with a military chief who had ousted his King; this was the message Zhou had to give Kissinger. US–PRC agreement on key issues notwithstanding, Cambodia remained a discordant topic. Zhou asked Kissinger if Lon Nol’s coup had received CIA support. Kissinger’s discomfiture was clear: ‘I did make a study of it. Why should I lie to you today? It makes no difference today. The CIA did not do it.’ Zhou wondered if France had engineered it; Kissinger said both Paris and Saigon were possible masterminds. Stressing the need to negotiate an end to the Cambodian war on the Vietnamese model, he urged Zhou to encourage Sihanouk to negotiate with Lon Nol, adding, the latter was keen to ‘establish relations with you’. Zhou was brusque. China would not deal with such a person, and nor should the USA – ‘It is just for you not to support India in dismantling Pakistan. On that one we stood together because you supported justice. But we think it is not very – it is not fair for you to admit Lon Nol.’106 Kissinger said Lon Nol and the royalists needed to reach a solution ‘consistent with the dignity of all sides’. Zhou would pass on the US view to Sihanouk. The next day, Zhou recounted Beijing’s opposition to foreign presence in Cambodia and Laos – he wished to see the USA ‘cease your involvement in that area’. Zhou acknowledged Washington would leave the ‘area’ only when others did. Mentioning French and Soviet activity, Zhou said, ‘We wish to see the final goal of Cambodia realized; that is, its peace, independence, unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity.’107 Kissinger said the USA ‘completely agree with these objectives’.

The top triangle This attention to Cambodia did not feature in Kissinger’s report to Nixon, which focused on Chinese concern with the ‘Soviet threat’, and anxiety over US resolve to stand up to Moscow. The triangular apex of the postVietnam security system was the report’s dominant theme. This emphasis may have reflected Nixon’s own priorities: The Soviet Union dominated our conversation . . . Zhou raised the USSR in our first meeting and kept coming back to it. He called a special meeting the night of February 17 to discuss this subject and at the end of his presentation he announced my meeting with Mao, where again it was a major topic. We discussed it at length the next day as well. In literally every region of the world the Chinese see the Soviet hand at play . . . Mao and Zhou urged us to counter the Russians everywhere – to work closely with our allies in Europe and Japan, and to take more positive action to prevent the Soviets filling vacuums or spreading their influence in areas like the Middle East, Persian Gulf, Near East, South Asia and Indian Ocean.108

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Kissinger stressed Chinese uncertainty over US reliability. Zhou and Mao insisted ‘we might be helping the Soviet Union, whether or not purposely’. In Beijing’s eyes, Moscow was ‘spreading their influence everywhere with the help of their satellites, like India, and were out to isolate the Chinese’. More damningly, Mao even went so far as to suggest that we might like to see the Russians bogged down in an attack on China; after wearing themselves out for a couple of years, we would then ‘poke a finger’ in Moscow’s back. I rejoined that we believe that a war between the two Communist giants was likely to be uncontrollable and have unfortunate consequences for everyone. We therefore wished to prevent such a conflict, not take advantage of it.109 Kissinger said he had reassured Mao and Zhou that the USA would build up its forces, maintain its global strength, and respond robustly to Soviet expansion. Should Moscow attack China, Washington would act to defend Beijing. Kissinger’s concluded with the advantages of playing China and the USSR off against each other: the Soviet factor has been the main leverage in our dealings with the PRC. At the same time . . . our opening to Beijing has paid us substantial dividends with Moscow as well. With conscientious attention to both capitals we should be able to continue to have our mao tai and drink our vodka too.110 Washington and Beijing moved, apart from sharing intelligence, toward ‘normalisation’. Opening liaison offices was a key step. Ambassador David Bruce, a senior diplomat, was Nixon’s choice for the Beijing post. Kissinger secured through Huang Hua permission to station a senior CIA officer at the United States Liaison Office (USLO). He would not gather intelligence, Kissinger assured Beijing, but serve as a conduit for sensitive messages. James Lilley, the first CIA staff in Beijing, was told ‘to stay away from lousy little militia-men or get out there and try to do the usual thing’. But what you did is to spend painstaking hours going out and finding certain locations that in the future you could use for clandestine operations. We didn’t have any agents at the time. I’ll tell you, when I came back 15 years later, in the inventory were certain contributions that I had 15 years ago. It took that long . . . In Peking . . . we started a collection technique when I was there which was going on when I came back as ambassador, which was again producing real understanding. But it was the evolvement [sic] of 15 years of collection of a lot of data.111

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China released its last three US prisoners in mid-March 1973. Nixon thanked Mao and Zhou, reiterating ‘joint determination’ to normalise relations. True to his pledge, he pulled out the last US combatants from Vietnam on 29 March. However, by mid-April, United States Air Force (USAF) aircraft were so heavily bombing Cambodia that Beijing lambasted Washington’s ‘aggressive’ policy as a ‘serious violation’ of the Paris accords. Despite public anger, Washington and Beijing welcomed each other’s diplomats, arranging myriad facilities necessary for this unique relationship. Ambassador Han Xu, Deputy Chief of Mission, opened the Chinese chancery on 1 May; a US diplomat reciprocated in Beijing. The two partners now had diplomatic representation without diplomatic relations. Two days later, the Beijing summit received top billing in Nixon’s foreign policy report to Congress. He sought to share ‘fundamental perspectives on the world’ with Beijing: First, we had to establish a joint perception of the shape of our future relationship and its place in the international order. We needed a mutual assessment of what was involved in the new process we were undertaking and of one another’s reliability in carrying the process forward. If we could attain this type of mutual comprehension, agreements could and would flow naturally.112 Nixon stressed accord on key issues: progress toward the normalisation of relations; reducing the danger of international conflict; neither sought hegemony in the Asia–Pacific region and both opposed efforts by others to establish hegemony; neither would negotiate on behalf of third parties, or sign agreements directed at others; both agreed it would be against world interest if a major power colluded with another against others, or if they divided up the world into spheres of interest.113 Kissinger, having just returned from Moscow, invited Han Xu to the White House. He had travelled to Brezhnev’s hunting lodge at Zavidovo where he and Brezhnev outlined superpower relations to be discussed during a forthcoming Nixon–Brezhnev summit. Kissinger wanted to brief Han. Chinese leaders were worried about Soviet offers of a nuclear nonaggression agreement with the USA. Kissinger was reassuring: ‘We’ve given you every previous draft, and I have attached the last draft that the Soviet Union gave us, and where it stands now after discussion there.’114 He explained the USA was trying to create legal obligations for Moscow to consult Washington before taking any military action including against China. This would give Washington ‘the basis for common action, which we do not now possess with regard to third countries’.115 An agreement would prohibit the use of nuclear weapons; the superpowers would be free to honour their obligations ‘toward their allies or other countries in treaties, agreements, and appropriate instruments’. Kissinger emphasised the agreement, to be signed during Brezhnev’s trip to the USA, would

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strengthen Washington’s ability to restrain Moscow and defend friends and allies. Brezhnev’s comments to Kissinger in Zavidovo were worrying: He said the Soviet Union and the United States had a joint obligation to prevent China from becoming a big nuclear power. And he said, ‘do you consider China an ally?’ I said, ‘No, we don’t consider it an ally – we consider it a friend.’ He said, ‘well, you can have any friends you want, but you and we should be partners’ – he meant Moscow and Washington. He repeated again that we have a joint responsibility to prevent China from becoming a nuclear power. And I said we recognize no such joint responsibility.116 Later, Dobrynin told Kissinger Brezhnev had instructed him to ensure Kissinger understood Brezhnev had been serious: He said he wanted to know whether there existed a general agreement between the People’s Republic of China and the United States. I said there didn’t exist any agreement, but there existed appropriate instruments which we took from this draft, and that in any event we will be guided by our national interest.117 Kissinger added the USA and China should ‘continue to accelerate normalization to the point where it becomes clear that we have a stake in the strength and independence of the People’s Republic’. He offered to brief Zhou personally after Brezhnev’s August summit with Nixon. Kissinger had already given Beijing Moscow’s SALT proposals; he now promised to give them the final US response the following week. Offering to hand a summary of NATO’s position on mutual balanced force reduction (MBFR) Washington was drafting with allies, he pledged, Anything we are prepared to do with the Soviet Union we are prepared to do with the People’s Republic. And conversely, we may be prepared to do things with the People’s Republic what we are not prepared to do with the Soviet Union.118 Kissinger revealed Brezhnev’s US itinerary, noting he himself was flying to Paris to meet Hanoi’s envoys. He sought Beijing’s support for the ceasefire in Vietnam, promising his February agreement with Zhou would be implemented ‘with vigour’; the ‘noise here in Washington’ over Watergate could not affect that process. But revelations from televised Senate hearings weakened Nixon. No ‘smoking gun’ linked him to the events, but several aides were implicated. By the end of April 1973, Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, chief domestic affairs adviser John Erlichman, presidential counsel John Dean, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst had resigned. Brezhnev would arrive six weeks later.

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Beijing, too, trod a fine line. Chinese leaders conveyed messages to and from their US and North Vietnamese friends as the combatants pursued divergent goals. Visits to Beijing continued. In early June, Le Duan, Pham Van Dong and Deputy Premier Le Thanh Nghi called on Mao and Zhou. Zhou suggested Indochinese countries ‘build peace, independence and neutrality’ over the next five to ten years, stressing vigilance as the three countries faced ‘enemies of its own’. His advice was to shift the focus from combat to development while rebuilding military strength. ‘We agree with you that we have to restore production and train armed forces at the same time.’119 Zhou revealed Washington had instructed Saigon to maintain the cease-fire. Beijing, unaware of Hanoi’s combat bases in Cambodia, had been angered when Lon Nol asked for ‘road fees’ for transporting Chinese supplies to these. Le Duan focused on the future; the situation in South Vietnam would take three to four years to clarify. Hanoi could wait for ten or 15 years before the South was fully integrated. It is not clear if he believed that, or sought to deceive Beijing and Washington. He only insisted that the South be ‘democratic and nationalist’.120 Mao assured Le Duan on US withdrawal from Indochina, rejecting the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s view that US strategic emphasis lay in the region: The United States has many problems in Europe, the Middle East, and America itself. Sooner or later it needs to withdraw some of its troops, and it will not stay in Asia and the Pacific forever. Therefore, Comrade Le Duc Tho’s negotiation in Paris would result in something.121 Mao’s tactical advice to the Vietnamese showed China was still a reliable patron – ‘Lin Biao knew only guerrilla warfare with a view to keeping the US bogged down in Vietnam. I, however, wish to see you fighting mobile warfare and destroy their forces.’122 The Vietnamese asked Zhou for economic, industrial and military support. Zhou agreed, but made clear aid would decline as fighting ended.123 Nixon persevered with his diplomatic goals. Secret exchanges with Beijing continued, as did preparations for receiving Brezhnev. The summit’s highlight would be an accord on nuclear conflict prevention. Nixon would not countenance Soviet efforts to put joint pressure on China, but he accepted Moscow’s proposal for an agreement on preventing nuclear war. Nixon demanded a review of the Soviet nuclear strength, options, thinking and policy. The DCI’s report arrived just in time for the White House to finalise the draft agreement.124 The study reviewed the drives behind Moscow’s nuclear arsenals, importance of deterrence, considerations of prestige, possible war-fighting doctrine, and ‘how much is enough?’ It found the underlying Soviet strategic vision was defensive – to deter nuclear war but to fight successfully if deterrence failed, project

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global strength and to support foreign policy aims by checking adversaries.125 Moscow saw the USA as its primary rival capable of curtailing Soviet autonomy. But many factors shaped Soviet force-size, composition and deployment – treaty provisions, elite perceptions of strategic, political and economic conditions, the dynamic of superpower relations, ‘the pace and scope of technological change; economic capabilities; and the Chinese military threat’.126 The report provided a basis for nuclear posture vis-à-vis Moscow, identifying Beijing’s ability to mount added pressure. Moscow was aware of Washington’s triangular pursuits. Ambassador Dobrynin briefed his leaders on both Nixon’s difficulties and the dangers from deepening US–China relations. Brezhnev came well-prepared. His public and ‘private’ meetings with Nixon in Washington, Camp David and San Clemente lasted eight days, peaking at the signing of a nuclear war prevention accord. Beijing’s anxiety rose; four days later, Secretary Rogers stated the agreement did not constitute a superpower condominium constraining other countries. It came after the press reported Kissinger had secretly briefed the Chinese envoy in Washington,127 undermining Rogers’ position as the US foreign policy spokesman. Moves toward ‘normalisation’ continued. In July, Chase Manhattan Bank and the Bank of China established a corresponding relationship, easing transactions, trade and travel. The US Postal Service launched a parcel post service. The head of the Chinese Liaison Office, General Huang Zhen, called on Kissinger at San Clemente to say he had been recalled ‘for a time’ and would receive Kissinger during his next Beijing trip. Kissinger wanted to announce the trip on 14 July, reaching Beijing on 6 August. Such precision reflected his confidence in the strength of relations he helped to develop, but this proved over-optimistic. Huang refuted rumours of Zhou’s plans to visit the USA or the UN, as long as Taiwan maintained a diplomatic presence. Kissinger said Nixon could return to Beijing in 1974 but it would be difficult without a Chinese visit first. He then turned to ending the Cambodian conflict: ‘We have no objection – in fact, we would welcome it – if the Government in Phnom Penh is on very friendly terms with Beijing and would refuse to participate in great power hegemonial activities in Southeast Asia.’128 Kissinger mentioned Zhou’s comments on Brezhnev’s trip, accusing US and Soviet leaders of colluding against China. Zhou told Ambassador Bruce China suspected that, in the event of a Sino–Soviet war, the USA would send military supplies to Moscow.129 Kissinger explained that at Camp David Brezhnev’s efforts to meet one-to-one with Nixon failed, but on the last day there the two leaders talked for three hours with Kissinger present. In this session, Brezhnev severely criticised China and gave Nixon the Soviet view of the ‘Lin Biao affair’, offering to show Moscow’s official report on it. But Brezhnev’s focus was on Chinese nuclear weapons:

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A new beginning He said it would be intolerable to imagine a Chinese nuclear capability in 15 years equal to what the Soviets have today. This, he said, would be intolerable and unacceptable to the USSR. He suggested we cooperate on this problem, as he had hinted at Zavidovo. Now he was making a formal and more explicit proposal.130

Brezhnev proposed the superpowers exchange information on China, its nuclear programmes in particular; Nixon rejected this. Brezhnev expected US–PRC relations to improve and could not object to that. ‘But if military arrangements were made between the US and the PRC, this would have the most serious consequences and would lead the Soviets to take drastic measures.’131 Later, Gromyko told Kissinger Moscow could not accept even ‘political arrangements directed against the USSR’. Kissinger told Huang Zhen that the danger China faced was from Moscow, and Washington was merely trying to help Beijing. It would never countenance a Soviet attack on China: I have set up a very secret group of four or five of the best officers I can find to see what the US could do if such an event occurred. This will never be publicly known. I tell it to you in the strictest confidence. The group is only being formed this week. I talked to the Chairman of the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] about it when he was here this week. I am prepared to exchange views on this subject if it can be done in secret.132 Kissinger said the USA would encourage its allies to supply whatever military hardware China might seek. He had already talked to the French Foreign Minister; US protests against British sale to China of Rolls Royce fighter-jet engines were for public consumption. He asked that Beijing not criticise the US–Soviet agreement on preventing nuclear war as a ‘scrap of paper’. Nixon, assuring Huang Kissinger spoke for him, sought Chinese aid in ending the Cambodian war. Under pressure on Watergate and foreign policy issues, he was playing a weak hand. Once Congress ended the bombing of Cambodia, he could threaten no further sanction. Kissinger’s request about announcing an August trip to Beijing on 16 July brought no response. If Beijing was refusing to welcome him on 6 August, this was a major snub. Meanwhile, Sihanouk told Beijing he would not talk to Washington, who should contact the Khmer Rouge instead. Kissinger’s rapport with Beijing appeared inexplicably to have failed. On 18 July, Beijing said the ‘ruthless bombing of Cambodia’ by US forces and its intensified support for the ‘Lon Nol clique’ had outraged Sihanouk; it was ‘obviously inappropriate’ for China to act as an intermediary. Kissinger, indignant at the ‘snub’, discussed options with senior staff. He felt Congress’s bombing cut-off had weakened Nixon’s ability to command Chinese respect, and Beijing’s influence on Sihanouk. He explored ways of venting coolness to Beijing. Before a final decision was

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taken, Han Xu brought Kissinger an invitation to visit China on 16 August. The two sides haggled on dates until agreeing on 26 October. August proved troublesome. At the CPC’s 10th Congress, supporters and critics of China’s opening to the USA engaged in bitter debate. After the post-Lin purges, Mao and Zhou felt secure. But lack of movement on Taiwan and ‘normalisation’, and Soviet approaches to Washington for joint action against China, questioned the shift’s benefits. Many CPC members saw the USSR as a socialist country, while the USA epitomised capitalist imperialism. Identifying the former as the enemy and the latter as a friend puzzled them. With Mao’s health failing, Zhou braved the criticism. Ill with cancer, he held the ship of state steady while storms raged at home and abroad. He had to explain the rationale behind recent policy changes, revealing their fragility: The US imperialists are the number one enemy of the people of the world and of the Chinese people. The Japanese imperialists are also our enemy. We, however, have to understand the contradictions between our enemies to solve our contradictions. We should define what are main contradictions and what are not. The US made much noise but it has not attacked us. The so-called Asian alliance headed by Japan is in fact designed to defend them from our attack. But the so-called brothers, namely the Soviet revisionists, are attacking us, threatening us. They collude with the American imperialists and the Indian reactionaries. If we do not know how to make friends with the ones who used to oppose us and establish relations with them, the Soviet revisionists will encircle and attack us.133 In Washington, too, US–PRC relations proved divisive. Rogers, unable to maintain dignity while the White House ‘ran’ China policy, resigned. Nixon appointed Kissinger his successor, retaining him as the Assistant on National Security Affairs. The unprecedented twin appointment brought US diplomacy under one man’s control. Washington’s China policy would now enjoy institutional, bureaucratic, support. A trip to Beijing looked much more rewarding, but the October War intervened. An Egyptian–Syrian attack on 6 October took Israel by surprise. Having thrown his Soviet advisers out the previous year, Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat took a bold gamble which initially paid off. Despite Vice President Spiro Agnew’s resignation on the war’s fifth day, and his replacement by Gerald Ford, Washington flew out massive supplies to Israel. Kissinger briefed Ambassador Huang several times on US efforts to defeat ‘Sovietsupported armies’. He met Huang on 19 October, just before leaving for Moscow where he would work out a cease-fire agreement that the superpowers would press on their clients. By then, Israeli forces had pushed the Arabs back and were on the verge of victory. Kissinger first stopped in Israel and may have encouraged

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his hosts to capture more Arab territory before the cease-fire took hold; soon after his return from Moscow the cease-fire collapsed. On 23 October, Israel mounted an offensive against Egypt’s Third Army. The next day, Brezhnev asked Nixon to co-sponsor a joint intervention to stop the fighting – if Nixon refused, Brezhnev would consider ‘taking appropriate steps unilaterally’. Kissinger saw it as a threat and acted; Nixon, inebriated, was unavailable. Kissinger placed US forces, including strategic nuclear and air defence units, on a global alert. Later, he secretly briefed Huang, in the company of State Department staff. China policy, no longer simply a presidential initiative, was now a part of US diplomacy.134 Kissinger insisted the US aim was to keep the Soviet Union out of the Middle East. On 24 October, Washington had received Moscow’s complaints that Israel was violating the cease-fire but Kissinger found no evidence of Israeli or Egyptian military activity. Then, Dobrynin proposed a Security Council resolution reinforcing the cease-fire, informing Kissinger a third party would ask that US and Soviet troops fly to the region and enforce a cease-fire. Kissinger told Dobrynin the US would veto that, and asked Huang Hua to do the same. Later, Moscow demanded immediate deployment of US and Soviet forces to the region; if the USA did not agree, the USSR would move alone. The USA could not accept this.135 Kissinger called an NSC meeting, placing US forces on alert. He was concerned by Moscow alerting seven of its eight airborne divisions and readying transport aircraft. The Security Council then resolved that the UN send an observer force, barring the induction of external combatants into the region. Moscow notified it was sending 70 observers to the region, but no military contingents. Kissinger said he had invoked a clause of the Treaty for the Prevention of Nuclear War ruling out unilateral military action, and expected this to please Zhou. He suggested that his prompt, resolute brinkmanship had prevented the deployment of Soviet troops to the Middle East, dealing Moscow ‘a major strategic defeat’. Soviet allies had lost their materiel for the third time. ‘Even the Arab leaders have had to learn that they can get military equipment from the Soviet Union, but if they want to make diplomatic progress, they have to deal with us.’136 Kissinger suggested an itinerary for his Beijing trip. He would fly to Cairo, then ‘from Cairo to Teheran to Rawalpindi to see President Bhutto and go to Beijing from there’. He said he took Qiao Guanhua’s suggestion during Security Council debates on 22–23 October to build relations with Arab countries seriously; this was an attempt to do so. Huang Zhen criticised the US–Soviet practice of working out draft resolutions between themselves as ‘intolerable’. He explained the ‘fundamental difference’ between US and Chinese positions on which side was ‘just’, and which was not. Ending a long, emotional commentary on the Arab–Israeli dispute, Huang said, ‘We are old friends. We have differences of view, but we are old friends. And you do know that we do sympathize with the just cause of the Arab people.’ Reiteration of friendship followed.

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With peer-rivalry from Secretary of Defense Schlesinger a challenge, Kissinger needed to map out his domain. Following Beijing’s requests, he had begun meeting Arab leaders, starting with Sadat. But in November 1973, in Beijing, the contradictions inherent in his dual role surfaced. China policy was now part of his departmental brief, but top secret contacts with the Chinese leadership remained an NSC prerogative. Winston Lord, now a State official, recorded memcons with Chinese leaders on White House stationery. Soon after arrival, Kissinger briefed Zhou on his May trip to Moscow and on the June summit, especially Brezhnev’s focus on Chinese nuclear weapons. Moscow repeatedly sought US support against China, but Washington would protect Beijing from Soviet aggression: it is in our interest to prevent such an attack. I believe the Soviets had a general hostility toward China, but I did not believe they had a specific plan. Now, as a result of these conversations, I ordered some studies in our government that only four or five people know about, of what we know about what such a threat could be, and what from our knowledge could be done to prevent it, and of what help we could [be] in ways that are not obvious, because I don’t think a formal relationship is desirable for either of us . . . We have some ideas on how to lessen the vulnerability of your forces and how to increase the warning time, and I repeat that it has to be done in such a way that it is very secret and not obvious.137 Kissinger offered to brief Zhou on the findings of secret US studies about likely Soviet attacks on China, and US help. Washington would provide intelligence – ‘This is not something that involves reciprocity or any formal relationship, but advice based on our experience and some regularised intelligence information.’ Zhou asked if Brezhnev had mentioned China during Kissinger’s recent visit. Kissinger said Brezhnev wanted to exchange military intelligence. Zhou pointed out Soviet satellites surveyed China daily. Kissinger replied, ‘What they want is an indication from us that they would use as a symbol of cooperation rather than using it. They want us to accept the desirability of destroying China’s nuclear capability or limiting [it] rather than the information itself.’138 Brezhnev’s focus on China despite the war’s urgencies surprised Zhou. He expected similar Soviet overtures to Tokyo, and suspected Moscow wished to draw it away from Washington and Beijing. Zhou had suggested to Prime Minister Tanaka that if Japan wished to exploit Siberian minerals, it should work with the USA. Kissinger offered to show Zhou or Marshal Ye the ‘special intelligence studies’ on likely Soviet attacks. Over the next two days, Zhou and Kissinger discussed the Middle East, Indochina, the German attitude toward Moscow, differences over ‘normalisation’, and Taiwan’s opening more consulates in the USA and receiving

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technology to build combat aircraft. Kissinger mentioned moving toward recognition before Nixon’s 1976 deadline, reiterating Nixon’s 1972 pledges on Taiwan. Zhou would not accept any changes until Washington cut off diplomatic ties to Taiwan. On 12 November, Zhou discussed the exhaustion of US ‘imperial overstretch’. Just before being escorted to Mao’s residence, Kissinger was told a guided-missile cruiser, United States Ship (USS) Oklahoma City, had crossed the Taiwan Strait hugging the PRC coast, putting him on the defensive. Mao expressed satisfaction with the US alert, but said the ‘meagre’ Soviet forces should not alarm the USA. He mentioned Cuba; Kissinger said Washington had deployed a flotilla to persuade Soviet submarines to leave. Mao recalled his 1960 comment that China would wage ideological war with the USSR for 10,000 years, complaining that Moscow had not honoured the 1969 Kosygin–Zhou border agreement. He also noted recent US–PRC differences. Kissinger said these were in style rather than substance – both agreed on the threat. Mao asked, ‘Why is it in your country, you are always so obsessed with that nonsensical Watergate issue? The incident itself is very meager; yet now such chaos is being kicked up because of it. Anyway, we are not happy about it.’139 He was surprised that low inflation and a healthy economy did not help Nixon. Kissinger replied, ‘too many intellectuals have become nihilistic and want to destroy everything’. On the Soviet Union, Kissinger assured Mao Washington shared nothing with Moscow in secret from Beijing. The Kremlin wished to create the impression of forging ‘a master plan to run the world’ with the USA but Washington was ‘not that foolish’. When he mentioned Soviet threats to destroy China’s nuclear arsenal, Mao joked about its size. Kissinger insisted the threat was so grave that ‘if this eventuality was to happen, it would have very serious consequences for everybody. And we are determined to oppose it as our own decision without any arrangement with China’.140 Mao recounted how many potential adversaries Moscow faced around its borders. Kissinger said Washington knew ‘where every Soviet division is. And we have occasionally discussed some of this with you’. Mao replied, ‘We are also holding down a portion of their troops which is favourable to you in Europe and the Middle East.’141 They agreed that China, Western Europe and the USA should ‘pursue a coordinated course’. When Kissinger broached ‘normalisation’ and difficulties over Taiwan, Mao said China had diplomatic ties with the USSR and India, but relations were poor. Despite a lack of formal links, ‘our relations with you . . . are better than our relations with them. So this issue is not an important one’. Kissinger may have downgraded normalisation’s priority from this point on. Mao stressed US–PRC differences over the Middle East; Kissinger replied Washington only sought to exclude Moscow from a regional peace process. Mao endorsed that goal. Kissinger explained Tehran’s pivotal role in halting Soviet advances and in defending Iran and Pakistan with large purchases of US weapons,

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and US base facilities on Diego Garcia, and in Oman. Mao insisted Kissinger pay more attention to Japan in fashioning a new strategic architecture. He was happy the Secretary planned to spend several days in Tokyo, and that Kissinger met several Arab Foreign Ministers early on as Secretary. Kissinger said he took Mao’s advice on the Middle East ‘very seriously’. Mao seemed happiest, however, discussing philosophy, asking Kissinger to repeat such exchanges the next time he visited. He recounted the Soviet–Chinese schism. It began in 1958, ‘when they wanted to control China’s seacoast and also China’s naval ports’. Mao responded angrily and, the following year, after seeing Eisenhower at Camp David, Khrushchev visited Beijing and ‘put forth the notion of a joint fleet, that is, for the Soviet Union and China to form a joint naval fleet’. Mao rejected this out of hand. Khrushchev then travelled to Vladivostok and gave a strongly ‘anti-China speech’.142 Mao was troubled by Democratic Party leaders’ pronouncements on withdrawing US troops from Europe; if they came to office, US policy would turn inward. Kissinger agreed this was a risk although he felt the Democrats would not go against the grain of US–China ties – ‘This, Mr. Chairman, is why I believe we should use this period, when all of us are still in office and understand the situation, to so solidify it that no alternative will be possible anymore.’143 He assured Mao Washington would not reduce forces and would fight Soviet influence. Mao said a war between the superpowers ‘would not be very good’. If one became unavoidable, he asked that it not escalate beyond conventional combat. Kissinger assured Mao Moscow always pulled back when faced with possible confrontation with Washington; so, a war was unlikely. Mao agreed that the Soviets ‘bully the weak, and are afraid of the tough’. Kissinger’s talks with Zhou reflected existing bonds. The two partners, sharing antipathy toward Moscow, pursued parallel interests. But on the US role in the coup against Chile’s President Allende, Kissinger insisted the CIA had nothing to do with it. Zhou did not pursue this, instead recounting revolutionary campaigns in Africa and Latin America, how Che Guevara had been ‘mad’ to seek help with building a broadcasting facility for spreading his revolutionary message. Zhou joked about sending Red Guards to guard the Chinese Liaison Office in Washington to reciprocate the US Marines stationed in Beijing. Consensus on the really important questions had already been reached; differences were ‘technical’. Given the rather shaky domestic situation in both countries, they sought to consolidate earlier gains. The Treaty on Prevention of Nuclear War remained a sensitive issue, forcing Kissinger to ‘sell’ its benefits: it makes it impossible for the Soviet Union to launch a conventional attack against others without isolating the treaty to prevent nuclear war. We have integrally linked the prevention of a conventional attack and of a nuclear attack which had never been done before. And with

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Zhou appeared to accept that argument, but triangular relations proved delicate even in trade. Kissinger explained the administration had placed two bills on extending most favoured nation (MFN) status to trade partners – one sought Congressional endorsement of the Executive’s right to extend and withdraw MFN status; the other related specifically to the USSR. US–Soviet trade had grown since the late 1960s; US–PRC trade, too, was growing but was minute. Zhou insisted China would not wish to have its case considered along with the Soviet one. Kissinger assured him, ‘We will not discuss MFN for you with our Congress, Mr. Prime Minister, until you personally tell us you want us to do it.’145 The two sides thrashed out a joint communiqué, while Zhou and Kissinger met privately to discuss emergency support during a China–Soviet war. Kissinger noted: One way of shortening the period of vulnerability is to point out certain areas which any force has to keep in mind in defending itself. One problem any country has is early warning. With respect to bombers, that means an air defense that can not be saturated. And with respect to missiles, it means getting sound warning of missile launching . . . we have a very good system of satellites which gives us early warning. The problem is to get that information to you rapidly. We would be prepared to establish a hotline between our satellites and Beijing by which we could transmit information to you in a matter of minutes.146 Kissinger suggested they announce a hotline link similar to the Moscow–Washington and Washington–Tokyo ones, and build a link ‘of special nature but that would not be generally known. This would enable you to move your bombers and if possible you could move your missiles if you knew an attack was coming’. China would need secure links between Beijing and distant bases to utilise early warning, ‘but we could probably help with that in some guise’.147 An alternative would be a treaty on preventing accidental nuclear war, which could be a legal basis for building a satellite link. Zhou conditionally accepted US help: Under those circumstances, if as you envisaged it would be possible for you to cooperate with warnings, that would be intelligence of great assistance. And, of course, there are also communications networks. But this must be done in a manner so that no one feels we are allies.148 They discussed the communiqué, setting out channels of ‘concrete consultations’ at ‘authoritative levels’ to sustain strategic collaboration. Ambas-

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sadors Bruce and Huang Zhen would link Zhou and Kissinger. When Kissinger visited Beijing, he would discuss these issues with Zhou, Marshal Ye, and Vice Minister Cai Hongjing. Zhou said such sensitive collaboration required detailed consideration; he would recall Huang Zhen to Beijing and return him to Washington with details. Kissinger offered a draft treaty on preventing accidental war that Zhou could consider before taking a final decision. It would enable them to inform each other in case of an accidental/unauthorised missile launch, and to share information about suspicious objects detected by radars. The draft mentioned establishing a hotline for sharing such information. Kissinger offered another draft solely on the establishment of a hotline. He had worked to turn a de facto strategic partnership against the USSR into a de jure alliance. This high point of his triangular diplomacy was the legacy his successors would inherit. Despite apparent official neglect, US–PRC trade grew. Kissinger repeatedly told Zhou US interest in China was strategic. This found resonance in Beijing. But the results of relaxing trade restrictions were startling. In 1971, US imports from China totalled $4.9m; US exports to China, in Nixon’s words, were negligible. In 1972, US imports were worth $32.3m while exports brought in $60.2m. In 1973, the USA became China’s fifth largest trading partner.149 Given the low base, high growth was unsurprising; complementary demands indicated substantial potential. Recognising this, US businessmen set up, with official support, the National Council for US–China Trade, in 1973. Its success would be noted as trade and investment ballooned in the ensuing decades.

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As one of my first acts as the President of the United States, I wish to reaffirm the basic continuity of American foreign policy in general and our policy toward the People’s Republic of China in particular . . . Our relationship with the PRC will remain a cardinal element of American foreign policy; we continue to see a strong, independent China as being in our national interest.1 (Gerald Ford to Mao Zedong, August 1974) We are in favour of your maintaining a superiority against the Soviet Union in such [strategic nuclear] aspects.2 (Deng Xiaoping to Henry Kissinger, November 1974)

In the two years following Nixon’s visit to China, he and Kissinger repeatedly assured Beijing that US–PRC relations would be ‘normalised’, i.e. full diplomatic ties would be established, by 1976. Mao and Zhou accepted this schedule as long as the strategic, anti-Soviet, substance of the relationship remained unalloyed. However, domestic turbulence from late 1973 until Nixon’s resignation in August 1974 meant foreign policy received less attention than it had in his first term. With Kissinger holding two key offices, and Nixon distracted, the former led US security policy and diplomacy. The executive’s leadership of state affairs, and US leadership in the world, suffered a parallel decline. The country’s imagination was focused on the national rather than the global. Doubt-laden introspection resulted. The end-of-Vietnam demobilisation began, tales of horror from that distant theatre circulated, the war economy wound down, rising oil prices impacted, and uncertainty replaced confidence. Americans began questioning their values and the establishment that upheld these. Ferment swept clarity away. There was no outburst of mass outrage, but an interregnum ensued. A shift of moral authority from the executive to the legislative followed hearings at various Congressional committees, examining intelligence activities, and classified policy matters. A subcommittee of the House

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Committee on International Relations conducted a series of hearings in 1975–76 on ‘United States–Soviet Union–China: The Great Power Triangle’. Officials, diplomats, military officers, and academics testified, thoroughly examining US–Soviet–Chinese relations under the Nixon and Ford Administrations.3 The hearings highlighted a polarisation over US great power policy. The only consensus was on the dramatic, visionary and courageous nature of Nixon’s China initiative; there was little agreement on its costs and opportunities, and how to advance it. Most witnesses agreed that the dynamism of 1971–72 had slowed in 1973, standing still thereafter. There was little hope that the triangular relationship which so captivated the country, and the world, in the early 1970s could be revived. But behind the scenes, action initiated by Kissinger in 1973 gathered momentum.4 Those assigned to study Soviet threats to China and how best the USA could help Beijing included middle-ranking staff circulating through the NSC, the Departments of State and Defense and the CIA. As Kissinger told Zhou, only a few people – Morton Abramowitz, James Lilley, Reginald Bartholomew, Michael Armacost and Richard Solomon – knew about these studies. Others would take these forward to the Carter and Reagan Administrations. The man spearheading the effort was not a public official, and enjoyed ‘deniability’. Michael Pillsbury, a China analyst at the Rand Corporation, shared professional and family interests with Winston Lord, Kissinger’s key China hand. Pillsbury spent the summer of 1973 secretly meeting PLA officers stationed under diplomatic cover at China’s UN mission. His reports on these talks, filed to NSC, State and Pentagon officials, revealed the official nature of his assignment.5 Security cooperation meaning military collaboration, the DoD managed Pillsbury. In September 1973, he sent a preliminary report to his sponsors, suggesting more extensive work be done with Chinese input, on how the USA could secretly help, and what role US armed services should play. Endorsed by the Secretaries of State and Defense, the DoD funded a six-month project enabling Pillsbury to consult Chinese commanders including three flag-rank PLA and PLAN officers.6 Keen on sharing military intelligence with Washington, they sought transfer of ‘sophisticated military equipment and technology from the United States’. Pillsbury filed a report, L-32, in March 1974, with an outline of the ‘Soviet military threat’ as perceived by the PLA General Staff. He recommended building close military ties: contacts between defence establishments, including exchange of military attachés and visits by senior officials, sale of defence-related technologies, intelligence exchanges, facilitation of Western European arms sales to China, and limited US arms transfers.7 L-32 was a seminal paper on which subsequent US–PRC military cooperation blossomed. Other studies from the Departments of Defense and State, the NSC and the CIA also contributed. Kissinger and Schlesinger felt Soviet threats to China were grave enough to merit

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defence assistance, if not in materiel deliveries, then in more subtle ways. They believed a ‘hardening’ of China’s defensive capability was essential to deterring Soviet adventurism, forcing Moscow to maintain a large force in the east, reinforcing Chinese resolve, and demonstrating US reliability as a strategic partner. As information on Soviet military deployments near China was shared with Beijing, the need to move without alerting Moscow became clear. The Pentagon found Moscow had more than tripled its ground forces in Asia in 1965–72, to almost 500,000 men, in a quarter of Soviet combat divisions. Air combat strength had grown fivefold, to 25 per cent of ‘frontal aviation units’. The Soviet Pacific Fleet, expanded and modernised, was ‘much more active throughout the Pacific basin’, projecting substantial force into the region. ‘Soviet forces in Asia, nuclear equipped and many deployed within sight of the Chinese border, possess capabilities which exceed those that would be required to stop a Chinese attack.’8 Washington had detailed information on Chinese forces, and a comparative study proved disconcerting. The PLA mustered four million personnel; but its weaponry and command, control, communication and intelligence (C3I) were primitive. Its pride were ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. China had short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) with 600–1,500 mile ranges; it was testing 3,000 mile range missiles, and planning a 7,000 mile range inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM).9 China’s 3.5m-man army had 210 divisions – 121 were ‘firstline infantry divisions’ – with two-thirds deployed along the Soviet border. The PLA had 9,000 tanks, and 2,000 armoured personnel carriers (APCs); it built 122mm, 130mm and 152mm guns. But the technology was obsolete, logistics for large-scale operations were patchy and industrial capacity ‘poor’.10 The PLAAF boasted 5,000 combat aircraft, mostly obsolete MiG-15s, -17s and -19s. Some MiG-21 Airguards were being inducted; a few new F-9s had arrived in 1970. There were few transports. The PLAN fared worse. Of the 61 surface combatants, 18 were destroyers or frigates. Most of the fleet was coastal, the only attack force being 65 diesel submarines. The Soviet Fleet’s extensive anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities threatened these.11 In short, although large, the PLA was weak. The Pentagon explored transferring combat software to make it a more battle-worthy foe for Soviet forces.

A new world of three worlds Beijing wrestled with more immediate problems. Mao and Zhou, having sided with the US ‘imperialists’ in their struggle against the ‘Soviet revisionists’, needed to rationalise this move without abandoning MarxistLeninist principles. The shift challenged so many assumptions that scepticism was rife. The turmoil of 1971 had highlighted the gravity of the

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situation. Zhou secured control over state organs in 1972, but the CPC elite remained divided. Supporters and critics of Lin charted contrary courses, interpreting Mao’s dicta to suit their preferences.12 Zhou was helped by Mao’s decision to reinstate Deng Xiaoping, ‘for the Party and the nation’. Deng first wrote from internal exile to Mao in November 1971, but Mao was preoccupied. Deng wrote again in August 1972; Mao and Zhou still faced factional feuds. In 1973, circumstances appeared more propitious. In January, the National People’s Congress (NPC) approved a new State Council under Zhou, confirming the new anti-Soviet, pro-US, line. The Council united elite factions but only one soldier was included in the twelve Deputy Premiers. They also included the increasingly vocal ‘Shanghai Group’, gaining notoriety as the ‘Gang of Four’. Led by Jiang Qing, the group was represented in the Council by Deputy Premier Zhang Chunqiao.13 The stage was set for Deng’s return. Assigned to negotiate with the Soviets in the 1950s, Deng’s obstreperousness had shone brilliantly. He seemed to be an ideal figure for the times. In April, he was reappointed a Deputy Premier. Four months later, the 10th CPC Congress elected him to the Central Committee. As Zhou and Deng helped China to recover from the Cultural Revolution’s worst excesses, Mao grappled with a new theoretical paradigm explaining his policy shifts while preserving the PRC’s ideological moorings. In February 1974, he wrote that significant changes had recently reshaped global politics. Superpower military balance now favoured the USSR. Drained by its engagement in Indochina, the USA had become defensive while the Soviet Union had become aggressive.14 Context set, Mao presented his model of three worlds defining the global security environment: the United States and the Soviet Union belong to the first world. Lying in-between Japan, Europe and Canada belong to the second world. The third world is very populous. Except Japan, Asia belongs to the third world. So does the whole of Africa and Latin America.15 Mao placed China in the third world, stressing its role in the struggles with the first two. The superpowers, vying for hegemony, were the main source of conflict. Marxist-Leninist dogma divided the world into a capitalistimperialist camp, a socialist-communist bloc and the ‘developing’ world. Identifying the USA and the USSR as part of the ‘hegemony-seeking’ first world, and placing China in the third world, Mao gave paradigmatic cover for Zhou to justify the changes initiated in 1970–71. In terms of China’s ideological evolution, Mao’s ‘three worlds’ theory was a great leap forward. The theory may have been aimed at the ‘Shanghai group’ which, in late 1973, began questioning Deng’s rehabilitation, targeting both him and Zhou. To shift the focus to ‘real enemies within’, on 18 January 1974, Mao

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issued a call to ‘Criticise Lin Biao and Repudiate Confucius.’ But this proved counter-productive. Activists, coalescing around the Gang, launched an ‘anti-Confucius campaign’.16 The philosopher (551–479 BC) associated with Mandarin propriety and bureaucratic tradition became the cover for an anti-Zhou campaign. The Gang’s supporters at Beijing and Xinghua universities criticised Confucius and the twelfth century BC Duke of Zhou, praised by Confucius as a model ruler. The campaign targeted his twentieth century namesake. Zhou strengthened centrist elements, established diplomatic relations with eight countries in 1974, and asserted a strong regional stance. The day after Mao’s call, PLAN ships evicted South Vietnamese units from the disputed Spratley/Xisha islands in the South China Sea. Two weeks later, Beijing announced that a 30 January agreement between Japan and South Korea jointly to develop energy resources in the East China Sea ‘infringes on China’s sovereignty and the Chinese government absolutely cannot accept it’. On the global stage, however, Beijing stressed moderation. Deng and his allies boosted Mao’s new vision for China. In April 1974, Deng led the Chinese delegation to the UN to expound the ‘three worlds’ paradigm.17 Socialist China, a third world state, supported ‘all the oppressed peoples and nations in their just struggles’. Deng declared China had no superpower aspirations, and would never try to become one. Beijing distanced itself from the bipolar rivalry, creating space for itself, widening its range of options. Deng outlined a moderate foreign policy flowing from the new framework. He was the most senior Chinese leader to visit the USA; Kissinger took the opportunity to renew high-level contacts, restoring some of the earlier warmth. He agreed with Schlesinger that relations with China took precedence over those with Taiwan; while ‘normalisation’ had stalled, commitments to Taipei needed to be downgraded. Schlesinger hastened the dilution of US presence on Taiwan, ordering the merger of two US military commands there into a smaller unit. This would be another ‘shock’ for the GRC; US Ambassador Leonard Unger urged caution – timing the announcement would be crucial so as ‘not to overload the GRC capacity to absorb such further “bad news” ’, since the ‘stability of Premier Chiang was at stake’.18 Schlesinger stressed his decision to withdraw theatre nuclear weapons before the remaining F-4 Phantoms were recalled. He would not allow the GRC to ‘take some unforeseen action’. Unger worried that Beijing might insist the USA completely abandon Taiwan. Schlesinger said, ‘we should move slowly on the final resolution of the Taiwan–China question as we do not know what the post-Mao/Chou China will be’.19 Post-Watergate turbulence in Washington, political uncertainties in China, failing health of Mao and Zhou, and doubts about the successor regime lowered Washington’s urgency on ‘normalisation’. The Administration was keen to maintain ‘normalcy’ but an ineffectual presidency engendered two divergent approaches. Schlesinger stressed the need to

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bridge the ‘dangerous’ gap between Soviet and US military capabilities. He changed the US nuclear doctrine, aimed at convincing Moscow it would gain little by pushing Washington militarily despite a favourable balance. Schlesinger saw in China a source of strategic support that needed building up. He felt Chinese requests for technology transfers, and some materiel, should be met in US self-interest.20 Kissinger backed the State Department’s view that US–Soviet relations were the most critical ones; Brezhnev’s enthusiasm for détente during US retrenchment must not be risked by building military links to China. He favoured ‘going slow’ on China while improving relations with the USSR.21 Formally committed to US–PRC strategic proximity, Kissinger invited Deng to dinner in New York during his UN trip. Talks covered a wide vista, but Kissinger did not see Deng as Zhou’s intellectual peer or a visionary leader able to transform Chinese policy. They compared their negotiating experience in Moscow, agreeing Soviet leaders were difficult interlocutors. Shared criticism of the USSR set the tone for the evening. Noting the Chinese inspiration behind his Middle East initiatives, Kissinger hoped to bring peace between Syria and Israel on the Egypt–Israel model: the Syrian (Military Intelligence chief ) has told me that after disengagement has been achieved, they will turn towards Iraq and work to reduce the Soviet Union’s presence in Iraq. You remember that I discussed this with Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou as a long-term strategy.22 Deng recalled Mao’s comment – ‘Our attitude is that, on the one hand, we support the Arabs, but, on the other hand, we work with you to fix the bear in the north together with you.’23 He had read the Mao–Kissinger transcripts, and the only disagreement was on the focus of Soviet threats. Kissinger said if the first target was Europe, the next would be China. Deng mentioned Sino–Japan talks on the risks of working too closely with Moscow on the Siberian energy project; Kissinger agreed Tokyo stressed commercial interests over strategic ones. They underscored their difference over US–French disagreements; Deng hoped the US would show more respect to the French sense of history and national pride. Kissinger, toasting Deng, said the ‘most important mission I have engaged in was my first trip to Beijing’. Deng’s return toast revealed some concern over the lack of progress toward ‘normalisation’ – ‘relations between our two countries can be said to be fine’. He recalled Mao’s unhappiness with the fuss over Watergate; Kissinger assured him it would not affect US–PRC relations. Deng insisted Beijing’s anti-Confucius campaign was aimed at ‘emancipating the people’s ideology from old thinking’, but admitted it targeted ‘living individuals’. For Kissinger, reducing Soviet influence in the Middle East was crucial. He mentioned Egyptian help in lowering Moscow’s profile in South

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Yemen, and the US role in reshaping Egyptian policy. He revealed that Cairo would ‘abrogate their treaty with the Soviet Union this year’. Relishing Soviet anxiety over the exclusive nature of US regional diplomacy, he disclosed his itinerary of an imminent trip. They discussed Pakistan’s military needs – Kissinger explained the legal restrictions on aiding Islamabad; he was getting Iran and other Muslim countries to help. He briefed Deng on his recent meetings with Brezhnev, noting the Soviets had remained difficult until the last minute, when they agreed to ‘virtually everything’. He did not foresee any major agreement during President Nixon’s June visit to Moscow, and assured Deng Washington would not ask Beijing to do anything on account of any US–USSR accord. Deng was relaxed, insisting there had been no changes in Soviet troop deployments near China; Kissinger’s aides said Moscow had added three new divisions. Deng recalled Mao’s comment that a million Soviet troops on China’s borders were ‘insufficient’ for an offensive; they needed two million! Kissinger reposted while he could not vouch Moscow had ‘any such intent, but it could be that, at some point, they would try to destroy your nuclear capacity. I’m not saying they definitely plan it, but I say that that would be conceivable’.24 The dinner was friendly but the energy, and the electric anticipation, marking exchanges among Mao, Zhou, and Kissinger, were missing. They ended on an unenthusiastic note. Qiao Guanhua said the only way forward was to normalise relations on the Japanese model – with US–GRC relations replaced with unofficial contacts between Washington and Taipei. Kissinger said the USA needed to be seen not casually discarding allies. Deng hoped US–PRC relations would be formalised ‘relatively quickly’, but as Mao had said, ‘We are not in a hurry on this question.’25 Clearly, Taiwan remained the biggest obstacle to developing bilateral relations. Washington nonetheless reduced its military presence, honouring Nixon’s ‘private’ understanding with Zhou. US chargé d’affaires, William Gleysteen, met Prime Minister Chiang Chingkuo on 1 May 1974, to raise the points discussed by Schlesinger and Ambassador Unger on 3 April. Chiang agreed to the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons as scheduled. However, he was less sure of US plans to withdraw one of the two remaining F-4 Phantom squadrons in July 1974 – ‘He specifically asked that defense review be conducted before redeployment takes place.’26 Chiang may have viewed the withdrawal as a symbolic reduction of US support, weakening Taipei’s position. Gleysteen recommended that US nuclear ordnance be removed from Tainan as planned, refurbished F-5 fighter aircraft returning from South Vietnam be swiftly painted in ROC livery, and Unger announce a highpowered defence review.27 The JCS issued orders towards the end of May. CINCPAC was told to remove all nuclear weapons from Taiwan in July 1974, pushing the ROC outside the US extended-deterrence umbrella.

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The first of the two F-4 squadrons would be withdrawn by the end of July, to be replaced with 20 refurbished F-5A fighters returned from Vietnam. The last F-4 squadron would be pulled out by 30 May 1975 after Taiwan had received 28 F-5Es. The moves would be in secret.28 Although Washington would not comply with Beijing’s demands for ‘normalisation’, by mid1975 Taiwan-related terms were largely met.

A deepening trough Schlesinger made other changes, too. A review of threats to the USA ordered by Nixon was proceeding slowly. Schlesinger hastened it, announcing on 18 January 1974 a doctrinal shift, advancing concepts like ‘essential equivalence’,29 ‘counter-force targeting’ and ‘limited nuclear war’. He demanded US defences be refurbished to restore balance in ‘the correlation of forces’. ‘Massive retaliation’ and ‘assured destruction’ were losing credibility; effective deterrence needed more practical instruments. Holding cities hostage to reciprocal good behaviour was no longer credible. The ‘coupling’ binding the USA and its allies in ‘extended deterrence’ and ‘linkages’ between conventional forces and nuclear arms needed new theoretical frameworks. Schlesinger said targeting Soviet strategic weapons – the counter-force concept – would be more credible for deterrence, and effective in war-fighting. He quoted Nixon’s 1970 question: Should a President, in the event of a nuclear attack, be left with the single option of ordering the mass destruction of enemy civilians, in the face of the certainty that it would be followed by the mass slaughter of Americans?30 His answer – ‘limit the chances of uncontrolled escalation’ and ‘hit meaningful targets’, avoiding excessive ‘collateral damage’. If deterrence failed, the USA would fight to win a limited nuclear war, controlling the ‘escalation ladder’, precluding a cataclysmic ‘orgasmic’ phase. The SAC targeted Soviet ICBM silos and other military installations. Aware of the strategy’s potential for a decapitating attack – increasing strategic instability – Schlesinger disavowed a first-strike capacity. However, he sought ‘an offensive capability of such size and composition that all will perceive it as in overall balance with the strategic forces of any potential opponent’.31 Pointing out the USSR had reached ‘nuclear parity’, and its conventional forces were much larger, he demanded qualitative and quantitative growth, seeking bigger, more complex, conventional forces that would deter or defeat ‘limited threats’. US policy must honour the ‘historical necessity’ of ensuring the global ‘equilibrium’ essential to ‘the survival of the free world’. He assessed military balances ‘primarily with the Soviet Union in mind’.32 Schlesinger described the Soviet demonstration of a

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multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicle (MIRV) capability and the deployment of SS-X-16, -17, -18 and -19 ICBMs with MIRVed warheads as ‘one of the most important developments in the strategic threat’. China’s deployment of a few ICBMs and medium-range bombers, threatening Moscow, aided the West; the reduction of US deployments in East Asia had become possible because of ‘major changes in our relations with Asian powers in the last few years, especially with the PRC’. The triangle at the top was crucial to US strategy. Schlesinger sought stronger links with the PLA; Kissinger held back. He saw Brezhnev as a potential partner in a world defined by détente. Moscow preferred superpower relations in which China did not figure; since this proved unrealistic, it sought understandings with the USA. Shared belief in the importance of US–Soviet relations drove the two sides to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), laying down a 150kT limit on underground nuclear tests. They agreed to negotiate a comprehensive test ban and to monitor each other’s tests using ‘national technical means . . . in a manner consistent with the generally recognized principles of international law’, and not to interfere with each other’s monitoring activities.33 They agreed to exchange test-site geological data for hydrodynamic measurements, and sign an ABM protocol allowing the deployment of a single-area ballistic missile defence (BMD) system. This would preserve shared vulnerability, reinforcing deterrence. State, DoD, the JCS and the CIA generated the US position conveyed to Moscow by experts in early 1974; Kissinger controlled the negotiations, finalising the agreement to be signed during the July 1974 summit. Meanwhile, Nixon’s presidency nearly collapsed. On 9 May, the House Judiciary Committee began impeachment hearings. With senior aides testifying, Nixon exercised only formal powers. Key initiatives bearing his imprimatur now aroused suspicion. Critics within the Administration became vocal; pragmatists keen to maintain credibility, and anxious about a post-Nixon era, began distancing themselves from his policies. US diplomacy under Kissinger was no exception. Forced to support the White House’s stance toward China and the Soviet Union, the State Department harboured dissidents. Departmental judgement said the Soviet Union posed the most grievous threat to US security, and merited the most serious attention. As Nixon’s key aide, Kissinger had basked in the exercise of clandestine authority while Nixon redesigned the global security architecture. Once basic changes had been made, he may have reviewed his own position, and the relative importance of China and the USSR. Concern over Soviet strength would have resonated with departmental views. The primacy of the bipolar structure over the triangular apex of a putative system may have reinforced Kissinger’s own beliefs.34 In Beijing, Zhou was ill. Mao saw few alternatives in the camps into which the CPC had splintered. Jiang Qing was in open rebellion; the ‘Gang’ was questioning Zhou’s policies authorised by Mao. Outraged by

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Deng’s return, the Gang demanded the revival of the Cultural Revolution’s values. At a Politburo meeting in July, Mao warned the Gang against becoming a ‘four-member clique’. A tense confrontation followed. At a Central Committee meeting on 11 October, Mao’s instruction on the Cultural Revolution was read out: after eight years, it was time to emphasise unity and stability – the Party and the PLA must be united. Just days later, Jiang Qing and her allies bitterly condemned Deng at a Politburo session. The following day, Gang-member Wang Hongwen saw Mao at Changsha and made false accusations against Zhou and others in order to prevent Deng from being appointed first vice-premier. Mao angrily rejected Wang’s accusations. The Gang rejected the Mao–Zhou line but did not challenge Mao. Mao returned a letter from Jiang with his response – ‘You are not to form a cabinet (be boss behind the scenes)’.35 The Watergate crisis reached its denouement. The simultaneity of crises in both capitals deepened the interregnum. The possibility of Nixon’s ouster grew. On 8 August he became the first US President to resign. Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in the next day.36 The transformation of the Nixon presidency from one replete with energy and imagination to one seen as corrupt and untrustworthy was rapid. More than 20 years later, Kissinger would say Nixon was ‘trying to solve a war that we inherited and that he did not abandon because he believed it was the moral duty of America to stand by those who had entrusted their fate to us’.37 The China initiative remained salient. Three hours after taking office, Ford saw Ambassador Huang Zhen38 to reassure Beijing that US–PRC relations were important, and that he would pursue Nixon’s policies. He handed Huang a letter for Mao. Kissinger wrote a similar letter to Zhou. Both missives were repeated by ‘flash’ signal to Ambassador Bruce in Beijing; he was to ‘deliver immediately’ to Zhou: As one of my first acts as President of the United States, I wish to reaffirm the basic continuity of American foreign policy in general and our policy toward the People’s Republic of China in particular. My administration will pursue the same basic approach to the international situation that has been carried out under President Nixon . . . We will take the necessary steps to preserve world stability. Our relationships with the People’s Republic of China will remain a cardinal element of American foreign policy; we continue to see a strong, independent China as being in our national interest.39 Adding that Kissinger would remain Secretary of State, Ford said he fully endorsed and intended to carry out ‘the commitments expressed by President Nixon and reaffirmed by Secretary Kissinger’. He would honour Nixon’s pledge on Taiwan, and ‘continue the practice of keeping your government fully informed on all major issues affecting Chinese interests’.40 Ford suggested a trip by Kissinger to Beijing before the end of

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the year ‘in order to exchange views on the general international situation and to chart in specific terms the future course of our bilateral relations’. He ended, ‘There will be no higher priority during my tenure as president than accelerating the normalization process that our two countries have embarked upon after two decades of separation.’41 However, when the hiatus broke, the outcome was negative. Washington and Beijing differed on events in Cyprus. In 1974, Archbishop Makarios was removed in a coup by the Greek-Cypriot-manned Cyprus National Guard. Led by Nicos Sampson, the coup was sponsored by the military junta in Athens. Sampson’s strident leadership destroyed the delicate balance between the two communities sharing the island. On 23 July, a civil insurrection ousted the ‘Colonels’ in Athens; Sampson lost power in Cyprus. Greek-Cypriot politician Glavkos Clerides took over as President of Cyprus. Reacting to appeals from the Turkish-Cypriot community, Ankara invaded the northern two-fifths of the island. This became the ‘Turkish Federated State of Cyprus’ under Rouf Denktash. Partitioned along ethnic lines, Cyprus became a ‘hot spot’. Beijing worried about US ability to maintain European stability. Chinese unhappiness surfaced in Qiao Guanhua’s UN address on 2 October; he criticised both superpowers almost equally. That evening, hosting a dinner for Qiao, Kissinger blamed the USSR – ‘We knew that the Soviets had told the Turks to invade.’42 As a NATO member, Turkey was unlikely to have acted on Soviet advice. Painting every incident likely to arouse China’s anxiety in Cold War colours fell into a pattern. Kissinger said it was an unfortunate situation, but ‘it will come out all right. The Soviets can’t do anything for either party. We will move to a settlement in a few weeks once the Greeks calm down.’43 Showing consideration for Beijing, Kissinger said he had been invited to visit Mongolia by its Foreign Minister and sought Qiao’s advice. Qiao replied China had rejected Mongolian independence since the Yalta conference; Kissinger said in that case he would not go. The two reviewed major changes in the world since their April meeting. Kissinger mentioned his planned visit to Yugoslavia the following month. They agreed on the potential for trouble in the Balkans after Tito’s death. Kissinger said Moscow could not treat Yugoslavia the way it had moved against Hungary and Czechoslovakia; Washington would view such a move ‘with great seriousness’. Qiao mentioned South Asia. After the Bangladesh War, US–PRC efforts focused on restoring Pakistan’s confidence and countering Soviet–Indian influence. Kissinger joked that for a ‘peace loving’ people, Indians were creating a ‘great sense of insecurity’. He said, ‘Our strategic analysis is the same as yours’. Criticising Delhi’s attempts ‘to create a situation of great imbalance in strength with their neighbours’, he revealed that having thrice delayed a visit to India, he now planned to try to modify ‘Indian foreign policy in relation to the Soviets’. He disclosed that although Delhi

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had asked for 3m tons of wheat in aid, Washington offered only 500,000 tons. Qiao was more concerned about Pakistan – ‘Our views are similar to yours, although perhaps we view the situation as more serious.’44 Moscow was pushing Pakistan on the Baloch45 and ‘Pashtunistan’ issues. Kissinger promised to discuss this with the Shah in Tehran – Iran would rebuild 300 damaged Pakistani tanks, sharing costs with Washington. Kissinger would arrange training of Pakistani troops on Iranian weapons so that if war broke out, they could use Iranian supplies. The legal position vexed him – ‘It is an absurd situation: India, a big country, can import arms in great quantity. But if you supply arms to Pakistan then you are “threatening peace”.’46 Qiao regretted that, unlike Washington, Beijing lacked naval resources, and could not act more vigorously. Kissinger downplayed European efforts to end disputes, reducing threats of conflict; the ‘European Security Conference’ would not end the East–West rivalry. He expected a final conference to be held in early 1975, but did not support a summit – ‘The idea of 39 heads of state in one room is more than my constitution can bear . . . We are not in a hurry. We just don’t want the European Security Conference to do any damage.’47 Discussion of Japan and Korea was more light-hearted, but disagreement persisted on Taiwan and ‘normalisation’. Kissinger planned to discuss these issues in Beijing. He knew China wanted Washington to adopt the ‘Japan model’, but US–ROC relations differed from Japan–ROC links. Washington wanted to avoid embittering public opinion against Beijing by abandoning Taipei. He put a Cold War gloss on the Taiwan issue – ‘given our concern with hegemony, it is important that we not be seen as throwing our friends away’.48 He and Qiao recalled US–PRC ties were based on ‘common ground on international problems’. Qiao indicated China could live with delayed ‘normalisation’, but wished to separate US–PRC relations from Taiwan’s reunification – China’s internal matter. Beijing did not believe peaceful reunification was possible. Kissinger said ‘normalisation’ was important but if it created a controversy, then postponement might be best. Views on Vietnam and Cambodia were in sync, but Washington’s 1976 timeframe for ‘normalisation’ looked unrealistic. Kissinger soon discussed US–PRC relations with Ford, who agreed to review US commitment to Taiwanese security in view of the withdrawal of US forces. He wanted analyses of what assistance Washington should offer over the next three to five years. Ford had Kissinger issue a NSSM seeking inter-agency definition of US interests, and policy options. The exercise’s three assumptions underscored the contradictions inherent in Washington’s policy: ‘That the process of normalization in US–PRC relations will continue. That there will be no radical change in the Sino–Soviet conflict. That the US defence commitment to the Republic of China will continue.’49 The study would define the roles of US and ROC forces in deterring and defending against a possible PRC attack, assess deficiencies

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in ROC defences, evaluate US options on transferring military gear to Taipei, and identify alternative sources.50 Kissinger could not have missed the inconsistencies. Having shaped and executed Nixon’s China initiative, he knew its defining features: Nixon had promised Mao and Zhou to open diplomatic relations by the end of 1976; they rejected ‘normalisation’ as long as US–ROC defence commitments existed. The assumption ‘the US defense commitment to the Republic of China will continue’ challenged the premise ‘the process of normalization in US–PRC relations will continue’. If Washington provided military assistance to Taiwan for three to five years, ‘normalisation’ would be delayed to 1979. The less problematic assumption that there would be no change in Sino–Soviet conflict probably explained reduced pressure to boost US–PRC collaboration. Kissinger had discussed bilateral issues with Soviet leaders several times, concluding US–Soviet relations were more significant than others. As détente developed, building China as a counterpoise to the USSR lost urgency. But this changed calculus was not disclosed. The other contradiction was institutional. The President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs offered advice unalloyed by party-political priorities. As de facto manager of the NSC, but not its member, he straddled the middle ground between advisers and principals. Enjoying greater access to the President than any principal, and able to control that access, the Adviser packed clout. One of his responsibilities was to expose the President to diverse cabinet views without prejudice, enabling him to define policy based on his judgement of varied recommendations. The Adviser, an ‘honest broker’, helped the cabinet system to function by not taking sides among principals, only offering the President his detached views when asked.51 Serving as both National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, Kissinger could be forgiven for a little schizophrenia. As Secretary, he shaped and implemented US foreign policy; as Adviser, he had to bring a ‘third-voice’ to bear on the President. It was asking a lot, and NSSM212, addressed to the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary of State and the DCI, showed it. As Adviser, Kissinger asked the review be chaired by a State official; as Secretary, he would nominate the latter, challenging his ‘detachment’. The review offered Ford four options: he could end military supplies to Taiwan but this would require abrogation of the 1954 Mutual Defence Assistance Agreement; he could allow shipments then underway, and those already agreed on, and maintain the F-5 and F-104 fighters in Taiwan; he could allow a modest increase in volume and lethality of arms being supplied, such as Hawk surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), Sidewinder air-to-air missiles (AAMs), and fast patrol boats carrying Harpoon surfaceto-surface missiles (SSMs); finally, he could substantially enhance deliveries, including the new all-weather F-16 and F-18, and reconnaissance aircraft with side-looking radars. Ford did not indicate his preference, but the bureaucracy sensed his thinking.

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The Nixon line, playing the ‘China card’, fell to Schlesinger’s DoD. The Kissinger line, concentrating on the USSR, and treating China policy as an adjunct, was ascendant. Ford’s decision to consider helping Taiwan militarily evidenced the lower priority Chinese sensitivities now enjoyed. Ford was not giving up on China altogether; having stressed security links with Taipei, he decided to visit Beijing before the 1976 elections, advising Ambassador-designate Bush accordingly.52 But the focus was on improving understanding with Moscow on strategic arms, Jewish emigration, dissidents’ rights, trade, Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), and the Middle East. A Ford–Brezhnev summit in late 1974 would formalise the primacy of superpower relations, mutually acquaint the two leaders, and strengthen détente. Kissinger flew to Moscow to work out the details. Brezhnev agreed that in the nuclear era war was illogical and that, in such conflict, ‘Everyone loses’.53 They agreed to prevent ‘unthinkable’ nuclear warfare. The summit would help to reduce these risks. Brezhnev wanted details of Schlesinger’s ‘counter-force’ targeting doctrine, and the likelihood of ‘limited nuclear war’ becoming an operational concept. Kissinger explained the theoretical nature of deliberations, discounting their implementation, but he used Schlesinger’s labours as an inducement for concluding strategic agreements, preventing concepts from becoming operational. Brezhnev sounded agreeable. He asked if the post-Watergate crisis had ended. Kissinger said it had, but imminent Congressional elections stirred excitement. The Democrats would perform strongly, but once the polls ended the Administration would emerge stronger. Kissinger took pride in opinion polls in which his personal popularity scored 80 per cent ‘which is extraordinary for a nonelected official. Or an elected official’.54 Brezhnev asked why influential Americans so strongly opposed efforts to improve US–USSR relations; Kissinger spoke of Dullesian conservatives and Jewish lobbies coming together with intellectuals. Ford’s pardon of Nixon, rising inflation, and the elections had prevented a ‘counterattack’. Senator Henry Jackson, who supported strengthening ties with China, and co-sponsored the ‘Jackson–Vanik amendment’, was repeatedly mentioned. Kissinger assured Brezhnev that improving US–USSR relations was a key objective for Washington; ‘there is no question that between now and the beginning of the year we can get our position organised’.55 But he played a weak hand, having accepted Moscow’s proposal to hold the summit in Vladivostok, close to disputed Soviet–Chinese borders. Did Washington endorse the symbolism – US–Soviet strategic collaboration to be proclaimed near an area of Sino–Soviet contention? Could Ford and Kissinger not have grasped the locale’s value to Moscow in its dispute with Beijing? China saw the decision as a sign of decline in US eyes of US–China links in the triangular dynamics. Kissinger explained the constitutional bar against his supporting any candidate in the election, but his ability to speak on specific policy issues, choosing the forthcoming summit

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to illustrate: ‘Suppose we came to a SALT agreement in principle in Vladivostok. The strong probability is Senator Jackson will attack it. Then I can go around the country and defend the agreement, and thereby attacking Jackson.’56 Brezhnev jokingly asked if Moscow could ‘help you in any way, by throwing in a problem or two?’ Kissinger earnestly replied: ‘The best way is if you and I are on the same side and Jackson is on the other.’57 Brezhnev agreed. He questioned US trade legislation imposing conditions on the Administration granting the MFN status, and extending credit, to the USSR. Kissinger explained the Executive only had to inform Congress when credit limits were broken; permission was not needed. Brezhnev queried the possibility of the USA extending MFN status to China; Kissinger assured him, ‘I’m not aware of any discussions with China about giving them Most Favoured Nation status. We haven’t had any with them.’ Brezhnev then joked about US demands for easing restrictions on Jewish emigration. He and Gromyko asked what the USA would do if 200 million Chinese and 100 million Russians migrated to the USA. Kissinger focused on substantive issues – the CSCE, the Middle East, and dangers of nuclear conflict. Details of the Vladivostok accord would have to be worked out by others, but Brezhnev and Kissinger outlined the summit’s framework. Kissinger’s assurances to Brezhnev did not end the debate on establishing military links to China, selling it arms, and transferring defence technology.58 George Bush’s arrival as the new US envoy in Beijing in October provided the starting point for deeper strategic collaboration. But for Kissinger, and Ford, the highlight of the Administration’s first few months was the November summit in Vladivostok. This ‘working’ meeting between Ford and Brezhnev, with key aides, formalised the Brezhnev–Kissinger understandings. The two leaders agreed to negotiate a second SALT accord imposing cuts on arsenals. They agreed on an upper limit of 2,400 strategic warheads on either side with a limit on the number of ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with MIRVed warheads.59 As Ford left Vladivostok, Kissinger flew to Beijing to brief Chinese leaders. Nixon’s China initiative had gained Kissinger leverage in Moscow. He expected improved US–USSR relations would ‘help . . . us enormously’ in dealing with Beijing. But his reception there was cool. He did not get to see Mao, and Deng remained inflexible on Taiwan in advancing ‘normalisation’, criticising US efforts to build détente with the USSR. If anything, the Vladivostok summit made things harder for Kissinger in Beijing. However, covert collaboration flourished. Kissinger’s NSC aide Robert McFarlane spent three days briefing senior PLA commanders on highly classified intelligence on Soviet military movements and dispositions. And for the first time, the PLA reciprocated. Around this time, China agreed to grant US intelligence access to sites close to Soviet territory from which Moscow’s ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests could be moni-

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tored.60 This covert and risky collaboration would continue although formal ties suffered vicissitudes. Deng was in no position to compromise, and his tough talking may have been for the benefit of his aides. Recently named First Vice Premier by Mao, Deng faced challenges from the Gang of Four. Unable to consolidate his authority before the next session of the NPC scheduled for January 1975, he needed to deal robustly with the US envoy. He asked why Washington had allowed Taiwan to open new consulates if it were serious about improving relations with Beijing. Kissinger answered, ‘You’ll never believe that some of our actions are the results of stupidity and not planning. I never knew about the consulates until it had been done.’ Insisting the USA owed China a ‘debt’ over Taiwan, Deng, however, admitted Mao paid more attention to ‘international issues’, reassuring Kissinger that the strategic basis of collaboration survived.61 Kissinger reciprocated, describing the USSR as ‘your ally and northern neighbour’: We believe Soviet purposes are still essentially hegemonial . . . We need to do a lot of shadow-boxing to get into a position to take action when we are in a crisis. I say this only so you will distinguish between appearances and reality. We will not permit strategic gain for Soviet power. We will attempt to reduce Soviet power where we can.62 He reminded Deng that Mao had compared US policy to shadow-boxing of the Shao Lin variety. Washington had to consider domestic compulsions; arms control agreements with Moscow limited Soviet power, reducing domestic and European reaction to US muscularity. Washington prevented Soviet involvement in Middle East peace talks it was secretly mediating. Chinese criticism of certain US policies, especially on the energy crisis, was fair. The USA could solve its own problems, but if the crisis continued, Western Europe would disintegrate. Kissinger noted the irritation US comments on Cambodia caused the Chinese. Washington was not opposed to Sihanouk’s return as the head of a neutral Cambodia but had ‘no interest in Sihanouk returning to Cambodia as a figurehead for Hanoi’. Deng repeated that US reliance on Lon Nol would not help. Kissinger reiterated Nixon’s pledge to ‘normalise’ relations but also explained US treaty commitment to Taiwan, and the Taiwan lobby. A ‘Senatorial group’ could emerge and do to US–Chinese relations what Senator Jackson did to US–Soviet relations. He stressed that the USA and China shared ‘common fronts mostly produced by the “Polar Bear” ’. The USA wished to maintain the partnership, ‘given the dangers that may be ahead, and keeping in mind what Chairman Mao said to me last year of the two strands – normalization, and the international environment’.63 He offered to reduce US forces on Taiwan to half by mid-1976, completing withdrawal by the end of 1977. Time was needed to prepare US public opinion for ending commitments to Taiwan. Deng rejected the view that if

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the USA recognised China, the US–GRC Mutual Defence Agreement would automatically end. The talks ended inconclusively. Kissinger called on the ailing Zhou at the hospital, learning that Mao, too, was ill, and going blind. Mao, out of Beijing, would not receive Kissinger although he had seen other foreign visitors. This was interpreted as a rebuff. However, Kissinger’s next session with Deng was friendly. He focused on the ‘Soviet threat’, and Deng promptly responded. Deng also asked if Secretary of Defense Schlesinger should be invited to China. It is not clear if he wished to throw Kissinger off balance, aware of the rift between the two – or to show appreciation of Schlesinger’s robust approach to Moscow and support for arms transfers to China. Kissinger said Washington had turned down repeated Soviet invitations to Schlesinger; ‘So if we begin using our Secretary of Defense for diplomatic travels, he will begin going to places that I don’t believe are desirable.’ He suggested Deng invite another US cabinet member, or President Ford himself. Deng was delighted. Kissinger recounted Soviet offers made in October, and at Vladivostok, to sign a US–USSR treaty enabling them to defend each other, and allies, against third-party attacks. He saw three Soviet objectives – weaken NATO, force Arab states fearful of Israeli nuclear weapons to become Soviet allies, and target China. Qiao Guanhua said the US–Soviet treaty on prevention of nuclear war could serve similar purposes. Kissinger tried to explain the differences between the two but Deng said the Soviet ‘goals and purposes have been constant all along’. Criticising US–Soviet nuclear treaties starting with the PTBT, Deng said the USSR had reached or surpassed the USA in nuclear weapons. Kissinger replied superiority in nuclear arsenals did not necessarily enhance effectiveness, but in ‘numbers, diversity, accuracy and flexibility’, US forces were ‘considerably superior’. This position would remain throughout the life of the Vladivostok agreement. Deng said China would be unaffected by any US–Soviet treaty, but he was anxious about China’s modest stockpile. Kissinger reassured him: we have an understanding with you not to do anything with the Soviet Union without informing you. And so we inform you of things with them whether you attach significance to them or not. And we are not asking you to do anything about it.64 He revealed the Soviets proposed in Vladivostok US–Soviet consultations on PRC–Japanese relations to prevent these from growing too close. Washington rejected the idea, and informed Tokyo. Deng warmed to Soviet perfidy – no SALT treaty could bind Moscow’s hands or ensure a decade of détente. Kissinger said if the USSR honoured the treaty, the USA would retain strategic advantage; if Moscow violated it, Washington would have legal and moral bases for action. Deng did not believe a future war would necessarily be a nuclear one; in conventional arms, especially naval forces,

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Soviet expansion was rapid. Kissinger agreed this was worrying, but the US navy, with its many carriers, remained dominant. Soviet military growth was challenging, but if Moscow launched an offensive, Washington would use its nuclear weapons. Deng asked if the USA would not be deterred by Moscow possessing ‘the same destructive strength’. Kissinger gave details of each side’s nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Moscow could not launch a successful first strike; Soviet land-based missiles were far more vulnerable than US sea- and air-borne systems. In accuracy and technically, US forces would remain ‘10 to 15 years ahead of them’. Deng enthused, ‘We are in favour of your maintaining a superiority against the Soviet Union in such aspects.’65 But he worried about West Asia, and the Balkans. Kissinger said Washington planned to sell weapons to Belgrade in 1975, underscoring interest in Yugoslav independence. If a European security conference took place in 1975, Ford would visit Romania and Yugoslavia. Noting Moscow ‘continues to use military threat and subversion’ against Beijing, Deng worried about the progress of the CSCE process. Kissinger assured him, ‘It cannot be a success . . . There will be no substantive agreement of any kind.’ Deng said Soviet Far Eastern forces targeted Japan and the US 7th Fleet as well as China; for success in an offensive against China, Moscow would have to increase its forces dramatically, and then fight for 20 years. He warned the Soviet build-up near China was ‘a feint towards the East to attack in the West’. They agreed neither Europe nor China could be indifferent to a Soviet attack on the other, and both needed to improve defences. The next session, too, focused on countering Moscow. Praising Deng’s effect on the Danish Prime Minister, a recent visitor, Kissinger described China as ‘our best partner in NATO’. But the two diverged over the Middle East; Deng criticised US support for Israel ‘against 120 million Arabs’ as its ‘weakest point’. Kissinger said only the USA could make Israel change course; anyone who wanted ‘progress’ in the region would have ‘to come to us’. On South Asia, they agreed on engaging with India, offering Delhi an alternative to Moscow. Kissinger’s offer of a coalition between Sihanouk and Lon Nol’s supporters was not received well, nor did US concern that Beijing’s support for oil exporters could hurt Europe and Japan. Turning to normalisation, Deng said, once Washington ended its defence treaty with Taipei, Taiwan would again become China’s internal matter. Formal ties could only be based on the ‘Japan model’. Both acknowledged this issue could not be advanced immediately. At the final session the next day, Deng said Beijing would wait until Washington accepted China’s ‘three principles’ framework. A little acrimony developed. Deng criticised the USA for being in the ‘forefront’ of all world events, taking too many initiatives without resolving issues. Kissinger explained why Europe and Japan could not take leading roles despite being the main victims of rising oil prices. Both recounted familiar positions, suggesting persistent differences. Deng’s comment, ‘The Polar

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Bear is after you’, summed up what united and divided them. Perceived Soviet threats bound the partners in their tacit alliance;66 differences over the threat’s nature separated them. Kissinger suggested China needed US support in facing the ‘Polar Bear’; Deng reposted that Moscow’s focus on the USA meant it needed Beijing’s help. Antipathy towards Soviet power was a secure basis for covert collaboration, but Kissinger’s visit highlighted tensions. The talks suggested both partners sought mutual support, but differed on the purpose of the collusion. Neither acknowledged any obligation or ‘debt’, nor would they compromise to advance the relationship. Kissinger left US–PRC ties in a state of limbo.

Indochinese denouement Back in Washington, Kissinger was asked to explain what seemed more urgent, US–Soviet relations. Ford summoned the NSC to review his Vladivostok summit, focusing on draft-SALT II. Unhappy with press criticism of Moscow’s ‘victory’, he asked the principals to explain the draft ‘before the Congress, the press, and the public’.67 Ford said the summit had taken the superpowers ‘from non-equivalence to equivalence’, with an upper limit on strategic arms, especially MIRVed missiles; French and British nuclear weapons had been left out, implying this helped NATO. Ford stressed his visits to Tokyo, Seoul and Vladivostok, and Kissinger’s ‘sidetrip to Beijing’, had been positive. Prime Minister Tanaka’s resignation had reduced the value of talks with him, but Ford’s team had met many Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leaders; talks had been with the Japanese leadership rather than with a leader. Ford had insisted that Japan increase aid to South Vietnam from $64m a year to $120m, helping the USA. He praised his visit to South Korea, especially the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), having been impressed with General Emerson’s success in turning the 2nd Division deployed there into ‘a first class fighting organization’. But the focus was on SALT. Kissinger pointed to the US advantages; Schlesinger said the DoD would build up systems like Trident SLBMs to the upper limit. The two differed over nuances. Kissinger said the USA had an ‘overkill’ built into its arsenal; Schlesinger said when the budget was being negotiated with Congress, mentioning ‘overkill’ was unhelpful. Kissinger said such an advantageous agreement could only be reached between two leaders; Brezhnev wanted to begin a relationship with Ford on a positive note. After all, Ford could be in office for six years. Brezhnev ‘wanted to strengthen détente’; Brezhnev was also ‘afraid of an arms race with the US’, a hint of the leverage the agreement gave Washington. Kissinger’s punchline was the pressure the USA could exert on both China and the USSR. The Vladivostok summit had helped significantly in his talks in Beijing – despite the ambiguous record – and Ford’s trip to China ‘will help tremendously with the Soviets’. This ‘vodka and mao tai’ view of managing relations by playing Beijing and Moscow off against each

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other rationalised Kissinger’s efforts. He stressed ‘this triangular game’ in cautioning against talking of ‘Soviet strategic superiority’ which hurt US leverage with China: ‘It’s imperative that they not believe we are inferior militarily to the Soviets.’68 Kissinger and Schlesinger debated semantics. Schlesinger urged Ford to say this was a good agreement – if there were credible complaints of violations, Washington would examine those. Kissinger said Ford should stress the accord’s mutuality – ‘It would not hurt to praise Soviet statesmanship somewhat.’ Ford emphasised the need for unity and forthrightness. Vladivostok did not improve US–Soviet relations. Failure to carry Congress on trade left a bitter taste for the Administration. The Jackson–Vanik amendment, demanding relaxation of Soviet restrictions on Jewish emigration, defeated Kissinger’s efforts. Gromyko had written to him in October 1974 rejecting any US ‘interference’ in matters of Moscow’s ‘internal competence’. But the Trade Act passed by Congress carried a version of the amendment. In January, Moscow informed Washington the Act contravened the 1972 US–USSR trade accord; Moscow would, therefore, abandon that agreement. The cooling off hindered US efforts to reduce defence expenditure, despite growing current account deficits and the inflationary outcome of the Arab oil embargo. The budget presented to Congress in February 1975 raised allocations across the board. Schlesinger stressed the growing threats posed by Soviet nuclear and conventional forces. He noted the deployment of over 40 divisions near China ‘without any diminution of their capabilities west of the Urals’.69 Taking comfort in Chinese deployments east of the USSR, he lamented Beijing’s tardy military development. He pushed requested authorisation past the psychologically significant $100bn mark to $104.7bn. Indochina operations, despite declining US involvement, made large demands. With pro-US administrations in the region controlling shrinking urban perimeters, Kissinger and his colleagues persuaded Ford that resources other than manpower should continue to be poured into the theatre. Despite warnings from the field that time was running out for the USA to negotiate a final-status settlement,70 Washington was unable to influence the course of events. The Administration sought to secure ‘peace with honour’ by spending its way out. Military assistance for Saigon rose from $1,000m to $1,293m; $790m went as grant and an additional $250m was sought as reimbursement for deliveries to Cambodia. The sum of $762m was requested as Indochina reconstruction assistance. Increased foreign military assistance was matched by defence appropriations growing from $85,300m to $94,000m. Ford sought to maintain ‘clear strategic deterrents against the spectrum of potential threats’. The USA would sustain ‘an effective combination of strategic bombers, landbased missiles and submarine-launched missiles’. Developments of the B-1 strategic bomber would continue for deployment in 1977. The Trident SLBM would be deployed in 1979. An ICBM capable of being launched

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from fixed silos or mobile launchers would be developed. Ballistic missile warhead accuracy improvements and long-range cruise missile projects would continue. BMD technology would be maintained, and strategic forces’ command, control and communications would be improved. In conventional forces, army divisions would increase from 13 to 16. Three months later, the USA and Canada renewed cooperation in electronic surveillance of North American skies, extending joint monitoring of Soviet missiles within the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) framework. Détente was not dead, but it looked frail. It suffered grievously in April when North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces mounted a final offensive against the South. Most US troops had left. In numbers, South Vietnam did not appear too weak, but the psychological pressure of fighting without US support, and institutional weaknesses, proved telling. In mid-April, Ford asked Congress for $722 million to shore up Saigon’s defences and buy time while residual US personnel and loyal Vietnamese were pulled out. He insisted it not be called ‘evacuation money’, lest it create panic and trigger the South’s collapse. Ford took pride in having evacuated 600 Americans from Cambodia. He had ordered preparations for the evacuation of 300 senior Cambodians, too, but few left.71 Kissinger ordered the Saigon embassy staff be reduced to 1,250, but the number of ‘endangered’ Vietnamese topped a million and ‘the irreducible list is 174,000’. Ford sought funds to establish a bridgehead around Saigon with several US divisions, and begin an air-and-sea lift. He met the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with his Secretaries of State and Defense. Things went badly. The Senators would fund evacuation, but not help Thieu; nor would they countenance a US-manned bridgehead. There was no agreement on where to resettle the 174,000 Vietnamese, if they were evacuated. Despite Ford’s plea, the Senators only agreed to release $200m.72 The Administration could blame Congressional obstacles to evacuating loyal Vietnamese. Americans and Vietnamese would, however, improvise to get many out. US personnel were ‘thinned out’ rapidly and ten days after the meeting with the Senators, Ford sensed the end of the US enterprise in Indochina was nigh.73 On 25 April, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces laid siege around Saigon. With US military presence reduced to defensive enclaves, and the ARVN cracking under the strain, the Huong regime that had succeeded the Thieu–Ky combine buckled. On 28 April, General Duong Van (Big) Minh became President, with Vu Van Mau his Prime Minister. They sought a cease-fire to stabilise the military situation and negotiate power transfer. However, with the ARVN perimeter shrinking, despondency turned into panic. US denial of military aid sealed Saigon’s fate. On the day Minh took over, Radio Hanoi proclaimed, ‘Yesterday, 27 April, the US Defense Attaché Office in Saigon announced that it would close in 36 hours, putting an end to the system of US military advisers which has lasted for as long as 25 years in South Viet-Nam.’74

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Kissinger spoke to Ambassador Graham Martin in Saigon several times a day, frequently consulting the Washington Special Action Group (WSAG). Martin told Kissinger that not supporting Minh would prove claims that Washington’s only interest had been to prop up Thieu. However, Martin painted a more reassuring picture than WSAG drew. Hanoi would take months to occupy the rural South and only then move on Saigon.75 A precipitate withdrawal of remaining US personnel would ‘pull out the rug’ from under Minh. The pace of US evacuation was discussed by the NSC – Hanoi’s forces were already shelling Saigon’s main airport, destroying a US C-130, blocking the runway. After four years of cajoling by Zhou, and more recently by Deng, Kissinger may have concluded the time had come to end US involvement. At the sombre NSC meeting, Ford rejected Martin’s plea. Orders went out, early on 29 April, to evacuate US personnel, and the Vietnamese intimately connected to them. Scenes of helicopters flying from the US embassy rooftop followed. Hanoi’s forces moved into Saigon. On 30 April 1975, the North Vietnamese flag flew atop government buildings. Washington’s Indochina war was over.

Beijing opera China, too, saw some interesting developments. In preparation for the 4th NPC on 13–17 January, the CPC Central Committee met on 8–10 January, approving a new constitution, a report on the government’s activities, and nomination lists for the NPC Standing Committee and the State Council. It elected Deng Xiaoping a vice-chairman, and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. Deng’s return to high office was confirmed despite the Gang’s objections. Zhou’s State Council report formalised the political, security and diplomatic shifts. Cold War superpower rivalry set the context: Soviet social-imperialism ‘makes a feint to the east while attacking the west’. The two super-powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, are the biggest international oppressors and exploiters today, and they are the source of a new world war. Their fierce contention is bound to lead to world war some day. The people of all countries must get prepared.76 US–PRC relations were described prosaically. Despite ‘fundamental differences’ between them, ‘Owing to the joint efforts of both sides, the relations between the two countries have improved to some extent in the last three years’.77 Zhou accused Moscow of ‘betraying Marxism-Leninism’, conducting anti-China subversion, and provoking armed conflict: ‘We wish to advise the Soviet leadership to sit down and negotiate honestly, do something to solve a bit of the problem and stop playing such deceitful

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tricks.’78 However, the focus was economic. Zhou claimed China’s agricultural production had exceeded population growth; industrial production grew more slowly but post-revolution standards of living had improved. Zhou outlined dramatic plans – ‘the second stage is to accomplish the comprehensive modernisation of agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology before the end of the century, so that our national economy will be advancing in the front ranks of the world’.79 The new constitution lent a juridical basis for realising this vision.80 Mao and Zhou wished to transfer power to successors sharing that goal. Reforming the state was crucial. The presidency was abolished; military command was vested in the party chairman. The latter would exercise military command through his chairmanship of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the CPC Central Committee. In fact, changes began in December 1974, when four new Deputy Chiefs of Staff were appointed, doubling their number – rehabilitating four generals disgraced during the Cultural Revolution.81 This presaged professionalisation of the PLA, and Deng’s appointment as ViceChairman of the CMC, and PLA Chief of General Staff.82 The latter post had lain vacant since General Huang Yungsheng fled with Lin Biao. Marshal Yeh Chienying succeeded Lin as Defence Minister. Among the twelve Deputy Premiers in the State Council, only General Chen Hsilien represented the PLA. The moves realised Mao’s dictum that ‘the party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the party’. The combination of CPC, State and CMC appointments in Deng’s portfolio, and the serious illnesses afflicting Mao and Zhou, meant he controlled most party, government, and military organs. Few individuals had wielded so much authority. Deng’s credentials were beyond reproach – an exceptional military career in 1931–49 and his rapid rise, and occasional fall, in the CPC elite gave him the experience and authority for effecting the reforms his mentors sought. The PLA’s expansion under Lin, its growing influence in civilian affairs, and its internal divisions had troubled Mao and Zhou. Now, Deng began restructuring the forces. On 25 January, he told senior officers what he wanted. His theme was factionalism at the higher levels; postings and promotions had been used by Lin Biao to build ‘mountain-strongholds’, fiefdoms of personal or group interest. Mixing assurance with warnings, he demanded a professional soldiery.83 The first half of 1975 transformed the regional security scene. US forces pulled out of South Vietnam, as Hanoi’s army reunited Vietnam. This bloody conclusion to Western occupation of Indochina changed Beijing’s view of its security milieu. Hanoi’s victory reinforced Soviet influence along China’s southern ramparts. Beijing was suddenly concerned about double envelopment by Moscow and its clients. The need for a countervailing strategic move became urgent. ‘Normalisation’ of relations with the USA would have provided reassurance, although US retrench-

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ment would dilute its impact. With Washington unable to extend recognition, Beijing’s only alternative was self-reliance, and the PLA remained its primary asset. Ridding the services of factions, reducing their size, and increasing their combat capacity became Deng’s mission. In July, he called an ‘enlarged CMC meeting’, stressing the PLA’s weaknesses. He identified the army’s problems as ‘bloating, laxity, conceit, extravagance and inertia’,84 blaming ‘sabotage by Lin Biao and his like’. Deng repeated his warning about the ‘mountain stronghold’ mindset, about the army taking over too many resources from civilian units, and the lack of unity within the army, and between the military and the country.85 The army needed professional training and better arms; modern warfare was a combinedarms craft, demanding new military technologies. Conventional and nuclear arms required improvement, and combat capability needed investment. Reducing numbers was the only option. Several hundredthousand officers would be moved to the civil sector; those active in factions would be the first to go. The speech launched a programme of reducing the PLA’s size while increasing its combat potential. Although he addressed tactical and strategic issues, Deng’s aim was political. He rehabilitated commanders disgraced by Lin. The most prominent, General Lo Juiching, a former chief of staff, appeared at this gathering after a decade in the shadows.

Ennui and distraction In Washington, evidence of Moscow liberally interpreting détente, and testing US tolerance, mounted. Soviet–Cuban support for groups fighting pro-US forces in Africa, especially in Angola, was seen as a failure of Kissinger’s détente policy. While Beijing focused on recovering from domestic turbulence, it criticised US ‘appeasement’ of the USSR. Economic weaknesses and dependence on largely Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) supplied oil faced Ford with complex political, economic and strategic concerns. In April, the State Department ‘postponed indefinitely’ a visit by a Chinese musical troupe because its repertoire included a song calling for Taiwan’s ‘liberation’. Beijing called it a violation of the Shanghai Communiqué. Chiang Kai-shek’s death may have eased some US–PRC tensions. A few days later, with the leaders of the House back from a China trip, Ford addressed Congress on his foreign policy objectives. On China, his message was, ‘steady as she goes’ – deep disagreements paralleled ‘our mutual long-term interests’. He announced plans to visit Beijing later in the year ‘to reaffirm these interests and to accelerate the improvement in our relations’. No dramatic initiatives were expected. Ford’s address, and US attention, were focused on military defeat. The withdrawal from Indochina cast a pall of gloom. Traumatic consequences

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followed. Only a few days later, Cambodia’s communist forces captured the crew of the Mayaguez, a US-registered freighter, off Cambodian shores. Ford ordered a rescue operation. US forces bombarded Cambodian military and fuel installations on the mainland, raiding an island where the seamen were held. Forty-one US soldiers died while freeing the 39 captives; most Americans supported this robust act. With superpower interests clashing in third world theatres, the risk of minor flash-points escalating to crises troubled both governments. The two sides negotiated a more effective mechanism for high-level contact during emergencies. The 1963 ‘Hotline agreement’ was updated for operating the ‘Direct Communications Link’.86 Meanwhile, Schlesinger continued withdrawing US forces from Taiwan. In late May, the last USAF combat squadron was pulled out, leaving Taipei to its own devices if hostilities broke out. Implementation of Nixon’s 1972 pledge partly assuaged Beijing’s concerns, but caused anxiety elsewhere. George Bush, the envoy in Beijing, cautioned Ford against ‘preliminary steps to breaking off relations with Taiwan’. Such a decision could become ‘a major weapon for your opponents be they Republican or Democrats’. US efforts to balance ties to Moscow and Beijing were distorted by Kissinger’s anxiety to sustain détente with the USSR. Ford had asked for an inter-agency review of US approval of Bonn selling a nuclear reactor to Moscow. In mid-June, he approved the sale despite knowing the transfer of technology would help Moscow to modernise its nuclear industry to Western levels.87 When the transaction became public, Beijing vented its ire, but Ford endorsed Kissinger’s view that helping Moscow better served US interests than allaying Chinese anxieties would. The contradiction lay in Washington’s deepening concerns over Soviet involvement in Angola. The Portuguese colony had descended into a three-way civil war as soon as Lisbon announced plans to withdraw. Presidents Kaunda and Mobutu of neighbouring Zambia and Zaire, both US clients, backed Jonas Savimbi of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and Holden Roberto of the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA). They were fighting guerrillas of the Moscow-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) led by Augustinho Neto. Zambia and Zaire shared strategic interests in mineral-rich Angola, and its Benguella railway. Kaunda briefed Ford over dinner, urging urgent support for Savimbi. The NSC considered US options at the end of June. Ford ordered material support for Roberto and Savimbi.88 It would be a while before the USA and China began collaborating with the FNLA and UNITA against the MPLA. In June, Kissinger asked State and NSC staff to assess the key issues for his ‘advance trip’ to China in preparation for Ford’s visit. Reviewing the group’s recommendations in early July, he said, ‘For political reasons it’s just impossible for the US to go for normalisation before ’76. If there’s any one thing that will trigger a conservative reaction to Ford, that’s it.’89 Beijing was keen on Ford’s visit

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but showed no flexibility on Taiwan; this made movement difficult, especially with Ford a candidate in the elections. Kissinger was also unhappy with Chinese comments about his declining stature relative to Schlesinger, and White House advisers Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Hartmann. Winston Lord feared unless progress was made soon, US–PRC relations could unravel. Kissinger disagreed – the relationship was ‘based on their fear of the Russians’, which would protect the strategic partnership. It was on that understanding that he travelled to Europe to discuss with French and German leaders progress with CSCE. His meeting with Gromyko in Geneva showed how much consensus the two had built up on key issues. The two men joked about the strength of Malta which was holding out on the date of the ‘final act’ signing ceremony.90 Their camaraderie reflected improved superpower relations based on détente, although the policy had become unpopular. They agreed on a CSCE summit in late July once Malta’s agreement was secured. Friendship peaked when leaders of all NATO and Warsaw Pact member states, as well as other European countries, gathered in Helsinki to sign the ‘final act’, an agreement confirming European boundaries. It laid down bases for reducing tensions and increasing official and people-to-people contacts. The accord was made possible by US agreement to withdraw its demands over human rights in the Soviet bloc, giving further ammunition to Kissinger’s critics. The danger of military conflict in Europe was reduced, but Chinese anxiety over US ‘appeasement’ deepened. Deng conveyed Beijing’s unhappiness when he received two US Congressional delegations in August. He sought to use Ford’s planned visit as leverage on Washington to move things along but neither Ford nor Kissinger responded. Chinese concern over the planned summit featured in NSC deliberations. Once it became clear the USA would not establish full relations with China during the visit, staff began exploring ways of lowering expectations. One suggestion was that Ford tour several regional allies after visiting China. Trips to Manila, Jakarta and Singapore after Beijing were seen as helpful as ‘the Chinese cannot really object because they want to keep us in Asia [and] it will reduce the pressure on him for immediate results, whatever they may be, in Peking’.91 Beijing was grappling with the illnesses of Mao and Zhou, the Gang of Four’s growing shrillness, and Deng’s efforts to consolidate the authority of the ‘reformist’ faction bearing Zhou’s stamp, while rebuilding the PLA into a smaller fighting force. Briefing visiting Congressmen, Deng repeated his unconditional invitation to Ford, but condemned the ‘aggressive’ behaviour of ‘social-imperialism’, and US attempts to ‘appease’ it. While Taiwan remained a core issue, he did not expect immediate termination of US–ROC links. Ambassador Huang Hua and Foreign Minister Qiao Guanhua repeated this while reconfirming the invitation to Kissinger in September. When Kissinger told Qiao the USA ‘cannot complete the process regarding Taiwan, but we can have some progress (in

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other areas)’, Qiao talked about the danger of war breaking out, presumably between the superpowers. China’s frustration over US tardiness was clear. This became apparent when the Foreign Policy journal published in its autumn edition an article by Michael Pillsbury, advocating immediate military links with Beijing. Pillsbury based his recommendations on his work for the Pentagon, pushing the Schlesinger line. He said a positive response to China’s request for military support and supplies would reward pragmatic PRC leaders, strengthening them in the post-Mao struggle, and give Beijing a stake in maintaining close relations with Washington. It would deter Moscow and forestall a possible Sino–Soviet war without increasing PRC threats to the USA. Increased Chinese strength would force Moscow to deploy bigger forces to the east, reducing pressures on NATO.92 Pillsbury recommended visits by military missions, attachés and ministers, intelligence exchanges including ‘round-the-clock’ ‘code transmissions’, transfers of over-the-horizon radars and reconnaissance equipment, and military sales by allies like Britain, France, West Germany and Japan.93 Such a policy shift would anger Moscow, threatening détente, but benefits outweighed costs. Pillsbury reflected the debate between Kissinger and Schlesinger, and their bureaucracies, just as Kissinger was flying out to Beijing to finalise Ford’s summit agenda. Kissinger saw détente as a diplomatic tool with which to contain Soviet power during a relative US decline. He had initiated intelligence-sharing with Beijing, using fears of a Soviet attack as an incentive. His aim was to protect US interests while preventing Moscow and Beijing from threatening these. Overt US–PRC military links could destroy that balance. Schlesinger, convinced Soviet power was more sensitive to military than diplomatic measures, said protecting US interests required raising defence expenditure to $148 billion by 1980, and $200 billion in five years.94 Differences over triangular policy sharpened internal debate as Ford prepared to fly to Beijing. This was particularly embarrassing in the pre-election milieu. Doubts over great-power relations were deepened by the intelligence community’s assessment of Soviet world view. The CIA said Moscow saw major gains in ‘the anti-capitalist struggle’ in the 1970s with ‘a tipping of the balance past a notional midway point, as though “socialism” now possessed more than half of a world power pie’. The reason behind Moscow’s confidence ‘is Soviet strategic nuclear strength, built up over the last ten years to a level roughly equivalent to that of the US’.95 Moscow thought Washington had moved toward superpower cooperation because ‘containment’ was ‘simply becoming less effective and too expensive’. But US domestic support for détente was limited; the ‘pause’ détente suffered in 1975 was the product of strong anti-Soviet feelings across the USA.96 The report pointed to ‘storm clouds’ on Soviet horizons offering opportunities to the West. The key option was to exploit the ‘loss’ of China.97 The report boosted Schlesinger’s arguments. This may have

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weighed on Ford when he called Kissinger and his deputy, General Brent Scowcroft, to discuss Kissinger’s imminent China trip. Kissinger would work out a summit communiqué on Nixon’s Shanghai template, recommending a text which differed from State’s proposal, especially Beijing accepting ‘peaceful change’ in China–Taiwan relations. Kissinger and Scowcroft felt such a statement would put pressure on the USA to move swiftly toward ‘normalisation’, abandoning Taipei. Kissinger warned, ‘We’ll have all the liberals on us.’98 There are hints that they discussed China’s request for US military equipment and Ford decided to approach Israel to transfer US-built or -designed materiel to Beijing. Kissinger expressed unhappiness over his difficulties with Schlesinger. Ford sounded sympathetic, ready to act to unify the cabinet. Kissinger arrived in Beijing before that reshuffle, and was stung by Qiao Guanhua’s toast at his first banquet. Qiao mocked Washington’s efforts to ‘appease’ Moscow – ‘To base oneself on illusions, to mistake hopes or wishes for reality . . . will only abet the ambitions of expansionism.’ The following day, Deng criticised détente, Western credits to Moscow and the Helsinki accord. Kissinger refocused the talks on the fundamental consensus driving the partnership: ‘To us the issue is how to be in the best position to resist hegemonial aspirations in the West as well as in the East.’ It was important for the two governments to show movement in bilateral relations, to make an impact on opinion in both the USA and the USSR. Deng said China always relied on its own means to defend itself and that US ‘appeasement’ of Moscow would lead to consequences similar to those of the 1930s. The superpowers’ strategic arsenals had reached ‘an equilibrium’, and the Soviets enjoyed ‘over-all military superiority’. Beijing did not understand why Washington helped Moscow to overcome its only weaknesses – in food and technology. Kissinger mournfully replied the USA had no illusions about the danger of war; it spent $110 billion a year on military preparedness. Despite differences in emphasis, Europeans knew that should war break out, the USA would lead the continent’s defence. European pressure, rather than a US initiative, had led to the CSCE. Unlike the Europeans, the USA promised more to the USSR than it actually delivered. Europeans sold industrial plants while the USA only sold parts; European credit exceeded $7.5bn while Washington had extended only $500m. US strategic strength had increased over the past five years, but Soviet strength was static since Vladivostok. Importantly, the USA joined China in an antiSoviet coalition not out of altruism, but out of calculated national interest: If the Soviet Union should stretch out its hands, we will be brutal in our response, no matter where it occurs – and we won’t ask people whether they share our assessment when we resist. But to be able to do this we have to prepare our public by our own methods, and by methods that will enable us to sustain this policy over many years.99

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Kissinger’s meeting with Mao went almost as badly. Advanced Lou Gehrig’s disease made Mao frequently unintelligible. But the thrust of his comments was clear – the USA was acting like a declining power, not standing up to the USSR. US global priority was the Soviet Union, Europe, Japan and China, in that order. Mao ignored Kissinger’s demurral: ‘We see that what you are doing is leaping to Moscow by way of our shoulders, and these shoulders are now useless.’100 They agreed that Europe was too divided to stand up to Moscow and a reunited Germany would help continental cohesion. Kissinger said German reunification needed a weaker USSR; Mao said the USSR could only be weakened in a war. Kissinger agreed, ‘Yes, but it is important for us to pick the right moment for this, and during the period of Watergate we were in no position to do it. And that is why we had to maneuver.’ Mao chided Kissinger over his ‘Dunkirk’ stratagem. Kissinger assured him, ‘If there is an attack, once we have stopped the attack, after we have mobilized, we are certain to win a war against the Soviet Union.’101 Mao asked Kissinger to convey his regards to Schlesinger, asking that he visit Beijing with Ford – he wanted to invite Schlesinger ‘for the Soviets to see’. Kissinger said Schlesinger would not be a member of Ford’s entourage but could perhaps visit later. He repeated offers of material help ‘in some of these problems’. Mao said ‘the military aspects . . . should wait until the war breaks out’. Kissinger said, ‘Yes, but you should know that we would be prepared then to consider them.’ This may have been the most difficult of Kissinger’s Beijing trips. His hosts saw his use of US–PRC relations as strategic leverage against Moscow, and did not like being used. Their uncompromising arguments over a summit communiqué led to there being none. However, this was probably the first instance when Washington asked Beijing for something. Perhaps to underscore seriousness in the anti-Soviet enterprise, Kissinger is believed to have asked Deng to set up monitoring stations to observe Soviet missile launches, intercept telemetry links, and evaluate nuclear tests. Deng may have endorsed collaboration in principle but would not countenance this level of collusion until full diplomatic relations were established.102 Eventually, Operation Chestnut, the CIA monitoring stations in Xinjiang, would become a sheet-anchor of US–PRC coalition, but neither Kissinger nor Ford would be in office to see it. Kissinger’s briefing to Ford and Scowcroft in Washington was precise. He explained Mao’s fear of US unreliability in case of a Sino–Soviet war, and mentioned Mao’s invitation to Schlesinger and his preference of ‘Schlesinger’s view of the Soviet Union better than mine’. But a visit by Schlesinger to China ‘would drive the Soviet Union wild’. He reported Mao would only accept direct US military assistance after a war had broken out. Kissinger’s assessment of China’s strategy was grim: I guarantee you that if we do go into a confrontation with the Soviet Union, they will attack us and the Soviet Union and draw the Third

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World around them. Good relations with the Soviet Union are the best for our Chinese relations – and vice versa.103 Given the tensions, the three men considered aborting the summit when they met six days later. Ford said cancelling the trip so late ‘would be a disaster both internationally and with the left and the right’. They agreed to shorten Ford’s visit to Beijing, with stops in Jakarta and Manila to add colour and value. Kissinger’s comments showed he knew Ford would soon fire Schlesinger. He suggested postponing his trip to Moscow to table new SALT proposals – ‘It would look like you had fired Schlesinger in order to make a new SALT proposal. That would look bad.’104 Such a decision would outrage Beijing, too, but that did not count. Another jolt hit in October when Beijing accused the USA of ‘undisguised interference in China’s internal affairs’ by supporting Tibetans seeking the return of the exiled Dalai Lama. Calm had barely been restored when, in early November, Ford reshuffled his principals. Rumsfeld replaced Schlesinger; Kissinger lost his National Security hat to Scowcroft; DCI Colby, whose Congressional disclosures of CIA activities had angered many, was replaced by George Bush. The reshuffle marked a decline in support for strong US–PRC links against the USSR.105 Despite low expectations of Ford’s December trip, the protocol aspects went well. At the first session of talks, Deng revisited points he had made to Kissinger. Later, ushered before Mao, Ford stressed the anti-Soviet basis of ties: We discussed the problems we have with the Soviet Union and the need to have parallel actions as we look at the overall circumstances internationally, the need for your country and mine to work in parallel to achieve what is good for both of us.106 Mao said he did not expect ‘anything great happening’ bilaterally over the next couple of years, but after that ‘the situation might become a bit better’. Ford said they needed to better coordinate internationally ‘with emphasis on the challenges from some countries such as the Soviet Union’. Mao agreed and said Deng did not like the Soviets either. Ford promised to collaborate against Moscow’s ‘overall designs to expand on a worldwide basis – territorially, economically and otherwise. But we are going to meet the challenge’. He pledged to make some ‘real progress’ in bilateral ties, but his focus was strategic: we will have to convince the Soviet Union by what is done by the United States and the People’s Republic – not words, but backed up by action. We will continue to keep the pressure on them. I hope the pressure from the East will be strong like our action on our side.107

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Ford assured Mao, ‘We will maintain our military capability and be prepared to use it. In our opinion this is the best way to maintain the world in a stable and better position.’ They agreed Japan, too, faced Soviet threats; Tokyo’s relations with Beijing and Washington needed reinforcing. They had similar views on Western Europe. Ford praised Chinese efforts to strengthen European unity and NATO which was more ‘than some of those countries do for themselves’. Sharing concerns about Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Yugoslavia, they agreed to strengthen forces opposing Moscow’s influence. Ford said the US-sponsored Israeli–Egyptian accord over Sinai had helped reduce Soviet influence; he would move towards a broader peace initiative after elections. Mao said achieving permanent peace in the Middle East would be difficult. Ford replied, the USA must prevent giving ‘the Soviet Union the opportunity to stir up trouble’. On South Asia, Ford said US influence should increase with the new base in Diego Garcia. The USA had lifted embargoes on Pakistan, which could buy new weapons to defend itself against India. Ford asked for Mao’s appraisal of the situation in Bangladesh after a coup removed its ‘pro-Moscow’ government. Mao said things had improved but were still unstable. China had recognised the new regime but would not immediately send an ambassador there. Ford asked if India might ‘take any military action against Bangladesh’. They agreed to oppose such a move. There was similar accord on Angola. Suggesting they work through Zaire, Mao said, ‘I am in favour of driving the Soviet Union out.’ Deng thought South Africa’s involvement complicated matters by offending ‘black Africa’. Ford saw Pretoria’s efforts to contain Soviet expansionism as ‘admirable’: We are putting substantial money through Zambia and Zaire. We believe that if there is broad action by ourselves, the People’s Republic and others, we can prevent the Soviet Union from having a very important naval facility and controlling substantial resources in Angola.108 Ford disclosed he had just released another $35 million for the anti-MPLA factions, stressing US determination ‘to meet the challenge of the Soviet Union’. Mao said the press was reporting that US–PRC relations were ‘very bad’. He asked Ford to ‘let them in on the story a bit and maybe brief them’. Ford would certainly report on his return they were good, ‘and I hope your people will do the same. It’s not only important to have good relations, but to have the world believe that they are good’. They parted friends. Talks with Deng proved more difficult. He said Moscow had condemned Kissinger’s statement about ‘foreign intervention’ in Angola, and Washington needed to respond. Ford noted Washington was effectively

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dealing with the USSR. Deng recalled, having led seven delegations to Moscow, he had more experience in dealing with the Soviets. Ford asked, ‘If you could indicate the various places and ways – whether in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, or Africa – what your country is doing to meet this challenge so we can better understand how we can act in parallel.’ Embarrassed, Deng said China had made ‘solid down-to-earth preparations’ for war, urging Japan and Western Europe to strengthen their ties to the USA. Describing US action over the Mayaguez as ‘slightly overdone’, Deng said Europeans were unsure if Washington would fight to defend Europe. US pursuit of détente worried them about possible superpower deals ‘over their heads’; their anxiety ‘will surely lead to creating a favourable situation for the Soviet Union. It is favourable for the Soviet Union to disintegrate the European countries one-by-one, the so-called “Finlandize” the countries of Western Europe one-by-one’.109 Kissinger assured him US–European relations ‘are today better than they had been for a number of years’; officials met monthly to ‘coordinate plans for Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Yugoslavia – and we are even making joint plans, for your information, for common action regarding Yugoslavia’. Ford and Deng agreed to help Yugoslavia stand up to Moscow. They discussed Soviet armoured forces, and Euro-communism. Consensus failed over the Middle East. Deng said China ‘must support the Arab countries against Israeli Zionism’. He recalled Mao’s advice to be evenhanded toward Israel and Egypt. Ford said the USA had asked Europeans to help Egypt end its dependence on Soviet arms. Kissinger sought China’s understanding of covert US initiatives strengthening anti-Moscow forces. Concerned over a Soviet military build-up in Libya and Somalia, he said Egypt and Saudi Arabia would help there. Deng repeated China’s position, ‘There are 3 million Israelis fighting against 120 million Arabs . . . the position of the United States has some advantages, but also considerable disadvantages. The Soviet Union has a lot of openings it can squeeze into.’ ‘The Arab problem’ demanded solving ‘the Palestinian problem’; Beijing could not ‘work with the Arab states’ without criticising Washington. Criticising US failure to prevent India from dismembering Pakistan in 1971, Deng said China could only offer ‘backward’ weapons to Islamabad, which faced fragmentation with Moscow pushing ‘its plan for Baluchistan’. Kissinger recalled America’s 1971 offer to support China if it faced Soviet threats while moving against India in Pakistan’s aid. Ford noted the PAF chief would soon visit Washington to finalise military sales. Kissinger said, ‘The major thing is to keep the Indians out of Pakistan.’ Deng replied, ‘The Soviet Union in collusion with India, is trying to influence Pakistan from two sides.’110 They discussed Moscow’s unpopular proposal for Asian collective security. Broaching Angola, Deng said China had trained all three guerrilla groups, supplying light arms, but Tanzania, Zambia and Zaire – regional

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friends – were unhappy with South African involvement. Kissinger said the USA could provide weapons, but not guerrilla training. Once a viable resistance force was established, Pretoria would disengage. They agreed China could work through Mozambique. Ford asked, ‘Will you move in the north if we move in the south?’ Deng replied, ‘But you should give greater help in the north too. As far as I know, you have many ways to help. Also through third countries.’111 Ford said the USA was working with France, which offered ‘some equipment and training’. Despite disagreements on ‘normalisation’, the two sides agreed on all strategic issues, pledging to collaborate against pro-Soviet forces around the world. The next session saw Deng repeat Mao’s formulation that Taiwan was China’s internal affair, and Beijing could not guarantee a non-violent approach. He complained about US support for the Dalai Lama, ‘the chief splittist’. Having made his protests, Deng handed Ford the results of Beijing’s investigations of Americans missing in action (MIAs) in Chinese territory, following up an earlier agreement. He asked for high-speed computers ‘of a speed of 10 million times’. Kissinger said Washington would happily provide these but the export of certain computers to the USSR was barred; transferring those to China could cause problems. Ford said the USA wanted to be helpful. Kissinger suggested that Beijing ask State Department rather than Commerce; State would get manufacturers to provide computers matching Beijing’s specifications without breaking the ‘even-handed policy’. Washington had approved the British sale of Rolls Royce Spey jet engines powering F-4 Phantoms to Beijing. When Deng mentioned recent talks with the Democratic Party’s foreign policy spokesman, Cyrus Vance, Ford and Kissinger joked. Kissinger compared him to the Dalai Lama, ‘a government in exile’. Ford said he had gone to law school with Vance and did not expect him to be ‘back in government for some time. If ever’. Back home, Ford told Republican legislators he had been impressed by Mao’s mental acuity and physical vitality, and Deng’s ‘mental vigor’. But his focus was on Beijing’s emphasis on anti-USSR collaboration: ‘I was surprised by the vigor of their anti-Sovietism. They encourage us to oppose Soviet advances anywhere – in the Middle East, in Africa. They strongly oppose the Soviet Union in every area.’ Kissinger explained, ‘necessity’ had brought the two countries together. ‘If five years ago, someone had said an American Secretary of State could say on Chinese soil that our relations are good and improving and we are pursuing parallel policies around the world, we would have thought him crazy.’112 He insisted US policy had earned strategic dividends: They are cold-blooded pragmatists, and this is a marriage of convenience. Their comments about European Communist parties were uniformly anti-Soviet. The press keeps asking about Taiwan. This is not the major issue in our relations. As they said, the major issue for

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us is the international situation. They are one of our best NATO allies. In fact, our relations with them are better than with some of our allies.113 Strategic resonance continued to drive covert collaboration. Ford discussed with Scowcroft Deng’s comments on supporting anti-MPLA factions. Beijing was arming and training guerrillas in Zaire and Zambia, but opposed Pretoria’s involvement. Ford sought bureaucratic views before ordering greater sensitivity to Chinese preferences. In mid-December, Scowcroft issued NSSM234, initiating an interagency study of US options in Angola.114 This formed the basis of US–PRC coordination in arming FNLA and UNITA fighters, allowing South Africa to offer low-profile aid. This was the main theatre of covert resistance via proxies to ‘Soviet expansionism’ and ‘Cuban adventurism’ in the 1970s, providing the template for a later, more substantial, secret coalition. US–PRC collusion transformed Washington’s threat calculus. Africa became an active theatre, while East Asia’s import declined. With involvement in Indochina ended, China a tacit ally, and economic pressures demanding more focused priorities, Ford initiated base closures and a pull-out from Southeast Asia. In January 1976, he ordered ‘an assessment of US security interests, objectives, and strategic issues in the Asia-Pacific area over the next three to five years’. Key considerations were the end of the Indochina conflict, US relations with ASEAN [Association of South East Asian Nations] countries and their potential role in regional security, the ‘phase-out of SEATO [South-East Asia Treaty Organization]’, the regional objectives, intentions and capabilities of Japan, China, Vietnam and the USSR, and the Sino–Soviet and Sino–Vietnamese rivalries. The study would shape base rights negotiations with Manila,115 hastening US military withdrawal, and generating uncertainty.

A turbulent year The year 1976 began melodramatically. On 8 January, Zhou Enlai died. The dispute between the Gang of Four and the reformers now boiled over. Deng delivered the official eulogy at Zhou’s funeral, suggesting he would succeed the deceased leader. However, factional confrontation forced Mao to concede. Early in February, the Politburo named Vice Premier Hua Guofeng, an apparently unambitious ‘neutral’, acting Premier. A diligent ‘Maoist’, Hua was a compromise candidate. Deng’s eclipse pleased the leftists, but Mao still reigned in Beijing and, partly to allay Washington’s anxiety that this change could affect US–PRC ties, he invited Nixon on a nine-day visit. The former President met senior Chinese figures including the ailing Mao himself. This was interpreted in the USA as a sign of Chinese unhappiness with Ford, but Mao had serious concerns closer to home.

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Early in April, Beijing residents started placing wreaths, posters and poems on the Monument to the People’s Heroes in Tiananmen Square to honour the late Premier. Thousands marched to the Square, placed their offerings, read their poems, marking the passing of a beloved leader. On 4 April, almost two million people visited the Square in an unprecedented emotional outpouring. The following day, fighting erupted between the Gang’s supporters and Zhou’s followers. The latter’s slogans profiled the polarisation of China’s politicised classes: ‘Down with the Empress Dowager!’, ‘Down with Indira Gandhi!’, and ‘Deng Xiao-ping shall direct the work of the Party Centre!’ A populist, centre-right movement loyal to the Zhou–Deng line demanded the removal of Jiang Qing’s supporters, claiming succession to Zhou. Militiamen violently restored peace. Gang-run state media described the demonstrations as ‘counterrevolutionary’, singling out Deng as ‘the chief culprit of the Tiananmen incident’. Two days later, the Politburo confirmed Hua as First ViceChairman of the Central Committee, and Premier, dismissing Deng from all party and State Council posts, ‘on the proposal of our great leader Chairman Mao’. Deng retired into obscurity for the second time in a decade, but the Gang failed to capture key posts. Hua Guofeng consolidated his authority as the dying Mao faded. The struggle between state organs under Hua, and the Gang’s radical bands raged across Beijing, Shanghai and other cities until 9 September, when Mao died. The two men most closely associated with China’s revolution and key events since then, were both gone. No leader with their charisma, authority or stature was left to fill the void. For most Chinese, Mao’s death came as a shock. The sense of loss may have been deepened by Zhou’s earlier passing, and near-constant turmoil. For much of the rest of the world, Mao’s demise was seen as the end of an era of giants, or monsters, among men. Eulogies poured in.116 Mao’s body lay in state at the Great Hall of the People; mourning ended on 18 September when Premier Hua delivered the funeral oration at Tiananmen Square. State organs endorsed the transfer of civil and military powers to Hua; the Gang rejected him. Gang-run publications demanded Jiang Qing succeed Mao as CPC Chairman. The Gang issued arms to militias in Shanghai and other cities. As the confrontation built a head of steam, Hua’s supporters contacted Deng’s men and planned a Politburo purge, using the army, if necessary, to disarm the Gang’s militias. Jiang Qing’s effort to secure the Party’s support failed. On 5 October, a Politburo meeting held at a military headquarters from which Gang members were excluded decided to arrest Jiang and her aides. The following evening, troops detained Jiang, Mao Yuan-hsin, Chang Chun-chia, Wang Hung-wen and Yao Wen-yuan. On 7 October, Hua was elected CPC Chairman and Chairman of the Military Affairs Commission, controlling China’s three main institutions. The Gang’s supporters mobilised a 30,000-strong militia in Shanghai. On 12 October, militia leaders occupied positions in the city, calling a general strike. Fighting between pro-

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Gang militias and PLA regulars in and around Beijing lasted a week. On 15 October, posters denouncing the Gang appeared in the Beijing and Tsinghua university campuses. Six days later, the government confirmed that Gang members had been arrested. A propaganda campaign against the Gang’s ‘misdeeds’ built up over the next two months. Sporadic clashes between Jiang’s supporters and PLA troops continued for a year, but Hua appeared to be secure for now. For Ford, 1976 began more optimistically than it would end. The recession bottomed out by January although unemployment remained high. Ford felt his tough decisions had helped the USA to cross treacherous waters. His State of the Union speech was confident: We are at peace, and I will do all in my power to keep it that way. Our military forces are capable and ready. Our military power is without equal, and I intend to keep it that way. Our principal alliances with the industrial democracies of the Atlantic community and Japan have never been more solid . . . We have an improving relationship with China, the world’s most populous nation.117 Stressing the need to strengthen defence and intelligence capability, Ford pointed to growing Soviet activism, but offered no vision challenging the nation’s imagination. He focused on his Administration’s progress in various fields. Rumsfeld’s DoD report a week later also stressed the ‘steady as she goes’ theme. Justifying a build-up of US forces on Schlesinger’s arguments, he sought a TOA rise to $112.7bn in fiscal year (FY) 1977. His original contribution was to point out détente did not mean ‘friendship, trust, affection, or assured peace. In all uses, détente means relaxation of tension that exists – for real, not imaginary, reasons’.118 However, he downgraded China’s value as a counterpoise,119 while juxtaposing US policy, and its causal connection to Soviet ‘threats’, in Asia. ‘Soviet military power – nuclear and non-nuclear, strategic and tactical, quantitative and qualitative – has been expanding, not contracting . . . American strength is basic to any stable balance of power in the Pacific’.120 To this end, a ‘new Pacific doctrine’ comprised ‘the normalization of relations’ with China, and ‘the strengthening of our new ties’. George Bush’s return to Washington and Ambassador Huang Zhen’s extended stay in Beijing deprived the two governments of high-level contacts. Kissinger discussed with his staff the consequences of Zhou’s death on US–PRC relations, but did little else. One of Bush’s first intelligence reports to Ford reinforced the focus on Moscow. This review of past strategic estimates identified errors in reporting Soviet nuclear arsenals since the 1960s, implying that US decisions, based on such analyses, may have been damagingly erroneous.121 The review confirmed the intelligence community’s belief that, despite détente and SALT, Moscow was an unreliable partner, having ‘looked on arms control primarily as a means of

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constraining US force development rather than as a means of curtailing the overall competition and thus achieve greater stability’.122 Kissinger’s détente policy barely survived. Even the appointment in March of veteran diplomat Thomas Gates as Bush’s successor in Beijing did not dispel the gloom. Ford admitted while ‘normalisation’ could not be advanced immediately, ‘We do have to begin some movement, perhaps in 1977. But we do have to bite the bullet sometime after the election.’123 Both Republican and Democratic platforms pledged to improve relations with China and defend Taiwan simultaneously.124 Apparent flux in Beijing may have strengthened the Taiwan lobby. Rumsfeld drew Scowcroft’s attention to NSSM212 in April, asking him to urgently consider authorising ‘Option III – Upper Range’, selling new, more lethal, arms to Taiwan.125 Despite internal difficulties, Beijing got Huang Zhen to confront Kissinger on the Taiwan issue in August. Kissinger assured him partypolitical comments, even Republican ones, were not ‘official’. Huang said the USA owed China a ‘debt’ because of its ‘invasion’ of Taiwan, restating Beijing’s conditions for normalisation. They agreed on the Shanghai Communiqué being the basis for taking relations forward. Kissinger said campaigning precluded ‘normalisation’ – ‘We must instead move not long after our elections.’ He acknowledged, ‘there is not unlimited time’, repeating, ‘We feel private discussion is better than public discussion.’ With the need to present a defence budget and the State of the Union address irrespective of the election’s outcome, Ford ordered an interagency analysis ‘of our national defense policy and military posture’.126 Mao Zedong’s death on 9 September raised uncertainties over China’s future, and US–PRC relations. Despite the secrecy surrounding Hua’s efforts to consolidate authority, US intelligence uncovered the arrest of the Gang of Four shortly after it happened. Coincidentally, on the day, in a televised debate with Governor Carter, Ford stressed US obligations to Taiwan; improvements in US–PRC relations should not be ‘rushed’. Carter charged the ‘great opportunity’ opened by Nixon in 1972 ‘pretty well has been frittered away under Mr Ford’. Kissinger was troubled by Chinese action. Invited by Beijing, Schlesinger had visited China in September. Unhappy over this ‘calculated and blatant affront’, Kissinger was nonetheless anxious to establish links with China’s new leaders, and urged Ford to approve the sale of two high-powered computers requested in 1975. These could process seismic data for hydrocarbon exploration, as China stressed, but were equally useful for nuclear warhead and ballistic missile development. In contrast to the safeguards imposed on Soviet use of such equipment, Ford only promised to ‘keep a friendly eye’ on the pieces sold to China in October. Keen to emphasise evenhandedness, the White House attended to trade relations with the USSR, too. Shortly after authorising the sale of the computers to China, Ford ordered a review of East–West economic-commercial policy, to identify American ‘economic interests in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union’.127

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Three weeks after the Gang’s arrest, Kissinger summoned specialists to discuss the implications for US–China relations. Confusion persisted – had there been a coup? The consensus was that Hua’s moderate team had defeated the radicals with PLA support. China’s new leaders preferred a ‘softer line’ toward the USA, exercising ‘patience’ on Taiwan, but also softening the tone toward Moscow. Mao and Zhou, capable of unilaterally taking momentous decisions, were succeeded by committees approving policy. Kissinger’s comments were revealing – ‘It is not possible to normalize. What price makes normalization worthwhile? . . . You might be lucky after election and get a bleeding heart in here. I never believed that normalization is possible.’128 He worried that China, failing to strike a balance between modernising and raising productivity while maintaining ideological purity, would head for bureaucratic stultification. His ‘bleeding heart’ prophecy proved more accurate, however. On 2 November, Carter defeated Ford. A few weeks later, Ford presided over his last NSC session, at which Rumsfeld presented the NSSM246 review of US defence policy. It offered six options, each assuming a particular Soviet military-strategic stance, and suggesting countervailing measures. Serious shortfalls in military stocks in Europe meant plans to fight for 90 days from the launch of a Soviet offensive were overambitious. Differences between US and West German parameters made NATOwide calculation of military capability impossible. Key shortages threatened to lower the nuclear threshold. Vice President Rockefeller asked why simultaneously improving US position in strategic nuclear, European and global deployments had not been studied. Ford replied, Vietnam and Israel had drained US stocks, budget cuts ‘over 10 years’ had worsened things, and inflation and taxes compounded the difficulties. ‘It’s great to go for all of it, but goddamn it, we can’t do everything . . . where are we going to get the money?’129 Kissinger pointed out the ‘Soviet threat’ was steady – Moscow had raised its defence expenditure by 8 to 10 per cent annually for many years; the USA had stopped its strategic programmes in the 1960s, allowing Moscow ‘to get ahead’. He said, ‘the problem is with the Soviet strategic build-up’; the USA could not regain the decisive military superiority of the 1950s. He asked Ford to explain all this in a valedictory speech. The review only tangentially mentioned allies, and China not at all. Nonetheless, Kissinger hosted his successor, Cyrus Vance, and Huang Zhen, at a farewell lunch in January 1977, stressing the systemic focus of bilateral ties: our relationship with the PRC was one of the most important initiatives that was undertaken and one of the most important elements of international equilibrium . . . our mutual concern with respect to hegemony, with respect to the dangers of hegemony in the world. And we therefore developed the practice of informing the PRC quite

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Huang emphasised shared antipathy to the USSR as the partnership’s basis: We talked about our common points, with the main common point being we are against the Polar Bear . . . Our leaders talk to you continually about our view on the United States–Soviet relationship, and our view is that the United States has vested interests to protect around the world, and the Soviet Union seeks expansionism. This is an objective phenomenon which is unalterable. For instance our view on Soviet policy is that their policy is to make a feint toward the East while attacking the West.131 Vance pledged to continue US–PRC exchanges, but it would not be easy. Kissinger had visited Beijing nine times, meeting Mao five times, still failing to break the stalemate. Meanwhile, Ford accepted Kissinger’s suggestion, describing challenges to US security: ‘In past years, as a result of decisions by the US, our strategic forces levelled off, yet the Soviet Union continued a steady, constant build up of its own forces, committing a high percentage of its national economic effort to defence.’132 His warning was stark: The US can never tolerate a shift in strategic balance against us or even a situation where the American people or our allies believe this balance is shifting against us. The US would risk the most serious political consequences if the world came to believe that our adversaries have a decisive margin of superiority.133 Urging his successor to build up US defences, and alliances facing Moscow, Ford appeared to be hoping the interregnum he had presided over would now, finally, end.

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The United States and China share certain common interests and we have parallel, long-term strategic concerns . . . this is why your visit is not tactical; it is an expression of our strategic interest in a co-operative relationship with China, an interest that is both fundamental and enduring.1 (President Jimmy Carter to Zbigniew Brzezinski, April 1978) We are not trying, nor will we ever try, to play the Soviets against the People’s Republic of China, nor vice versa. We have some very important relationships with the Chinese that need to be pursued. There are worldwide common hopes that we share with the Chinese. We have bilateral relations that we want to expand.2 (President Jimmy Carter, June 1978)

Strategic primacy James Earl Carter was an unusual candidate for the presidency. A former naval officer with nuclear submarine experience under Admiral Hyman Rickover, he was known as a farmer unfamiliar to ‘Washington beltway’ politics. Commentators highlighted his lack of exposure to global affairs. He spoke of building an administration without ‘Washington insiders’, founded on respect for human rights, and peace. But he had grounded himself in international affairs and national security issues. His world view, troubled by concerns over nuclear proliferation, human rights violations and the need for pacifying trouble spots, was dominated by the ‘realist’ focus on the superpower nuclear stand-off. His realism was, however, leavened with optimism that positive outcomes were attainable. Carter’s ‘education’ in world affairs began with his membership of the New York Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. There, lawyer Cyrus Vance and academic Zbigniew Brzezinski became key advisers.3 Their appointment as Secretary of State and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs respectively would challenge Carter’s vow to free his administration of ‘insiders’, sowing the seeds of rivalry which had afflicted preceding presidencies. This would have an

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impact on Carter’s management of US–USSR–PRC relations. He stated on 23 June that the USA ought to establish full diplomatic relations with China.4 Detailed global information came from the Administration. Even before receiving the Democratic Party’s nomination in mid-July, Carter sought Ford’s permission for CIA briefings on key issues. Ford asked DCI Bush to address his challenger’s needs. Briefings began in July, continuing through to Carter’s election and inauguration. He showed particular interest in ‘Soviet strategic programs’5 on which CIA staff briefed him several times. At the first session, Carter asked for information on ‘Lebanon and the Middle East, Rhodesia, South Africa and South Korea, plus the interrelationships between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China’.6 Most of the session was devoted to Soviet strategic weapons and SALT.7 Carter also wanted to know about US commitments to Taiwan and the offshore islands. In the second session, Carter wanted information on developments in China. Bush used his recent experience as US envoy in Beijing to explain these. Soviet conventional forces, strategic programmes, especially the Backfire bomber and SS-X-20 missiles, and arms control concerns provided the backdrop.8 After Ford received the Republican nomination, differences between the two perspectives on US–PRC relations became clearer.9 The candidates debated three times – the third focused on US–Soviet ties, global crisis areas, and China. Ford stressed US obligations to Taiwan; Carter charged the ‘great opportunity’ opened by Nixon ‘pretty well has been frittered away under Mr Ford’. Carter’s victory in November widened the scope of CIA briefings. US–Soviet concerns remained at the forefront, but Carter also demanded analyses of the Middle East conflict, and detailed biographies of China’s leaders. After he moved into Blair House in December, JCS briefers advised the President-elect on his responsibilities in case of a nuclear assault – Moscow was seen as the only possible nuclear attacker. By then, however, the Kremlin had moved to build links to the new Administration. An unusual correspondence between Brezhnev and Carter ensued. Although the letters resolved no disputes, they stamped an impression on the Administration’s foreign policy agenda. They reinforced for Carter the primacy of US–Soviet relations, especially strategic weapons issues. They also led to the presidency’s first diplomatic initiative, a mission to Moscow by Secretary of State Vance. In November 1976, Ambassador Dobrynin had asked veteran diplomat Averell Harriman to convey to Carter Brezhnev’s greetings and Soviet hopes that SALT negotiations would soon resume, restoring US–Soviet relations to a more even keel. Harriman saw Carter in late November, bringing back his response to Dobrynin on 1 December. Carter reciprocated Brezhnev’s warmth, pleased ‘that Mr Brezhnev shares his point of view on the importance of cooperation between our two countries in the matter of taking measures against the proliferation of nuclear weapons’.10

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However, he would not go into details of his plans, nor would he discuss his strategic vision, until he had appointed the Secretaries of State and Defense, and his Assistant for National Security Affairs. Harriman conveyed to Dobrynin Carter’s deep concerns over both vertical and horizontal proliferation. Brezhnev wrote again before Carter was sworn in; Carter replied soon after assuming office. In a detailed response to Brezhnev’s letters, and his comments on US–Soviet relations made in Tula, Carter said the USA, like the USSR, only sought to deter potential enemies. He stressed the need to conclude a SALT II agreement, a verifiable agreement banning nuclear tests, and to reduce forces in Europe. He reminded Brezhnev, ‘I declared to the American people that the elimination of all nuclear weapons is my firm goal.’11 That idealistic objective was balanced with a more realpolitik suggestion that the USSR help in ending conflict in the ‘Near East’ and ‘South of Africa’ on the basis of UN resolutions. Brezhnev accepted Carter’s offer to send Vance to initiate the resumption of SALT and other negotiations. He sought to engage Carter in a discussion on key issues, creating a bilateral framework that excluded Carter’s emphasis on human rights. He repeated his Tula comments that the USSR sought merely to deter potential attackers and that ‘In this respect, using your expression, we do not want anything more or less for ourselves.’12 Brezhnev chided Carter for failing to address the Middle East and southern African disputes on the basis of equality and democratic rights of those regions’ peoples. Carter’s reply, handed to Dobrynin by Brzezinski and acting Secretary of State Warren Christopher at the White House, stressed Carter’s belief in the democratic rights of the majority; he was moving quickly to resolve both disputes accordingly. But his focus remained on strategic nuclear issues. He made several arms reduction proposals to be fleshed out in Moscow by Vance in March. He suggested that US cruise missiles and Soviet ‘Backfire’ bombers be left out of SALT II, to be taken up in later talks. He repeated the points he had made to Dobrynin – he expected SALT II to enable the two sides to maintain deterrence at a much lower level of weaponry.13 Carter’s language suggested purpose and sincerity. He clearly sought Soviet cooperation in effecting ‘deep cuts’ in strategic arsenals. But he would not be distracted from his focus on human rights, reminding Brezhnev those rights were essential elements of the Helsinki accord: ‘Our obligation to help promote human rights will not be expressed in an extreme form or by means not proportional to achieving reasonable results. We would also welcome, of course, personal, confidential exchanges of views on these delicate questions.’14 Carter may not have appreciated the ‘zero sum’ linkage in Soviet eyes between US–Soviet amity, and US emphasis on human rights. Carter’s letter coincided with US diplomats in Moscow seeking the release of dissident Aleksandr Ginzburg. The Politburo told Dobrynin to express to US

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leaders Moscow’s anger at Washington’s pleas for freeing Ginzburg, which ‘aroused the utmost bewilderment’. Moscow rejected US ‘interference’: The relations of peaceful co-existence and constructive cooperation between the USSR and the USA in the interests of both peoples can fruitfully develop only when they are guided by the mutual respect of principles of sovereignty and non-interference into the domestic affairs of each other.15 The Carter–Brezhnev correspondence, promising a refreshing approach to superpower diplomacy, now carried an unpleasant undertone. Brezhnev wrote that while he shared Carter’s hope to curtail the arms race and build peace, his neglect of past agreements and his sui generis proposals were not welcome. They needed to ‘value what we already managed to accomplish’. Also, Moscow could not support US introduction of ‘proposals which are known to be unacceptable’.16 Brezhnev noted the two sides had already agreed on including US air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) in the negotiations. While technical details of implementation remained undecided, the plan now to exclude ALCMs from SALT threatened success. ‘How should we understand this return to a stage which we moved beyond long ago, and being forced to face this absolutely hopeless proposal?’17

Old formulations in new bottles Fluctuating hope for improving US–Soviet relations had many causes, but the role of the Carter NSC in shaping diplomacy is hard to ignore. Keen to avoid repetition of the internal dissent of the early 1970s, Carter formally anointed Vance as the lead foreign policy player. The State Department dealt with the Middle East, southern Africa and Europe. However, on US–Soviet and US–PRC relations, especially on key negotiations, Carter did not trust State. Years later, he would say, ‘In the State Department, nothing is secret. There is a pipeline between The Washington Post and State Department.’18 This is why, although either Vance or Warren Christopher handed to Dobrynin Carter’s letters to Brezhnev, the letters were drafted in the White House, by Carter and Brzezinski.19 Brzezinski and Vance brought differing perspectives on the US world view and policy prescriptions. Vance believed in the primacy of US–Soviet relations and the need to proceed cautiously in reducing risks of misunderstanding between the superpowers. Policy toward other actors apart from US allies, in his view, should flow from that basic premise. State Department’s collective culture reinforced this assumption. Brzezinski, not unlike Schlesinger, now Energy Secretary, believed US–Soviet rivalry, and continued expansion of Moscow’s global military influence, required

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pressure to be applied to Soviet activism to define the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. Brzezinski felt softness only encouraged Moscow to reach out further, reduce US options, and lower US prestige in the world’s eyes. He wanted Carter to pursue a robust policy while encouraging the USSR to negotiate arms reductions.20 To this end, he built an alliance with Schlesinger, and Secretary of Defense, Harold Brown. The new NSC system, too, proved helpful. Carter halved the NSC’s manpower, cutting its standing committees from eight to two. All major national security decisions were to be previewed by either the Policy Review Committee or the Special Coordinating Committee (SCC). The former focused on specific issues falling within the purview of a single department. Its chairmanship rotated to the lead department for the issue – most often State. Membership was expanded or contracted depending on the impact across agencies. The SCC dealt with issues that cut across departments and agencies, including oversight of intelligence, arms control and crisis management. The SCC was always chaired by Brzezinski. So, he was able to ‘manage’ key security policies including SALT negotiations, and decisions relating to the USSR and China. And he played a major role in Carter’s emphasis on human rights in his letters to Brezhnev, destroying any possibility of an early accommodation.21 Against the backdrop of a ‘tough’ approach to Moscow, US–PRC relations grew in importance. The aim was to advance US strategic interests by exploiting fissures at the apex of the security system. ‘In the case of the Sino–Soviet–American triangle, there were rivalries which the US sought to manipulate.’22 Policy management moved back from State Department to the White House. Brzezinski’s key aides on US–China links were his Military Assistant and ‘Crisis Coordinator’, Brigadier-General William Odom, and Michel Oksenberg, a China specialist in the NSC’s East Asia/China ‘cluster’. While Vance favoured a more conciliatory stance to Moscow, and a less enthusiastic position on Beijing, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Richard Holbrooke,23 shared the NSC view on China. The process benefited from the work done since the early 1970s by a small group established by Kissinger to study US–PRC security links, whose members circulated among the NSC, State, the DoD, and the CIA.24 Early on, briefing Carter before he received Ambassador Huang Zhen, Brzezinski explained China’s importance in language Kissinger would appreciate: There [is] a genuine strategic opportunity in the relationship to offset the Soviet military buildup and to prompt the Soviet Union into a greater recognition of its stake in a reasonable accommodation with the United States . . . China [is] so much weaker than the Soviet Union – posing no immediate threat to the US – that it could be helpful in various parts of the globe.25

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Brzezinski recommended renewing military, technological and intelligence links to Beijing as the Administration moved toward normalising relations. Carter reaffirmed the Shanghai Communiqué and told General Huang he was keen to establish closer ties. With Oksenberg, Odom and Brzezinski urging movement on China, in April 1977, Carter ordered a review of US options, including assessments of possible troop withdrawal from Taiwan, and transfer of defence technology to China.26 Concerned that Presidential Review Memorandum 24 (PRM24) presaged a dramatic shift in US–PRC relations, Vance wrote to Carter on the importance of Taiwan’s security. He agreed that a strategic link with China had strengthened deterrence, but he feared moving toward military-security ties was ‘less likely to produce moderation in Soviet behavior than strategic claustrophobia and irrationality’. Vance had just returned from stressful meetings with Brezhnev and Gromyko, who rejected Carter’s ‘deep cut’ proposals, harangued him on US policy of trying to ‘buy peace in the Middle East by giving 200–300 million, even a billion dollars to some country’, and dismissed US claims that its embassy staff in Moscow were being subjected to radiation.27 Impressed by the Soviets’ brutal candour, Vance feared closer US–China ties would outrage Moscow. He need not have worried. Only three of the reviewers – CIA officer for China, James Lilley, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, Morton Abramowitz, and NSC consultant Richard Solomon – recommended a ‘military relationship’ with Beijing. State Department staff, who outnumbered them, opposed such links. The PRM concluded the sale or transfer of US military technology to China would heighten PRC–USSR tensions, and could threaten US interests. Citing articles in official Moscow publications by I. Aleksandrov, a Kremlin byline, the PRM noted that Moscow had warned Washington of ‘Chinese expansionism’.28 PRM24’s conclusions received indirect support from the findings of another study, PRM10, which analysed Soviet strategic strength and its ‘threat’ to US interests. Chaired by the NSC’s chief Soviet analyst, Samuel Huntington, PRM10 found the superpowers in rough strategic balance. Detailing Soviet nuclear and conventional strength, it concluded that Soviet build-up in strategic arms, naval deployment and troop dispositions near China and in Central Europe, had slowed; Soviet strength was offset by initiatives taken by the USA and its allies.29 PRM10 may have allowed Carter to accept the passivity of PRM24. He may have felt under reduced pressure to make major moves with either the USSR or China, avoiding unpredictable consequences. Instead, he focused on initiatives with clearer chances of success – such as Panama and the Middle East. Aware of these developments, Oksenberg secretly worked with senior CIA staff on two significant aspects of US–PRC relations. The first was to study how European allies could sell military hardware and technology to China and help develop both the PLA’s fighting capacity, and China’s defence industry. Several papers describing specific weapon systems to be

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transferred to China, initially by European allies and, from 1981, by the USA, were prepared for the NSC. The second project became important as turbulence rocked Iran and the Shah’s regime began losing control. Fearing the loss of listening posts in northern Iran which recorded Soviet traffic, telemetry and seismic data, the NSC and the CIA began working on possible replacement of these with installations in China. Papers produced on ‘Project Chestnut’ would lead to stations being built at Qitai and Korla in Xinjiang, manned by US and PRC personnel, unbeknownst to State.30 These papers preceded the formal PRM process, building beneath the latter a secret foundation of strategic collaboration against the USSR, reviving the US–PRC covert coalition. Overtly, things moved slowly. In April, Washington and Beijing resumed negotiations on financial claims over assets blocked by each other. Carter only spoke in general terms on US–PRC ties. In a foreign policy speech at the University of Notre Dame in May 1977, he described China as ‘the key force for global peace’. He offered no time-frame for normalisation, merely noting, ‘We wish to cooperate closely with the creative Chinese people on the problems that confront all mankind, and we hope to find a formula which can bridge some of the difficulties that still separate us.’ The difficulties were over Taiwan. Treading a fine line, he told journalists, ‘We don’t want to see the Taiwan people punished or attacked and if we can resolve this major difficulty, I would move expeditiously to normalizing relations with China.’ But inertia in both capitals, uncertainties over China’s leadership struggles, public and Congressional opinion, and other priorities, slowed movement. With discussions with Moscow over human rights and SALT, too, stalemated, the Panama Canal Treaty acquired urgency. In China, meanwhile, Deng Xiaoping was slowly moving out of exile’s obscurity. Shortly after the Gang of Four’s arrest in October 1976, he wrote to Hua praising his wisdom, pledging his ‘body and soul behind Hua Kuo-feng as leader of the party and nation’. In January 1977, bigcharacter posters appeared in Beijing demanding a reversal of the verdict of the Tiananmen incident, and Deng’s rehabilitation. Soon, anti-Deng propaganda was ‘officially ended’.31 With the Gang behind bars and Deng’s star rising, Hua’s supporters may have sought to build an ideological edifice on which Hua could maintain his leadership. In February, he proclaimed a Maoist programme, known as the ‘Two Whatevers’: ‘Whatever policies Chairman Mao decided, we shall resolutely defend; whatever instruction he issued, we shall steadfastly obey.’ Having established his Maoist credentials, Hua asked the Central Committee in March to reconsider Deng’s position. Deng wrote again in April, thanking Hua for his intercession, and apparently endorsing his ‘Two Whatevers’ proclamation.32 Deng was allowed to attend the 3rd Plenum of the 10th Central Committee in July. The Plenum expelled the Gang from all Party and state posts, and added to the litany of its crimes the allegation that it had

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‘feverishly attacked and fabricated accusations against Comrade Deng Xiaoping’. Deng once again praised Hua’s leadership, advocated an integrated view of Mao Zedong thought, and revived an old slogan which became the essence of his policy – ‘Seek truth from facts’. The Plenum fully reinstated Deng: Party Vice-Chairman and member of the Politburo Standing Committee; Vice-Chairman of the Military Commission; Vice-Premier in the State Council, and PLA Chief of General Staff. As a result, at the end of the Plenum, Deng was directly responsible for Chinese education, science and technology, military affairs, and foreign policy. The CPC’s 11th National Congress in August endorsed the compromises worked out between the factions led by Hua and Deng. Most of its deliberations were devoted to domestic affairs, restoring party unity and control, and a coherent policy framework. Foreign affairs received only limited attention, with Hua reiterating Mao’s ‘Three Worlds theory’ and adding that ‘The Soviet Union and the United States are the source of a new world war, and Soviet social-imperialism in particular presents the greatest danger.’33 The old formulation was back. Deng saw his command of the PLA as the critical instrument for the changes he sought to effect. Efforts to restructure the army had suffered in his absence. He now revived the reform programme, emphasising continuous training and education for all ranks, especially commanders. His stress on professional, political and scientific-technological, training was hammered home in lectures given to senior officers. He re-opened and expanded specialist military schools, selected able trainers and students, promoted talented professionals, and reduced the average age of commanders at all levels: If our country was to recognize that it is backward in certain respects, there would be much hope. We have been held back for some time because we refused to recognize this fact. Now we simply have to admit that by international standards, our science and technology have a long way to go. We must also admit that our army is not sufficiently capable of conducting modern warfare, and that although it is numerically strong, it is of relatively poor quality.34 Deng urged military modernisation, especially raising the forces’ intellectual prowess, as an integral part of national modernisation. On technical and tactical issues, he stressed the development of combined arms capability, using armour, artillery, infantry and air elements in an integrated force. He was preparing the PLA for changes in its role and function; he was also laying the foundations of new technological bases of the PLA’s capabilities, and of China’s military-industrial complex. Meanwhile, in June, Carter announced his terms for recognising Beijing. Washington acknowledged there was only one China whose

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capital was in Beijing, and that Taiwan was a Chinese province; the USA would sever ties with the ROC. Washington stressed a peaceful settlement by the Chinese themselves but sought guarantees that Beijing would not coerce Taiwan. China’s response was lukewarm.35 Beijing did not welcome reports that Washington would delay normalisation at least until 1978. Chinese ire was clear in August when Vance brought a message saying the USA would meet China’s demands on normalisation, but some US personnel would stay in Taiwan to manage informal relations. Vance noted that Deng rejected this as ‘antithetical to their national interests’, reminding him of promises made by Kissinger and Ford that relations would be established on Chinese terms after the 1976 elections.36 Vance’s focus on US commitment to human rights did not help matters. Having emerged from the shadows only recently, Deng could not show flexibility on these issues. He considered Vance’s visit ‘a setback’. Carter, however, described the talks as a ‘very important step’. A few days later, Richard Holbrooke asked the Director of the Office of ROC Affairs at State to ‘devise a system whereby all essential US ties with Taiwan could be maintained, but in the absence of any official American office’. Harvey Feldman, the Director, was ‘neither to consult nor to inform anyone’, and had six weeks in which to submit a draft proposal.37 However, in November, the work stopped as the administration focused on the Panama Canal treaty, and Middle East peace talks. Later, Feldman’s drafts would contribute to the Congress’ efforts to protect Taiwan’s security in the form of the April 1979 Taiwan Relations Act – a future bone of contention with Beijing.

Hardliners win With Vance and the State Department busy with the Middle East and Panama, and Vance’s Beijing trip seen as a failure, Brzezinski’s NSC team, exploiting their contacts with Chinese diplomats, drew China policy into the White House. They persuaded Carter to adopt Brzezinski’s more activist stance toward US–PRC strategic links.38 Their efforts were helped by Soviet and Cuban military activities in Zaire and the Horn of Africa. In October 1977, Oksenberg suggested to the Chinese that following Vance’s ‘failed’ trip, a visit by Brzezinski would be ‘productive’, as he would be ‘most interested’ to discuss ‘global strategic issues’ and bilateral ties. However, the National Security Adviser ‘would not wish to visit China unless he had been formally invited to do so’.39 An invitation arrived early in November. Brzezinski asked Defense Secretary Brown to have the Chinese briefed on NATO policies ‘in a routine fashion’. He said the goal was to establish a ‘low level consultative relationship’ between Beijing’s military attaché in Brussels and NATO headquarters.40 Brown shared Brzezinski’s views on building up US–PRC security links. In February 1978, he laid out the Administration’s thinking on national defence. His draft

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budget presented the bases for Carter to build the military carapace for the USA and its allies – ‘Deterrence and stability, not overbearing military power, are what we seek. To have them, and to be confident in them, we must be assured of a credible fighting capability.’41 Although ‘essential equivalence’ existed, Soviet defence spending had grown steadily for 15 years while US spending had declined, and ‘the Soviet defense effort now appears to exceed ours’ by between 20 and 40 per cent. To arrest the trend, he sought a real increase of 3.5 per cent in FY1979. Brown also formally linked China’s defence to US national security.42 Adding that Washington no longer planned for conflict with Beijing, Brown stressed the Administration’s objectives: Effective relations with the PRC are important not only because China is a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union, but also because such relations will strengthen the interests of the PRC in regional stability. Accordingly, the normalization of US–PRC relations in accordance with the principles of the Shanghai Communiqué remains a major goal of this administration.43 Vance was unhappy with Beijing’s invitation to Brzezinski; Carter considered sending Vice President Mondale to China instead. However, in March 1978, Carter announced Brzezinski would go to Beijing to inform his hosts that ‘the United States has made up its mind’ to remove all obstacles to normalisation, informally state that the USA would remove troops from Taiwan, widen US–PRC commercial and technology flows, and invite Chinese military and trade delegations to the USA. He would discuss ‘more sustained initiatives’ in the arms and security arenas, confirming acceptance of China’s terms for normalisation. Carter instructed Brzezinski: The United States and China share certain common interests and we have parallel, long-term strategic concerns . . . this is why your visit is not tactical; it is an expression of our strategic interest in a cooperative relationship with China, an interest that is both fundamental and enduring.44 The exercise sought an assertive response to Soviet activism – encouraging Beijing to help Somalia against Ethiopia, Moscow’s new client, and urging China to build contacts with Israel. The latter would be crucial to developing China’s military-industrial capacity. As the Cold War struggle in the Horn of Africa escalated, Chinese assistance to Mogadishu supported US strategic interests. While the USA was reluctant to openly transfer defence technology and materiel to develop China’s military industry, US ally Israel would become a covert conduit for such transfers. As concerns rose that Brzezinski’s imminent visit marked a hardening of US stance toward Moscow, and that this ‘hawk’ would push the ‘China card’, Carter had to issue reassurances:

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Dr Brzezinski is not going to Peking to negotiate normalization. He is going there to exchange ideas, to try to build up a better relationship between ourselves and the People’s Republic, to enhance trade, to search out mutual interests that we have around the globe, and to let there be a better understanding between us and the people of mainland China.45 The visit, in May 1978, followed Beijing’s protests to Moscow against alleged incursions by Soviet helicopters and troops across the ‘Wusuli’ River, and broke protocol. Brzezinski received treatment reserved for cabinet members. Although secrecy shrouded his exchanges with Deng and Foreign Minister Huang, public events stressed the anti-Soviet thrust of his efforts. His toast at the banquet on the first evening set out the strategic contours of the relationship being forged. The USA and China were determined to resist ‘the efforts of any nation which seeks to establish a global and regional hegemony’.46 Even his trip to the Great Wall was coloured by symbolism. He joked with PLAN cadets escorting him that they should race up to the Wall to see who would ‘go in and oppose the Russians in Ethiopia’.47 The cadets, exhilarated, dubbed him ‘the Polar Bear hunter’.48 The next day, Brzezinski told his hosts, ‘We have been allies before. We should co-operate again in the face of a common threat.’ At a farewell banquet on the final night, Brzezinski described the Soviet Union as a ‘mutual adversary’ countering whose influence, especially in Africa, was a matter of shared interest. He said neither the USA nor the PRC ‘dispatches international marauders . . . to advance big power ambitions in Africa . . . neither of us seeks to enforce the political obedience of our neighbours through military force’.49 Private exchanges behind the scenes were more serious. Brzezinski offered classified information and analyses of Soviet strategic strength, deployments and weaknesses. Samuel Huntington, the author of PRM10, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Morton Abramowitz, briefed PLA leaders on the PRM’s findings. Other US specialists discussed ways of increasing scientific-technological cooperation in building China’s military-industrial capacity, and gathering intelligence on Soviet forces. Beijing was offered Landsat infrared scanning gear for monitoring developments in Soviet territory.50 Conveying Carter’s acceptance of the Chinese conditions for establishing relations, Brzezinski ‘expressed the hope (not as a condition) that when the US side said it expected a peaceful solution to the Taiwan question which was purely an internal affair of China, it would not meet with an obvious refutation from China’.51 When Deng agreed, Brzezinski announced that US envoy Leonard Woodcock would conduct detailed negotiations on normalisation. Talks began in early July. Brzezinski’s success was in marked contrast to Vance’s experience. Brzezinski and Deng developed a relationship akin to that between

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Kissinger and Zhou. At a dinner hosted by Deng, Brzezinski extracted a promise that when Deng visited the USA, he would attend a private meal with the Brzezinskis. This amity was rooted in a shift in Washington’s stance toward Moscow.52 By the time of Brzezinski’s visit, Vance’s emphasis on the primacy of US–Soviet ties had lost out; Carter had decided to expand the US room for manoeuvre using China. His acceptance of Brzezinski’s recommendation that the USA build on the strategic linkage forged by Nixon and Kissinger ran parallel to Chinese thinking. Beijing stopped criticising US policy toward the USSR. Vance’s fears53 had come true – although SALT II negotiations continued, they were now secondary in Washington’s world view. Brzezinski’s robust comments after his return from China on Soviet military build-up in the East and the West, and its activism in Africa, confirmed the shift. He said ‘the short-sighted Soviet conduct’ over the past couple of years had violated ‘the code of détente’. Moscow was on a ‘Worldwide propaganda campaign against the United States’, and had launched a ‘sustained and massive effort to build up its conventional forces . . . to encircle and penetrate the Middle East’.54 His efforts to reinforce US–PRC security relations may have been driven by frustration with Moscow’s failure to reflect a shared view of détente. Brzezinski got Carter to confirm to Woodcock that he should begin ‘normalisation’ talks with the Chinese, and to authorise trips to China by Schlesinger, and the President’s Science Adviser, Frank Press. Schlesinger was warmly received in Beijing. As Energy Secretary, he focused on nuclear cooperation. Press led a 15strong scientific team including the heads of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Institute of Health. Deng told Press, ‘We will learn advanced science and technology from all other countries, the United States included.’ He sought extensive exchanges ‘beneficial to the people of the two countries’. Press envisaged ‘exchanges of data, advanced seminars, cooperative research ventures, student exchanges, advanced training projects, and a growing commercial relationship in the civilian and technological sectors’.55 He offered help in fields like space, energy, public health, agriculture, oceanography and exploitation of natural resources. These visits led to talks on China’s efforts to modernise its research facilities as a pillar of the foundation Deng was laying for comprehensive national development. They formed the bases for agreements on transferring US technology in several critical areas. Parallel discussions continued in Washington between Ambassador Chai Zemin, and Brzezinski, Oksenberg, Christopher, and Holbrooke. Brzezinski sought to ensure these talks were not overshadowed by a SALT success. Plans for a Carter–Brezhnev summit had been in the offing; Brzezinski was anxious to have an equally impressive public event marking US–PRC normalisation. In late September, Carter himself saw Chai Zemin at the White House, listing US preconditions for diplomatic relations: con-

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tinued commercial and cultural ties with Taiwan, peaceful resolution of the Taiwan dispute and continued sales of defensive US arms to Taiwan. A fortnight later, a draft proposal incorporating these points was sent to Beijing. Three weeks after that, Deng announced his desire to visit the USA, signalling his acceptance of the US draft. However, early in December, when a Chinese draft agreement arrived, the White House was troubled to see Beijing’s insistence on a clear-cut termination of US ties with Taiwan. On 11 December, as the Beijing talks stalled over the final text, Brzezinski suggested to Chai that either Deng Xiaoping or Hua Guofeng visit the USA in January, before a US–Soviet summit. This was accepted and the talks were successfully concluded. Two days later, Brzezinski asked Chai that the US–PRC announcement be made on 15 December, and a date for Deng’s US visit in late January 1979 be finalised. With Carter keen on a diplomatic coup, the plan worked.56 The final details were kept so secret that Vance was in Jerusalem on a Middle East peace initiative when Carter informed him he was going to announce ‘normalisation’ of relations with China. Vance pleaded that the announcement be delayed until a SALT II agreement, and a Carter–Brezhnev summit, were finalised with Gromyko. Carter demurred. A similar shock awaited Dobrynin; he was invited to the White House hours before Carter went on national television. Brzezinski amiably chatted with him before noting that the President was shortly going to announce establishment of formal relations with China.

Much more than ‘normalisation’ Diplomatic relations provided a juridical basis for deepening political, military/strategic and economic collaboration, enabling the two sides to formalise the exchanges conducted secretly since 1971. New elements also emerged. US export credits, and technology transfers, and opening up each other’s markets became possible. Then there was the symbolism of Deng’s visit to the USA. The timing was apt. Even before normalisation, China became a major market for US goods; exports rose to $653m in January–November 1978, demonstrating the potential for growth and validating Carter’s enthusiasm for trade with China.57 That enthusiasm helped to build a brand new economy for China. However, trade was not the focus of US–PRC relations – strategic congruence was, as Harold Brown pointed out in his report to Congress four days before Deng arrived: Despite their vast nuclear superiority to the PRC, the Soviets have deemed it necessary to station as much as a quarter of their ground and tactical air forces in the vicinity of China . . . they must carry a burden with their Far Eastern deployments – a burden amounting to between 11 and 20 per cent of their total defense effort – that we no longer find it necessary to incur on anything like a comparable scale.58

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Friendship with China was already paying dividends. The USA did not have to match Soviet forces facing enemies on two fronts; Soviet economic inefficiencies imposed a massive drain on limited resources. Brown enumerated the medium-to-long-term dangers this combination posed to the USSR.59 This was the first time official US commentary linked increased defence burdens to the Soviet state’s health. Washington would exploit this vulnerability from now on. Moscow did, however, pose the gravest threat to the USA despite US advantages in most sectors – ‘Only in military matters has their system been able to rival ours. But the fact that they have put so much of their effort into the production of military power is most troubling.’60 The USSR had more than 45,000 tanks while the US only had 10,000. Soviet defence R&D budget was 75 per cent bigger. To meet the menace, he sought modest increases in FY1979, and 3.1 per cent growth in FY1980. He saw SALT II as a means of maintaining military balance at lower levels. Brown’s budget paralleled a shift in public attitude toward Moscow. Since Pillsbury’s 1975 article, support for building up Chinese power had grown. This school argued that ‘The flow of Western technology made possible by the shift in US–Chinese relations may strengthen PRC military capabilities to the point where the Soviet Union is increasingly forced to pursue a conservative, defensive, and détente oriented strategy.’61 Although Beijing’s nuclear weapons were ‘primitive’, they could ‘improve strikingly as a result of China’s new emphasis on orderly technological development, and the flow of commercial and military technology which has been made possible’. China could overcome its weaknesses ‘quickly and at relatively low cost’ and there would be an ‘almost explosive improvement . . . over the next five years’, as a result of which the US–PRC coalition would pose a ‘counterweight to the Soviet and Warsaw Pact buildup’.62 This was the backdrop against which Deng Xiaoping arrived in Washington. Deng’s visit, described by Carter as ‘one of the most historic in our nation’s history’, was a success,63 formalising the alliance covertly built up by three administrations. Deng was wined and dined by the US elite. His populist exploits in Atlanta, Austin, Seattle and elsewhere warmed many hearts. Warning that the Soviet Union could lead the world into another conflagration, he urged the formation of an alliance linking the USA, China, Japan, Western Europe and the Third World, against Moscow. At private meetings with Carter and Brzezinski, Deng did what a Chinese leader could only do with his closest allies. He told Carter that, despite Beijing’s right to use force to ‘return the renegade province to the motherland’, China had abandoned the goal of ‘liberating Taiwan’.64 He also informed his hosts of his plans to attack Vietnam to ‘teach it a lesson’ following Hanoi’s invasion of Cambodia, the ouster of the Khmer Rouge, and the formation of a Moscow–Hanoi alliance. For months, Beijing had complained against Hanoi’s treatment of Vietnam’s Chinese population,

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many of whom were forced to flee to the PRC.65 Now, Deng consulted Carter and Brzezinski on his plans for a ‘limited’ operation.66 Carter made it clear Washington would not interfere. Deng did not seek US support; he asked that Washington not criticise too strongly. Pro-Soviet Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia had not endeared it to the USA; a pragmatic congruence of interest overrode other concerns. Carter and Deng signed agreements and protocols enabling the transfer of US equipment and technology to China to bolster Beijing’s R&D, and manufacturing base. They agreed to share electro-magnetic and seismic intelligence on Soviet nuclear and ballistic missile tests, approving ‘Project Chestnut’, bringing together the CIA and Chinese military intelligence in establishing secret monitoring stations in Xinjiang. Carter later said: In January 1979, I signed an agreement on scientific and technological cooperation with Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping of the People’s Republic of China. Since that time our two countries have negotiated and signed thirteen protocols for cooperation in a broad variety of specific science and technological fields. These cooperative efforts are of great importance to the building of a strong and modern China, which is clearly in the interests of this country.67 Efforts to build up Chinese capabilities did not escape Moscow. The Kremlin published commentaries very critical of this US–PRC ‘ganging up’, and warned of ‘consequences for world peace’. Brezhnev wrote to Carter warning him against selling US arms to China. Although the USA was only transferring dual-use technology, it lifted most arms sales restrictions from its European allies. In fact, Washington encouraged four of its closest allies to sell what Beijing could pay for, and offer China technology relevant to its modernisation efforts. Responding to Brezhnev’s letter, Carter said, ‘We will not sell weapons to either China or Russia. Secondly, our allies are independent, sovereign nations, and they would reject any intrusion by us into their weapons sales policies.’68 So, by the time Deng returned home, the coalition had firmed up. Brown had ordered a study of the options Washington had in helping the Chinese military; this was completed in April. ‘Consolidated Guidance Number 8: Asia During a World-wide Conventional War’ reinforced what Schlesinger, Brzezinski and Oksenberg had been suggesting: ‘China plays a pivotal role in the global balance of power . . . during a world-wide war, it would be to our benefit to encourage Chinese actions that would heighten Soviet security concerns.’ It recommended provision of advanced technology and arms, Chinese production of US combat hardware, sharing intelligence data, and holding joint exercises.69 A formal basis for transferring materiel and technology to build up Chinese capabilities was laid. In the summer, Vice President Mondale visited Beijing, assuring his hosts that

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‘any nation which seeks to weaken or isolate you in world affairs assumes a stance counter to American interests’. Britain, France, Italy and Israel began selling materiel while the USA provided the substance of nationbuilding. Thousands of Chinese students came to US universities for scientific-technical training; Chinese scientists and military personnel gained privileged access to US facilities. American scholars travelled to China to consolidate the two-way flow. China embarked on rapid, multidirectional, modernisation; the USA made a mighty contribution to the process. Nothing underscored the collaboration better than the two CIA–PLA monitoring stations built in Xinjiang, close to the Soviet Union, in 1980. They were designed to intercept, analyse and share Soviet telemetry and seismological data on ballistic missile and nuclear tests, as well as radio transmissions. The stations replaced two similar posts lost in Iran following the Shah’s ouster. Beijing had agreed to let Washington set up the stations in 1978, before the Iranian revolution, and before ‘normalisation’.70 The partners later built another nine stations. This trend received a boost from regional developments.

Seismic shocks The first was China’s war on Vietnam. This followed events perceived by Beijing as threatening. Pol Pot had attacked the Khmer Rouge’s opponents hiding just inside Vietnam for much of 1977. Hanoi, demanding talks, raided several Khmer positions in late 1977. Beijing increased support for Pol Pot’s forces. Afraid of Chinese interference, Hanoi signed an economic accord with Moscow in June 1978, and a security treaty in November. Moscow shipped arms, including MiG-23 fighters, to Vietnam via India. Beijing saw this as Moscow’s attempt to encircle it. Fears were ‘confirmed’ when, on 25 December, Vietnam invaded Cambodia with 100,000 troops, sweeping the Khmer Rouge out of Phnom Penh on 7 January 1979. Many Cambodians welcomed their ‘liberation’, but others were outraged. A coalition of resistance built around the Khmer Rouge, remnants of the Cambodian army, and ‘Sihanoukist’ royalists gained support from Thailand, China and the USA. China had cut off aid to Vietnam in 1976, disputes over the Paracel islands embittering relations. Hanoi’s abuse of 1.5 million Chinese-Vietnamese, forcing many to become ‘boat people’, provided another pretext. These events – and US empathy – led, in February 1979, to the Chinese invasion of northern Vietnam. Beijing highlighted border disputes as the reason behind its punitive expedition, but Hanoi’s attempts ‘to become a regional hegemon’ had angered Beijing. The Moscow–Hanoi treaty threatened China with double-envelopment, which Deng was determined to counter.71 Deng assumed overall command of the operations, the first military conflict since the formalisation of the anti-Soviet US–PRC front. However,

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Beijing’s ‘self-defensive counterattack’ became a lesson for itself. Thirtyone PLA divisions with 330,000 troops, 1,200 tanks and 948 aircraft gathered near northern Vietnam. On 17 February, around 100,000 men crossed the border, advancing toward the Vietnamese towns of Lao Cai, Cao Bang and Lang Son. The Vietnamese fought back, slowing the PLA’s advance. The latter captured key objectives after clearing stiff resistance and, on 5 March, announced plans to withdraw. This was done over the next twelve days. The belligerents made conflicting claims: Beijing said its forces had killed or wounded 50,000 Vietnamese, suffering 20,000 casualties themselves; Hanoi claimed to have killed or wounded 42,000 Chinese.72 While the PLA suffered these tribulations, Washington assured Beijing of its support. Throughout the crisis, the Chinese ambassador in Washington was invited to the White House; Brzezinski shared the latest intelligence on Soviet deployments along PRC–USSR borders.73 Moscow desisted from military moves against China. The PLA’s difficulties in the encounter led to reviews of its tactics and strategy, hastening military modernisation. The other developments rocked US-ally Iran, and Soviet-client Afghanistan. Under the Shah, Iran became a wealthy oil exporter, and a regional actor with a large, US-armed military. It played a key Cold War role, linking Pakistan and Turkey, hemming in the USSR north of the Indian Ocean’s warm waters, and providing monitoring facilities that enabled the USA to keep track of Soviet nuclear and ballistic missile tests. But it faced internal challenges from radical left- and right-wing forces, both seeking a reduction of US support for an increasingly repressive regime. Washington’s role in the 1956 ouster and death of Prime Minister Mosaddegh, and the Shah’s reinstatement, had not been forgotten. Radical Islam proved more potent than Marxism. Egged on by the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, Islamists challenged the Shah and in 1979, with support from across Iranian society, forced him to flee. The turbulent loss of a key link in the containment chain, accompanying violence and the rise of anti-US Islamist forces worried Washington. A break into the US embassy, and the seizure of sensitive documents and US diplomats outraged opinion, tested US dominance, and challenged Carter’s authority. These events coloured US perceptions, and the context in which many decisions were taken. Afghanistan, a Marxist-led state since April 1978 when the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) killed President Mohammed Daoud, was a Soviet client. The PDPA was, however, an unstable coalition of Khalq (the masses) and Parcham (banner) factions. The former, led by Noor Mohammed Taraki and Hafizullah Amin, sought transformation of the feudal, tribal, ethnically mixed and finely balanced Afghan society into a socialist paradise. The latter, led by Babrak Karmal, represented a more moderate version of Marxism. The two fell out. Parcham leaders were either removed from office or sent abroad. Amin’s drive for land reform,

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co-educational schools, and marginalisation of ancient practices provoked anger and fear. Islamist Afghan politicians, exiled in Pakistan, began receiving popular support, and material assistance from Pakistan and its allies. As resistance grew, Amin cracked down even more harshly. Taraki, the titular head of state, was troubled enough to discuss Amin’s possible removal with Soviet leaders while on a visit to Moscow in the autumn of 1979. The plot may have been betrayed, or Amin may have suspected it. Shortly after Taraki’s return to Kabul, he was killed, and Amin assumed both formal and executive offices of state. His crackdown on non-PDPA Afghans became more brutal; millions fled to Pakistan and Iran. With resistance gathering strength, and Kabul’s international position losing credibility, Moscow decided to act. On Christmas Eve 1979 Soviet forces moved into Afghanistan, killed Amin, and established a ‘moderate socialist’ regime headed by Karmal. This altered many governments’ view of the Soviet Union. The most profound changes occurred in the USA and China, whose worst fears about Moscow’s ‘hegemonic tendencies’ were realised. Triangular relations linking the USA with the Soviet Union and China were now transformed. As Moscow appeared to pose a more serious threat than before, Washington and Beijing took counter-measures, reinforcing their alliance and waging covert war against the Soviet Union.74

6

Building China’s national power

I have recently returned from an official visit to the People’s Republic of China . . . my associates and I engaged in four days of intensive talks . . . the first opportunity for an exchange of views between our two defense establishments. As a result of them, I look forward to a gradual expansion of contacts between the American and Chinese military and the development, step by step, of a mutually beneficial relationship.1 (Harold Brown to Congress, January 1980) The role we assume in the military modernization of the People’s Republic of China could be of enormous importance . . . Certain arms sales and technology-transfers . . . might help strengthen China’s value in countering Soviet expansionism . . . A measured contribution to China’s modernization can help strengthen Beijing’s perception of our reliability. It can also help prevent a widening gap between Chinese and Soviet military capabilities, thus contributing to the deterrence of a Soviet attack.2 (Casper Weinberger to Congress, February 1982) As we enter the second decade since the issuance of the Shanghai Communiqué, our desire is to build an even stronger bilateral and strategic framework for long-term relations between our two nations.3 (Ronald Reagan to Zhao Ziyang, February 1982) In view of the threat of Soviet hegemonism, over the years we formed a strategic line of defence – a line stretching from Japan to Europe to the United States.4 (Deng Xiaoping, June 1985)

Rebuilding China In January 1979, Deng Xiaoping went to Washington. Support had grown for China’s ‘four modernisations’. After marginalising Hua Guofeng in 1978, Deng ordered fundamental changes, insisting, ‘it doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice’, replacing communist dogma with pragmatism.5 With US–PRC ‘normalisation’

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looming, the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Central Committee had approved major reforms. ‘Continuous revolution’ and the Cultural Revolution were repudiated. The emphasis was on economic growth, pragmatism at home and abroad, opening to the West, and ‘professionalisation and modernisation’ of the military. The results would transform China. At the turn of the century, China would look back on ‘an unprecedented rate of economic development’ quadrupling production, creating a large private sector and raising the living standards of hundreds of millions. Some analysts forecast China’s gross national product (GNP) would cross the US figure in 2006 in purchase power parity terms.6 China has pursued the same policies since then, suggesting a continuity in Beijing’s objectives.7 Deng pursued reforms as the path to acquiring ‘comprehensive national power’, enabling China to address developmental needs, and restore military capabilities and international status. Reforms were aimed at accelerating production as the precondition for key national goals: meeting social objectives underpinning domestic order and well-being, restoration of geopolitical status, acceptance as an influential member of global institutions, and procuring critical military, dual-use, and civilian technologies for China’s security.8 In 1977, Deng had noted, Western countries needed rapprochement with China to ‘lessen the Soviet threat toward themselves’. Beijing ‘must seize all opportunities to acquire things that we need under conditions set forth by us . . . Improvement in US–China relations is inevitable, and as this relationship develops, the American imperialists will defer to our wishes’.9 The ‘Soviet threat’ was a major drive. Changes in the PLA’s tactics to defeat Soviet attacks reinforced Beijing’s westward look. PLA commanders recognised the danger from Soviet mobility and firepower – including tactical nuclear weapons – to their own static forces, victims of professional neglect and political turbulence. Marshal Nie Rongzhen’s August 1978 speech at the National Militia Conference highlighted the PLA’s difficulties, recommending corrective measures.10 China’s ‘most dangerous adversary ever’, Soviet forces were expected to suddenly attack using nuclear and advanced weapons in fast, combined-arms, deeppenetration operations, marrying aircraft and tanks to mechanised and airborne forces. Countering this threat demanded changes. China’s marshals devised a new doctrine. The PLA would defend ‘strongpoints’ along Soviet ingress axes, blunting initial assaults. Mobile forces would attack enemy formations that bypassed defences. The PLA would no longer lure Soviet forces deep into China, but onto chosen battlefields. While static units fought positional battles, guerrilla formations would slip behind enemy lines to disrupt Soviet logistics.11 This combination of static and mobile operations, conventional and guerrilla warfare, would stall the offensive. Once the enemy stumbled, the PLA would mount counter-offensives, evicting the invaders. Nuclear arms were incorporated into China’s operational doctrine –

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‘People’s War under Modern Conditions’. PLA commanders preferred mobile warfare, but lacked the mobility and firepower manoeuvre forces needed.12 Deng sought to redress this deficiency, and soon received help. In 1972–78, the US army conducted doctrinal debates and tactical experiments on halting a Soviet invasion of Europe, gleaning enemy tactics from field radio intercepts. The resulting operational doctrine, ‘Air–Land Battle’, was explained in a 1980 Field Manual, FM100-5. It laid down how units engaging Soviet forces should coordinate precision fire, manoeuvre and conduct airmobile operations. As soon as US–PRC ‘functional’ military contacts began, the Pentagon passed FM100-5 and supporting manuals to the PLA. Chinese officers honed their English language skills translating these into Mandarin.13 In 1981, the PLA mounted its first large, combined arms, joint-service exercise in northern China based on the Air–Land Battle model. It tested airmobile operations, setting up helicopter regiments to support these, and formed rapidmanoeuvre group-armies. The PLA moved from its ‘people’s war’ tactics to a mobile and ‘fire-heavy’ mode. The process was aided by PLA officers questioning US experts on the doctrine’s implementation, costs and weaknesses. By the late 1980s this US military doctrine had been integrated into the PLA’s operational discourse, providing the theoretical, institutional and tactical bases for modernisation.14 The PLA skipped decades of evolution into a new operational culture and organisational structure. These changes followed debates among PLA commanders.15 Forcing the army to restructure, Deng noted more urgent claims on resources – military ‘modernisation’ could only be sustained once the economic, industrial, and scientific-technological bases were ready. High-level exchanges showed US–PRC relations were essentially military;16 a Soviet attack on China would so threaten Western interests that the USA would counteract Soviet advantages over the PLA. With that assurance, Deng’s long-term objective was to create a self-sufficient, modern force capable of sustained defence, and of securing global military status. More immediately, he sought improved combat power by reorganising the force, modifying its doctrine, and improving inventory usage – only slowly procuring modern weapons.17 His aims received a boost in January 1980 when the Pentagon offered to sell hardware,18 finalising the Kissinger–Schlesinger initiatives.19 The ‘loss’ of Iran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, forced the military-centrality of US–PRC relations to the fore. Harold Brown led a team to Beijing for the first military-to-military meetings. He later told Congress, Washington would sell dual-use systems, transferring military technology to China – ‘We agreed to make available a Landsat D ground station to the PRC under safeguards which will assure that it is not immediately usable for military purposes.’ It would deliver hostile force imagery and data – a quid pro quo for ‘Project Chestnut’. China’s value in US calculations was high:

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Building China’s national power As Vice President Mondale informed Chinese leaders last summer, ‘any nation which seeks to weaken or isolate you in world affairs assumes a stance counter to American interests.’ A strong, secure, and modernizing China is in the interests of the United States.20

Brown underscored the congruence of US and PRC views that the PLA’s modernisation must be founded on China’s economic development with US support, defence ties being intertwined with economic ones. Carter had already sought MFN status for China; Washington would extend Exim Bank credit, seeking ‘Congressional authority to encourage American businesses to invest in China’. The goal was strategic – ‘We expect . . . our relationship with the PRC will grow in scope and detail, and that it will help to reduce the probability of further aggression in South Asia and elsewhere.’21

A tough stance Brown’s Beijing trip followed the Pentagon’s own doctrinal evolution. After years of debate on mooring US nuclear arms to deterrence, DoD staff had, by 1979, devised a ‘countervailing strategy’. Schlesinger had pushed a similar line but did not codify it. Brown gave the President more credible options to deter the USSR than ‘assured destruction’.22 This partial departure from mutual assured destruction (MAD) made a submaximal nuclear exchange feasible, raising the possibility of a ‘first strike’, reflecting a hardened stance toward Moscow. Vance’s efforts to finalise a SALT II agreement did produce an accord, signed at a June 1979 summit, but it was never ratified. After the Soviet move into Afghanistan, the Administration shelved it. Against that gloomy outlook, Brown’s countervailing strategy surfaced as Presidential Directive 59 (PD59) in July 1980. He warned that if Moscow launched ‘some intermediate level of aggression’, the USA could retaliate with ‘large (but still less than maximum) nuclear attacks’, exacting an ‘unacceptably high price’ in ‘political and military control, military force both nuclear and conventional, and the industrial capability to sustain a war’.23 Changed views of Soviet policies, coloured by the move into Afghanistan,24 boosted US efforts to build Chinese military power. However, PD59 was just one element of ‘getting tough’ with Moscow. Washington was strengthening NATO defences long before Kabul ‘fell’. Brown had urged cutting defence projects like the B-1 bomber; but he sought a stronger NATO, to maintain ‘essential equivalence’ with Soviet forces. In 1977, NATO members pledged to increase annual defence spending by 3 per cent in 1979–86. Another Brown initiative produced the May 1978 accord on a Long Term Defense Programme: higher force readiness, rapid war-time reinforcement from the USA, larger European reserves, improved maritime capabilities, integrated theatre air defence,

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effective command, control and communications, logistics coordination, and theatre nuclear modernisation. After Moscow deployed SS-20 IRBMs and Backfire bombers, Brown secured NATO agreement in December 1979 to station 108 Pershing missiles and 464 ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) in NATO Europe from December 1983. Brown also revamped the US triad of land-, sea- and air-launched nuclear weapons targeting the USSR. He armed upgraded B-52 bombers with ALCMs, and approved the development of a nuclear-armed stealth bomber capable of evading Soviet air defences. Carter endorsed the replacement of old Titan and Minuteman ICBMs with new MX missiles. For a survivable second-strike capability, Brown recommended that 200 MX missiles be shuttled among 23 hardened shelters each, in Utah and Nevada, so that most escaped a Soviet first strike. Plans to build 4,600 shelters and link-roads ran foul of environmentalists; Brown insisted this was the most viable basing mode. He hastened the conversion of Poseidon SLBM submarines into fully MIRVed capability, speeding up the development of Trident, Poseidon’s successor. Washington justified its arms control initiatives in ‘counter-Soviet’ terms. In June 1979, Carter and Brezhnev endorsed the SALT II treaty, limiting both sides to 2,250 strategic nuclear delivery vehicles – bombers, ICBMs, SLBMs and air-to-surface stand-off missiles – with a ceiling of 1,200 launchers of MIRVed ballistic missiles, of which only 820 could launch MIRVed ICBMs. The treaty limited the number of warheads on each missile, banning deployment of new land-based missiles except for a single new ICBM type. Mutual verification would utilise ‘national technical means’. The Administration stressed US advantages: SALT II would reduce Soviet strategic forces, enhance superpower strategic stability, reduce the cost of the nuclear balance, and help monitor Moscow’s forces, reducing the risk of nuclear war. Washington urged military development outside NATO, too. Japan was prodded to increase defence outlays. Although in 1977 Carter had pledged to pull US combat forces out of South Korea, while offering continued military aid, North Korean military threats and domestic opposition scuttled the withdrawal. But it was in strengthening the Chinese counterpoise to the USSR by helping Beijing to refashion its economy, expand its industrial and scientific-technological capacity, and transform the PLA, that Washington effected the most substantial changes.

Rebuilding the PLA Beijing sought to counter Moscow’s influence in Europe and develop relations with modern armed forces. It needed advanced hardware, technology, and doctrinal, training, organisational and logistical innovation. With US encouragement, ties with Britain, France and Italy grew fast. All three sold weapons and transferred technology before the USA would. US–PRC

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military links rapidly expanded in the 1980s, including high- and workinglevel exchanges in training, education and logistics. Washington sold some arms and technology, but China’s financial and political constraints limited transfers. Induction of new hardware, technology, and concepts paralleled the PLA’s reforms. These developments transformed Chinese forces. In 1982–86, the PLA demobilised a quarter of its four million troops. Eleven Military Regions were consolidated into seven, matching the PLAAF’s regional commands. A group-army force structure formalised combined arms warfare. Deng also attended to the PLAAF, the PLAN, and the 2nd Artillery Corps missile force. He reopened higher training institutes, expanding research facilities. These changes added to what PLA officers learnt from friendly forces – while travelling abroad, or hosting foreign military teams. The PLA launched a ‘foreign exchange’ programme with specific goals:25 • • • • • • • •

shape the international security environment in support of key Chinese objectives pursue China’s open-door and reform policy enhance military and defence industry modernisation improve political and military relations with foreign countries have PLA commanders acquire modern military knowledge in doctrine, operations, and non-combat spheres acquire technology and advance key PLA R&D programmes with foreign help train PLA and civilian technicians and specialists provide military assistance to developing countries.

The programmes acquired ‘major end-items and weapons systems’, sophisticated components, and dual-use technologies with military applications. The scale indicated the programme’s importance. In 1979–87, the PLA hosted more than 500 foreign military delegations, sending thousands of officers abroad for visits, study and learning.26 Most exchanges were with West European forces. France, Italy and the UK, whose services and defence industries maintained close links to US counterparts, were intensely engaged. These countries sold hardware, and transferred technology to help modernise China’s defence-industrial capacity. Before the June 1989 arms embargo, they also trained those who would operate, maintain and repair hardware sold to China. Britain had a head start, selling 50 Rolls Royce Spey jet engines to power PLAAF fighters in 1975. China secured rights to copy these, ‘indigenising’ the fabrication of modern engines. Britain later sold avionics, including radars and displays for China’s F-7M fighter. France sold the widest variety of equipment27 – Crotale SAMs, Castor2B fire control radars, Sea Tiger naval surveillance radars, TAVITAC naval combat automation systems, and AS-365 Dauphin-2 and SA-321 Super Frelon helicopters. Italy

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sold Aspide AAMs, and electronic counter-measures for Nanchang A-5M attack aircraft.28 The Chinese reverse-engineered many of these. Munitions sales were stopped in June 1989 but licences continued for Italian missiles, and French helicopters and missiles. Deliveries of items contracted earlier resumed in 1990; in 1993, European countries began issuing new licences. Details of military sales and technology transfers before June 1989 remain uncertain. Successive Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) reports carry different figures, but they indicate estimates used by Washington, offering insights into the scale and sources of sales. Although Beijing was arming against ‘the Soviet threat’, Moscow remained a source of imports. In 1976–80, China bought arms worth $700m; the UK sold $400m-worth, France, $50m, and others, $20m. Soviet sales reached $220m.29 In the 1980s, China first reduced, and then increased purchases. In 1981–85, imports totalled $385m. Soviet sales were worth $80m, US, $30m, French, $80m, West German, $5m and others, $190m.30 Of deliveries worth $2,205m in 1985–89, British sales reached $260m, French, $120m, West German, $40m, other West Europeans, $40m, East Asian, $20m, and others, $50m. Soviet sales topped $500m, and other Warsaw Pact states, $40m.31 China bought arms worth $1,610m in 1987–91. French sales reached $150m, British, $140m, other Western Europeans, $80m, Soviet, $550m, and other Warsaw Pact states, $20m.32 Moscow provided large quantities of obsolescent materiel; Western countries sold smaller volumes of high-tech kit and technology. Because of long lead-times between technology transfers, and induction of local versions, purchases in the 1980s generated results in the 1990s. A combination of Chinese platform and Western technology appeared in the PLAN’s Luhai class guided missile destroyers in the 1990s, and the Luhu in the late 1980s. The Luhai carries C-802 (YJ-2) SSMs, and an advanced version of the older YJ-1 (C-801) anti-ship missile derived from the Exocet. The Luhai’s HQ-7 SAMs, developed from the Crotale, are controlled by the PRC variant of the Thomson-CSF Castor2 fire control radar. The Luhai’s 100mm guns use old Soviet barrels equipped with French fast-loading systems. This ‘blue water’ destroyer is equipped with the TAVITAC combat data system, and carries US-supplied, or -derived, radars. Its ‘Rice Shied’ 3-D, G-band air search radar is thought to combine elements of the Hughes AN/SPS-39A FRESCAN planar array radar and the AN/SPS-52. It is believed to carry the Racal Decca 1290 navigation radar, and an unauthorised version of the US naval tactical data system for information management. The ship is armed with the Signal Radar Passive Identification System and Scimitar jammers, and two six-barrel Mk 36 SRBOC launchers with ECM facility. Older versions of these systems were installed on Luhu destroyers.33 Before June 1989, the PLA imported or built around 65 Super Frelon/ Z-8, and Dauphin-2/Z-9 helicopters. The PLAN adapted 25 of these for

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antisubmarine operations; many PLAN ships carry the Z-9. The PLA has tested anti-tank missile-armed Z-9s for ground attack missions. PLA services use the Crotale SAM, Aspide AAM, and their local versions.34 The PLAN obtained a French combat direction system for integrating shipboard tactical information, displaying data, and designating weapons to targets. From Italy, it bought the A-244S homing torpedo, and shipboard guns which Western intelligence believed were from Otto Melara.35 Although European countries trained PLA personnel in both command and technical courses, restrictions remained. In the late 1980s, China asked the USA, the UK and France to train PLAAF test pilots; only France agreed.36 France led in command training, too. In 1989, Lt Colonel Hu Xiao, an A-5 pilot, attended a two-year course at the French National War College. PLAN officers, too, were trained in Europe. Before 1989, three PLAN officers attended year-long courses in the Italian War College while another attended the French War College. Britain, too, trained many PLA officers.37 However, the most significant role played by a US ally in building up the PLA, and expanding China’s defencetechnological base, was not even acknowledged for two decades. This relationship was developed following Brzezinski’s 1978 advice to Deng.

The Israeli conduit China supported the Arab cause in US–PRC talks on the Middle East. Mao, Zhou and Deng repeatedly advised Washington to consider the Arab perspective in addressing the Palestinian dispute. China would not even recognise Israel until 1992. But in 1978, Brzezinski persuaded Deng that Israel could transfer US hardware and technology to the PLA, especially ones Washington could not. He repeated this point during Deng’s 1979 visit. Shortly after Deng’s return to China, Israel learnt Beijing would receive Israeli officials to discuss military cooperation. Within days, Shoul Eisenberg led a 30-member delegation from the state-owned defence industry to Beijing on a three-week tour. Exchanges with Chinese leaders laid the basis for a wide-ranging, large-scale, and secret relationship.38 Tel Aviv offered to transfer technology for weapons built in Israel, many of which were fabricated on US designs, or developed with US assistance. Since China had little hard currency, Israel accepted barter deals. Beijing paid for Israeli weapons, support systems, and technology with industrial goods, commodities and raw materials including silk which Israel profitably sold on the world market. In 1984, Israel-PRC arms trade reportedly reached $3.5 billion, doubling by the end of the decade.39 Israel’s role as the key conduit of US technology to China was based on several accords. These, beginning with the December 1970 M3DEA, enabled Washington to transfer cutting-edge technology to Israel which refined it to build weapons and components. A 1971 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) allowed Israel to build US-designed arms. By the

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end of 1979, more than 100 US data packages had been released, a quarter involving classified technologies. A 1979 MoU, amended in 1984, expanded joint research, exchange of scientists and data, and arms procurement. In 1986, Congress declared Israel a major non-NATO ally for joint military R&D; the two allies signed an agreement on joint research in strategic and theatre missile defence. In 1987, they signed a MoU similar to those between Washington and its NATO allies. The US–Israeli Master Defense Development Data Exchange Agreement (M3DEA) had acquired 28 data exchange annexes covering everything from air-to-air missiles, through tank armour, propulsion systems, fire control mechanism and weapons, and electronic warfare, to software development.40 The transfer of US-designed military gear and technology to China via Israel expanded in the 1980s when the Reagan Administration formalised US policy to maintain Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge over potential adversaries in the region’. US funds, weapons and technology transfers thus advanced China’s military-industrial modernisation. Israeli–Chinese relations could not have been initiated or sustained without US support. Few in Washington knew it before a 1992 study by the State Department’s Inspector General. The matter was hushed up. Until the late 1990s, when US–PRC relations were strained and Beijing became a ‘peer competitor’, the Israeli conduit was not controversial. US agencies responsible for reporting military transactions did not name Israel as a source of materiel for China. The General Accounting Office (GAO) and the ACDA noted the ‘Middle East’ rather than Israel41 as the source of substantial transfers; China’s only other Middle Eastern purchase was of ex-Soviet MiG-23s from Egypt to help build its J-8-2 fighter. Israeli transfers to China were not restricted to the military; Israeli firms were active in civilian sectors, too, many profiting from preferential contracts with Beijing. In the first seven months of 1985, Chinese officials submitted more than 70 proposals, ranging from the construction of urban residential districts to the export of high-technology military hardware. By the summer of 1985, agreements signed included those for building hotels, a major airport in southern China, an agro-chemicals plant, fish processing factories, and joint marketing campaigns with Chinese advertisers. Around this time, the Chinese were building T-69 medium tanks with Britishdesigned main guns fabricated in Israel.42 Israeli goals were – moderating Beijing’s pro-Arab stance, influencing China’s policy toward Syria, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, preparing the ground for recognition, replacing markets lost in Iran and South Africa, reducing unit cost of arms for the Israeli Defence Forces, and raising the viability of defence R&D.43 Secrecy was aided by both capitals concealing these transactions for six years after normalising relations in 1992. In the USA, reports by the GAO, ACDA and State Department on possible Israeli breaches of US regulations, beginning in 1983, were subsumed under the policy of ‘modernising’ China. Opacity produced differing estimates of

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the volume, nature and value of transfers. A 1991 Rand Corporation report valued Israeli military sales to China at $1–3bn. In 1993, a former State Department analyst reached an estimate of $8–10bn. The ACDA’s estimate for 1984–87 stood at $7.78bn, an annual average of $556m.44 Israel upgraded Chinese tanks and aircraft, 105mm guns, fire control systems, recoil mechanisms, laser range-finders, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), communications gear, radar systems, optical equipment, electronic warfare systems, airborne early warning platforms, AAMs, and antitank and cruise missiles.45 Israeli transfer of US military technology to China first emerged in 1983 when a GAO study revealed some of these sales violated the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) and the Foreign Assistance Act. Washington’s view of China as a ‘strategic ally’ meant this and similar reports disappeared. Later GAO and State Department studies showed Israel had transferred ‘unauthorised technologies’ to China including the Python-3 AAM, based on the US AIM-9L Sidewinder, the Mapatz anti-tank missile based on the US-made tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided anti-tank weapon (TOW)2, Israel’s Arrow ABM based on the US Patriot missile, and the Lavi advanced fighter, for which the F-16 Falcon provided the design, and Washington paid $1.7bn. Israel maintained Washington had authorised the Mapatz sale in 1986 and, in the other cases, US technology had been replaced with Israeli ones. Controversy over an Israel–PRC deal to install the Israeli Phalcon airborne early warning (AEW) system aboard a Russian-built aircraft, reportedly one of four, in a $2 billion transaction, closed the channel. In July 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak assured President Clinton that Israel would cancel the deal.46 In a reversal of Washington’s strategic interest in China, Israel’s military links to Beijing were suspended in 2003 under US pressure.47 By then, significant transfers had matured. US figures show China bought arms worth $925m in 1985–89, and $490m in 1987–91, from ‘the Middle East’.48

Washington primes Beijing’s pumps US political will, diplomatic initiatives and financial muscle sustained the process of building up its partner. In addition to a covert role, the USA made a robust contribution once Soviet forces entered Afghanistan. However, Beijing determined what it wanted, in what volume, at what pace, and at what price, importing only limited volumes of US hardware. Throughout the life of the secret alliance, Beijing focused on acquiring technologies – designs, data, blueprints, tooling kits, and special appliances enabling China to adapt Western systems to fit PLA platforms, and/or reverse-engineer them to fabricate local variants. PLA leaders refused to buy their way out of obsolescence. Initially, they concentrated on developing technical skills and revising tactical concepts.

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Marshal Xu Xiangqian, one of the commanders reviewing the PLA’s needs, said the force ‘Must train large groups of red and expert cadres who have good knowledge of modern science and technology and are capable of commanding joint operations in a modern war.’49 The PLA began reinventing itself with Western arms, ideas and technology, stressing the soldier’s persona. In 1985, Chief of Staff, Yang Dezhi, wrote, ‘If we do not have people who have a good grasp of modern science, culture, and technical skills, it will be impossible to bring into full play the power of modern weapons.’50 Focus on human resources led to a growth of training academies, professionalisation, and increased funding until, in 1987, commanders bewailed the backwardness of PLA weapons.51 This led to large volumes of modern hardware from the West being imported; US transfers remained small. ACDA data show how small. In 1979–83, of China’s total military imports worth $520m, the Soviet Union sold $130m worth and the USA, $5m.52 In 1981–85, imports from the USA rose to $30m, increasing in 1982–86 to $80m. In 1983–87, the USA sold hardware worth $150m. This figure rose to $210m in 1985–89. The Tiananmen Square embargo slashed transfers in 1987–91 to $130m.53 The PLA’s US purchases showed several patterns: China did a lot of ‘window shopping’ – exploring the US market, checking details from manufacturers and securing maximum possible technical and operational information, and then either buying a few items, or none. Beijing preferred more expensive commercial sales to cheaper foreign military sales. Private suppliers demonstrated their equipment, provided technical data, discussed Chinese requirements, and only then sold hardware.54 Beijing acquired data, and experience in Western marketing procedures, for developing its own defence industry. Purchases consisted of high-technology items for future integration into indigenous systems, rather than for immediate induction. In FY1982–86, for instance, Washington granted a total of 501 licences for commercial exports of weapons to China worth $520.58m.55 A majority of these included transfer of technical data, equipment components, and a single item or a handful of items. Of the items licensed, China bought only 17 per cent by value. Beijing sought US computers, electronic systems and components, communications kit, avionics, engines for vehicles, vessels and aircraft, navigation equipment, night vision devices, fire control systems and airborne reconnaissance equipment. Many would be adapted to Chinesebuilt platforms or ones obtained elsewhere, mostly for the PLAN and the PLAAF. US analysts noted a struggle in China between those who urged self-reliance and those who sought the advantages of building strong ties to Western, especially US, military and defence industries. The debate was shaped by China’s difficulties in absorbing Western technology.56 Tables 1 and 2 illustrate the evolution of commercial and government-togovernment arms transfers.57

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Table 1 US arms licences for China FY

Licences issued

Value in current US$

1982 1983 1984 1985 1986

28 47 109 154 163

185,000 71,459,000 82,994,000 286,418,000 79,527,000

Total

501

520,583,000

Table 2 US arms deliveries to China (valued in current US$) FY

Commercial sales

Foreign military sales

Total

1982 1983 1984 1985 1986

0 588,000 26,035,000 42,581,000 18,735,000

0 0 6,000 425,000 547,000

0 588,000 26,041,000 43,006,000 19,252,000

Total

87,939,000

978,000

88,887,000

There were large-scale orders, too. In 1985, China bought 24 S-70C transport helicopters. In 1986, China and the USA agreed on project ‘Peace Pearl’ under which Washington would install avionics upgrades worth $501m on China’s J-8 fighters. The project was interrupted in June 1989; Beijing cancelled it the following May. Efforts to expand China’s defence industry also grew. On his penultimate day in office, Harold Brown told Congress military transfers took place in the context of a ‘coalition strategy’, deterring ‘Soviet aggression’: We have established a ‘China differential’ in licensing US dual-use technology exports to the PRC and have set in motion a gradual expansion of military-to-military contacts. We have also offered to sell non-weapon system military equipment to the PRC . . . Our defense relations with the PRC . . . reflect the desire of both the United States and China for a long-term strategic relationship.58 Brown’s assessment of China’s value as an anti-Soviet ally did note Beijing’s constraints – ‘it would take years to develop the PLA into a force comparable in modernity to those of the Unites States and the Soviet Union today’.59 He aided the PLA’s modernisation by expanding exchanges. Following his 1980 visit, he hosted his counterpart Geng Biao, briefing him widely, including at a Minuteman ICBM silo. The two CIA–PLA electronic listening posts in the Xinjiang towns of Qitai and

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Korla were built shortly afterwards, once DCI Turner had nailed down the final details during a secret trip to Beijing.

A brief hiatus Ronald Reagan would be tougher on Moscow than Carter was. But Reagan represented Republicans who supported the ROC, worrying more about Taiwan’s security than about US–PRC relations. Candidate Reagan showed little interest in China, except when criticising Carter. With limited exposure outside California, Reagan’s world view was set.60 His ‘education’ in world affairs was begun by the CIA on 4 October; DCI Turner briefed him on the Middle East, its impact on oil prices, the Iran–Iraq conflict, and the Afghan situation. China was not mentioned. Three weeks later, the two candidates debated in Cleveland. Half the time went to international issues, mainly the Middle East. China received little attention. The CIA briefed President-elect Reagan four times. The first, on 19 November, focused on ‘the Golan Heights, Syrian and Palestinian politics, and relations among the various Middle East countries’. The session on 20 November reviewed ‘the Soviet threat to Poland and the situation in Central America’. Reagan was interested in ‘the Soviets’ involvement in Eastern Europe and . . . in other parts of the world’.61 The 11 December session concentrated on the Soviet economy, and the linkages between military strength and economic base. US–Soviet strategic balance and USSR–PRC relations, too, were reviewed. This was the only session featuring China. Reagan informed Turner he would shortly nominate William Casey as the next DCI – because – ‘I disagreed so completely with everything that President Carter was doing that we thought a change was needed.’62 Reagan criticised the Administration for ‘its inaction in countering the Soviet threat worldwide’, but had made up his mind without knowing what Carter or the CIA was doing. On 15 January 1981, during his final briefing, Turner advised Reagan, Vice President-elect Bush, and DCI-designate Casey on sensitive technical and human-source collection, and anti-Soviet covert action. Reagan enthusiastically supported them all.63 A tough stance toward Moscow was the new Administration’s dominant motif. Within that broad church, nuanced views supported a range of options. Secretary of State Alexander Haig was more sympathetic to the emerging ‘China lobby’ than most cabinet colleagues. Support for the Taiwan Relations Act,64 permeating Reagan’s Asia-Pacific policy, angered Beijing, but Haig persevered to build on his inheritance. Reagan’s willingness to let his principals manage their affairs within his guidelines allowed Haig to push a ‘pro-Beijing’ line. Reagan’s decision to boost US military power, strengthen a US-led coalition against ‘Soviet expansionism’, and counter Moscow’s activism, set the context in which Haig saw China as a key ally, and a source of pressure on Moscow best exploited with overt military links.65 During a June 1981 visit to China, he discussed global,

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regional and bilateral issues, setting a positive image of Reagan’s stance toward Beijing. He confirmed the US decision ‘in principle’ to sell weapons to the PLA.66 This may have been motivated by a wish to strengthen US–PRC ties, allay Beijing’s concerns, and put pressure on Moscow. Haig only partially mollified Deng who would soon assume supreme authority, replacing Hua Guofeng with Hu Yaobang as CPC Chairman. But Haig touched a nerve in Moscow. Soviet reaction was vitriolic.67 One of Casey’s first reports to Reagan assessed threats to national security. ‘The Development of Soviet Military Power: Trends since 1965 and Prospects for the 1980s’ stressed growing Soviet military strength: ‘Among the many factors underlying this buildup, the most basic is the attitude of Soviet leaders that military might is a necessary and effective instrument of policy in an inherently unstable world.’68 The balance between Western and Soviet nuclear forces had swung in Moscow’s favour. But the conventional balance in Europe was worse.69 Casey assessed Soviet military investment choices – Moscow could annually increase defence allocations by 4 per cent, barring arms control constraints. But, ‘A rate of 4 per cent would increase the drain on the economy and the potential for internal political problems.’ This offered leverage against Moscow’s military expansion, but it would take years of rebuilding US forces before Washington could exploit that vulnerability. The one bright spot was China’s role. Moscow had doubled the number of army divisions, tripling troop strength along China’s borders since the late 1960s. Combat air growth, too, was ‘directed primarily at China’.70 China’s role in soaking up Soviet military expansion was much appreciated. Haig’s interest in building Chinese power could be explained in that context. Reagan’s response was a dramatic increase in defence spending, force enlargement and modernisation, new R&D projects, and arms procurement. Pressing Moscow to match increases across the board, in the knowledge of the consequences, was his instrument of strategic coercion. This anti-Soviet focus encouraged US–PRC links, but Reagan’s pro-Taiwan bias limited options. His decision to resume arms transfers to non-NATO ‘allies and friends’ was couched in language open to positive interpretation by both the Taiwan and Beijing lobbies. Reagan wished to: • • • • • •

deter aggression by enhancing the preparedness of allies and friends improve US power-projection ability in response to threats enable US forces to operate with those of friends and allies, building mutual security demonstrate enduring US interest in the security of friends and partners foster regional and internal stability, encouraging peaceful resolution of disputes enhance US defence production capabilities and efficiency.71

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Reagan ordered substantial military expansion. A ‘strategic forces modernization program’ was designed to ‘help redress the deteriorated strategic balance with the Soviet Union. The result will be a deterrent that is far more secure and stable than our present nuclear forces’.72 It would improve US communications and command systems survivability, add two types of strategic bombers, increase the accuracy and payload of US SLBMs, build strategic defences, and deploy larger, more accurate, ICBMs. An extensive conventional expansion, too, was funded in the FY1983 budget. The DoD’s budget linked ‘Soviet threats’ and China’s ability to counter these: The role we assume in the military modernisation of the PRC could be of enormous importance for China’s own security. Certain arms sales and technology-transfers . . . might help strengthen China’s value in countering Soviet expansionism in East Asia. A measured contribution to China’s modernization can help to strengthen Beijing’s perception of our reliability.73 The Administration’s strategic calculus sounded similar to what Brzezinski and Brown had been saying. A new element was raising the cost of a Soviet first strike by enhancing US civil defence capacity.74 Washington’s approach to the USSR was formalised in early 1982 when Reagan issued national security study directive 32 (NSSD32), identifying US global objectives: • •

• • •

•

deter attack by the USSR and its allies; defeat such attack should deterrence fail strengthen US influence by strengthening alliances, improving relations, forming coalitions, and by diplomatic, political, economic, and information efforts contain and reverse Soviet military presence; increase the costs of Soviet use of proxy, terrorist, and subversive forces neutralise Soviet diplomacy, arms transfers, economic pressure, political action, propaganda, and disinformation restrain Soviet military spending, and adventurism; weaken Soviet alliances by forcing the USSR to bear the brunt of its economic shortcomings; encourage liberalising and nationalist tendencies within the Soviet Union and Bloc limit Soviet military capabilities by strengthening the US military, by pursuing arms control agreements, and by halting the flow of military technologies to the USSR.75

Focus on the ‘Soviet threat’ enabled Haig to urge Reagan to consolidate the US–PRC alliance. Reagan agreed to treat the Beijing–Taipei divide even-handedly. Talks with China led to a joint communiqué being issued

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in August 1982. It papered over the inconsistency between US acceptance that the PRC was the only Chinese state and Taiwan a part of it, and US insistence on selling arms to Taipei. Beijing stressed its ‘fundamental policy of striving for peaceful reunification of the motherland’; Washington stated it ‘attaches great importance to its relations with China, and reiterates that it has no intention of infringing on Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity, or interfering in China’s internal affairs, or pursuing a policy of “two China’s” or “one China, One Taiwan” ’. Washington pledged it would not ‘seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan, that its arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level of those supplied in recent years’. The USA would reduce its arms sales to Taiwan, ‘leading, over a period of time, to a final resolution’.76 Without resolving the conundrum, it provided a face-saving device for the two partners to put their differences behind them.

Friendship renewed! The Administration laid a juridical basis for extending significant assistance. In late 1982, Reagan issued NSDD70 on transferring technology relevant to ballistic and other missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, prohibiting ‘exports of equipment and/or technology that would make a contribution to a foreign country’s strategic military missile program’. This was mitigated by the decision to ‘Exempt on a case-by-case basis certain US friends and allies from this policy, subject to appropriate nontransfer assurances and a Presidential approval that such transfers promote US foreign policy and national security objectives.’77 Two successive NSDDs underscored Reagan’s approach toward Moscow, and Beijing’s role in it. The first, ‘US Relations with the USSR’, spelt out Washington’s objectives – ‘external resistance to Soviet imperialism; internal pressure to weaken the sources of Soviet imperialism’; and negotiations to eliminate disagreements. US tasks were: 1.

2.

To reverse Soviet expansionism by competing effectively on a sustained basis with the Soviet Union in all international arenas – particularly in the overall military balance and in geographical regions of priority concern. This would remain the primary focus of US policy toward the USSR. To promote the process of change in the Soviet Union toward a more pluralistic political and economic system in which the power of the ruling elite is gradually reduced.78

Reagan sought ‘regime change’ in Moscow by means short of conflict; explosive military growth was critical. NSDD70 laid priority on ‘Sustaining steady, long-term growth in US defense spending and capabilities – both nuclear

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and conventional. This is the most important way of conveying to the Soviets US resolve and political staying power.’79 A corollary was, ‘Maintenance of a strategic relationship with China, and efforts to minimize opportunities for a Sino–Soviet rapprochement.’80 The Directive added – ‘China continues to support US efforts to strengthen the world’s defenses against Soviet expansionism . . . The US will continue to pursue a policy of substantially liberalized technology transfer and sale of military equipment of China’.81 Endorsing Haig’s proposals of 29 December 1982, Reagan authorised aid to China’s nuclear weapons programmes. The State Department would implement the decision ‘in coordination with the Departments of Defense, Commerce and Energy, the ACDA, and NSC staff’.82 This saw fruition in Casper Weinberger’s FY1984 DoD budget proposal. In 1981, China had been removed from the list of countries to which export of US munitions was barred. In 1983, China was moved to Category V, ‘the same category as for other friendly countries’. Beijing could import US materiel ‘at higher levels of technology’.83 Chinese export of ‘Silkworm’ missiles to Iran threw a spanner into US–PRC transfers, but once Beijing turned around, collaboration resumed. Weinberger visited China in 1983 and 1986; the Chairman of the JCS, the Secretary of the Navy, and other DoD officials, too, exchanged visits. In September 1983, Weinberger established the ‘three pillars’ of US–PRC strategic collaboration – high-level visits, functionallevel exchanges, and military technology cooperation. He arranged visits to the USA by the Chinese Premier and Defence Minister, and to China by Reagan, which he did in June 1984. China policy became part of US defence strategy managed by the Pentagon.84 In 1984, Weinberger and his Chinese counterpart signed a military technology cooperation agreement; Reagan declared China eligible for ‘cost basis cash only’ Foreign Military Sales.85 In 1983–89, the two militaries exchanged hundreds of delegations. High-level visits set the framework; functional exchanges implemented operational cooperation in ‘numerous fields, including military education and training, logistics, quality assurance, systems analysis and military medicine’.86 US assistance to Chinese military-technology modernisation saw major contracts signed: a $22m large-calibre artillery plant modernisation programme, an $8m Mk-46 Mod2 torpedo sale, a $62m AN/TPQ-37 artillery-locating radar sale, and the $500m Peace Pearl F-8 avionics modernisation project.87 These deals boosted Beijing’s ability to integrate, reverse-engineer, design and build sophisticated ordnance and support systems, and conduct R&D. Starting from 1985, the PLA reduced its strength from 4m to 3m – with 2.3m in the army, 470,000 in the PLAAF, and 260,000 in the PLAN. Its ‘People’s War’ doctrine was replaced with one ‘more suited to fighting limited regional wars under modern conditions’. The PLA emphasised ‘increasing unit mobility and training in combined arms operations; improving logistics, combat support, and communications, command and

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control systems; introducing a limited number of imported modern weapon systems’.88 It also began ‘developing a number of indigenously produced systems, including several new classes of naval vessels and a new multirole fighter aircraft’. Washington’s commitment to building up its secret ally was implicit in Weinberger’s FY1984 budget – ‘only the Soviet Union has the military power directly to inflict mortal damage on the United States’.89 If Soviet military expansion was ‘permitted to continue’, the consequences for the USA would be ‘disastrous’. Soviet presence abroad ‘would increasingly threaten to cut into the lifelines of the Western alliances and make it even more difficult and costly to defend essential US national interests’.90 China’s role was critical to US control of ‘essential sea lanes’ in the Western Pacific, and to ‘prevent the Soviet Union, North Korea, and Vietnam from interfering in the affairs of others’. Building a ‘durable strategic relationship’ with China was crucial.91 Weinberger requested budget authorisation for the next five years, with significant real growth. He said expanding Soviet capability had shifted the global military balance in Moscow’s favour, facilitating the rise of Soviet influence. ‘Because these two fundamental trends are mutually reinforcing, our response is all the more difficult and more urgent.’92 Weinberger requested the resources shown in Table 3 to meet the challenge.93 Congress did not resist Weinberger’s arguments. Next, Reagan announced an initiative challenging the deterrence theory, sending shockwaves around the world, and outraging Moscow. The ‘Strategic Defense Initiative’ aimed at ‘Eliminating the Threat From Ballistic Missiles’.94 The DoD began modernising nuclear weapons targeting the Soviet Union.95 Even in setting out policy for the Middle East and South Asia, Washington focused on countering Soviet ‘expansionist efforts’, and expanding US influence.96 Reagan’s ‘containment’ stance was boosted in the summer of 1983 when Soviet aircraft shot down KL007, a Korean Airlines Boeing 747, killing all 269 onboard, and sparking a furious debate around the world.

Table 3 DoD’s authorisation requests FY

TOA ($bn)a

Outlay ($bn)

1984 1985 1986 1987 1988

274.1 322.4 357.2 389.2 425.2

238.6 277.5 314.9 345.6 377.0

Note a TOA  total obligation authority.

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Washington used it to bring diplomatic, economic and moral pressure to bear on Moscow.97 The White House proclaimed, ‘This Soviet attack underscores once again the refusal of the USSR to abide by normal standards of civilized behavior and thus confirms the basis of our existing policy of realism and strength.’ Reagan instructed aides to ‘Seek Justice’, ‘Demonstrate Resistance to Intimidation’, and ‘Advance Understanding of the Contrast Between Soviet Words and Deeds’. He instructed officials to ‘conduct intensive efforts’ seeking ‘maximum condemnation’ of Moscow at the UN, and globally. Ordering, ‘Initiate a public diplomatic effort to keep international and domestic attention focused on the Soviet action’, Reagan stressed: •

•

•

KL007 was downed ‘in a theatre’ where Moscow increasingly intimidated US friends, discouraging them from ‘expanding security cooperation’ with the USA. consult ‘Asian friends’ to further bolster their confidence, and signal Moscow ‘that the USSR’s campaign of intimidation will only accelerate, not retard, our support for friends’. US action ‘should stand as a quiet, independent signal to the Soviets of our resolve to resist their intimidation’.98

The State Department reported its efforts to hurt Soviet interests, linking the anti-Soviet exercise, Reagan’s planned Asian trip, and military support to China.99 The resonance in US and Chinese views was highlighted in early 1984 during Premier Zhao Ziyang’s US visit. A Reagan trip to China in April had already been agreed; still, the relationship needed careful handling. Discordant voices from within proved embarrassing enough for the President to issue a national security decision directive (NSDD) just before Zhao’s arrival, instructing coherence in US pronouncements.100 Reagan enumerated US objectives in US–PRC relations: • Promote a China that remains independent of the Soviet orbit. • Encourage China’s efforts to liberalize its totalitarian system, introduce incentives and market forces in its economy, and continue expanding its ties with industrialized democracies. • Help China modernize, because a strong, stable China can be an increasing force for peace, both in Asia, and the world.101 Reagan wanted to expose Zhao to diverse strata of American opinion to enhance Chinese grasp of the USA. He wished this visit, and his own in April, to build personal rapport, allowing him to introduce the themes he sought to pursue. He stressed the importance of conveying US interest in maintaining unofficial ties with Taiwan, and in the ‘fundamental’ value the USA placed on the ‘peaceful approach by Beijing to Taiwan’. Even here, the strategic goals were clear:

156 •

•

Building China’s national power Signal to US friends in Asia, as well as to Moscow and others, that US–China ties could ‘prosper on a foundation of realism, mutual interest, and mutual respect’. Enhance US–Chinese consultations and coordination where interests were ‘similar or parallel (e.g., Korea, Afghanistan, Kampuchea)’.

Reagan told aides to strengthen ‘strategic and military relations, to emphasize our interest in furthering strategic cooperation with the Chinese against the common Soviet threat’, and ‘to restate our determination to work together with them to upgrade their defensive military capabilities’. He asserted, the ‘transfer of appropriate levels of technology, civilian and military . . . is necessary and desirable in pursuit of this objective’.102 Zhao’s visit boosted collaboration. Weinberger recalled to Congress the US aim to ‘continue our efforts to develop an enduring relationship with the PRC’. He reported, ‘In line with US policy to contribute to China’s . . . defense modernization, we have expanded the number of dual-use technologies available for sale to them . . . we are prepared to offer them certain US defensive weapons and technical assistance.’103 Before leaving for Beijing, Reagan laid down goals for the US–PRC ‘strategic/military relationship’.104 A key area was China’s nuclear arsenal. The DIA advised Reagan the PLA would continue acquiring Western technology for nuclear test-shaft preparation, and diagnostics of underground tests by radiochemical, electronic and nuclear techniques. Refining China’s nuclear warheads depended on the ‘benefits that Chinese are now deriving from both overt contact with US scientists and technology, and covert acquisition of US technology’ in ‘high explosive, radio chemistry, metallurgy, welding, super computers, numeric modelling, high speed photonics, and underground drilling’.105 US support would increase Chinese warhead reliability, hasten compact warhead production for tactical/MIRV applications, allow hardening of warheads against Soviet ABMs, help with ‘enhanced radiation’ arms, and improve ‘warhead safety, storage, and logistics procedures’.106 China’s conventional forces also improved. In the early 1980s, Beijing’s emphasis on coastal defence was replaced with an ‘offshore active defence strategy’, with a three-layered system. The first layer, extending to 50 nautical miles, would be defended with shore-based missiles, fast attack craft, minefields and minesweepers. The second, 50–300 nautical miles away, would be protected with major surface ships and older submarines. Beyond 300 miles, the PLAN would deploy shore-based aircraft and modern submarines carrying ship-to-ship missiles.107 China planned building a ‘green water navy’ early in the twenty-first century, covering the first island chain – the Aleutians, the Kuriles, the Japanese archipelago, the Ryukyus, Taiwan, the Philippines and Borneo. By 2050, a ‘blue water navy’ would dominate the sea up to the second island chain from the Bonin

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islands in the north, southward through the Marianas, Guam and the Caroline islands.108 These plans were aided with the sale of GE’s LM-2500 marine turbine engines, navigational and radar equipment, maritime weapons and technology, to China’s State Shipbuilding Corporation which built platforms for PLAN, and for friendly navies.109 Reagan’s trip consolidated political-strategic, military-scientific, economic and commercial ties. Agreements on taxation, management training, cultural exchanges and nuclear cooperation were signed.110 These facilitated trade and investment, exchanges of people and ideas and China’s control over the nuclear fuel cycle, and built frameworks for market-oriented economic management. In Shanghai, Reagan visited a high-tech US–Chinese joint venture transferring automation, precision tooling, and instrumentation technology. Stressing the benefits of management training at the US-sponsored Dalian Institute, and US technology transfers, he specified cooperation in ‘advanced technology, glassmaking, civil aircraft parts assembly, athletic shoe production, pharmaceuticals, essential oils, offshore petroleum, and engineering, electrical machinery, and audiovisual products’.111 The two sides also discussed collaboration in Afghanistan and Cambodia.112 Critics complained that the US–PRC agreement on ‘peaceful nuclear cooperation’ aided modernisation of China’s nuclear arms programme.113 The agreement triggered exchanges of physicists, technicians, technology and data, continuing into the late 1990s. Although the emphasis shifted to economic cooperation after George Shultz succeeded Haig at State Department in mid-1982,114 containment remained the focus of Reagan’s policy, with the alliance covertly campaigning in several theatres.

Winds of change The year 1984 ended with Reagan’s re-election, but he was under pressure to reduce the budget deficit and the national debt. With the economy recovering slowly, Reagan had to explain his plans to control defence expenditure and reduce tensions with Moscow.115 Shultz explored ways of lowering demands on resources. With electoral pressures removed, he may have sought to ‘demilitarise’ foreign policy, lower temperatures, and restore the State Department’s primacy in diplomacy. His differences with Weinberger would have reinforced such efforts. Reviewing relations with his Soviet counterpart in the New Year, he agreed to resume strategic arms reduction talks, and a meeting was scheduled in Geneva. However, Reagan laid down parameters for the exchange, insisting Moscow had become malleable only because of his refurbishment of the US military.116 Strategic defence initiative (SDI), a critical lever, must not be compromised. Its ‘overriding importance’ lay in moving deterrence to ‘a better, more stable basis’ and offering ‘new and compelling incentives to the Soviet Union for seriously negotiating reductions’ in nuclear arsenals.117

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Shultz and Gromyko made fitful progress until Moscow’s goals were transformed by a new leadership with a different world view. That shift was not apparent in February when Weinberger presented his budget to Congress. Acknowledging threats other than Soviet aggression, he said, ‘Still, growing Soviet military capabilities and expansionist policies continue to pose the most direct and formidable threat to our national interest.’118 He emphasised the economic aspects of strategic interests, even relating to China.119 However, military collaboration, too, expanded. Weinberger told Congress how the DoD was building up the capacity of non-NATO ‘allies and friends’ to counter major threats.120 Objectives shared with China led to expanded covert collaboration in disparate theatres. The NSC staff directing these activities recounted: by the mid-1980s the effort to ‘build bridges’ with Beijing was deemed so successful that nascent military-to-military and scientific exchanges were expanded and joint intelligence operations were conducted against Moscow and the Warsaw Pact. In the spring of 1985, the US–PRC relationship was cozy enough that I was dispatched to meet with a senior officer of the People’s Liberation Army to determine if they would covertly provide Chinese-made surface-to-air missiles to defend against Soviet HIND attack helicopters that were being used in Afghanistan and Nicaragua. They agreed to do so, and did. Beijing’s willingness to help US-supported ‘freedom fighters’ kill Soviet pilots was taken as proof by the most senior officials in our government that the ‘US–PRC Relationship’ had reached a new plateau.121 The deaths in rapid succession of Brezhnev’s two successors affected the anti-Soviet basis of US–PRC relations. The new General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, began transforming the Kremlin’s image while reforming the Soviet system. Their efforts had mixed results, but their rhetoric replaced ideology with pragmatism.122 Confident in US power, Reagan invited Gorbachev to a summit soon after the latter’s accession. He wanted to establish personal contact with the new leader and ‘to develop an agenda for negotiations to be undertaken in the future. The meeting will not be a substitute for negotiations in normal channels, nor is its aim the signing of formal agreements’.123 Reagan, downplaying hopes for a major deal, prohibited unauthorised comments either about the summit or about US–Soviet relations. Inconsistencies emerging from Administration statements angered him.124 Throughout the summer and autumn, Gorbachev’s team mounted a public relations campaign, worrying Reagan. Moscow’s emphasis on arms control, especially the SDI’s destabilising consequences, swayed Western public opinion. Reagan wished to underscore the ‘host of regional and bilateral issues’ separating the superpowers. Three weeks before the

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November summit, he instructed officials to focus on specific themes, building support for US positions.125 He wanted them to spread the message that the use or threat of force by Moscow ‘and its proxies’ was an underlying source of tensions; he, Reagan, sought ‘to build the foundation for peaceful and constructive relations’. He was confident in his ability to lead ‘from strength’.126 The summit broke the ice; the two leaders established a pattern of exchanges. No accords were signed, but Reagan agreed with Margaret Thatcher that business could be done with Gorbachev. Gorbachev wrote to Reagan proposing a ban on nuclear weapons testing. The proposed ‘comprehensive test ban treaty’ proved popular in Europe. The Administration was back-footed in having to respond to a ‘disarmament’ initiative after having stressed the need for arms control. Reagan replied, ‘For as long as the United States and its allies must rely upon the vital contributions of nuclear weapons to underwrite security and deter aggression, we will have to conduct nuclear tests.’127 But he invited Soviet experts to visit US test sites to jointly devise effective verification measures. ‘Trust but verify’ became a theme in US responses to Soviet disarmament initiatives. Gorbachev matched diplomatic initiatives with domestic reforms, and Washington needed to respond. After Reagan’s rejection of the ‘test ban’ offer, in mid-January 1986, Gorbachev proposed the elimination of all nuclear weapons by the end of the century. For Washington, balancing strategic initiative with superpower cooperation demanded diplomatic agility. Reagan proposed a mutually agreed 50 per cent reduction of nuclear forces, with an intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) accord, to be followed by talks involving British, French and Chinese nuclear arsenals.128 He implied allied nuclear forces would not immediately be negotiated, and China’s inclusion highlighted US–PRC relations. Reagan proposed reducing each side’s Euro-INF to 140 launchers by the end of 1987, with Moscow’s ‘concurrent proportionate reductions in Asia’. Both sides would halve INF deployments by the end of 1988, eliminating these within a year.129 Reagan focused on a class of weapons – specifying verifiable stages – for removing it. Nuclear disarmament, apparently underpinning the SDI, was not mentioned.

Beijing forges ahead In China, Deng’s team, too, turned corners. Changes in economic and defence policies were well under way by the time Reagan arrived. Beijing had assured Washington its intentions toward Taiwan were peaceful. In September 1981, Marshal Ye Jianying had issued the ‘nine principles’ of peaceful reunification, followed by Deng Yingchao’s opening address at the First Plenary Session of the Sixth People’s Political Consultative Conference in June 1983. A few days later, Deng Xiaoping offered to talk to the KMT ‘on an equal footing to achieve a third round of

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Kuomintang–Communist cooperation, rather than talks between the central and local governments’.130 This pacific tone smoothed US–PRC collaboration; military exchanges flourished. Deng’s transformative plans pushed the PLA and China’s defence industry to adopt US military, technological and commercial practices, adapting national institutions.131 PLA personnel began receiving more professional than political training at academies opened or enlarged in the 1980s, culminating in the reopening of the National Defence University. Merit and technical skills assumed greater importance than ideology. Exposure to Western military theory, hardware and technology, and exchanges with Western forces, deepened the PLA’s professional ethos. Larger, more complex exercises, with combined arms/joint services elements raising mobility-and-firepower quotients, turned the PLA into a more combat-savvy organisation.132 The PLA reduced non-military activities. Railway engineers were transferred to civilian control in 1983. The People’s Armed Police, manned by demobilised soldiers, assumed internal security duties. In 1984, the PLA moved toward a ‘ready reserve’ system modelled on its US counterpart.133 In 1985, the last Production and Construction Corps was civilianised. In January 1985, personnel cutbacks reducing PLA strength by a million by 1987, were announced. Thirty-five infantry-based field armies were reorganised into 24 group armies combining arms, services and air defence. The reduction of military regions from eleven to seven, drawing down headquarters, deployment of the first ICBM – Dong Feng 5, and raising the reliability and number of IRBMs enhanced the PLA’s deterrent capability against Soviet forces.134 In September 1985, six of the nine military men on the Politburo resigned, reducing PLA–CPC direct links. Military ranks were restored in 1988. New military laws were promulgated, strengthening the juridical basis of a professional military. However, revenue-generating activities expanded. Alongside force transformation, threat assessments changed. In 1985, Beijing concluded the superpower stalemate made a PRC–USSR war, especially a nuclear one, unlikely. A new national strategy emerged. In mid1985, Deng told the CMC what China had done to counter ‘the Polar Bear’ – ‘In view of the threat of Soviet hegemonism, over the years we formed a strategic line of defence – a line stretching from Japan to Europe to the United States.’135 Downplaying the ‘big triangle’ with strong China–US links, Deng nonetheless acknowledged China’s ‘considerable influence in international affairs’. Reduced anxiety over imminent conflict lowered Beijing’s reliance on the USA, expanding autonomy and manoeuvrability. PRC analysts believed conflict was likely to be limited but the PLA needed flexibility to deal with diverse contingencies. Rapid response demanded a high level of readiness. Limited objectives emphasised mobility, lethality, intelligence, swift coordination and rapid termination of hostilities by joint service operations. The stress was on

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high-technology hardware and tactics. Rapid elimination of threat and assertion of Chinese authority would require political-diplomatic processes paralleling operations.136 Threats were foreseen in five forms: border wars, territorial and maritime conflict, surprise air attacks, deliberately limited attacks into Chinese territory, and ‘punitive counter-attacks’ by the PLA to ‘oppose invasion, protect sovereignty, or to uphold justice and dispel threats’.137 China’s environment was, however, affected by Soviet deployments. Moscow’s Far Eastern forces received new T-72 main battle tanks (MBTs), BMP armoured vehicles, 152mm self-propelled artillery, new helicopter gunships and troop carriers. The number of SS-20 IRBMs, carrying three warheads each with a range of 5,000km, rose by 1986 to over a third of the total of 441 launchers. New Backfire bombers covered Chinese targets. Naval threats also grew. A second aircraft carrier joined the Soviet Pacific Fleet in 1984, along with an additional Ivan Rogov-class landing ship. In 1985, a second Kirov-class cruiser and several guided-missile destroyers arrived. Cruise-missile combatants, submarines and air-cushioned landing vehicles presented immediate threats. By 1986, Soviet deployments around China, shown in Tables 4 and 5, had risen to unprecedented levels.138 Moscow also delivered ordnance to Vietnam, deepening Chinese fears of encirclement. In 1978–85, Hanoi received over $5bn in military and $7bn in economic assistance,139 tightening its grip on Cambodia. This was a sensitive issue in PRC–Soviet relations – others being Soviet forces on China’s frontiers, in Mongolia and in Afghanistan. Over 20 Soviet ships, a squadron of Flogger fighters, and eight Bear bombers were regularly Table 4 Soviet Far-Eastern deployments Divisions Tanks Armoured vehicles Artillery pieces Tactical surface-to-surface missiles Tactical combat aircraft

53 14,900 17,300 13,400 375 1,730

Table 5 Soviet Pacific Fleet combatants Aircraft carriers Principal surface combatants Other combat platforms Auxiliary vessels Attack and escort submarines Naval aviation aircraft Naval infantry division

2 83 120 90 90 510 1

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stationed at Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay. Chinese anger at this ‘containment’ was manifest in clashes along the PRC–Vietnamese borders. Even after Gorbachev’s 1986 overtures to China in Vladivostok, Deng insisted Moscow get Hanoi to end its occupation of Cambodia.140 China’s Lanzhou, Beijing, Shenyang and Guangzhou Military Regions conducted military exercises in 1988, focusing on the USSR, and Vietnam. Anxiety over Soviet–Vietnamese collusion sustained Beijing’s interest in US–PRC military links. Deng and Defence Minister Zhang Aiping saw these as crucial.141 Countering Soviet threats to China was US policy, stressed the FY1987 DoD budget. Weinberger lamented that Beijing’s emphasis on ‘economic growth at the immediate expense’ of defence meant the PLA would not ‘match Soviet firepower or mobility during this century’. Soviet nuclear superiority, too, posed challenges. China’s deterrence ‘will diminish if the Soviets deploy a nationwide missile defence system’.142 Weinberger rationalised helping the PLA – ‘Our developing defense relationship with China is based on a commonality of security interests. A secure, modernizing China can be a force for peace and stability in East Asia and the world.’ The DoD would play ‘a positive role in China’s defense modernization’ to ‘enhance China’s ability to defend itself’.143 Beijing saw defence cooperation as crucial to national security. Chinese military analysts were warning that, technologically, the PLA lagged far behind ‘world advanced levels’ and faced ‘great losses in future wars’ if it failed to address this gap.144

Superpower stalemate Despite the persistent ‘Soviet threat’, neither partner could ignore ‘the Gorbachev phenomenon’. Following Gorbachev’s Vladivostok speech, Deng admitted there was ‘something new’. Reagan, too, wanted clearly defined frameworks for a US–USSR summit to be held in Iceland in October. Gorbachev’s disarmament offers required a sophisticated response. Reagan set out US goals, forming six groups to study the summit’s agenda:145 • • • •

demonstrating commitment to solving bilateral problems identifying issues with reasonable prospects of solution engaging the Soviets in substantive and serious discussions on all key issues demonstrating that US policy, ‘based upon realism, strength, and dialog’, has created the potential for effective negotiations.146

Arms control issues monopolised the Reykjavik talks. Gorbachev chided Reagan over his rejection of the INF ‘zero option’. Reagan worried that Soviet SS-20 IRBMs in Asia could ‘hit France, West Germany, Central Europe, Greece and Turkey. Plus, the fact that they are mobile’. Also,

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‘Before we can work things out in regard to armaments, we need to try to clarify the causes of mistrust. If we are able to eliminate it, it will be easier to resolve the problem of armaments.’147 Gorbachev was puzzled by Reagan’s estimate of the range of Asia-based SS-20s. They agreed to consider the ‘zero option’ when this ‘Asian problem’ was resolved. However, the SDI gulf remained unbridgeable. Failing to convince Gorbachev the project was defensive, Reagan suggested the two sides share the results of their research in strategic defence. Gorbachev angrily reposted, ‘You don’t want to share even petroleum equipment, automatic machine tools or equipment for dairies, while sharing SDI would be a second American revolution. And revolutions do not occur all that often. Let’s be realistic and pragmatic.’148 Reagan insisted, ‘If I thought that SDI could not be shared, I would have rejected it myself.’ The two leaders neared agreement several times. But Reagan’s insistence on continuing with SDI, and Gorbachev’s fear this would undermine the ABM Treaty, threatening Soviet security, barred progress. Moscow would either have to prevent the SDI’s deployment, or itself deploy an effective shield. Nonetheless, in their final session the two leaders agreed on the radical possibility of eliminating nuclear weapons – a concept unacceptable to their aides. To Gorbachev’s insistence that the ABM Treaty be honoured fully, Reagan responded, ‘What the hell use will ABM’s or anything else be if we eliminate nuclear weapons?’ Gorbachev replied, ‘Absolutely right. I am for that. But the point is that under the ABM Treaty the parties do not have a large-scale anti-missile defense, and you want to deploy such a defense.’ Reagan shot back, ‘But what difference does it make if it is not [sic] nuclear weapons? What difference whether it exists or not?’149 They also discussed Soviet complaints of lack of reciprocity in radio and television broadcasts, screening each other’s movies, and denial of access to Soviet trade unionists to US counterparts. Reagan promised to help. Despite disagreements, Reykjavik limned shared views, suggesting agreement might be possible. Reykjavik may have begun a thaw, but institutional practices built up over decades of suspicion died hard. Three months after the summit, Weinberger presented growing ‘Soviet threat’ as the raison d’être of the DoD’s budget proposal: The Soviets have built, and are continuing to build, an enormous military capability at great cost to their society. The Soviets have more than 200 ground force divisions, roughly 1,400 ICBMs, over 50,000 tanks, approximately 260 operational attack submarines, and more than 8,400 tactical aircraft . . . these facts alone would require that we take prudent measures to offset Soviet military capabilities.150 Weinberger worried that some allies lagged behind in building collective security, with the Soviet–Chinese military imbalance particularly

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troubling.151 The rationale for growing US–PRC collaboration remained unchanged.152 Weinberger focused on helping China’s militarytechnological capacity – ‘Work toward defense modernization of the People’s Republic of China in defense logistics and production infrastructure is maturing’.153 Just months later, the Administration reminded Congress of its goals in China: ‘strengthen China’s self-defense capabilities’, ‘expand parallel interests in mutual opposition to Soviet expansion in Asian areas’, ‘support an independent foreign policy which is not threatening to our friends and allies in the region’ and ‘support China’s economic modernization program’.154 Beijing opened up its defence-industrial facilities, giving American businessmen, consultants, analysts and journalists unprecedented access to Chinese factories, R&D facilities, and boardrooms of defence-related enterprises.155 The two-way flow of information, data, material, personnel and technology was heavily weighted in Beijing’s favour although US strategic concerns and commercial interest ensured balance. For Washington, the ‘psychological’ impact of these transactions on Soviet leaders was crucial.156 Commercial and economic benefits were a bonus. The growing sophistication of China’s strategic arsenal showcased its military-technological advances. In 1980, the PLA deployed DF-4, a liquidpropelled, 5,500km-range IRBM; in 1981, Second Artillery commissioned DF-5, a liquid-propelled, 12,000km-range ICBM. In 1983, the PLAN deployed JL-1, a solid-fuelled, 1,900km-range SLBM. In 1984, work began on DF-11 and DF-15 SRBMs, and M-18, an IRBM. In 1985, development work began on the M-7 SRBM and the DF-31 ICBM. The following year, work began on DF-41, an even larger ICBM. In 1987, the PLA commissioned DF-21, a solid-fuelled, 1,800km-range medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM). Chinese designers also began working on the 12,000kmrange JL-2, a solid-fuelled SLBM.157 Growth in its nuclear deterrent, and the certainty of US support, may have kept the pressure off conventional arms. While the West and Israel aided designing or building combat aircraft, naval platforms and equipment, China took only Soviet-designed transport aircraft into production – the AN-24 in 1984 and the AN-28 in 1986.158 Meanwhile, Gorbachev transformed the political backdrop to the US–PRC alliance. His efforts to reform the closed Soviet system stirred fresh controversy. His foreign and security policies were popular in Europe, and in some US circles. The superpowers eventually agreed to eliminate INF units from Europe. Tensions eased, but scepticism prevented changes to the US force structure, and the doctrinal bases of the DoD’s planning. Weinberger’s successor, Frank Carlucci, acknowledged the changes in the USSR but changed little in US defence allocations.159 He insisted Moscow’s stance toward Beijing was unchanged, reinforcing US threat perceptions.160 He maintained the level of assistance – ‘We will continue to pursue high-level dialogues, functional military exchanges,

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and military technological cooperation in areas that are of mutual interest to China and the United States.’161 Technology, materiel, data, information, intelligence, advice and support flowed from the USA to China; China helped its partner fight proxy wars with the Soviet Union. Beijing let Washington examine Soviet arms for training purposes, and for devising counter-measures. In 1988–89, as the covert alliance peaked, China transferred two dozen Chinese-built MiG fighters to the USAF for detailed analyses – six J-4 (MiG-17), six J-6 (MiG-19), and twelve J-7 (MiG-21) aircraft.162 Very large volumes of conventional Chinese weapons, including anti-tank and antiaircraft missiles, armed US-sponsored guerrillas in campaigns against Soviet-supported forces in Cambodia, Somalia, Central America and, most successfully, Afghanistan. However, by the late 1980s, there were signs of friction. The DIA included Chinese operatives in a 1988 study of ‘hostile intelligence services’ gathering protected US scientific-technological data.163

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It is essential that Afghanistani resistance continues. This means more money as well as arms shipments to the rebels, and some technical advice . . . we must both reassure Pakistan and encourage it to help the rebels. This will require . . . more guarantees to it, more arms aid. We should encourage the Chinese to help the rebels also.1 (Zbigniew Brzezinski to President Carter, December 1979) The ruling circles of the USA, and of China as well, stop at nothing, including armed aggression, in trying to keep the Afghans from building a new life in accord with the ideals of the revolution of liberation of April 1978.2 (Leonid Brezhnev, June 1980) As long as the Soviet Union occupies Afghanistan in defiance of the international community, the heroic Afghan resistance will continue, and the United States will support the cause of a free Afghanistan.3 (Ronald Reagan, December 1981) What, are we going to fight endlessly, as a testimony that our troops are not able to deal with the situation? We need to finish this process as soon as possible.4 (Mikhail Gorbachev, November 1986) The Afghans were doing the dying and the fighting; the Saudis and the Americans were paying the freight. The Chinese . . . provided an awful lot of weaponry. The Egyptians provided a lot of weaponry.5 (Milton Bearden, CIA officer for Afghanistan)

Opening a new front Between Kissinger’s secret trip to Beijing in July 1971 and Brent Scowcroft’s encore in July 1989, the USA and China collaborated in covert operations against Soviet-supported forces in Angola, Somalia, Nicaragua and Cambodia. US operatives mounted other clandestine operations, too.

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Under Carter, the CIA ran a dozen such missions;6 the number crossed 40 under Reagan.7 None approached in scope, investment in blood and treasure, and success, the war in Afghanistan. Washington led a secret coalition with China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the UK, France and West Germany, using Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). The coalition dramatically expanded the resistance fighting Kabul’s – and Moscow’s – authority in Afghanistan. The USA and China were the biggest players outside Pakistan, while the Saudis matched US funding for the Mujahideen dollar for dollar.8 The CPSU Central Committee Politburo accused Washington and Beijing of covert operations against Afghanistan’s PDPA government long before the Soviet invasion. Pakistan, too, had been active for years. President Daoud’s republican regime had forced Islamist Afghans to flee to Pakistan in the mid-1970s. Men like Burhanuddin Rabbani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar sought refuge in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. Here, they sheltered among the Pashtuns, an ethnic group straddling the Durand Line dividing tribal lands into Pakistani and Afghan territory. Daoud revived Kabul’s claim to Pashtunistan, a formulation demanding a Pashtun homeland, strengthening his grip on Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group, but threatening Pakistan. There, the Bhutto Administration, already fighting Baloch separatists enjoying Afghan, and some Soviet, support, would not countenance yet another irredentist threat. Rabbani and Hekmatyar became instruments of Pakistan’s covert counter-offensive. With Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) aid, they formed the nucleus of an anti-Daoud force in the mountainous borderlands. Iranian intelligence, in ‘loose collaboration’ with US, Egyptian and Saudi counterparts, aided Afghan Islamists mounting raids and sabotage operations against the Kabul regime.9 Tehran helped Islamabad’s campaign against Baloch tribesmen who straddled the Iran–Pakistan borders and received ordnance from Iraq. Eventually, at US behest, the Shah offered Kabul economic assistance if Daoud distanced himself from Moscow and made up with Bhutto. Agreements signed in 1977 weakened the Pashtunistan campaign, mitigating Pakistan’s anxieties. General Ziaul Haq’s 1977 coup, and the Saur (April) revolution by the PDPA in Kabul in 1978, transformed the situation.10 Islamabad, aroused by the rise of a Marxist regime in Pakistan’s ‘strategic depth’ in its conflict with India, revived the Peshawar-based Afghan resistance. Pakistani fears were deepened when the PDPA invited, and Moscow sent, military advisers who assumed key offices in Afghan defence and security organisations. Consignments of ordnance, too, arrived in Kabul. US concern also rose. Washington had viewed Afghanistan as a ‘neutral’ country with geostrategic compulsions to maintain friendly ties to the USSR. Now, the violent rise of the radical Left, with growing links to Moscow, threatened Afghan neutrality. However, Washington was divided over the coup’s import. Secretary Vance felt ‘radical leftists in the army’ had taken power

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in Kabul with little evidence of Moscow’s complicity. He sought to ‘maintain a measure of influence’ by continuing limited US aid. Brzezinski saw the coup as a Soviet attempt to ‘acquire hegemony in the region’. He favoured ending relations with Kabul and ‘mounting covert operations to counter Soviet aspirations’. US diplomatic and operational trajectories thus diverged. Undersecretary of State David Newsom asked PDPA leader N.M. Taraki in July 1978 what action Kabul would take if the USSR invaded. Taraki replied this was an ‘inappropriate’ question, reporting it to Moscow.11 The schism between the PDPA’s Khalq and Parcham factions came to the fore shortly after the revolution. Taraki and his deputy Hafizullah Amin, both Khalqis, forced Parchamists like Babrak Karmal out of office, and then out of the country. Embarking on radical socialist reforms, such as enforcing secular education, ‘emancipating’ women, redistributing land owned by tribal chieftains, and responding brutally to resistance from a deeply conservative, pre-industrial society, they alienated many compatriots. As angry Afghans took to the mountains with their rifles while others trekked over passes into Pakistan and Iran, Afghan leaders in Peshawar established links with this growing source of manpower. Among those who resisted the PDPA’s reforms, ironically, were the Maoist Shola-ijawaid communists. While ideologically sympathetic to the PDPA, they rejected the latter’s close links to Moscow. Taraki and Amin swiftly purged the group from the civil and military bureaucracies, further angering Beijing.12 President Carter’s distaste for covert operations limited the CIA’s role in the Afghan resistance to collaboration with Tehran and Islamabad. Washington did offer to train a group of Afghan officers, lifting a postSaur revolution embargo. But events ended US hopes for a modus vivendi with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). In January 1979, bloody protests spearheaded by the religious Right in neighbouring Iran eventually led to the Shah’s flight. The violent loss of a critical ally cost the USA a major link in the Containment chain. The loss of key intelligence and operational facilities was compounded by lost ‘face’ when ‘Revolutionary Guards’ ransacked the US embassy, discovered embarrassing documents, and took US diplomats hostage. In mid-February, Adolph Dubs, US Ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped by an extremist group. Despite US pleas not to use force, Kabul sent in troops and Soviet advisers to raid the hotel where Dubs was held. In the firefight, he was killed; Washington cancelled its limited aid offer. Growing Afghan resistance saw an increase in the number of Soviet advisers, who lived within garrisons. Their fate became a concern in midMarch 1979 when troops from the Afghan army’s 17th Infantry Division in Herat revolted. Rebels joined guerrillas infiltrated from Pakistan, ‘trained and armed not only with the participation of Pakistani forces but also of China, the United States of America, and Iran’.13 The rebels, numbering

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‘20,000 civilians’, about 3,000 guerrillas from Pakistan, and two disaffected regiments, killed hundreds of Afghan soldiers and many Soviet advisers. Taraki urged Moscow to despatch Soviet forces to the city. The CPSU Politburo agreed to hasten and increase free military deliveries, raise the price of Afghan natural gas to help Kabul financially, and increase promised wheat supplies. Kosygin repeatedly stressed the need for Moscow to counter efforts by Iran, China and Pakistan to hurt the DRA. Defence Minister Ustinov offered two alternative plans to deploy limited Soviet contingents. The Politburo set up a commission comprising Gromyko, Andropov, Ustinov and Ponomarev to develop policy options regarding Afghanistan, instructed the preparation of ‘materials relating to the intervention of Pakistan, the USA, Iran, China and other countries in Afghanistan’,14 and to send ‘our best military specialists’. Kosygin would speak to Taraki, and Ustinov to Amin, before inviting Taraki to Moscow. On 18 March they reported both Afghan leaders had asked for Soviet forces. Kosygin, Andropov and Gromyko opposed such a course; so did the Politburo. The ‘Afghan commissioners’ received Taraki in Moscow on 20 March. He pleaded for helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles with Soviet crews. When Kosygin demurred, Taraki asked if Soviet Tajik and Uzbek troops dressed in Afghan uniforms could come. Kosygin replied that would be unacceptable. Taraki asked if he could request soldiers from other friendly countries to operate Soviet hardware. Kosygin’s impatience was confirmed by Brezhnev’s insistence that Moscow would help, but send no troops.15 Immediate delivery of additional arms included 140 guns and mortars, 90 APCs, 48,000 machine guns, 1,000 grenade launchers, 680 bombs, and ammunition, as well as medical supplies. The Politburo instructed the Soviet ambassador to advise Taraki that the supply of ‘gas bombs with a non-toxic poison gas is not considered possible’.16 A month later, the ‘Afghanistan Commission’ recommended sending an experienced General leading a large team to work with Afghan forces, to deploy a parachute battalion ‘disguised in the overalls of an aviation-technical maintenance team’ to the Bagram airfield near Kabul, 125–150 KGB staff ‘disguised as Embassy service personnel’, and ‘a special detachment of the GRU (Soviet military intelligence) of the General Staff to be used in the event of a sharp aggravation of the situation’.17 Taraki and Amin kept asking for Soviet military intervention; the response remained negative.18 Increased Soviet involvement led Carter to authorise a ‘finding’ (presidential directive) expanding covert operations supporting the Mujahideen with propaganda, medical supply and arms, channelled through Pakistan.19 Moscow was aware of this. Meanwhile, the power struggle between Taraki and Amin came to a head. Returning from a trip to Havana, Taraki met Brezhnev in Moscow, agreed to reduce the violence inflicted on dissidents, and discussed Amin’s ouster. Amin was either warned, or suspected this after he was

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attacked, and his bodyguard killed, in a palace shootout. In Moscow, the Politburo analysed growing ‘complexities’, instructing Ambassador Puzanov to advise Taraki and Amin to work together to ‘save the revolution’ – ‘we cannot take it upon ourselves to arrest Amin with our own force, since that would be a direct interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and would have far reaching consequences’.20 Two days later, Amin’s men attacked the presidential palace, killing Taraki. The situation was unclear to the CPSU Politburo21 which urged Amin to spare Taraki’s life. Brezhnev hoped Soviet–Afghan relations would remain unchanged because of Amin’s dependence on Soviet aid, ‘but (our) job will be difficult and delicate’.22 Ustinov ordered military preparations. US intelligence reported the move of several units from southern USSR to combat alert status, with increased exercises suggesting mobilisation. The CIA noted the deployment of airborne, GRU and Spetznaz units to Kabul and Bagram. On 14 September, DCI Turner issued an Alert Memorandum – ‘The Soviet leaders may be on the threshold of a decision to commit their own forces to prevent the collapse of the regime and to protect their sizable stakes in Afghanistan.’23 Moscow, sensitive to the military and political costs of such a move, would, if at all, pace it incrementally. That day, Amin struck against Taraki. Brzezinksi commissioned an inter-agency intelligence memorandum (IIM) on developments in Kabul. The report, dated 28 September, said Moscow probably feared Amin’s coup might fragment the Afghan Army, leading to a loss of control. ‘The threat raised by the Muslim insurgency to the survival of the Marxist government in Afghanistan appears to be more serious now than at any time since the government assumed power in April 1978’.24 The number of Soviet military advisers had grown from 350 during the ‘revolution’ to 2,500 around Amin’s putsch; they were active throughout the Afghan forces. Moscow could either pursue a support role with a modest armed presence, or conduct a ‘limited intervention’. Either way, the IIM said Moscow faced grave difficulties in Afghanistan. The Soviet view was explained in Brezhnev’s letters to, and discussions with, East German leader Erich Honecker in early October. Brezhnev expressed concern over Amin’s repressive policies deepening the domestic divide, boosting support for the resistance, and foreign succour to the latter – ‘In some provinces, military encounters continue with the hordes of rebels who receive direct and indirect support from Pakistan, and direct support from Iran, from the USA, and from China. In addition, there are tensions within the Afghan leadership.’25 Amin’s repression deepened anxiety, but it was his ‘balanced policy’ which may have triggered drastic action – ‘representatives of the USA, on the basis of their contacts with the Afghans, are coming to a conclusion about the possibility of a change in the political line of Afghanistan in a direction which is pleasing to Washington’.26 In November, Puzanov conveyed a Soviet invitation ‘to receive Amin’.

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Moscow also despatched Deputy Defence Minister, General I.G. Pavlovskii, to Kabul for two months. His team trained Afghan commanders in combat, reorganised headquarters, and codified military regulations, restructuring the army on Soviet lines. Under Soviet supervision, Afghan commanders began showing greater professionalism. However, ‘a number of questions are still unresolved’27 – mutinies, desertion, and an inability to operate without Soviet support persisted.28 In late November, Deputy Interior Minister, General Victor Paputin, met Afghan internal security commanders, and Amin. His arrival coincided with a spurt in Soviet transport flights to Kabul. This may have followed Amin’s request for ‘a motorized rifle battalion for defense of his residence’.29 Moscow acted on a Politburo decision taken in June to despatch a 500-man unit dressed in Afghan uniforms. Next, Andropov gave Brezhnev a handwritten, undated note, accusing Amin of: contacts with an American agent about issues which are kept secret from us. Promises to tribal leaders to shift away from the USSR and to adopt a ‘policy of neutrality’. Closed door meetings in which attacks were made against Sov policy and the activities of our specialists. The practical removal of our headquarters in Kabul, etc. The diplomatic circles in Kabul are widely talking of Amin’s differences with Moscow and his possible anti-Soviet steps.30 Andropov suggested Amin had become a liability and needed to be removed. He mentioned recent KGB contacts with Amin’s rivals Babrak Karmal and Asadullah Sarwari, who sought help in replacing Amin’s regime with one more likely to secure the Saur revolution’s gains. Moscow could ‘render such assistance’ with the two Soviet battalions in Kabul – ‘entirely sufficient for a successful operation’. However, ‘in the event of unforeseen complications, it would be wise to have a military group close to the border’. If Soviet forces were deployed, ‘we could at the same time decide various questions pertaining to the liquidation of gangs’.31 In early December, US intelligence reported the move of Soviet airborne and Special Forces to Kabul and Bagram; two motorised divisions north of the border were brought up to full strength. On 17 December, Turner briefed Mondale, Brzezinski, Harold Brown, Warren Christopher and the Chairman of the JCS about the deployment of additional Soviet units to Afghanistan, raising troop numbers to 5,300. Two new command posts were established just north of the border; two more divisions were on the move. Soviet ‘air assets’, too, were gathering, but the CIA saw this ‘as a steady, planned buildup, perhaps related to Soviet perceptions of a deterioration of the Afghan military forces and the need to beef them up’. Turner believed ‘the Soviets have made a political decision to keep a pro-Soviet regime in power and to use military force to that end if necessary’.32

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The NSC decided to explore with Islamabad and London the supply of additional arms, communications gear, and funds to the Mujahideen in order ‘to make it as expensive as possible for the Soviets to continue their efforts’. Washington would increase ‘worldwide propaganda’ designed to ‘cast the Soviets as opposing Muslim religious and nationalist expression’, and seek help of European allies in this campaign. During this NSC meeting, the US embassy in Moscow advised the Kremlin had rebuffed US requests for an explanation of increased Soviet military activities in and around Afghanistan, insisting this was a matter between those two states.33 This may have strengthened US resolve to expand covert operations. Earlier that day, an attack on Amin underscored the fluidity of the situation. Amin survived; his nephew, head of the security service, was seriously wounded. Two days later, Amin moved to the Darul Aman palace, in a Kabul suburb. The CIA’s Alert Memorandum reported a significant buildup of Soviet forces north of the border, suggesting Moscow was planning to ‘augment’ its military action in Afghanistan, although the scope and purpose remained unclear.34 On 22 December, National Security Agency (NSA) Director, Vice Admiral Inman, advised Brzezinski and Brown he had ‘no doubt’ Moscow would mount a major operation within the next 72 hours. He called two days later to say the intervention would start within 15 hours.35 Soviet advisers had persuaded Kabul’s armoured, artillery and motorised units to dismount for ‘maintenance and servicing’. Late on Christmas Eve, large-scale movement of Soviet ground and air forces toward and into Afghanistan was reported. Between 24 and 27 December, around 250–300 flights brought in five to six battalions of about 2,000–2,400 troops36 who moved out of Kabul, Bagram and Shindand to occupy nodal points. Several divisions rolled across the Amu Darya border, travelling through the Salang Pass tunnel. Special Forces detachments attacked the presidential palace, killing Amin. A radio transmitter north of the border purporting to be Radio Kabul proclaimed a ‘revolutionary’ government led by Babrak Karmal, his invitation to ‘fraternal’ Soviet forces to ‘protect and consolidate’ the Saur revolution, and the removal of the ‘hated’ Hafizullah Amin.37

Forging a coalition Christmas 1979 was an unhappy day in Washington. One CIA official responsible for briefing Carter later said the President was shocked by the Soviet move, ‘as if scales had fallen off his eyes’. His anger found resonance in Brzezinski’s memos. A key one arrived on 26 December: ‘If the Soviets succeed in Afghanistan, . . . the age-long dream of Moscow to have direct access to the Indian Ocean will have been fulfilled . . . the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan poses for us an extremely grave challenge, both internationally and domestically.’38 Brzezinski’s recommendations laid the bases of US policy for the next decade:39

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A. ‘It is essential that Afghanistani resistance continues. This means more money as well as arms shipments to the rebels, and some technical advice; B. To make the above possible we must both reassure Pakistan and encourage it to help the rebels. This will require a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, more arms aid. C. We should encourage the Chinese to help the rebels also. D. We should concert with Islamic countries both a propaganda campaign and in a covert action campaign to help the rebels; E. We should inform the Soviets that their actions are placing SALT in jeopardy and that will also influence the substance of the Brown visit to China, since the Chinese are doubtless going to be most concerned about implications for themselves of such Soviet assertiveness so close to their border. Unless we tell the Soviets will not take our ‘expressions of concern’ very seriously, with the effect that our relations will suffer, without the Soviets ever having been confronted with the need to ask the question whether such local adventurism is worth the long-term damage to the US–Soviet relationship; F. Finally, we should consider taking Soviet actions in Afghanistan to the UN as a threat to peace. Brzezinski’s point about Brown’s imminent trip to Beijing, the first by a Defence Secretary, underscored the strategic content of US–China relations, and Soviet sensitivities. Carter’s instructions to Brown built on these elements. The President rang European allies, urging concerted action. The UK, France, West Germany and Turkey immediately offered resources to the Mujahideen via CIA liaison staff. Warren Christopher briefed European leaders, working out the mechanics of a collective response. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreed to send volunteers to join the Afghan resistance. Egypt offered Soviet-supplied ordnance; Saudi Arabia and the UAE agreed to fund their purchase and shipment. Riyadh pledged to match the US financial contribution to the Mujahideen. As for China, Beijing had equipped Pakistani forces at ‘friendship’ rates for years; some of its gifts already armed Afghan guerrillas. Now, Brown listed ‘action points’ for discussion in Beijing to reciprocate Chinese help to the Afghan resistance with US help in building up China’s ‘comprehensive national power’. On 29 December Brzezinski told Carter that recent US failures to act upon warnings it had made to the USSR had been ‘one of our basic problems with the Soviets’. He specified Soviet bases in Vietnam, and Cuban forces working as proxies abroad. Brzezinski reminded Carter that on 28 December the President, phoning European leaders, had compared the invasion of Afghanistan to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia; US response to the latter provided a template for action now.40 Carter moved

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swiftly. As Washington mustered support, Afghan Foreign Minister S.M. Dost arrived in Moscow en route to New York. He reported victories against the Mujahideen, who had occupied Tokhar, Kunduz, Samangan and Badakhshan provinces but now, ‘with the help of the Soviet Union’, had been evicted from all except Badakhshan’s capital, Faizabad. Gromyko briefed Dost on the line of expected Western attack at the UN, advising him to insist the arrival of Soviet forces had nothing to do with Amin’s ouster which was a purely internal Afghan matter. Moscow would ‘help’ Dost handle the UN debate; senior diplomat V.S. Safronchyuk would travel to New York to secretly ‘assist’ him. Dost asked about China; Gromyko replied, ‘Do not create an advertisement for the Chinese, but certainly, do give a rebuff.’41 Moscow’s sensitivity toward Beijing appeared well-justified. One of Carter’s first responses to the crises in Afghanistan and Iran was to activate, in March 1980, the RDJTF. With Florida-based headquarters, the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF) was designed to coordinate combat in West Asia. Washington also built up its anti-Soviet coalition, using the State Department, offering Pakistan a $400m package of military and economic aid. This would bolster Islamabad’s resolve to challenge Afghanistan’s occupation more actively, and strengthen its own defences against possible Soviet reaction. Although the CIA and the ISI were already collaborating, General Ziaul Haq would not risk an open confrontation with Moscow now that Pakistan’s Afghan buffer was lost, and Soviet ally India sulked to the east. He was unsure of Washington’s reliability, especially since US restrictions destroyed Islamabad’s plans to build a plutonium reprocessing plant with French help in 1978. In April 1979, Washington had imposed the Symington Amendment on Pakistan because of its nuclear programme. Shortly after Brzezinski’s memo arrived on Carter’s desk, he waived those sanctions, but a sense of betrayal permeated Islamabad. Carter’s focus on human rights, too, embarrassed Ziaul Haq’s Islamist military regime. There was no guarantee that, despite a 1959 treaty tying Pakistan’s defence to US national security, Washington would defend Islamabad. Zia rebuffed Carter’s offer as ‘peanuts’ in what was seen as an insult to the former peanut farmer. Still, US aid to the Mujahideen, channelled by the CIA mainly through the ISI, grew from $30m in 1980 to $50m in 1981.42 When the coalition’s pipeline supplying Afghan guerrillas was operational, Brzezinski made a symbolic trip up the Khyber Pass. Surrounded by Mujahideen commanders, CIA and ISI officials, and US diplomats near the Torkham border post, he aimed a Chinese RPG at Soviet-held Afghan territory, pledging US support to Afghanistan’s ‘war of independence’ until ‘foreign invaders’ had been driven out. Although Washington was deeply troubled over the ‘loss’ of Iran to radical Islamists, US covert operations in Afghanistan received Tehran’s help. Throughout 1980, and up to mid-1982, Iran’s ‘revolutionary Islamic’

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intelligence maintained links to Pakistan-based Sunni-led ‘fundamentalist’ Afghan Mujahideen. Tehran delivered US-made M-1 and German-designed G-3 rifles, shoulder-fired anti-tank rockets, heavy machine guns, landmines, uniforms and boots to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami guerrillas.43 By then, ISI and CIA operatives had identified Hekmatyar as the most effective resistance commander. When he began receiving supplies from the US-led coalition, outraged, Tehran cut off ties to Peshawar-based guerrillas. Iran now concentrated on Shiite fighters, especially Hazaras, from central and western Afghanistan. From 1983, Iranian Revolutionary Guards provided combat support, arms, and advisers to Hazara guerrillas, often taking part in anti-Soviet operations. Tehran provided most of its aid to the ‘Nasr (victory)’, ‘Niruh (force)’, ‘Sepah (corps)’ and ‘Hesb-e-Allah (aka Hezbollah, Party of God)’,44 thus working out a tacit division of labour with the US–PRC coalition.

The new ‘great game’ China and Egypt played a significant role in the US-led coalition early on, delivering thousands of AK-47 rifles, RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades and SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles to the Mujahideen via Pakistan and the CIA. The missiles arrived in 1980; other PRC ordnance was delivered even earlier. Western allies worked through CIA officers who liaised with the ISI; Saudi, UAE and Chinese intelligence dealt directly with Pakistani counterparts. The ISI’s Afghan Bureau, commanded by an army Brigadier, was based at Ojhri Camp near Rawalpindi, a large garrison town near Islamabad. There, the ISI’s three-star General frequently briefed President Ziaul Haq. The Afghan Bureau coordinated the resistance in Peshawar – seven groups with varying ethnic, ideological and professional features45 – melded into a ‘seven party alliance’ by the ISI to provide political leadership to the Mujahideen. Their leaders comprised a ‘Military Committee’ which reviewed operational plans, training needs, ordnance delivery, and past operations with the Afghan Bureau’s commander. The ISI trained guerrillas at camps hidden even from the Pakistani army. It stored weapons received from the CIA and other sources at Ojhri, sending truck convoys to Peshawar where the parties distributed the supplies among military commanders. A subsidiary supply route ran from Karachi to Quetta in Balochistan province, where parties active in south-eastern Afghanistan had offices. The Saudis matched CIA funds, much of which went to buy arms from China, Egypt, Israel, Britain, Turkey and others. The rest of it went into ISI accounts to be distributed among the parties to pay the guerrillas for administrative and logistics expenses, modest living costs, and relief to families whose men had been killed or wounded. Saudi and other Arab governments and charities also channelled funds into refugee camps, hospitals, religious schools – madrassas – and through the parties to their

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fighters. Although much money went into the CIA–ISI–Mujahideen channel, demand outstripped supply. In the second half of the war, for instance, monthly movement of stores alone required $1.5m.46 Ordnance procured by the CIA and the ISI for the Mujahideen explain the demand–supply dilemma. The two organisations worked on the basis of an annual meeting between the DCI, William Casey, and Lt General A.A. Rehman Khan, the ISI Director-General. Casey would arrive in Rawalpindi at night, after a direct flight from Washington in his C-141 Starlifter. He would discuss the Afghan operations with General Rehman and his aides, usually endorse everything Khan asked for, flying out 48 hours later to follow up with his Saudi counterpart, Prince Turki bin Faisal. Following these meetings, the CIA bought and shipped ordnance to Karachi, from where the stores were moved to Ojhri and Quetta. In 1983, the CIA shipped 10,000 tons of materiel; by 1987, supplies had risen to 65,000 tons.47 Items ranged from pistols, revolvers, carbines and assault rifles through mines, mortars, anti-tank and anti-aircraft rockets, to guns and their ammunition. As a rule, for every single rocket-propelled grenade RPG7 launcher, 20 rockets would be supplied annually. In 1985, the CIA agreed to deliver 10,000 RPGs, and 200,000 rockets, but the ISI pointed out that thousands of RPG-7s issued to the Mujahideen in earlier years also needed ammunition. The ISI jealously guarded its prerogative in handling, storage and distribution of supplies, and in training guerrillas. The two organisations often bickered. The Pakistanis never faced these problems with the Chinese. General Khan and the head of the Afghan Bureau dined at the Chinese embassy in Islamabad once a year, signed an arms supply protocol, and relied on Beijing to deliver precisely what they promised to do. Beijing, too, shipped supplies via Karachi although, occasionally, small deliveries were flown on PRC aircraft to Islamabad. US, Saudi and Pakistan Air Force freighters also brought in stores there. Beijing used the Karakoram Highway, linking China’s Xinjiang province with Pakistan’s Northern Areas, to send in hundreds of mules, used as pack animals by the Mujahideen in Afghanistan’s mountains. The Chinese manufactured myriad of Soviet-designed weapons, having supplied Pakistan for nearly two decades. The Afghan war created fresh demands. Versions of the AK-47 and RPG-7 were soon supplemented with light and medium machine guns, and 107mm multiple-barrelled rocket launchers (MBRLs) and rockets to give the Mujahideen an artillery. Keen to repeat rocket attacks on Kabul, Mujahideen found the MBRL too heavy and cumbersome. The ISI asked if the Chinese could supply singlebarrelled rocket launchers (SBRLs) which the PLA had discontinued producing. Beijing agreed to resume production and meet resistance needs. Orders for 500 SBRLs were placed in 1985; the first consignment arrived in early 1986. By late 1987, 1,000 SBRLs were delivered.48 The CIA supplied large quantities of arms, ammunition and explosives from diverse

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sources. Some proved useless, or even dangerous. The guerrillas were unhappy with rusting Turkish and Egyptian rifles, the Oerlikon AA gun, and the British Blowpipe SAM. There were few complaints about Chinese ordnance. The one exception was attempts by the CIA and Chinese intelligence to supply the Red Arrow ATGW. This wire-guided missile needed a clear line-of-sight between the firer and the target, and perfect control, for a hit. Afghan terrain, the characteristics of the enemy, and features of the conflict meant the Red Arrow could become a liability in the field. After months of debate, the CIA and its Chinese partners withdrew the offer. Beijing had many reasons to join the US-led coalition: Soviet military dominance close to China’s vulnerable Xinjiang province posed a threat; a successful Soviet invasion of Afghanistan would strengthen Moscow’s regional military capability, weakening the US–PRC alliance’s influence there; the threat to Pakistan, after its dismemberment by Soviet-aided India in 1971, was substantial – China could not allow Moscow a ‘free run’ in the residual Pakistan; the war provided an opportunity to bog the USSR down in the mire of a drawn-out guerrilla conflict, draining its resources and reducing its capacity for ‘mischief’. Afghanistan was the most substantial US–PRC covert collaborative venture in engaging the USSR. Unlike in Angola, Somalia, Nicaragua and Cambodia, here the two partners found willing allies from the Western and Muslim worlds. The war went so well that China imposed three conditions for resuming USSR–PRC talks, the primary one being Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Beijing felt able to set these terms partly because of its leverage from the Afghan war. There were immediate tactical advantages, too. The ISI and the CIA encouraged the Mujahideen and DRA soldiers to deliver Soviet weapons for detailed examination, and for developing counter-measures. After the Soviet 40th Army inducted the new, 5.45mm AK-74 assault rifle, the CIA paid $5,000 for the first one. Other weapons, armour plating, avionics, tank tracks and cipher machines started arriving. Eventually, the coalition acquired combat aircraft – from the Mi-24 helicopter gunship, to the SU22 fighter. Chinese military experts joined British, French, West German and American colleagues in inspecting these before all were shipped to the USA.49 The coalition thus gained unprecedented access and insights into Soviet military technology. The enterprise was so important that Beijing recruited, trained and armed its Uighur Muslim citizens from Xinjiang, despatching them via the Wakhan strip, to join the Mujahideen.50 Beijing supplied such massive volumes of arms to the guerrillas that over a decade after the Soviet withdrawal, US forces found large stocks of Chinese-made rockets, MBRLs, RPGs, mines and rifles at al-Qaeda and Taleban bases at Tora Bora.51 The CPSU Politburo often discussed the US-led coalition behind the Afghan resistance. The USA denied such an alliance existed; so, a charade was maintained by Washington, Beijing, Islamabad and their allies. In early 1980, as battle was joined, the Politburo’s Afghan Commission

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reported the USA, China and their allies were using Afghanistan ‘to intensify the atmosphere of anti-Sovietism and to justify long-term foreign policy acts which are hostile to the Soviet Union and directed at changing the balance of power’ against Moscow. ‘Providing increasing assistance to the Afghan counter-revolution, the West and the PRC are counting on the fact that they will succeed in inspiring an extended conflict in Afghanistan’ so that ‘the Soviet Union will get tied up in that country’, lowering Soviet prestige and influence.52 Equally concerned over US–PRC strategy elsewhere, Moscow alerted its ambassadors that while Washington ‘aggravated the international situation’, its Chinese allies laboured ‘to undermine’ the socialist community. ‘Beijing’s goals . . . are to break the unity and cohesion of the fraternal countries, inspire mutual distrust among them, incite them into opposition to the Soviet Union, destroy the unity of action of socialist states in the international arena’, and finally, to ‘subordinate them to its own influence’.53 The envoys were told, ‘The rapprochement between Beijing and the USA – as their actions in Indochina and Afghanistan attest – is taking a more and more dangerous form and is directed against the interests of peace and the process of détente.’ The Politburo sounded optimistic about Soviet forces ending the ‘counter-revolution’ and ‘defending the revolutionary regime in the DRA, defending the country from external threats’. Moscow stressed the need to seal the Afghan borders, ‘ensuring the safety of the major centres and communications, and also building up and strengthening the combat readiness of the Afghan forces’.54 But the focus was on the US–PRC alliance – ‘The United States and China continue to hold to a hard line aimed at changing the political regime in Afghanistan and at the immediate withdrawal of the Soviet troops.’55 Other countries were seen to be more flexible, although their proposals, too, ‘are unacceptable’. Moscow acknowledged the possibility of withdrawing its ‘limited contingent’. Early in 1980, Brezhnev had sent Andropov to Kabul to review the situation with Karmal and Soviet commanders. When Andropov briefed the Politburo afterwards, Ustinov insisted it would be a year, even eighteen months, before which ‘we cannot even think about a withdrawal of troops’.56 Moscow did offer to pull out its forces, using Fidel Castro’s good offices. The ambassador in Kabul was instructed to ask Karmal to propose talks with Pakistan and Iran with a view to ‘normalising’ relations, and preventing the use of their territory as rebel sanctuary. Kabul would say Soviet withdrawal would have to be negotiated ‘in the context of a political settlement’. Only when Pakistan and Iran guaranteed cessation of ‘military incursions and any other forms of interference’ would Soviet forces withdraw.57 The initiative failed; by late 1980, it became clear that Washington and Beijing would deny Moscow an escape route. The Kremlin saw this against a threatening global backdrop. The transfer of US military technology and hardware to China confirmed Soviet fears.

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The Politburo cautioned diplomats that US–PRC military collusion was ‘dangerous for all of humanity’. the US administration has affirmed its readiness to deliver modern American weapons and technology to China, which could be widely used for military purposes . . . Beijing has set about to manufacture and experiment with intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and is working on the creation of neutron weapons. All this drives the global arms race forward and directly contradicts the interests of détente.58 Moscow considered US actions short-sighted – China would use any ‘injection of aid, particularly by the USA, either directly or indirectly contributing to China’s militarization and to the development of the Chinese military potential’ to realise ‘hegemonic schemes . . . Beijing does not hide the fact that it aims to cause a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the USA, and, from its ashes, assume world domination’. Soviet envoys were advised, ‘We must take the necessary steps to strengthen the security of our borders. We cannot tolerate changes in the military-strategic balance in favour of forces hostile to the cause of peace.’59 Moscow was determined to fight the US–PRC coalition, most urgently in Afghanistan. The proxy war deepened Cold War cleavages. SALT negotiations ended, military outlays rose and paramilitary operations intensified. Reagan’s election reinforced these trends. Carter’s valedictory address juxtaposed ‘the steady growth and increased projection abroad of Soviet power’ with US–PRC relations ‘growing closer, providing a major new dimension in our policy in Asia and the world’: Neither the Soviet Union nor any other nation will have reason to question our will to sustain the strongest and most flexible defense forces . . . We must pay whatever price is required to remain the strongest nation in the world. That price has increased as the military power of our major adversary has grown and its readiness to use that power been made all too evident in Afghanistan.60 Carter provided no details of his instructions to the CIA, but underlined the determination with which he had swung behind the ‘Brzezinski line’ on active resistance. He had boosted the CIA’s covert operations budget, his only stricture being against delivering US-made arms. Soviet invasion and ‘imposition of a puppet government . . . highlighted in the starkest terms the darker side of their policies’. Moscow could not be allowed to ‘control an area of vital strategic and economic significance to the survival of Western Europe, the Far East, and ultimately the United States’. Carter confided, ‘The US response has proven to be serious and far-reaching. It

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has been increasingly effective, imposing real and sustained costs on the USSR’s economy and international image.’61

Blood and treasure Reagan built on this inheritance, dramatically boosting defence budgets and weapons programmes. Intelligence operations aimed at the Soviet bloc rapidly grew. Reagan upped the ante in the USSR’s periphery, offering a $3.2bn, four-year package to Pakistan; half would rebuild Pakistan’s forces, the remainder, its economy. To remove any residual nuclear concerns, Secretary of State Haig told his Pakistani counterpart, Agha Shahi, ‘We will not make your nuclear program the centerpiece of our relations.’62 The proxy war in Afghanistan took a serious turn; how serious became clear in Reagan’s anniversary message. ‘As long as the Soviet Union occupies Afghanistan in defiance of the international community, the heroic Afghan resistance will continue, and the United States will support the cause of a free Afghanistan.’63 Officials do not enumerate US investment in this war – it was, after all, a covert operation. Several estimates emerged after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces, the highest being $7bn,64 and the lowest, about $2.3bn.65 One analysis of the CIA’s budget for the campaign, shown in Table 6, adds up to $3.42bn in a 13-year period,66 and $2.69bn in 1980–89. The data shows annual jumps in 1984–88, peaking at $700m in 1988, when Moscow signed the Geneva accords and began pulling out its forces. The US National Public Radio describes the war as ‘the CIA’s $3bn covert aid program for Afghan rebels fighting the Soviets’,67 which approxTable 6 CIA expenditure for the Afghan war Year

Expenditure in $m

1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992

30 50 50 60 140 250 470 660 700 280a 280 250 200b

Notes a Total 1980–89  $2.69bn. b Total 1980–92  $3.42bn.

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imates the above data and may be closest to an official figure. Another study claims the US annual investment rose from $100m to $1bn in 1986.68 US funds were only half the story; ‘The Saudi dollar for dollar matching with the US taxpayer was fundamental’ to the secret war.69 In addition, Saudi and Gulf Arab Red Crescent Societies and other charities built orphanages, ‘homes for widows of the martyrs, and brought in, after the war turned to the advantage of the Mujahideen, some $20m to $25m dollars a month’.70 China and Egypt, too, provided funds and other resources.71 Arab countries sent thousands of Islamist volunteers to join the Mujahideen. The CIA encouraged induction of Arab fighters; guerrillas from 38 countries eventually fought in Afghanistan. With thousands of Pakistanis in their ranks, foreign volunteers numbered around 50,000; 2,000 ‘Afghan Arabs’ were engaged in combat at any time.72 Many nonAfghans began their march to the Jihad as Taleb [students] at madrassas. The CIA and Saudi intelligence funded hundreds of these along the Afghan frontiers, and in Pakistani cities. Student-clerics prepared themselves to fight threats to Islam, including atheist communism. In 1987, the 2,862 US/Saudi-funded Pakistani madrassas graduated 30,000 Taleban,73 most joining fellow zealots in the Afghan resistance. The culture of religious inspiration to a combative search for justice was nurtured with texts published by the University of Nebraska, among others. So many were distributed that many were on sale in 2003 in the streets of Rawalpindi.74 The CIA rationalised its encouragement of religious extremism among thousands of fighter on pragmatic grounds: It was a Jihad for ten years for the Afghans. There were a million Afghans killed, a million-and-a-half wounded or maimed, and five million driven into exile. That’s awfully close to fifty per cent of the population of the country. So, it was, in fact, a Jihad, and our role was pretty much tangential to what everybody else was doing.75 The Afghans bore the brunt of the conflict. By the spring of 1983, the war’s consequences were evident. US intelligence painted a grim picture: The country has lost about 3.5 million of its December 1979 preinvasion population of almost 16 million . . . These factors combined with a migration to the relatively safe cities has resulted in substantial farm labor losses in many rural areas. In addition, there has been a significant brain drain as skilled workers and the educated have opted to flee. Infant mortality and serious illnesses are also on the rise due to the disruption of health care and sanitary facilities. Agricultural productivity continues to decline creating severe food shortages. The harvest was especially poor in 1982 with only one-fourth of the 1978 yield and only one-half the 1981 figure . . . Afghanistan’s economic foundation

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This was six years before the Soviet withdrawal. Afghanistan was devastated, and fragmented as a polity. The Soviet Union, too, paid dearly, but lied about its losses. At the end of 1983 Soviet press reported only six soldiers had been killed or wounded when combat casualties were 6,262 dead, and 9,808 wounded.77 Once this reality forced the realisation that Moscow could not be trusted, popular respect for Soviet authority eroded. There were more immediate losses. US estimates of the cost of the war to the USSR in 1979–86 stood at 15bn roubles, less than $50bn in terms of what it would have cost the USA to carry out similar operations.78 The CIA reported an increase of Soviet military manpower in Afghanistan from 80,000 in 1980 to 120,000 in early 1987, a force that had suffered 30,000–35,000 combat casualties, a third dead.79 Much of the war expenditure accrued from material losses. By the end of 1985 the 40th Army had lost thousands of trucks, hundreds of tanks and other armoured vehicles, several hundred helicopters and over a hundred fixed-wing aircraft. These totalled 3bn roubles, with aircraft costing 80 per cent. The 780,000 tons of munitions fired cost 3.7bn roubles.80 Table 7 highlights key losses.81 Post-withdrawal Soviet figures were more credible. Moscow admitted losing 118 jets, 333 helicopters, 147 tanks, 1,314 APCs, 433 artillery pieces and mortars, 1,138 communications or command post vehicles, 510 engineering vehicles, and 11,369 trucks.82 By the beginning of May 1988, the 40th Army had lost 13,310 personnel dead, 35,478 wounded, and 301 missing in action. The war was costing the Kremlin 5bn roubles annually.83 By the time General Boris Gromov, the last Soviet commander in Kabul, crossed the Amu Darya bridge out of Afghanistan, combat casualties – dead and missing – added up to almost 15,000 troops, a modest proportion of the 642,000 Soviet personnel who served in Afghanistan. But the 469,685 treated survivors told another story; 415,932 suffered from Table 7 US estimate of Soviet combat equipment losses 1979–86 Losses Ground forces Trucks Artillery (guns, mortars, MLRSa) Armoured vehicles other than tanks Tanks Air forces Helicopters Fixed-wing aircraft Note a MLRS  multiple-launch rocket system.

5,250 880 655 340 640 105

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diseases – 115,308 had hepatitis and 31,080 had typhoid – revealing the strain on the system.84 The Soviet economy, too, strained under its Afghan burdens. Moscow supplied oil, meat and grain, as well as capital equipment for Afghanistan’s natural gas industry and air transport. Kabul repaid with gas, raisins, wool and cotton. Afghan gas allowed Moscow to sell its own surplus to the West, and efficiently supply energy to its southern republics. To help Kabul, Moscow raised the price it paid for Afghan gas, using foreign currency to buy wheat and oil for Afghanistan. Afghan dependence drained Soviet resources. Bilateral trade figures, despite artificial pricing, indicated this flow: in 1971, trade totalled $90m, rising to $496m in 1979, $912m in 1981, and $960m in 1982.85 Because of Moscow’s decision to sustain the DRA regime, these figures only approximated resource flows, indicating the trend. The USSR also gave economic aid, much of it in grants. New aid allocations were worth $435m in 1979, $395m in 1980, $27m in 1981, and $25m in 1982, with average annual disbursements at $200m.86 Although new allocations fell, disbursements did not. These were some of the war’s visible costs. On the ground, the picture looked grimmer.

A sub-conventional quagmire The ISI–CIA team chose the classic guerrilla tactics of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ for Soviet–DRA forces. The 40th Army’s firepower, added to the DRA army’s growing potential, should have beaten the resistance. In setpiece battles, it did. But Mujahideen operated in small bands, with limited coordination among politically divided groups – too elusive to pin down. The resistance manned several strongholds with considerable effort, and Soviet forces repeatedly attacked these. One was the valley of the Panjshir river which rose from the Hindukush mountains, running north-east of Kabul towards the Pakistani region of Chitral. Home to Tajik fighters under Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, a deputy to Rabbani, the Panjshir valley was a thorn in the Soviets’ side. Massoud’s fighters ambushed Soviet convoys on the Salang Highway, a lifeline for the occupation. He blunted every one of the 40th Army’s assaults until 1983 when the Soviets reached a truce with him. Massoud refused to extend it into 1984, and in April Soviet–DRA forces launched an offensive. Heliborne units arrived at the valley mouth, supported by helicopter gunships, and attack aircraft mounting carpet-bombing sorties. Special Forces preceded armoured and motorised columns advancing along the valley, occupying villages pounded from the air. Despite the size, and surprise, of the attack, Massoud resisted, evacuating hundreds of villagers to safety, and withdrew his 5,000-strong force into the mountains. On this occasion, his withdrawal was partially covered by Hekmatyar’s force operating in the vicinity, after the ISI persuaded

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Rabbani to swallow his pride and seek help.87 The Soviet assault continued for weeks. Having bombed to smithereens many mountain villages, and torched others, the attackers pulled back. Meanwhile, Massoud’s men successfully ambushed Soviet convoys carrying supplies down the Salang Highway, while other guerrillas rocketed Kabul and the Bagram airbase, destroying aircraft on the ground. This pattern of Soviet air and ground assaults, guerrilla ambushes and raids, and few major engagements between deployed forces, characterised the war. One exception was the 1985–86 assault on the Mujahideen’s Zhawar base close to the Pakistani border. The resistance had set up several logistical centres on the border, with tracks leading into eastern Afghanistan. Cave complexes in Tora Bora and Parachinar would gain media attention in 2001–02; but in the 1980s Zhawar, four kilometres into Afghanistan’s Paktia province, was the largest, and best-defended, such secret guerrilla base. Fifteen kilometres west of the ISI’s forward supply depot at Miramshah, Zhawar was both a staging post and a logistical centre, located inside a canyon opening to the Pakistani border to the south-east. A 500strong ‘Zhawar regiment’ from Hekmatyar’s band, armed with a Soviet D32 122mm howitzer, two captured T-55 tanks, several Chinese BM-12 MBRLs and a number of machine guns, guarded the base. A Mujahideen air defence company armed with five ZPU-1 and four ZPU-2 14.5mm antiaircraft guns, guarded its airspace. Controlling one of the six major guerrilla supply routes into Afghanistan, Zhawar handled 20 per cent of resistance logistics.88 In September 1985, with senior resistance commanders away in Mecca on pilgrimage, DRA troops mounted a divisional attack on the cave complex, with Soviet heliborne commandos occupying surrounding peaks from which to guide artillery fire and air sorties. Battle raged for ten days; the DRA–Soviet forces, Soviet artillery, and aircraft killed many defenders, destroying several guerrilla outposts. Resistance fighters fell back to alternative positions to engage the enemy. The sudden arrival of Mujahideen tanks caused a shock among DRA troops, dispersing them. Action settled into the two sides trading artillery, mortar and tank fire. As resistance commanders returned from Mecca, guerrillas arrived from neighbouring provinces. Slowly, the advantage slipped from the DRA forces. After 42 days, the DRA commanding General broke contact, withdrawing his forces at night. The Mujahideen lost 106 men killed, and 321 wounded. Soviet–DRA losses could not be ascertained; they evacuated their casualties.89 With ISI advice and CIA material, Mujahideen rebuilt the base, with greater attention to defensive details. It was built into a canyon 150 metres long, with sides stretching upwards for two kilometres. Caves ten metres long, four metres wide and three metres tall were dug into the rock-face facing Pakistan. In addition to a hospital, library and stores, the guerrillas now had a bakery supplying fresh bread, and a hotel for Pakistani and US visitors.

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Following the CPSU’s XXVII Congress in February 1986, during which Gorbachev described the Afghan intervention as a ‘bleeding wound’, Moscow instructed 40th Army to transfer major combat operations to DRA forces. Orders went out to destroy the Zhawar base, now a more extensive complex of tunnels chiselled into the mountainside and boasting a hospital, a mosque, a library, and large ordnance stores. General Varennikov, the Soviet regional commander, approved plans involving four DRA infantry divisions, a commando brigade, and an Air Assault Regiment – almost 54 battalions. Soviet aircraft backed DRA artillery and aviation. At the end of February, the force moved out of Gardez, occupying key peaks to the north, west and south of Zhawar. Soviet battalions held hills between DRA formations. The attackers consolidated their positions in March but did not advance into resistance territory. The guerrillas mounted artillery attacks, but poor weather prevented major engagements. Early in April, under heavy air and artillery fire, heliborne forces closed in – one group inadvertently landing in Pakistan. Zhawar’s 750-odd defenders, with their senior commanders away in Miramshah, fought hard. Soviet attack aircraft, firing ‘smart’ missiles, destroyed much resistance assets on the ground, blocking several cave-mouths, and killing many fighters. Guerrillas reinforcing Zhawar from Miramshah engaged the DRA 38th Commando Brigade, capturing 530 men. But Zhawar itself was under pressure. Battle raged for a fortnight when Varennikov replaced the DRA commanders leading the attack. The new commanders pushed their units closer to the cave complex. Soviet close air support severely hurt the defenders. The ISI sent out several Pakistani army officers and NCOs with Blowpipe SAMs, but their efforts failed. On 19 April, the defenders, heavily outmanned and outgunned, pulled out with their two tanks and some stores. Most of the ordnance stockpiled for the coming summer’s operations was lost, as Soviet and DRA forces occupied the base. Soviet sappers blew up most caves and everything in them. Having captured the complex after 57 days of combat, the attackers withdrew just five hours later, but they mined the base and its approaches, taking what they could carry. The Mujahideen lost 281 killed, and 363 wounded. Soviet–DRA casualties were unknown. The guerrillas reportedly destroyed 24 helicopters, shot down two jets and captured 530 DRA troops.90 All 80 officers taken prisoner were executed after ‘field trials’. The troops, mostly Afghan conscripts, were pardoned, and forced to serve for two years before being released. This was the largest single engagement between guerrillas holding a strongly defended position and attacking Soviet–DRA forces. In the last three years of the war, Soviet commanders replaced large-scale offensives with swiftly executed ‘surgical’ assaults by Special Forces on guerrilla bases in Paktia province. Following the Zhawar attacks, defences at these had been beefed up, and the attackers suffered 50–60 casualties in dead and wounded.91 Most of the time, combat meant guerrilla engagements, raiding and

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ambushing enemy camps, patrols and convoys. Soviet forces exploited their artillery and air assets from 1983; the resistance obtained larger rockets to strike at Kabul and Soviet–DRA bases. As Soviet air operations intensified, the Mujahideen and their sponsors looked for more effective SAMs. For much of the time, 40th Army units carried out search-anddestroy missions which became predictable enough for the resistance to warn likely targets.92 Massoud’s Panjshiris melting away into the mountains during most Soviet assaults, showed up the latter’s ineffectiveness. For both sides, though, the most frequent operations were ambushes, in urban, rural and mountainous settings.93 For the Soviets, protecting the lines of communications along motorways, especially the Salang Highway between the Termez/Hairaton staging base on the Amu Darya, and Kabul, was a lifeline function. It was critical to the 40th Army’s victuals, ordnance and petrol, oil and lubricants (POL) supplies. The POL passed through pipelines running along the highway; the latter delivered replacement soldiers from the Turkestan Military District. Massoud’s men successfully ambushed Soviet convoys on this highway, but the ISI assigned others too. Encouraged by Casey, the ISI even sent groups across the river to carry the offensive into Tajikistan, until Moscow’s threats to retaliate ended these operations.94

Withdrawal symptoms The new Soviet leaders recognised that their intervention had transformed Afghanistan, and the world’s perception of Soviet power, but the outcome was uncertain. Moscow maintained the limited nature of its contingent, never exceeding 125,000 in number. Hekmatyar alone commanded 200,000 part-time guerrillas.95 Resistance fighters in the various regional, local and sectarian groups added up to several hundred thousand men. The Afghans’ readiness to suffer profound privations and still not surrender, and their capacity to inflict pain on Soviet forces, began telling on Moscow. Many Politburo members had been retired or replaced by the time Mikhail Gorbachev took over as the CPSU General Secretary in early 1985; most new members, and some older ones, shared his view that the intervention was too costly. Gorbachev announced plans to make a clean break with his Afghan legacy. In October 1985, he told the Politburo how he had ‘dumbfounded’ Babrak Karmal by telling him: by the summer of 1986 you’ll have to have figured out how to defend your cause on your own. We’ll help you, but with arms only, not troops. And if you want to survive, you’ll have to broaden the base of your regime, forget socialism, make a deal with the truly influential forces, including the Mujahideen commanders and leaders of now-hostile organisations. You’ll have to revive Islam, respect traditions, and try to show the people some tangible benefits from the revolution.96

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Gorbachev read out ‘heartbreaking’ letters from distraught compatriots who condemned the intervention, demanding its immediate termination. He outlined plans to do exactly that. The senior soldier at the meeting, Marshal Sokolov, said he was ready to ‘wrap things up’ in Afghanistan, and was willing to be tough with Karmal. Gorbachev glared at him as if to say, ‘You ass, what are you babbling about giving us advice? You got us into this dirty business, and now you are pretending that we are all responsible!’97 A decision to withdraw was taken. It was well-timed. After years of requesting the CIA, the ISI was about to deliver to the Mujahideen an effective portable anti-aircraft missile. Reagan’s decision to provide US-made weapons meant a shift was imminent. In late 1986, the Stinger shoulderfired SAM started arriving in Afghanistan. The ISI taught Afghans the best techniques to bring down Soviet aircraft, with visible results. Many aircraft were hit, forcing Soviet pilots to make evasive manoeuvres during take-off and landing, firing flares to divert heat-seeking missiles. Over the next three years, the CIA supplied the Mujahideen with ‘thousands of Stingers’,98 driving the cost of occupation even higher. Gorbachev sought to ensure critics of his reforms did not use his decision to withdraw as another arrow in their quiver. Babrak Karmal, too, stood in his way. In March 1986, Gorbachev prepared the Politburo for Karmal’s departure: ‘The situation is quite dramatic. B Karmal is very much down in terms of health and in terms of psychological disposition. He began to pit leaders against each other.’99 Moscow moved Karmal from PDPA leadership to the titular Presidency. Executive leadership was transferred to General Najibullah, head of the Afghan intelligence service (KHAD). However, Najib took time to wrest authority from Karmal, slowing Gorbachev’s plans for ‘Afghanising’ the conflict. In late 1986 Gorbachev vented his frustration: We have already been fighting in Afghanistan for six years. If the approach is not changed, we will continue to fight for another 20–30 years . . . Our military should be told that they are learning badly from the war. What, can it be that there is no room for our General Staff to manoeuvre? In general, we have not selected the keys to resolving this problem. What, are we going to fight endlessly, as a testimony that our troops are not able to deal with the situation? We need to finish this process as soon as possible.100 Gorbachev ordered that Najib be helped to implement Moscow’s decisions. He told the Politburo, ‘It is necessary to include in the resolution the importance of ending the war in the course of one year – at maximum two years.’101 Moscow now worked with the UN’s envoy, Diego Cordovez, to devise the face-saving Geneva accords. In just over two years, Soviet operations in Afghanistan would end, the first time the USSR was forced out of a ‘fraternal socialist’ neighbour by violent resistance. The

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outcome of the intervention’s end was not clear, but its impact on the Soviet state was apparent. Some saw in it the beginning of the end of the Soviet experiment itself. The success of the US–PRC campaign carried a cost – most immediately for Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, but over the longer term for the secret partners, too. Islamist militancy, at the heart of the covert alliance’s exertions against Soviet–DRA forces, flowered into global malignancy, eventually targeting its former sponsors. CIA officials directing the operations would later assert that Presidents Carter, Reagan and Bush had found it necessary to pursue this activist policy in Afghanistan. One highlighted the roles played by the various partners: ‘The Afghans were doing the dying and the fighting. The Saudis and the Americans were paying for the freight. The Chinese were supplying ordnance; they provided an awful lot of weaponry. The Egyptians provided a lot of weaponry.’102 The ramifications of this secret campaign for the Soviet Union, great-power relations, and the Cold War, remained shrouded in misinformation.

8

The Soviet denouement

I had never before seen Andropov so sombre and dejected. He described a gloomy scenario in which a nuclear war might be a real threat. His sober analysis came to the conclusion that the US government was striving with all means available to establish nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union. He cited statements of President Carter, his adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, and of Pentagon spokesmen, all of which included the assertion that under certain circumstances a nuclear first-strike against the Soviet Union and its allies would be justified.1 (Markus Wolf, February 1980) Increased military burden would reduce significantly the share of the annual increment to [Soviet] GNP that can be distributed among civilian claimants to ease the political tensions that arise from competition for resources. Military programs – especially those for nonstrategic forces – divert key resources from the production of critically needed equipment for agriculture, industry and transportation.2 (CIA analysis, April 1981) The objective of the assignment is to . . . uncover any plans in preparation by the main adversary for RYAN and to organize a continued watch to be kept for indications of a decision being taken to use nuclear weapons against the USSR or immediate preparations being made for a nuclear missile attack.3 (KGB Centre to ‘Residenturas’, February 1983) Over the last two decades, the Soviet Union has delivered weapons to its military at a level unequalled anywhere in the world. Over 50,000 tanks, 80,000 light armoured vehicles, 9,600 strategic ballistic missiles, 50,000 aircraft, 650,000 surface-to-air missiles, and 270 submarines have been procured since 1965.4 (CIA report, September 1986)

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Dynamic dialectic In early 1980, after the scale of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan became clear, the prospects for superpower relations darkened. Moscow’s clients in Indochina, Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua faced a coercive US response. Military and economic pressures on the Soviet bloc mounted. Soviet leaders stressed the Brezhnev doctrine – determination to negate US efforts to roll back ‘socialism’ from a member of the bloc.5 However, efforts to match US power drained the Soviet state of its substance, a point known in Washington. The US intelligence community knew Moscow’s military build-up since the 1962 Cuban fiasco was causing economic, social and political stresses. The CIA and the DIA compiled detailed estimates of Soviet defence expenditure.6 Although US intelligence estimates of Soviet defence expenditure and forces were only partially accurate, because of the stark nature of superpower polarity and the zero-sum nature of their strategic game, both sides stressed the information they could acquire and disseminate. As a result, an emphasis on the negative by each side reinforced this perceptual dynamic. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to a reappraisal of US priorities, and a push by Brzezinski and Brown to build up Chinese capacity to threaten the USSR’s eastern flank. Moscow’s resultant anger and anxiety have been noted. However, it was Carter’s earlier decision to counter the Soviet deployment of SS-18 IRBMs targeting Western Europe that raised the stakes. Carter secured European agreement to deploy Pershing II IRBMs, and GLCMs, in several European NATO states. Despite Soviet outrage and protests by peace activists, deployments began in the early 1980s. The highly accurate Pershing II was particularly destabilising in an already fluid environment. It could destroy Soviet hard targets like command-and-control bunkers and missile silos. Its flight-time from German launch-sites was only four to six minutes. Moscow saw the deployment as a US attempt to secure ‘nuclear break out’ for a decapitating first strike, ignoring the threats its IRBMs posed to NATO Europe. In a crisis, therefore, Soviet leaders thought they would have to consider ordering a pre-emptive strike against the Pershings lest the latter were launched in a ‘super-sudden first strike’.7 A muscular US response to Soviet ‘aggressiveness’ in Afghanistan and elsewhere convinced Moscow that the USA would not hesitate to confront the USSR militarily, possibly with nuclear weapons. Carter’s signing off PD-59 in 1979 strongly hinted Washington was keeping the option of fighting a limited nuclear war with the Soviet bloc open, horrifying the Kremlin. No wonder gloom pervaded Andropov’s comments to his East German counterpart in February 1980: Carter’s presidency had created great concern in the Kremlin, because he had presented a defence budget of more than $157bn, which he invested in the MX and Trident missiles and nuclear sub-

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marines. One of the top Soviet nuclear strategists confided to me that the resources of our alliance were not sufficient to match this.8 Reagan, having condemned many of Carter’s policies during the election campaign, built on that legacy in office. An early national security document issued by his first administration laid the policy foundation for the decade: The key military threats to US security during the 1980s will continue to be posed by the Soviet Union and its allies and clients. Despite increasing pressures on its economy and the growing vulnerabilities of its empire, the Soviet military will continue to expand and modernise. The Soviet Union remains aware of the catastrophic consequences of initiating military action directly against the US or its allies. For this reason, a war with a Soviet client arising from regional tensions is more likely than a direct conflict with the USSR. In a conflict with a Soviet client, however, the risk of direct confrontation with the Soviet Union remains.9 Reagan set objectives to curtail Soviet capacity to pursue vital national interests.10 If Soviet intelligence failed to send Moscow a copy of this document, Reagan’s pronouncements, and acts by US agencies implementing the strategy, would have left Soviet leaders with little doubt about Reagan’s intent. These may have been shaped by a CIA report submitted a few months earlier. That assessment identified linkages between Soviet threat perceptions created by US policy, and Moscow’s counter-measures: The Soviets are concerned by the prospects that the United States will augment its defensive efforts, by China’s opening to the West, and by the possibility that US opposition to Soviet global aspirations will increase. They are troubled by instability on their borders . . . They probably view the 1980s as a decade of heightened competition, in which they will run a greater risk of military confrontation with the United States and of actual combat with major powers. While they see increasing tension, the leaders and planners also see foreign nations making military efforts that threaten to undermine the strengths of Soviet forces and exacerbate their weaknesses. These threats, as well as deficiencies that the Soviets currently perceive in their own military capabilities, make continued pursuit of new weapon programs essential.11 The CIA stressed the links between Soviet fears and Moscow’s economic decisions: Soviet economic growth . . . has slowed to a crawl in the past several years. The real average annual growth in GNP in 1979 and 1980 was a

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The Soviet denouement little over one percent – the worst . . . since World War II. In the 1980s, developing energy and demographic problems probably will hold GNP growth to an average of two percent or less – only half the rate at which defence expenditures have been growing. If military spending is allowed to follow its past trend, its share of economic output could increase from about one-eighth now to over one-sixth in 1990 . . . this increased military burden would reduce significantly the share of the annual increment of GNP that can be distributed among civilian claimants to ease the political tensions that arise from competition for resources.12

Against this backdrop of perceived threats from the US–Chinese coalition, increased deployment of scarce resources to defence, and growing sociopolitical cleavages reinforced by competition for resources, Moscow faced a future defined by the fears13 and hopes of its gerontocracy. Reagan’s pronouncements only heightened its anxiety.

Stellar strategy and war scares The Polish crisis, caused by the unofficial trade union, Solidarity, demanding rights that Poland’s party-military elite would not concede, boosted the confrontational dialectic. In addition to funding facsimile machines and copiers, the CIA encouraged Catholic groups to assist Solidarity as much as possible.14 While the details of the CIA’s covert operations in Poland remain secret, those of the Pentagon are better known. As Solidarity expanded its influence beyond the Gdansk shipyard in 1980, Soviet forces began exercising along the Polish borders. Their aim was to deter Solidarity and its supporters, and to rehearse for an intervention that was called off when the Polish authorities declared martial law on 12 December 1981. Earlier, three weeks after Reagan was sworn in, the Pentagon began psychological operations – Psyops – comprising aerial and naval probes near Soviet airspace and maritime boundaries. Fast naval vessels and aircraft mounted repeated clandestine missions into areas clearly visible to Soviet radars. The aim was to deter Soviet military moves against the Polish opposition, but in Moscow, Psyops looked provocative; by testing the efficacy of Soviet defences, they portended likely operations. These missions were so secret that no records were maintained. ‘It was very sensitive’, said an official who knew. ‘Nothing was written down about it, so there would be no paper trail.’15 A military commander described the operations: ‘Sometimes we would send bombers over the North Pole and their radars would click on. Other times fighter-bombers would probe their Asian or European periphery.’16 During high-intensity peaks, several such manoeuvres were mounted in a week. Their irregular intervals unsettled the defenders. Then, just as suddenly they had begun, the sorties

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would stop, suddenly resuming a few weeks later. This unpredictable sequence caused Moscow much stress: It really got to them. They didn’t know what it all meant. A squadron would fly straight at Soviet airspace, and other radars would light up and units would go on alert. Then at the last minute the squadron would peel off and return home.17 Extensive naval activities, parallel to these air operations, deepened Soviet anxiety. In March 1981, Reagan authorised naval exercises close to Soviet waters, where US naval vessels had never operated before. These reflected a new US strategy of ‘horizontal escalation’ – antisubmarine units, submarines and patrol aircraft aggressively advancing, forcing a retreat by Soviet SLBM submarines and escorts into safe ‘bastions’, simulating sinking of Soviet vessels, pushing the fighting toward Soviet waters, and complete destruction of Soviet fleets by US carrier task groups with air strikes against interior targets, and those in the northern/central fronts.18 Large-scale US and NATO naval exercises in 1981–83 may have confirmed Moscow’s fears of US war preparations. Following sorties by smaller task groups in early 1981, in August–September, an 83-strong fleet of US, British, Canadian and Norwegian ships led by the USS Eisenhower crossed the Greenland–Iceland–UK gap undetected in ‘stealth’ mode, evading Soviet sensors, and entered the operational area of Soviet long-range reconnaissance aircraft. US naval aircraft simulated an unprecedented attack on Soviet aircraft while a task group led by a cruiser split off from the armada and sortied toward Soviet waters, spending nine days near the militarily sensitive Kola Peninsula before rejoining the fleet. Soviet leaders had by then decided the USA was serious in militarily threatening the USSR. In May 1981, Brezhnev and KGB Chairman Andropov had jointly briefed senior KGB officers about the Reagan Administration’s stance toward Moscow. Asserting Washington was preparing to launch a surprise nuclear attack on the USSR, Andropov announced the KGB and the GRU would start collecting indications of US plans for such an assault. This was RYAN – raketno-yadernoye napadenie, nuclear missile attack. In November 1981, KGB residents in the USA, Western Europe, Japan and allied countries received their first RYAN tasks. Additional instructions placing high priority on this assignment arrived in January 1982. Two months later, the KGB officer coordinating RYAN was sent to Washington. KGB Centre was so troubled by signs of hostility it received from the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA that in February 1983 it instructed key residenturas to concentrate on indications of a sudden US nuclear missile attack. Instructions sent out on 17 February stressed the mission’s urgency: Uncovering the process of preparation by the adversary to take the decision for a nuclear attack and the subsequent measures to prepare

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The Soviet denouement the country for a nuclear war would enable us to increase the so-called period of anticipation essential for the Soviet Union to take retaliatory measures. Otherwise, reprisal time would be extremely limited. For instance, noting the launching of strategic missiles from the continental part of the USA and taking into account the time required for determining the direction of their flight in fact leaves roughly 20 minutes’ reaction time. This period will be considerably curtailed after deployment of the ‘Pershing-2’ missile in the FRG [Federal Republic of Germany], for which the flying time to reach long-range targets in the Soviet Union is calculated at 4–6 minutes.19

Reagan’s rhetoric built up a head of steam. Early in 1983, addressing a Christian audience, he described the Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire’, suggesting that combat with it was the moral equivalent of fighting the biblical battle of Armageddon between good and evil. A month later, he formalised suggestions from Edward Teller, ‘father’ of the US thermonuclear bomb, in his Strategic defence initiative, benignly dubbed ‘Star Wars’: we should explore the possibility of using defensive capabilities to counter the threat posed by nuclear ballistic missiles. I direct the development of an intensive effort to define a long term research and development program aimed at an ultimate goal of eliminating the threat posed by nuclear ballistic missiles.20 The project planned a ground-and-space-based anti-ballistic missile system, building a protective shield for US and allied territory, and all ballistic missiles deployed therein. This would preclude a Soviet retaliatory second strike, allow a US counterforce first strike, and would destroy the MAD basis of deterrence. Reagan named his National Security Adviser as his SDI point-man, set up a BMD Organisation, and a Defensive Technologies Executive Committee to supervise implementation. The NSC, DoD and Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) would realise strategic defence, threatening whatever security the USSR’s nuclear arsenal gave Moscow. The project’s progress was charted by a series of directives issued by Reagan until he left office.21 The project elicited mixed emotions, not least in the USA and its NATO partners. The military and the defenceindustrial-scientific community expressed delight at this shift from the retaliatory offence-based balance of terror to strategic defence. Scientists, academics and activists were horrified by the potential for strategic instability caused by a ‘simple-minded attempt’ to destroy ‘essential equivalence’. Others, including Soviet leaders, viewed this as a US attempt to ‘break out’ of the SALT and ABM treaty constraints, neutralise Soviet retaliatory capacity, and establish strategic supremacy. Soviet anger was reflected in

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public and private comments. Andropov, Brezhnev’s successor, broke a taboo by criticising the US President personally, saying the SDI proved US preparations for launching a decapitating first strike on the USSR and that Reagan was ‘inventing new plans on how to unleash a nuclear war in the best way, with the hope of winning it’.22 He accused Reagan of ‘deliberately lying’ about Soviet arms programmes in justifying the SDI, denouncing the project as a ‘bid to disarm the Soviet Union in the face of the US nuclear threat’: It would open the floodgates of a runaway race of all types of strategic arms, both offensive and defensive. Such is the real significance, the seamy side, so to say, of Washington’s ‘defensive conception’ . . . The Soviet Union will never be caught defenceless by any threat . . . Engaging in this is not just irresponsible, it is insane . . . Washington’s actions are putting the entire world in jeopardy.23 Given US policy statements, resource allocations, alliance-led covert operations, and threatening ‘Psyops’ near Soviet territory, Andropov’s outburst reflected the Kremlin’s deepening anxiety. The depth of Soviet fear was confirmed in an unpublicised encounter. In a candid chat with a former US official days after Reagan’s SDI announcement, Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, said Moscow faced a no-win situation: We cannot equal the quality of US arms for a generation or two. Modern military power is based on technology, and technology is based on computers. In the US, small children play with computers . . . Here, we don’t even have computers in every office of the Defence Ministry. And for reasons you know well, we cannot make computers widely available in our society. We will never be able to catch up with you in modern arms until we have an economic revolution. And the question is whether we can have an economic revolution without a political revolution.24 Two events following Reagan’s SDI speech confirmed Soviet suspicions. In April–May 1983, the USA carried out another naval exercise in the western Pacific. Forty ships, including three carrier groups, and B-52 bombers and E-3 airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft, moved towards the sensitive Kamchatka peninsula. US aircraft and submarines simulated attacks on the Kurile Islands. US aircraft and ships also criss-crossed the Baltic, Black and Barents Seas. Intelligence ships tracked Soviet movements, monitoring transmissions. Submarines practised assaults on Soviet SLBM submarines beneath the polar icecap. US carriers and escorts exercised near Soviet waters. Action matched the shrill rhetoric. And then, on 1 September, a Soviet SU-15 interceptor fired two

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air-to-air missiles at a Korean Airlines Boeing 747, flight KL007, over Sakhalin Island, killing all 269 on board. Reagan immediately ordered an anti-Soviet campaign.25 Moscow badly played its poor hand, stung by what it saw as US duplicity. Soviet claims that KL007 had violated restricted Soviet airspace, acted suspiciously, ignored air-defence instructions, and followed a flight path similar to US intelligence-gathering sorties, were rejected. In December, the Soviet Ministry of Defence and the KGB reported to the Politburo: We are dealing with a major, dual-purpose political provocation carefully organised by the US special services. The first purpose was to use the incursion of the intruder aircraft into Soviet airspace to create a favourable situation for the gathering of defence data on air defence system in the Far East, involving the most diverse systems including the Ferret satellite. Second, they envisaged, if this flight were terminated by us [Washington would use] that fact to mount a global antiSoviet campaign to discredit the Soviet Union.26 Against this backdrop of growing fear of US intentions, Moscow focused on gathering early indications of a US first strike, and shoring up its military strength. Gloom permeated the 1983 annual meeting of Warsaw Pact military intelligence chiefs. Their instructions were to target major collection efforts on: • • •

key US/NATO political and strategic decisions vis-à-vis the Warsaw Pact early warning of US/NATO preparations for launching a surprise nuclear attack new US/NATO weapons systems intended for use in a surprise nuclear attack.27

Signs of growing Soviet concern fed through the US system. Reagan was surprised enough to wonder how Soviet leaders could even imagine Washington would ‘actually’ launch a thermonuclear attack against them. In June 1984, visiting Dublin, he offered a deal: if the USSR increased the transparency of its military activities across Europe, Washington would repeat its pledge not to use force, or the threat of force, against Moscow. This did not end Soviet fears – RYAN continued until 1991, just before the USSR collapsed, but it led to an eventual accord – the 1986 Stockholm Document on confidence building and disarmament in Europe.28

More blood, less treasure Marshal Ogarkov’s admission that Moscow could not match Washington’s military potential and technology did not constrain Soviet resource alloca-

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tion decisions. A chart illustrating Reagan’s 1982 speech on ‘Nuclear Strategy Toward the Soviet Union’ showed Soviet military expenditure overtaking US investments in 1969–70. Although US allocations rose steeply after 1979, the gap was significant.29 Reagan said, ‘In spite of a stagnating Soviet economy, Soviet leaders invest 12 to 14 per cent of their country’s gross national product in military spending, two to three times the level we invest.’30 However, Reagan gave much more credit to his information than did the informants. Assessments of Soviet defence allocations widely differed. CIA and DIA estimates relied on transference, calculating costs of maintaining equivalents of suspected Soviet forces in the USA. Private researchers admitted uncertainties afflicting their craft.31 Nonetheless, both superpowers assessed the rival’s defence expenditure, and the ‘threat’ it indicated. High-level discussions often underscored mutual anxieties. Even in the early 1970s, troubled by the drain caused by the military-strategic rivalry, Brezhnev told Kissinger: If we let our purely military men into this [policy] sphere, we’ll end up with an unprecedented arms race; I say that in a full sense of responsibility. Your military men and ours are the same. You can’t really blame them. What they say is, we don’t care about all these policies, and there is the Secretary of Defense saying the United States has to be militarily stronger. And there are others in the United States echoing these views and saying, ‘We have to talk to the Soviet Union from a position of military strength’. Surely, Dr Kissinger, if we let ourselves be carried away by that kind of talk, all our discussions will come to nothing.32 Military-strategic calculations nonetheless defined superpower relations. Growing US–PRC ties complicated prospects for superpower amity throughout the 1970s. As détente virtually collapsed, these trends reinforced each other. Dialectic linkages between the two sides’ military preparations indicate the relevance of an assessment of the US view of Soviet defence allocations, and its correlation with US allocations, in the period before the USSR imploded. Washington had several sources of data, the most coherent being the ACDA, whose annual reports posited what Washington thought Moscow was investing in armed force,33 shown in Table 8, and its impact on the Soviet state’s substance. These figures reflect Moscow’s fears, persuading it to pour increasingly scarce resources into non-productive sectors while stresses born of frustrated popular expectations eroded political cohesion. Months after Andropov mentioned a likely surprise US nuclear attack to Wolf, the Kremlin spoke of a ‘dangerous new phenomenon in world politics’: actual alliance which is now taking shape between China and imperialism . . . causing anxiety everywhere. Similar alliances preceded the

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Table 8 Soviet defence expenditure 1979–91 Year

Expenditure ($m)

Current GNP ($m)

Expenditure as a % of GNP

Expenditure as a % of budget

Expenditure per capita ($)

1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991

176,900 198,200 219,600 237,900 250,700 263,700 277,200 287,600 303,000 319,000 303,000 292,000 260,000

1,390,000 1,532,000 1,655,000 1,807,000 1,926,000 2,028,000 2,118,000 2,250,000 2,348,000 2,507,000 2,645,000 2,660,000 2,531,000

12.7 12.9 13.3 13.2 13.0 13.0 13.1 12.8 12.9 12.7 11.5 11.0 10.3

55.8 53.4 51.7 48.8 50.2 50.2 50.0 46.9 45.9 46.6 43.5 43.1 NA

1,077 1,096 1,220 1,234 1,238 1,234 1,240 1,241 1,256 1,263 1,138 1,044 1,887

GNP per capita ($) 8,460 8,473 9,194 9,373 9,506 9,492 9,475 9,713 9,733 9,925 9,940 9,509 8,639

most sanguinary war in history – the Second World War . . . If China with its huge manpower potential and substantial political weight goes over to the side of imperialism, this will enhance imperialism’s position in the confrontation with world socialism . . . All this calls for increased vigilance, for reinforcing policy countermeasures and financial expenditures, including defence.34 In Soviet eyes, growing threats from the USA ran parallel to concerns over a resurgent China working closely with Washington. In late 1980, the CPSU Politburo issued a directive to Soviet envoys explaining these trends, instructing them to counter this ‘dangerous’ development. The Politburo underscored grave insecurity informing Soviet policy, including resource allocation decisions.35 Threats perceived by Moscow in the behaviour of rival great powers forced it to devote even more resources to the military than before. The CIA underplayed the strain on the Soviet state.36 Agency analysts reported Moscow’s difficulties but believed the USSR could cope indefinitely – despite the fact that the USA, spending a smaller percentage of its much larger economy37 (shown in Table 9), felt such pain that outlay growth had soon to be checked! Washington guarded its expenditure on intelligence activities and covert operations, but published outline military budgets. Embarking on perestroika and glasnost, Gorbachev felt similar openness would help the transition to a more ‘efficient’ system. In 1987, he accepted the INF Treaty, removing a number of ballistic and cruise missiles from Europe; he also pledged to release key defence-budget data. It took him nearly two years to do so. In December 1988, at the UN, he announced major shifts in strategic doctrine and military deployments, including reduction of

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Table 9 US defence expenditure through the 1980s Year

Expenditure ($m)

Current GNP ($m)

Expenditure as a % of GNP

Expenditure as a % of budget

Expenditure per capita ($)

GNP per capita ($)

1979 122,279 1980 143,981

2,375,200 2,614,100

5.1 5.5

24.7 24.9

1,553 1,573

10,747 10,408

1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991

3,802,000 4,054,000 4,278,000 4,544,000 4,908,000 5,267,000 5,568,000 5,741,000

6.2 6.4 6.6 6.3 6.0 5.8 5.5 4.9

26.4 25.7 27.1 27.2 26.2 25.5 23.5 19.6

1,388 1,446 1,518 1,496 1,452 1,428 1,363 1,189

22,260 22,700 23,110 23,590 24,310 24,730 24,790 24,360

237,100 258,200 280,900 288,200 293,100 304,100 306,200 280,300

Note Data for the years 1981–83 is not available in this format, so has been excluded.

forces by 500,000 troops, 10,000 tanks, 8,500 artillery pieces, and 800 combat aircraft over two years. He pledged to move 50,000 men from Eastern Europe, renounced class warfare as the basis of Soviet foreign policy, and accepted ‘pan-humanist values’, and global interdependence. Gorbachev also promised to convert an ‘economy of armaments into an economy of disarmament’. Next, he announced a 14.2 per cent cut in military spending, and a 19.5 per cent cut in defence production. In May 1989, he told the Congress of People’s Deputies that the 1989 defence outlay would total 77.3bn roubles; spending had been frozen in 1987–88, saving 10bn roubles from the allocations for 1986–90. Premier Ryzhkov gave the Congress details of defence spending – which would have grown faster than GDP growth in that period, but agreements with the USA, and a new doctrine of ‘defence sufficiency’, meant 30bn roubles would be saved from planned allocations.38 Soviet figures differed from those used by NATO members who claimed Moscow contrived low prices for its military activities; hidden subsidies meant Soviet defence outlay in 1988 was between 130bn and 160bn roubles, 15–18 per cent of the Soviet GDP.39 Washington’s appreciation of the challenges facing Gorbachev was slow. The White House responded to his ‘peace initiatives’ with a ‘fourpoint agenda’ outlining US willingness to reciprocate goodwill in a ‘realistic’ manner, based only on the evidence of Moscow’s behaviour in several areas. US national security and intelligence communities were focused on the reality on the ground. A 1986 ‘intelligence report’ on the Soviet defence industry noted the over 50,000 tanks, 80,000 light armoured vehicles, 9,600 strategic ballistic missiles, 50,000 aircraft, 650,000 SAMs and

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270 submarines delivered to the Soviet forces since 1965.40 By 1987, however, Moscow’s dilemma was clear: Without restricting the defense burden, Gorbachev will find it increasingly difficult to generate the significant increase in resources he needs to devote to civilian industrial investment . . . Unless there is a sharp upturn in economic performance . . . or major reductions in defense spending – which would be very controversial without a significant reduction in the perceived threat – by the end of the decade, demands for investment in the civilian sector will come increasingly into conflict with demands for more investment in the defense industries. The prospect for such a choice has already led Gorbachev to pursue a bold strategy for managing the US relationship that probably is controversial within the Soviet elite and could, in conjunction with economic considerations, eventually lead him to confront fundamental obstacles inhibiting economic progress.41 However, the CIA felt, ‘societal problems are unlikely to reach crisis proportions over the next five years’. In June 1987, with crises looming, Gorbachev asked the CPSU Central Committee for comprehensive economic reforms. The plenum curbed powers of central agencies, approved wholesale trade and reformed the pricing system and financial institutions, encouraging enterprises to exercise independence.42 An economic revolution was in the offing, but falling energy prices eroded Soviet ability to import Western technology, precluding productivity-growth. Arms control agreements slowed NATO modernisation, reducing defence pressures on budgets, increasing prospects for cooperative links to the West. Improving relations with the USA gave Gorbachev manoeuvring room, but the prospects of failure were stark.43 He maintained a positive stance to the USA. Following summits on ‘neutral’ territory, he invited Reagan to Moscow to consolidate the thaw, reducing the conservative drag on his reforms. As before, the White House issued detailed instructions for the trip.44 Washington was delighted with Moscow’s decision to accept the Geneva Accords, and withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by 15 February 1989. The Intelligence Community’s Special national intelligence estimate (SNIE) on this Soviet decision strengthened Reagan’s belief in the ‘positive direction’ adopted by Gorbachev, and the appropriateness of a Moscow summit.45 Equally important were Soviet attempts to push Warsaw Pact allies toward pragmatic moderation, ‘diversity’, and economic reforms aimed at reducing Moscow’s burdens, and strengthening the bloc’s support for Gorbachev’s modernisation drive. Gorbachev sought to revitalise Soviet bloc economies by reducing tensions across the European divide. He promoted a younger generation of leaders to transform the atmosphere of fear into one of confident growth.46 The 29 May–2 June

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1988 superpower summit helped. Reagan had initially laid down tough objectives: • •

•

demonstrate the Administration’s success in dealing with Moscow on the basis of ‘the principles of strength, realism, and Western unity’ consolidate the Administration’s agenda with Moscow, pressing for a START agreement which fully met US concerns, ‘significant improvement’ in Soviet human rights and ‘resolution of regional conflicts beyond Afghanistan’ reaffirm US commitment to overcoming the postwar division of Europe, and that ‘progress toward this goal is the best guarantee’ of stability and improved relations.47

Reagan need not have worried. Gorbachev, Shevardnadze and company engaged him in candid exchanges on their national vision – an imagery resonating to Reagan’s own views. As for his demands, Reagan was pushing an open door. Soviet leaders sought to transform their country, and society, into a future far removed from their past. Aware of the enormity of the task, they seemed confident of their eventual success. Moved, Reagan responded in kind, authorising contacts between the defence ministries, and the armed forces – not unlike initial links with China. Over the next two months, the Secretary of Defense and his Soviet counterpart met twice to discuss ways of reducing tension, the two senior military commanders exchanged visits, and the US Secretary of the Air Force travelled to Moscow. Other visits, too, were planned. Suddenly, the adversaries appeared to be acting like friends! The change was so dramatic that Reagan urged caution: These contacts offer an opportunity to contribute to a more stable relationship between our two countries – one that reduces the prospect of confrontation and the risk of military conflict. At the same time, however, we must be prudent about the serious and continuing threat that the Soviet Union represents to us and our allies, and be determined to develop the new relations with caution, with realistic expectations, and with diligent preparations to ensure a sound, coherent contribution.48 Reagan stressed the ‘fundamental rivalry’ in setting goals for US–Soviet military links. In Moscow, however, Gorbachev decided to withdraw sanction as the cement holding the Warsaw Pact together. The most threatening military coalition – for the USA – rapidly eroded. The foundations of the Cold War edifice were being shaken loose by one of the two landlords! Many saw Gorbachev’s December 1988 UN announcements as a ‘victory’ of Reagan’s tough policy; others thought Gorbachev, a ‘real transformer’, saw benign superpower relations as a guarantor of Soviet security and

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sought a more open, diverse and prosperous future. Yet others viewed him as a transitional figure, forced by economic desperation into ‘new thinking’, and using perestroika and glasnost to revamp and energise the Soviet state by reducing its military liabilities without making fundamental changes. In 1989, George Bush inherited this mix of views about the ‘Gorbachev factor’.

A year of watersheds As Vice President, Bush had monitored US–Soviet–Chinese relations, having received regular CIA briefings on major issues for eight years. As President, he sought to make his own mark. On 15 February, as the last Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan, he ordered a review of policy toward the Soviet bloc. His advisers divided into two groups – one urged an immediate, positive response to Gorbachev’s initiatives; the other, led by National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and Secretary of State James Baker, urged caution and scepticism.49 In the four preceding presidencies, the National Security Adviser and the State Department had pursued divergent trajectories on great-power relations, offering the President a range of options to choose from. In the Bush Administration, both key advisers argued against ‘softening’ to Moscow. But in January, the hands of the ‘peaceniks’ had been strengthened when East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary followed up Gorbachev’s announcements with cuts of their own – reducing their forces by 56,000 troops, 2,000 tanks, 130 aircraft and thousands of artillery pieces and mortars, and pledging defence budget cuts of 13.6 per cent.50 The debate in Washington grew more heated. Whatever Bush’s personal views, the Administration was guided by the NIEs and SNIEs delivered by the DCI. One of the earliest ones dealt with Warsaw Pact threats. It described the import of Moscow’s compulsions. Gorbachev would divert resources from the military to civil sectors; Soviet defence budgets would decline ‘through the turn of the century’. US analysts believed: the doctrinal concepts of ‘reasonable sufficiency’ and ‘defensive sufficiency’ have been articulated primarily to strengthen Gorbachev’s control over defense resource decisions to support economic revival. We also believe that, by the turn of the century, these concepts probably will have become lasting features of Soviet national security policy.51 The analysts believed Gorbachev sought to boost the economy by reducing the defence burden, ‘mitigate the effects of reduced spending’ by managing future military threats with ‘aggressive arms control policies, and reap political benefits that would contribute to his goals by reducing the Western perception of the Soviet threat’.52 The NIE pointed out that

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this conceptual volte-face and military retrenchment were not universally popular at home – ‘even many Soviet military sources have been particularly sceptical about defensive doctrine, and several high-ranking officers have asserted that, while defense can prevent the enemy from defeating the USSR, it does not defeat the enemy’.53 The NIE also reflected the US ambivalence regarding Soviet military cutbacks: Ambiguity persists concerning the actual implementation of announced force cuts and the restructuring of forces remaining after the withdrawal into what the Soviets term a ‘clearly defensive’ orientation. We now judge, nevertheless, that a 25-year period of Soviet ground force growth has ended, and that the force will experience a decline in its overall size that could very well go beyond the magnitude of that already announced by the Soviets.54 Despite the NIE’s contrary message, and other contradictions in the advice he was receiving,55 Bush may have accepted certain conclusions: the USSR will remain the West’s principal military and political adversary. Perestroyka, however, is changing the nature of the Soviet challenge. Soviet policies that mute Cold War rhetoric and reduce the West’s perception of hostility and danger, threaten to undermine the philosophical and institutional framework the West has developed over the last 40 years for containing and combating Soviet and Communist expansionism. It will become increasingly difficult for the West to approach East–West relations from the same perspective, rhetoric, and policies as in the past. Western policies will have to sell in a more challenging market where the perception of threat is significantly reduced while competition remains strong. At the same time, the processes Gorbachev has set in motion create new opportunities to realize objectives Western policy has long sought.56 That would explain Bush’s positive view of Gorbachev’s efforts, and his decision to help. This shift, reflected in Bush’s acknowledgement that Gorbachev was transforming superpower relations, and the USSR itself, became apparent in May 1989. By then, the policy review Bush had ordered was completed. It bore ambiguities – hope and fear, relief and uncertainty – but Bush was emphatic in his 12 May speech at Texas A&M University. The USA should ‘move beyond containment’ and help the USSR to fully join the international community. However, he also underscored residual doubts: ‘[A] new relationship cannot simply be declared by Moscow or bestowed by others; it must be earned. It must be earned because promises are never enough.’57 That conditional offer of partnership early on in his presidency shaped the contours of the final stages of the Cold War as it rapidly evolved to its, and the Soviet Union’s, denouement.

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The year 1989 turned out to have been pivotal to the end of the Cold War, and the USSR’s demise. Events, some the outcome of decisions by the leaders in various capitals, others the expression of popular will, coming together in random convergences, changed the world in twelve brief months:58 •

•

•

•

•

Communist parties lost the monopoly on state power. The Soviet Union held its first multi-candidate elections, generating pressures for the decision, taken in March 1990, to allow other parties to challenge the CPSU. In Poland, elections led to the victory of Solidarity, which formed the first coalition government in post-1948 Eastern Europe. In Hungary, the Communist Party agreed to hold multi-party elections in 1990. Moscow’s renunciation of the ‘Brezhnev doctrine’ and apologies for the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia caused a ‘domino effect’ across Warsaw Pact Europe. One historian noted that communism disappeared in Poland in ten years, in Hungary – ten months, in East Germany – ten weeks, and in Czechoslovakia – ten days. Only Romania saw a bloody transition – anti-communist activists shot Ceausescu and his wife on Christmas Day. Days later, dissident Vaclav Havel became Czechoslovakia’s leader. Starting with the Baltic republics, nationalist separatism began destroying the Soviet empire. Gorbachev’s decision to open up the political process with glasnost encouraged regional leaders to switch loyalties from Moscow to their historical republics, raising fissile pressures. Glasnost ate away at the core of the secretive Soviet system. Revealing the Stalinist Gulags, the Great Terror, genocidal famines, mass deportations and massacres of the inter-war period, the new openness destroyed fear, respect or affection for the state. It would be difficult to contain popular demands for radical change. Gorbachev himself contributed to the destruction of a potent symbol of the Cold War when he visited East Berlin in October 1989. As young Germans chanted ‘Gorby! Gorby! Help us!!’ he asked his hosts to hasten reforms and desist from violence. His assurance that Moscow would not intervene in East German affairs ensured the Berlin Wall’s demolition. That stunning event59 sealed the fate of European communism.

Individually, these events and trends were cathartic; taken together, with the impact of one crashing on that of the others like waves building into a tsunami, they swept the post-1945 European security architecture away.

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The Afghan effect Another watershed was the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in mid-February. Gorbachev’s decision to pull out had taken years of difficult bargaining with the other parties under the umbrella of the UN’s Geneva accords. Sealing this ‘bleeding wound’ was a sign of both changes to Soviet strategic interests to a more benign profile, and the USSR’s reduced circumstances. This indication of Moscow’s abandonment of the ‘Brezhnev doctrine’ scarred the Soviet body-politic, although academics disagree on the causes behind the USSR’s implosion.60 One study suggests that the Afghan war, and its termination, had both short- and medium-term consequences for the unravelling of the Soviet state.61 Its authors assert the Afghan exercise adversely affected the perception of both Soviet leaders and the masses of the nature of the USSR. Until the war’s end, Moscow assumed the use of military force to hold together the Soviet construct to be a given. In early 1983, justifying the Afghan operations, Andropov reminded the Politburo that ‘It took almost the entire Red Army fifteen years to subdue the rebellious khanates in the Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirgizstan.’62 The war changed the leaders’ view of the efficacy of force as a cement. Until Gorbachev described the war as a ‘bleeding wound’ in February 1986, official Soviet media had denied the ‘limited contingent’ was either involved in fighting, or suffering casualties. Later that year, Shevardnadze described the intervention as ‘a sin’.63 Moscow no longer found its own actions acceptable. Concurrently, nationalists in Soviet republics who, until the withdrawal from Afghanistan, had believed Moscow would crush secessionists, no longer feared violence.64 The congruence of these shifts built pressures threatening the Soviet state’s cohesion. Just weeks after the last Soviet troops returned from Afghanistan, Lithuania’s pro-democracy group, Sajudis, announced its goal was the establishment of a fully independent and sovereign Lithuanian state. The impact of the irregular and illicit aspects of the war on civil– military relations, a key element of the Soviet system, was drastic. The defenders of the ‘great Soviet fatherland’ were no longer the invincible, heroic force reinforcing the USSR’s unity in diversity. The army’s performance, when it became known, shocked other soldiers, CPSU cadres, and ordinary citizens. Gorbachev’s efforts to demilitarise the polity were aided by anti-militarist tendencies, openly critical of the Afghan operations. The result of disillusionment became apparent in the March 1989 elections to the Supreme Soviet. Several senior Generals failed while some of their critics won seats. An anti-militarist activist, Victor Podziruk, defeated the Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. Later in the year, the Congress of the People’s Deputies set up a commission to investigate the Afghan war. For the first time since the Great Patriotic War, the hallowed military institution had its performance

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evaluated by a civilian body! With glasnost blowing much of the media’s self-censorship away, Soviet Generals and their critics engaged in unprecedented public debates over the military’s role, and the cost it inflicted on society. General Gromov, the last commander in Afghanistan, lamented: Currently a number of articles in the central press, in the magazine Ogonyk, the weekly Sobesednik, Komsomolskaya Pravda, and the program ‘Vzglyad ’ are in general trying to drive a wedge between the Army and society. The sorest of sore points – the war in Afghanistan – has been selected for this purpose.65 Other Generals complained that advice offered by Soviet commanders no longer influenced the Kremlin.66 The effect on the Soviet forces themselves was dramatic. In the autumn of 1989, the Ministry of Defence found that in a crisis-like atmosphere, morale among army officers had plummeted.67 The survey’s publication did not boost martial spirits, nor build popular confidence in the soldiery. The violence of a civil-war-cumcounter-insurgency engagement had brutalised and politicised hundreds of thousands of conscripts ‘processed’ through the ‘Afghan circuit’. Many of the Afgantsy returned home fired with reformist zeal. Many felt betrayed, misunderstood and unfairly treated by civilians. In 1989, they formed a committee to lobby the Congress of the People’s Deputies to negotiate the release of comrades held by the Mujahideen. To reduce their political influence, Moscow established an official veterans’ body. To counter it, Afgantsy set up Dolg (duty), a body designed to pursue veterans’ welfare, and social reform. Their activism, highlighted in songs and films, raised questions among soldiers and civilians about the army’s role as a moral institution upholding the Soviet ideal. Revelations of their cruelty in Afghanistan dented their appeal, but also lowered the army’s stature as the guardian of Soviet state and society. Soviet forces in Afghanistan initially comprised many non-Slav soldiers, largely Uzbeks and Tajiks from the southern military districts. Their performance was mixed, and occasionally suicidal. Some sold munitions to the guerrillas, others bought drugs from them, and yet others worked out a modus vivendi with local rebel commanders. A few changed sides. The war exacerbated tensions between Russians and non-Russians in the Soviet forces, and across the USSR generally. Many people in the southern republics viewed this as a Russian war being fought by non-Russians. Mounting ethnic tensions led to Soviet Uzbeks and Tajiks saying ‘our boys are dying for an alien cause’.68 Muslim clerics in Tajikistan campaigned against the war, claiming Moscow was trying to convert the Afghan Muslims into godless kafirs.69 Later, Russian troops were inducted to replace many non-Russians; some saw this as Russian oppression of Afghanistan’s Uzbeks and Tajiks, deepening anti-Russian resentments in the southern republics. Others, too, were affected. As early as in 1982, the

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Baltic underground reported anger in those republics at the death of Baltic soldiers killed in Afghanistan: ‘Under oppression themselves, Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians “were being forced” to obey the brutal orders of the Russian officers, and shed both their own and Afghan blood’.70 By 1985, Ukrainian Catholics had been so angered by the war that the Chronicle of the Catholic Church of Ukraine declared the war was ‘unjust’. Catholic activists that year wrote to the Defence Minister – ‘Ukrainians do not wish to fight, nor do they want this unjust war.’71 By the late 1980s, several European republics had started demanding their conscripts be deployed only within the boundaries of home republics. The war thus eroded the Soviet state’s legitimacy in non-Russian eyes, widening its centre–periphery cleavages. But in the spring of 1989, with Gorbachev startling the West, many compatriots, and Warsaw Pact allies, with initiatives apparently aimed at turning the world into a more pacific planet, these negative developments went largely unnoticed. Gorbachev insisted Moscow sought no rivalry or antagonism with peer powers, nor would it impose its will on others. In fact, the withdrawal from Afghanistan took place alongside a wider retrenchment as some military units were moved back from the Chinese and Mongolian borders. Moscow also announced it no longer supported Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia – identified by Beijing as conditions for resuming ‘normal’ Sino–Soviet ties. Once Gorbachev met Beijing’s terms, Deng could no longer ignore Moscow’s overtures. With US–Soviet tensions further diluted by the two sides beginning conventional forces in Europe (CFE) talks to reduce NATO and Warsaw Pact deployments, Moscow and Beijing may have seen an opportunity to repair their own ties. Having largely disarmed Western hostility over the past three years, Gorbachev may have wished to defang the other partner of the covert US–PRC alliance, securing the Soviet Union’s eastern flank. Both sides announced Gorbachev would visit Beijing in May, the first Soviet leader to do so in 30 years. Gorbachev’s 15–19 May trip to Beijing was significant on several counts. In discussions with Deng, he repeated the assurances he had given to Bush and other Western leaders: focused on internal reform and revitalisation, Moscow sought no adversarial relations or bellicose competition with peer rivals. He confirmed Soviet acceptance of the USSR–PRC borders, agreed in sporadic official talks but never formalised. And he did not appear supportive of the student-activists gathered at Tiananmen Square, demanding democratic reform. Deng’s team was embarrassed by its inability to quell the demonstrations which forced the hosts to bring Gorbachev’s delegation to the Great Hall of the People by the back door. The humiliation of the hosts was not lost on the guests, who had become familiar with the passion Gorbachev aroused among the youth elsewhere. Despite this shared embarrassment, Deng and Gorbachev worked out language enabling the two sides to overcome the antagonism that had

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marked relations for three decades, laying the foundations for a much more benign future. Mutual insecurity characterising earlier polemics was weakened and, despite uncertainties that must have plagued both sides, the anti-Soviet basis of the US–PRC alliance was undermined. Although the coalition survived, its potency was no longer crucial to either partner. However, to reach this level of acceptance in both East and West, Gorbachev had so changed the basic assumptions behind the USSR that the Soviet state itself was in danger of disappearing. The covert coalition, forged in secrecy and nurtured by five US administrations, had served the partners well.

9

Epilogue

Now is the time to look beyond the moment to important and enduring aspects of this vital relationship for the United States. (George Bush, June 1989) This is just the beginning of a long road to a long-lasting peaceful period. (Mikhail Gorbachev, December 1989) We stand at the threshold of a brand-new era of US–Soviet relations. (George Bush, December 1989) We buried the Cold War at the bottom of the Mediterranean. (Soviet presidential spokesman, December 1989) We extend our hand in friendship and hope you will do the same. In both our societies there are voices of those who seek to redirect or frustrate our cooperation. We both must take bold measures to overcome these negative forces. (Brent Scowcroft, December 1989)

Eagle and Dragon against the Bear One of the first foreign policy decisions President Bush announced after taking office was to accept an invitation to visit China. This may have reflected the scepticism of his key aides about Gorbachev’s dramatic initiatives, reinforced by his own desire to renew old ties and stamp his authority on US security policy. He asked for an inter-agency policy review analysing great-power relations, and US options in an increasingly fluid environment. The review would focus on the Soviet Union, leaving out US–China relations, which he understood. But he asked Ambassador Winston Lord in Beijing to provide a framework for the visit, enunciating US objectives, and Chinese expectations. Lord’s memo set out US goals and the points Bush should raise with Deng Xiaoping, President Yang Shangkun, and CPC General Secretary Zhao Ziyang.1

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Moscow’s role in US–China relations, especially as Gorbachev would be visiting Beijing in May, meant that Bush would have to focus on China’s changing stance toward ‘the Polar Bear’. Lord wanted Bush to: • • • •

Obtain Chinese assessment of the direction of Sino–Soviet relations. Obtain Chinese assurance that Sino–Soviet relations would not upset the strategic balance, i.e., undercut US interests. Share with China US assessment of US–Soviet relations; assure Beijing these would not affect US–PRC relations. Elicit Chinese assessment of Gorbachev’s position, likely Soviet direction in foreign policy and domestic reforms.2

Lord made numerous recommendations. On covert collusion, his advice was: Afghanistan • Describe the key role Sino–American cooperation played in forcing Soviet withdrawal. • Seek authoritative Chinese views on what can be done to ensure Afghan stability, independence, neutrality and reconstruction following Soviet withdrawal. Cambodia • Agree on continued cooperation and close consultation in achieving shared goals as the diplomatic process to resolve the issue becomes increasingly complex. • Reiterate that the US will not normalise relations with Vietnam until Vietnamese troops have left Cambodia in the context of an acceptable political settlement. • Elicit Chinese views on the progress of their talks with Hanoi and Moscow on Cambodia, and indication of when Beijing will reduce aid to the Khmer Rouge. • Seek Chinese assurances that, following a Cambodian settlement, China would ensure that the worst of the Khmer Rouge leaders will not remain in Cambodia. • Project US support for Sihanouk, including possibly by arranging a meeting between the President and Sihanouk. • Press the Chinese on an international peacekeeping force and other measures to prevent Khmer Rouge domination.3 Bush was to discuss Korea, Japan, the Middle East, South Asia, UN activities, Chinese economic reforms, possible GATT entry, intellectual property rights and civil aviation cooperation. He should also examine defence collaboration, human rights, Tibet and exchange programmes, including helping Chinese law enforcement. Lord set out objectives China’s leaders

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might pursue during the summit. These would focus on the Soviet Union, Cambodia, Taiwan, US ‘interference in internal affairs’, US export controls, GATT entry, a bilateral investment treaty and demand for US soft loans. NSC staff began preparing briefs around Lord’s outline. Fundamental to US–PRC ties was strategic-military collaboration, on which Bush sought detailed advice. Lord was asked to review bilateral defence links; the CIA would assess China’s domestic context. The CIA found the conjunction of economic and political developments gloomy. The economy was overheating, with inflationary pressures causing social stress. Liberalisation and decentralisation had given local, provincial and regional players greater power, reducing the centre’s ability to impose investment decisions. Growing inequality, loss of guarantees, and spreading corruption in an economy increasingly shaped by market forces generated strains. Although Deng had initiated the reforms, Zhao Ziyang, successor to the discredited Hu Yaobang, was identified with their adverse effects. If difficulties persisted, he was the most likely scapegoat.4 If Zhao fell, Beijing could swing right, turning inward. Lord’s analysis of the military-strategic trends was more optimistic. Although some PLA commanders worried about growing US influence, and Washington itself had held back somewhat in 1987 over the export of Silkworm cruise missiles to Iran, developments since 1986 had been dramatic. Lord underscored the weight of the summit’s military aspects: The President’s key meetings will be with the three top members of the Central Military Commission (Deng, Yang and Zhao), perhaps the single most powerful unit in China. The President’s visit will reinforce the important military dimensions in the context of the overall Sino–US relationship. Our overall objective is to build on and advance the Sino–American military relationship that evolved during the Reagan Administration.5 Lord reassured Bush that, despite improvements in Soviet–Chinese ties, the fundamentals of US–PRC relations remained sound: The geopolitical dimensions of our military relations with Beijing remain an important underpinning of the Sino–American relationship as a whole. The US and China both are improving relations with Moscow. Nevertheless, China continues to look to us to maintain the basic global, and regional, balance, and for us, a friendly China helps to check the prospects for Soviet expansionism.6 The Chinese assumed the USA was not their principal strategic threat for the foreseeable future. Both partners sought the withdrawal of foreign forces from Cambodia and Afghanistan, and hoped for peace on the Korean

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peninsula. Beijing ‘tacitly condone our Pacific presence as a force for regional stability’, especially to curb ‘future Japanese militancy’. But Lord also hinted at a shift in the mix of needs. China’s help was now needed to address global security issues. He urged Bush to stress to his hosts:7 • •

•

• • •

• • •

the positive results of a continuing improvement in US–PRC military relationship, an important means for better understanding China’s role as a key world actor in curbing tensions, strengthening stability, in sales of arms, missiles, chemical and nuclear weapon components the need for assurances that China will not sell intermediate-range missiles to countries other than Saudi Arabia; US concerns about Pakistan the importance of an explicit Chinese statement that these assurances apply to all missiles with a range over 300km the need for Chinese association with multilateral efforts against missile proliferation ongoing arms control dialogue through the annual ACDA–Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) talks and the newly initiated political-military talks between the foreign ministries continued cooperation in Geneva in bringing a comprehensive, verifiable ban on chemical weapons into being quickly ongoing concerns regarding nuclear proliferation, with the accent on South Asia the need for assurances regarding ‘China’s intentions re Pakistan in the nuclear areas’.

Secretary of State Baker summarised the objectives and strategy to be pursued during the visit.8 One concern was to ensure the thaw between Beijing and Moscow – with Shevardnadze having recently visited China to finalise Gorbachev’s May summit – did not adversely affect the US–PRC coalition. President Bush’s trip, despite a little health hiccup, went off as planned. Old friendships were renewed, earlier pledges reiterated, and despite changes to the strategic milieu, the secret alliance was reinforced. Bush told Premier Li Peng he was happy with the depth and breadth of US–China relations and had ‘exempted’ China from the policy review he had ordered after taking office. Bush was also the first ‘Barbarian’ leader to address the Chinese people on state television, taking questions from students. Deng and Zhao spoke frankly to Bush about their domestic tribulations, especially their belief that despite growing unease over economic problems and alleged corruption, Beijing must maintain stability. Deng reassured Bush of China’s continued need for US support to ‘balance the Soviet Union’.9 Bush reinforced the objectives of secret collaboration:

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We’ve developed an active program of military cooperation that is forging ties of friendship between our defense establishments, even as we’ve found a diplomatic unity in our shared opposition to policies of international aggression and domination. Our two countries, as nuclear powers, as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, have a special responsibility for preserving world peace.10 Unpleasantness did, however, intervene. On 26 February, the President hosted a banquet for about 500 guests, around 275 of them Chinese. Lord had invited China’s most famous dissident, physicist Fang Lizhi, and Mrs Fang; the White House had not objected.11 US diplomats told the press the invitation highlighted US concerns over human rights abuses. The White House privately indicated Bush might not meet Fang, but Chinese policemen prevented him from attending the dinner. Bush later expressed ‘regret’ to his hosts over the incident; his staff suggested inviting Fang had been Lord’s idea rather than the President’s. It would not be long before Lord, a Reagan appointee, was replaced by the CIA’s James Lilley. This decision was widely seen as a concession to Beijing’s insistence that Washington stop interfering in China’s ‘internal affairs’. Meanwhile, rapid changes in Eastern and Central Europe, and in Soviet policy, challenged many assumptions underlying US doctrine and strategy, crucial to the coalition with China. PRC leaders themselves appeared to have been convinced that Gorbachev’s reforms were real; Deng and company were persuaded to cast off their traditional hostility to and scepticism of Moscow’s pronouncements, and accept Gorbachev’s hand extended in friendship. Four days after returning from Beijing, Bush ordered a review of US national defence strategy. Deep cuts in Soviet forces suggested threats to US security were fading, but were new gaps opening up? Bush asked: Do we expect major technological surprises in Soviet general purpose forces, strategic nuclear forces or in the area of strategic defense that could significantly reduce the effectiveness of the US deterrent? Could we detect such developments? Could the Soviet Union compete effectively in a technological arms race in these areas, or offset US technological advances by other means?12 The review would help the White House to re-evaluate its global priorities, redefining the framework for great-power policies in the 1990s. Bush felt Deng had a better grasp of the Soviet reality than Scowcroft and Baker, but he wanted to test his suspicions. As the report confirming Beijing’s assessment of Soviet reforms arrived, State Department received outgoing Ambassador Lord’s valedictory assessment of US–PRC relations and the challenges they faced. He mentioned thirty scientific-technological protocols which made up the largest scientific collaboration each partner

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pursued, 35,000 Chinese students studying at US universities, hundreds of US academics teaching or studying at Chinese campuses, current and future Chinese leaders visiting the USA, and the agreement to have USbuilt satellites launched atop Chinese rockets enabling Chinese space, and ballistic missile programmes, to acquire US technology, and cash. Lord also stressed the essence of US–PRC ties: Virtually every top military leader on both sides has recently crossed the Pacific and a heavy schedule of further trips will unfold during the remainder of the year. Meanwhile working level delegations expand our professional links. One of the most dramatic events of my tenure was the first visit ever to the People’s Republic by American naval ships in the autumn of 1986. A year later the US Air Force Thunderbirds performed over Beijing. Earlier this month I saw off the first PRC warship ever to visit the West. More American vessels will steam into Shanghai while Gorbachev is in China, perhaps in Shanghai itself.13 Lord added that Gorbachev’s May visit would not change the history and geography of Soviet–China relations; ‘nor will their long border and overlapping ethnic populations’.14 In short, despite fluctuations, the covert coalition remained strong.

Overshadowed watershed Moscow was concerned about port calls by US warships in Shanghai during Gorbachev’s visit. Two days after Lord’s departure, the Soviet Deputy Chief of Mission in Beijing called on the US chargé d’affaires, asking for confirmation that US vessels would dock at Shanghai on 17 May. The US diplomat refused to confirm naval movement, pointing out the Chinese, as hosts to both the Soviet President, and the US warships, had the answer. But he agreed to discuss the US stand on key ‘triangular’ issues, for example Cambodia and Afghanistan.15 The timing of US warships’ visit would pale before concern over the rising tide of protests by Beijing’s students, urban workers and other groups. Gorbachev’s visit coincided with demonstrations in Tiananmen Square peaking. The agitation was rooted in economic, social and political pressures building over the late 1980s as China made the transition from a command economy to a mixed one. Financial and commercial power was transferred to local and regional entities. Production and distribution in some sectors were privatised. Economic liberalisation loosened central control, promoting greater freedom, but was not accompanied by political relaxation. Influential individuals, especially family members of senior CPC figures, appeared to profit from liberalisation. The lack of transparency and accountability meant their riches reinforced perceptions of

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corruption and nepotism. Protests by peasants, workers, and students became widespread in 1988, continuing into 1989.16 Agitation reflected a general malaise but did not trigger a ‘national’ movement until the sudden death of Hu Yaobang on 15 April 1989. Beijing had prepared for the 70th anniversary of the 4 May Movement,17 but not for the size of crowds that now demonstrated in Tiananmen Square. The growing protests were an intriguing development. The authorities were unsure about how to handle this uncomfortable reminder of Red Guard activism. Their uncertainty reflected divisions. Zhao Ziyang and the CPC propaganda chief, Hu Qili, led moderates keen to end the protests by addressing the students’ demand of arresting corruption, and extending liberalisation to the academic and political arenas. Their willingness to compromise threatened the elite’s power, challenging the one-party state whose ultimate instruments were threats and coercion. Most Standing Committee members, and ‘elders’ – octogenarian leaders pulling strings from semi-retirement – supported the hard line taken by President Yang and Premier Li, opposing Zhao.18 As tensions mounted, and Gorbachev’s visit neared, Deng abandoned Zhao for the hardliners.19 Gorbachev and his team arrived on 15 May. Because of the Square’s occupation by protesters, his hosts had to cancel the traditional welcoming ceremony at the Great Hall of the People. Instead, a more modest reception was arranged at the airport from where the guests were whisked away to heavily guarded guest houses at the leadership compound in the Forbidden City. Another embarrassment for Deng and the CPC was their inability to bring the guests to the Great Hall of the People for their summit meeting via the front door on the Tiananmen Square. Instead, the guests were furtively motored in round the back of the imposing edifice. World media, gathered around the Square to cover the summit, covered the demonstrations instead. This did not detract from the moment and substance of the talks. Gorbachev reiterated his pledges to comply with Beijing’s ‘three demands’ for improving relations. Troop strength on the borders was being reduced, and the remainder would adopt a defensive stance; Soviet soldiers had left Afghanistan months earlier; on Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia, Soviet support was diplomatic and Moscow encouraged all sides to resolve their differences peacefully. Gorbachev stressed his ‘pan-humanist values’, removing coercion as an instrument from Moscow’s policy toolbox. He assured Deng of his determination to pursue peaceful change at home and pacific diplomacy abroad. To expand cooperation, trade would be boosted. As the trip’s crowning glory, the CPSU and the CPC resumed formal links, ending years of acrimony. Gorbachev and Deng lowered the hostile profile that had shaped mutual perceptions, informing policy for three decades. A key building-block of the Cold War was thus removed, and replaced with an agreed view of a more peaceable future.20 Perhaps to keep all its strategic bases loaded, Beijing had arranged to have three US

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naval vessels sail into Shanghai on 19 May, a day after Gorbachev’s visit there, confirming the strength of US–Chinese military links, and sending a signal to Moscow, as the new trends unfolded. But the summit also underscored contradictions in the new dynamics. Deng had taken risks, and suffered, in pushing China into a new era of economic growth, diplomatic moderation, and opening up at home and abroad. China was building a strong economy on the back of liberalised domestic and foreign investment parameters, widening and deepening its scientific-technological capacity, boosting manufacturing and service sectors, and bringing modest prosperity to hundreds of millions of poor citizens. China was transforming itself into a more powerful actor on the international stage without compromising its power structure. Young beneficiaries of Deng’s reforms were now demanding further changes, threatening his institutional authority. Gorbachev had been struggling to reform the Soviet system with a view to attaining the same objectives as Deng’s China seemed to have done. Under Gorbachev’s more liberal regime, Soviet authority within the USSR, and across its Warsaw Pact ‘empire’, was crumbling as representative tendencies built their fissiparous strength. He symbolised a reformatory epitome for activists across the communist-socialist world, including China, especially the agitators occupying Tiananmen Square, while he huddled with Deng and company. But the Soviet Union and the bloc Gorbachev hoped to rebuild were themselves fragmenting. Deng was determined to ensure this did not happen to his China. He was concerned that the Western, Hong Kong and Taiwanese media gathered to cover the summit was covering the students’ agitation instead. Its domestic impact outside Beijing, Shanghai and other conurbations was modest, but the international fallout caused anxiety. It would be fair to surmise that while both leaders were delighted with the summit’s outcome, they were relieved when Gorbachev’s three-day trip ended.

Coalition crunch-time A week after that summit, and less than a fortnight from his overture to Moscow at the Texas A&M University, Bush welcomed a Chinese leader to his White House residence for tea with Mrs Bush. Given the warmth of his February visit to Beijing, this was not surprising. Bush was keen to hear what Wan Li, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, had to say about the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, and the Gorbachev–Deng summit.21 However, Wan Li’s visit might not have happened at all. Deng had marginalised Zhao Ziyang, imposed martial law in Beijing, and ordered troops peacefully to clear the Square. Units had tried to move unarmed soldiers into the city-centre, but civil opposition, and the PLA’s non-violent stance, ensured their failure. Ambassador Lilley, expecting massive armed action, had asked that Washington cancel Wan Li’s visit,

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distancing itself from the hardliners if the soldiers did go in with guns blazing.22 In the event, armed action began on 3–4 June. Motorised infantry, mechanised and armoured units entered the capital, surrounding Tiananmen Square, which many protester had already left. Troops skirmished with demonstrators offering any resistance.23 One report, from a ChineseAmerican journalist, corroborated by US diplomats, suggested violence may have been triggered in one part of Beijing by demonstrators killing two soldiers when they set fire to an APC and ‘roasted alive’ its crew. Once soldiers opened fire, their action seemed unrestrained; thousands of unarmed civilians were apparently gunned down, killed or wounded.24 Another report said after unarmed soldiers had been turned back from the city-centre by thousands of demonstrators, Deng ‘was personally involved’ in ordering armed troops to move in and clear the Square and its environs.25 Details remained sketchy and confused for days, especially given Deng’s apparent absence between 24 May and 9 June when rumours of his illness, even death, circulated. By 8 June, the military had taken control of Beijing, hardliners had replaced Zhao’s supporters from media organisations, and Li Peng was shown meeting commanders of troops deployed across the capital. On 9 June, Deng appeared at a special gathering of the CMC in the company of the hardliners,26 commended the commanders whose troops had crushed the agitation, and awarded medals to several Generals. Casualty figures remained unconfirmed, but reports suggested up to 2,600 civilians may have been killed, and 10,000 others wounded.27 However, at the meeting, Deng expressed ‘deep condolences over the loss of military “martyrs” ’, and congratulated the forces ‘for successfully suppressing a “counterrevolutionary rebellion” ’.28 Chinese media reported that more than 1,000 soldiers and policemen had been ‘killed or wounded’ on 3–4 June. The burned hulks of hundreds of military vehicles, including ‘at least 34 tanks and numerous armoured personnel carriers’ strewn across Beijing underscored the anger of those opposed to the PLA’s action.29 However, reports that units from different army groups had clashed in Beijing’s suburbs, were later discounted. The authorities began a hunt for the leaders of the protest movement, asking them to surrender if they wanted ‘leniency’. More than 1,500 were quickly arrested,30 but many key figures fled. Dissident Fang Lizhi gained sanctuary in US embassy premises. Chinese media criticised this and other US action as support for ‘the rebels’. There was bitter criticism in Washington, too, from Congress and the media, of Bush’s reaction31 to this massive violation of human rights as an act of ‘appeasement’. Two days after his first statement on the crackdown, Bush suspended ‘all government-to-government sales and commercial export of weapons’, and ‘visits between US and Chinese military leaders’, ordering ‘sympathetic review of requests by Chinese students in the United States to

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extend their stay’. He offered assistance through the Red Cross to those injured during the assault and ordered a review of ‘other aspects of our bilateral relationship’.32 The modesty of these steps was matched by efforts not to damage wider US–China ties: This is not the time for an emotional response, but a reasoned, careful action that takes into account both our long-term interests and recognition of a complex internal situation in China. There clearly is turmoil within the ranks of the political leadership, as well as the People’s Liberation Army. And now is the time to look beyond the moment to important and enduring aspects of this vital relationship for the United States.33 Critics described Bush’s efforts to protect the US–PRC coalition as ‘clientitis’,34 a result of his ‘having gone native’ as the envoy in Beijing, and then, as a key conduit of contacts with China as the DCI. Bush’s own explanation, ‘long-term national interest’, was more prosaic. He worried about the Soviet Union as a continuing threat to US security. Sharing some of the scepticism of Scowcroft and Baker toward Gorbachev’s ‘new thinking’, he thought Moscow had not ‘shifted’ much in its new initiatives, and ‘we need a time [sic] to make some prudent investigation and discovery and then go forward with a proposal’.35 Facing strategic flux carrying unknown dangers, Bush sought stability in a key coalition that had paid dividends for two decades. As pressure mounted, Bush had to impose further sanctions. Congressional and media criticism grew louder as US public opinion moved against Deng and his rigorous measures.36 On 20 June, Bush suspended ‘participation in all high-level exchanges of government officials with the People’s Republic of China, in addition to the suspension of military exchanges’.37 Scheduled visits by Commerce Secretary Mosbacher and Treasury Secretary Brady were cancelled. Bush got international financial institutions to postpone new loans to China. To counter demands for stronger action, the Administration stressed US gains from the unacknowledged alliance. Senior officials offered journalists ‘unattributable background’ on the secret, and important, CIA monitoring stations at Qitai and Korla, emphasising that turbulence notwithstanding, Beijing was collecting, processing and sharing sensitive intelligence on Soviet nuclear and missile tests: Trucks with highly classified tapes from two US-built listening posts are still travelling from remote sites in western China to the US Embassy in Beijing, despite a steadily worsening relationship between the two nations’ governments, according to informed sources. At the same time, Chinese scientists have assured their US counterparts that they will continue to furnish unique information on Soviet nuclear tests and other seismic disturbances recorded at nine other stations

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built by the United States in China, other sources said. In short, they said, the Chinese Government has not allowed its public anger over the sanctuary provided to dissident Fang Lizhi at the US Embassy or the US cutoff of military sales and diplomatic contacts to interfere with a secret partnership that began more than a decade ago.38 As Bush played down Beijing’s tough action, the Chinese themselves acted calmly. Media criticism of US policy persisted for a week, often qualified with phrases like ‘some sections in the US’, ‘some US personnel’, and the ‘US embassy’. There was no criticism of US–China relations, or of US leaders. Formal protests were voiced only on 26 June. The US Defense Attaché was called to the Ministry of National Defence where Major General Chen Xianmou read out a prepared text ‘strongly protesting’ US military sanctions. Beijing cancelled planned visits by the US Army Chief of Staff General Vuono, Marine Corps Commandant General Gray, and General Temple of the National Guard. Beijing also discontinued other military exchanges and would neither accept future invitations from the Defense Attaché nor extend any to him. ‘MG Chen did not adopt a confrontational attitude and emphasized that both sides should take a longterm view of the military relationship’.39 Beijing merely formalised what Bush had already ordered. The Chinese approach was so ‘measured’ that, immediately after the protest was read out, three new US military attachés had their accreditation meetings with Chinese officials. Beijing’s moderation may have persuaded Bush to send a secret delegation to Beijing to communicate a personal message to Deng, and revive the covert alliance. General Scowcroft and Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger would fly to Beijing and celebrate the US Independence Day with China’s leaders. Bush, seeking high-level involvement of the State Department, demanded a ‘cost-benefit analysis’ of such an exercise. State’s report underscored the benefits while noting strong Congressional reaction to Administration policy.40 The benefits of US–PRC collaboration, according to this analysis, provided the context in which Bush wished to address the: serious questions [that] have arisen in both countries about the future of the US–PRC relationship. It is the President’s hope that, through the good offices of his representatives, it will be possible to reach an understanding on each side of the concerns and intentions of the other. For his part, the President intends to do all he can to maintain a steady course because he believes deeply that a solid relationship between the PRC and the US is in the interests of world peace and international stability.41 The secrecy of the 4 July trip lasted several months, helped by the fact that only a secretary and an NSC staffer accompanied Scowcroft and

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Eagleburger. They met Deng, discussed Tiananmen Square, conveyed Bush’s deep concerns, and his anxiety to maintain the substance of US–PRC relations. They talked about Cambodia, urging China to reduce military assistance to the Khmer Rouge, and about relaxing the repression of Tibetan nationalists. On the latter issues, Deng was non-committal; on bilateral ties, he insisted that since the USA had ‘tied the knot, it was for Washington to untie it’.42 Apart from renewing high-level contact, and providing mutual reassurances, the July trip may not have achieved much. Beijing’s propaganda against the US as the source of the polluting ‘bourgeois-liberalization’ grew. The posting of Chinese armed guards around US diplomatic premises hinted at a policy of intimidation.43 An agreement reached after years of negotiations, to accept Peace Corps members, especially English teachers for Sichuan Province, was postponed by Beijing. China suspended a joint venture with the US aircraft manufacturer McDonnell Douglas. However, there were positive signs, too. US businessmen still had access to senior figures, and the Chinese media’s criticism of Japan and some European countries was more strident than that aimed at the USA. Ambassador Lilley, pointing out Beijing’s complex mix of reactions, suggested that the USA follow Japan and European allies in not treating trade as a political instrument. He asked that Washington not be guided by emotional outbursts of frustrated US Congressmen, journalists, academics, and businessmen and, instead, sustain as many channels of communications as possible. Lilley urged the resumption of high-level contacts, an intriguing hint that the Scowcroft–Eagleburger visit had bypassed him. Lilley wrote that ex-President Nixon’s planned trip provided an opportunity to convey sensitive messages. Both Nixon and Kissinger visited Beijing as Deng’s guests, taking back to Bush the advice that it was up to Washington to ‘untangle the knot it had tied’, complicating bilateral relations. Bush decided to act on the ‘Paramount Leader’s’ advice. But he needed to prepare the ground for a further initiative demonstrating his sincerity. Despite protests from the media, liberal opinion and Congress, the President loosened some of the sanctions. The measures were quietly adopted by relevant departments. •

•

• •

In July, Bush authorised the sale of four Boeing 757 jets with prohibited inertial navigation systems. Three aircraft were delivered in July, and the fourth in August. In August, State Department authorised the US Exim Bank to offer ‘preliminary commitments’ for more than $45m in loans and loanguarantees to five US firms operating in China, including one selling nuclear equipment and technology. The $500m ‘Peace Pearl’ project to upgrade F-8 fighters with US avionics was resumed, although China later cancelled it. A Boeing 747 aircraft was delivered in October; the US firm Honey-

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well was allowed to continue maintaining US-built aircraft in Chinese inventory. In December, Bush authorised previously agreed transfer of US-built commercial AUSSAT and ASIASAT communication satellites to Beijing for being launched atop Chinese rockets, helping China’s space industry financially and enabling it to acquire US ballistic missile technology. Bush ordered a relaxation of restrictions on US loans to China while asking allies not to lift sanctions imposed in June.44

New thinking all around By now, the security environment, especially the ‘Soviet threat’ driving the US–Chinese coalition, looked different. In late June, when Bush talked of the need to take the long view on China, he was still sceptical of Gorbachev’s reforms. By early autumn, evidence mounted that Gorbachev was more sincere than Washington assumed. More seriously, the USSR was in danger of degenerating, posing unpredictable challenges. The CIA’s analysis of ‘Gorbachev’s domestic gambles’ marked the transformation of the ‘threat’: Whether or not Gorbachev retains office, the United States for the foreseeable future will confront a Soviet leadership that faces endemic popular unrest and that, on a regional basis at least, will have to employ emergency measures and increased use of force to retain domestic control. This instability is likely to preoccupy Moscow for some time to come and . . . prevent a return to the arsenal state economy that generated the fundamental military threat to the West . . . Moscow’s focus on internal order is likely to accelerate the decay of Communist systems and growth of regional instability in Eastern Europe, pointing to the need for post-Yalta arrangements of some kind and confronting the United States with severe foreign policy and strategic challenges.45 If residual doubts clouded the Administration’s judgement of developments in the Soviet empire, these were dispelled by a NIE on changes in the Warsaw Pact’s military capability. The Estimate stressed the reduction of deployed forces by Moscow and its clients, growing focus on internal security, changes in Pact members diluting threats to NATO, extending the warning NATO could expect of any major Pact military operations, or combat preparations.46 Political commentary from the Kremlin and Baker–Shevardnadze talks reinforced impressions of the transformation of the USSR into a troubled giant in need of help as it sought to become a friend. Bush offered to work out a mutually agreed framework outlining a post-Yalta arrangement for a ‘post-Evil Empire’ Europe. An early December presidential summit meeting was scheduled in Malta.

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Bush had met Gorbachev at the December 1988 Governor’s Island summit – Reagan’s last major diplomatic event. Reagan’s approach to Gorbachev had mellowed by then, but Bush maintained his distance. Now, he had an opportunity to speak for himself. Once he decided to work with the Soviet leadership, Bush tried to be as helpful as he could to encourage Gorbachev to take decisions that would, in addition to advancing Soviet objectives, serve Western interests. Aware of the consequences of the threat Moscow perceived in the SDI, Bush had quietly downgraded the project. Now he formalised that decision. His Space Policy Directive ordered the maintenance of defensive capability in the form of research and development, but removed signs of interest in deployment. The stress was emphatically on strengthening deterrence.47 Moscow would have found this shift reassuring, especially as Soviet capabilities rapidly declined in the following weeks. A fortnight before the summit, Bush saw indications that the USSR faced potentially unmanageable crises, although his intelligence advisers thought it unlikely. Gorbachev’s weakening hand, growing instability across the Soviet Union and bloc, and risks these pressures could generate, made for a sobering reading. •

•

•

•

•

The Soviet domestic crisis would continue regardless of the policies the regime pursued. The regime, preoccupied with domestic problems for years to come, would want to keep tensions with the USA low, and would probably pursue agreements that reduce military competition and make resource trade-offs easier. Despite facing enormous problems, Gorbachev’s leadership position appeared secure, and he had increased power and political room to cope with the crisis. There would be efforts to limit political change, a tougher approach on ethnic issues, and retrenchment in media policy; but political liberalisation would expand with the legislature and new political groups taking some power from the CPSU. Moscow would focus on stabilising the economy and, while diluting some reforms, would push for others designed to enlarge the market and private enterprise. Despite these efforts, little improvement – and possibly a decline – in economic performance and further increase in domestic turmoil were expected.48

US intelligence did not, however, anticipate any dramatic shifts in the Kremlin’s policies. The consensus was Gorbachev would ‘maintain the present course, intensifying reform while making some retreats’. Analysts believed political turmoil and economic decline could become unmanageable, leading to repressive crackdowns, ‘effectively ending any serious reform effort’. The CIA’s Deputy Director (Intelligence) gave a starker warning:

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Assuming Gorbachev holds on to power and refrains from repression, the next two years are likely to bring a significant progression toward a pluralist – albeit chaotic – democratic system, accompanied by a higher degree of political instability, social upheaval, and interethnic conflict . . . In these circumstances, we believe there is a significant chance that Gorbachev . . . will progressively lose control of events. The personal political strength he can accumulate is likely to erode, and his political position will be severely tested.49 Bush went to Malta knowing he was dealing with a Soviet leader facing a grave crisis. Unlike his predecessors, he did not allow teams of ‘sherpas’ to work out a summit agenda or a draft communiqué. He wanted the flexibility of an ‘open agenda’. Although stormy weather nullified most ceremonial protocol, the two men spent several hours speaking by themselves – with interpreters only – and several more with aides. Despite the lack of an agenda, Bush read out a list of around 20 points of action that he pledged Washington would implement to strengthen US–Soviet relations, and assist Gorbachev’s reforms. The package included fresh arms control talks, removal of trade barriers, financial support and student exchanges. Bush believed Gorbachev was pleasantly surprised.50 Bush expressed support for perestroika, asking if Moscow could publish its detailed defence budget. Gorbachev parried with a comment that the USA did not publish all the details of its military expenditure. But his theme was more ‘philosophical’ – the ‘strategic defeat’ of ‘Cold War methods, methods of confrontation’: We have come to this realization. And common people have realized this, perhaps even better . . . Ecological problems, problems of preservation of natural resources, problems with regard to bad consequences of technological progress. And all this is understandable, essentially this is a question of survival. And this kind of public mood is strongly affecting us, politicians. Therefore, we together – the USSR and the US – can do a lot on this stage to change radically our old approaches. We had already felt it in our contacts with the Reagan administration. And this process continues today. Look how we opened ourselves to each other.51 However, Gorbachev was unhappy with American comments that Moscow had been forced into reforms by the pressure of US Cold War policies. This school, he alleged, held that Washington should pursue the policy of pressure and ‘prepare more baskets to collect fruits. Mr President, this is a dangerous illusion’. Bush reassured him on his administration’s preference for ‘reserved behavior’, avoiding overt celebration of the changes in Eastern Europe and Moscow’s other difficulties: while the changes in Eastern Europe have been going on, the United States has not engaged in condescending declarations aimed at

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Epilogue damaging the Soviet Union. There are people in the United States who accuse me of being too cautious. It is true I am a prudent man, but I am not a coward, and my administration will seek to avoid doing anything that would damage your position in the world. But I was insistently advised to do something of that sort – to climb the Berlin Wall and to make broad declarations. My administration, however, is avoiding these steps.52

Gorbachev was mollified; discussion flowed so smoothly that the two sides achieved a surprising degree of convergence. The weather destroyed much of the summit’s schedule; Gorbachev and his aides did not risk journeying to the USS Belknap, the flagship of the US 6th Fleet, where Bush was staying, for dinner or for talks.53 Bush offered to make another hazardous trip by launch to the Maxim Gorky on the following day and much of the discussions on 3 December focused on Afghanistan. Both sides offered fresh information on their clients’ activities, exploring ways of reducing differences over Afghanistan’s future. Gorbachev chided Bush on the Mujahideen’s failure to evict the Najibullah regime from Kabul ten months after Soviet withdrawal; Bush conceded his surprise at Gorbachev’s report that some guerrilla commanders were already in secret talks with Najibullah. There were differences over managing change in Europe and elsewhere, but these were over nuance, not substance. Bush was touched when in response to his assurance of peaceable US intentions, Gorbachev presented him with a map of the USSR, virtually surrounded by US naval bases around the world. Bush had not seen US global deployments from Moscow’s perspective. He declined to begin naval arms control talks, but the impression was telling. In eight hours of talks, the leaders discussed the gamut of bilateral and global issues, agreeing on an outline of action. They would energise strategic arms control talks; an accord would be signed at a summer summit in the USA. Both supported further work on conventional and chemical weapons reduction talks. However, Bush declined to make even deeper cuts in conventional arms than negotiators were discussing in Vienna. The one area of discord was Central America. Bush rejected Soviet insistence that no new arms were being sent by Nicaragua’s Sandinistas to El Salvador’s left-wing rebels. He claimed, ‘I don’t believe that the Sandinistas have told the truth to our Soviet friends.’ He also accused Cuba of supplying arms to the Salvadoran rebels. However, he accepted Soviet assurances that Moscow itself no longer armed the rebels. This was a niggling negative in a raft of positives. At the end of the summit the two leaders met the press, engaging in a friendly exchange with journalists, and each other. Careful not to suggest the Soviet leader had come hat in hand, Bush often deferred to his new partner in answering questions. His closing comments marked a new mood:

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There is enormous support in our country for what Chairman Gorbachev is doing inside – inside the Soviet Union. There is enormous respect and support for the way he has advocated peaceful change in Europe. And so this meeting has accomplished everything that I hoped it would. The Soviet Union now seeks greater engagement with the international market economy, a step that certainly I’m prepared to encourage any way I can.54 The Soviet Union and the USA could no longer be described as antagonists determined to defeat each other. The Cold War was over – well, almost. At the end of the summit, the two Presidents went their separate ways to brief respective allies. Malta marked a transition, and both felt the need to update allied leaders on how the superpowers planned to manage the dynamic and potentially turbulent processes under way.

A coalition transformed Before leaving Washington, Bush had discussed with his closest aides the question of continuing the nearly two-decade-old practice of briefing Chinese leaders on all US–Soviet talks. The decision was helped by the reports from Nixon and Kissinger on their return from China that Beijing was keen to restore normality to bilateral relations, but it was up to the USA to ‘untangle the knot it had tied’. The Malta summit offered an opportunity to do just that. Bush instructed Scowcroft and Eagleburger quietly to return to Beijing, brief Deng, reassure him of continued US support on close ties, and politely express anxiety over China’s human rights violations. The two envoys left on 9 December. At a banquet hosted by China’s leaders on 10 December, General Scowcroft toasted the health of the alliance, extending ‘our hand in friendship and hope you will do the same’. But he warned, ‘In both our societies there are voices of those who seek to redirect or frustrate our cooperation. We both must take bold measures to overcome these negative forces.’ TV images of the US President’s Assistant for National Security clinking glasses with Chinese leaders responsible for the PLA’s attack on democracy activists jarred across the USA, most strongly in Congress. By the New Year, disclosures that the December visit had been preceded by another secret trip in July scandalised legislators. The Foreign Affairs Committees of both chambers summoned Eagleburger. His testimony in the Senate on 7 February, and in the House on 8 February, explained the Administration’s view of US–PRC relations evolving in the post-Tiananmen and post-Malta period. Eagleburger countered scepticism about China’s strategic importance when the Cold War’s foundations seemed irreversibly eroded: While US–Soviet tensions may be declining, the strategic value of our relationship with China is not. In an earlier time, both the United

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Epilogue States and China were justifiably alarmed by the expansionist appetites of the Brezhnev regime. Quite naturally, the United States and China found common cause in seeking to stem this adventurism. We readily found parallel interests in Cambodia, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa and elsewhere. Today, we cannot yet say that these regional crises have been fully resolved or that our parallel interests with China in resolving them have come to an end. At the same time, however, we all recognize that the dramatic reforms occurring in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have altered the strategic scene. But such changes have not reduced the importance of China to the United States so much as they have transformed the way in which we must view the international significance of the PRC.55

Eagleburger enumerated the areas in which Beijing continued to serve US interests: China remains relevant in resolving the conflicts left over from an earlier time of Soviet expansionism. But of even greater importance is the fact that as the world’s most populous nation, a country with great economic potential and the possessor of significant military capability, China’s participation is essential to coping successfully with a number of transnational issues. These include, among others, the proliferation of missiles and nuclear weapons, chemical weapons proliferation, and environmental pollution. Thus, China’s strategic significance needs to be seen not simply through the narrow prism of the Soviet factor, but on the far broader scale of its place in an increasingly polycentric world.56 Eagleburger pointed out that China was central to regional stability in Asia, and to peaceful resolution of the disputes dividing the Korean peninsula and Cambodia, for instance. He reminded Congress: the issue has never been whether or how fervently we support reform and respect for human rights in China . . . Rather, the issue is how best to transform rhetoric into reality. Do we seek to isolate China and cause it to turn inward? Or do we seek to facilitate its return to reform and openness by continuing to pursue the contacts and ties that encouraged such reforms in the first place.57 Eagleburger insisted – despite the risk of vindicating Beijing’s accusations that incipient democratic forces had flowered in China because of US policies – to nurture these tendencies, contact must be maintained, even strengthened: It is because of the earlier involvement with China, it is because of the students coming to this country and the professors going to that

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country, that a great deal of the ferment that we now see in China and saw prior to June 3 and 4, in fact, developed; that it is the influence of the US in the last decade, it is the influence of the US in the process of economic modernization and reform that has changed the character of the situation in China to the degree it has changed.58 Eagleburger’s final point was that US–PRC economic-commercial relations had grown steadily, promising improvements to the lives of millions of Chinese, strengthening market forces, and benefiting US businesses. Trade had jumped from $2.3bn in 1979 to nearly $18bn in 1989; US investment had risen from nothing to $4bn in the same period. Given restrictions on military and dual-technology transfers, non-military trade and commerce soon became a major driver of US–China relations. Although trade fell in June 1989, it soon bounced back, growing spectacularly since. That remarkable trend,59 seen in Table 10, uninterrupted despite occasional US complaints about Beijing’s failure to provide a level playing field, has been central to US–PRC ties in the post-Cold War world. This indirect transfer of US capital to China continued into the twentyfirst century. While trade and investment acquired significance in US–PRC relations after Moscow no longer posed a military threat, the two partners maintained strong ties in security, intelligence and nuclear weapons research. Public commentary to the contrary notwithstanding, US and Chinese intelligence services retained strong enough bonds for Beijing to despatch its experts to the USA to help with investigations shortly after the attacks on 11 September 2001. And this despite the two countries nearly coming to blows in April over the downing of a US EP-3 aircraft over Hainan. Although the Clinton Administration faced raucous media and Congressional criticism over its ‘failure’ to prevent alleged Chinese nuclear espionage, a senior US nuclear physicist told a different story. After a brief hiatus following the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the USA and China resumed collaboration in nuclear weapons research in 1990. That year, Beijing invited US scientist Danny Stillman, a weapons expert at the Los Alamos laboratory for two decades, to visit China’s nuclear weapons Table 10 US–China trade 1985–90 Year

US exports to PRC ($m)

PRC exports to USA ($m)

PRC’s trade surplus ($m)

1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990

3,855.7 3,106.2 3,497.3 5,021.4 5,755.4 4,806.4

3,861.7 4,770.9 6,293.5 8,510.9 11,989.9 15,237.3

6.0 1,664.7 2,796.2 3,489.5 6,234.5 10,430.9

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facilities, and exchange views with PRC colleagues. Stillman visited virtually all the Chinese nuclear weapons laboratories in 1990–99, inspecting plants, noting procedures, and freely sharing information. In 1991, he was accompanied by Robert Daniel, Assistant Secretary for Intelligence in the Department of Energy, responsible for fabricating and maintaining the US nuclear arsenal. Both men reported they acquired ‘a whole lot’ of classified data on the Chinese nuclear weapons industry, its sophistication and capabilities.60 The ease with which they travelled across China, inspecting secret installations, suggests Beijing had no fear of losing sensitive information to a potential rival. The fact that senior personnel from the US nuclear weapons industry were frequently making these trips suggested that both governments shared common views of close relations between sensitive areas of their military-scientific activities. No wonder, then, that when, after retiring, Mr Stillman wished to publish a manuscript titled ‘Inside China’s Nuclear Weapons Program’, the Pentagon and the Department of Energy stopped him. As long as China and the USA value the massive investment in mutual trust and shared interest they have made over decades in a fluid and potentially hostile global environment, accounts like Mr Stillman’s may not be allowed to see the light of day.

Notes

1 Prologue 1 General H. Shelton to the House Appropriations Committee, Washington, DC, 16 July 2001. 2 Renmin Ribao, Beijing, 12 April 2001. 3 GAO, US and Euro Military Exports to China, Washington, DC, 16 June 1998, pp.5–9. 4 The State Department, United States Relations with China, Washington, DC, Office of Public Affairs, 1949, p.940. 5 Ibid. p.942. 6 Ibid. pp.945–6. 7 Ibid. p.946. 8 Ibid. pp.1050–1. 9 S. Ali, Cold War in the High Himalayas, Richmond: Curzon, 1999, pp.35–7. 10 Truman to Byrnes, in The Cold War. Online. Available at http://www.mars. acnet.wneeedu/-grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/coldwar.html (accessed 23 July 2001). 11 R. Solomon in I. Daalder and I. Destler, The Nixon Administration NSC, College Park: Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland [CISSM], 8 December 1998, p.47. 12 The New York Times, 1 July 1949. 13 J. Helgerson, Getting to Know the President, Langley: CIA, 1998, Ch. 4. 14 Ibid. 15 W. Colby and P. Forbath, Honorable Men, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978, p.373. 16 General A. Goodpaster said, ‘It isn’t Presidential control. He was going to do foreign policy. And he was going to direct it, he was going to engage himself in it. He had clearly in mind major initiatives, and they would be focused on the major players, the great powers.’ Daalder and Destler, op. cit., p.4. 17 Ibid. p.8. 18 Ibid. p.19. 19 Ibid. p.16. The potential for exploiting Soviet–PRC differences was noted in DCI, Basic Factors and Main Tendencies in Current Soviet Policy, Washington, DC, February 1969, p.3. 20 Conversation between Mao Zedong and Beqir Ballaku, Beijing: CPC Central Archives, 1 October 1968; and Conversation between Mao Zedong and E.F. Hill, Beijing: CPC Central Archives, 28 November 1968. 21 Mao Zedong’s comments on an article in Renmin Ribao and Hongqi, January 1969, in Research Materials on the Great Cultural Revolution, vol. 2, Beijing: National Defence University, 1988, p.517.

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22 Renmin Ribao, Beijing, 3 March 1969. A Soviet note to Berlin on 8 March 1969 accused Beijing of secretly deploying 200 Special Forces troops to the island and stockpiling munitions during the night. Soviet troops, observing around 30 Chinese soldiers on the island on 2 March, sent a detachment to ask the Chinese to leave. The Chinese opened fire, inflicting casualties. Soviet units deployed reinforcements, forcing the Chinese to withdraw ‘from Soviet territory’. C. Ostermann, ‘East German Documents on the Border Conflict’, 1969. Online. Available at http://www.gwu.edu/^nsarchiv/CWIHP/BULLETINS/ b6-7a13.htm (accessed 15 May 2001). 23 At the 9th CPC Congress in April 1969, Mao ordered border regions to ‘be prepared . . . We are now confronted with a formidable enemy. It is advantageous to have the mobilisation and the preparation . . . We will try to gain mastery by striking the enemy only after he has struck. Our nuclear bases should be prepared for the enemy’s air bombardment’. A Factual History of the People’s Republic of China, vol. 3, Part 1, Changchun: Jilin People’s Press, 1994, pp.467–9. 24 Mao Zedong at the First Plenary Session of the CPC’s 9th Central Committee, Beijing, 28 April 1969, in Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao, vol. 13, Beijing, pp.35–41. 25 Chen Yi, Ye Jianying, Xu Xiangqian and Nie Rongzhen, ‘A Preliminary Evaluation of the War Situation’, Beijing, 11 July 1969, in CPC Party History Materials, no. 42, Beijing: Foreign Language Press, June 1992, pp.70–5. 26 CPC Central Committee, ‘Order for General Mobilisation in Border Provinces and Regions’, Beijing, 28 August 1969, Jianguo yilai Mao Zedong wengao, op. cit., pp.59–61. 27 Chen Yi, et al., ‘Our Views about the Current Situation’, Beijing, 17 September 1969, Zhonggong dangshi zilao, no. 42, June 1992, pp.84–6. 28 Ibid. 29 Chen Yi, ‘Further Thoughts on Sino–American Relations’, ibid. pp.86–7. 30 Director of Intelligence and Research, USSR/China: Soviet and Chinese Forces Clash on the Ussuri River, Intelligence Note-139, Washington, DC: State Department, 4 March 1969; Directorate of Intelligence, Sino–Soviet Border Remains Uneasy, Langley: CIA, 21 March 1969; Directorate of Intelligence, Peking and Moscow Maneuver on Border Question, Langley: CIA, 16 May 1969; Director of Intelligence and Research, Communist China: Peking Inflates Soviet War Threat, IN-427, Washington, DC: State Department, 3 June 1969; and Director of Intelligence and Research, Peking’s Tactics and Intentions Along the Sino–Soviet Border, IN-459, Washington, DC: State Department, 13 June 1969. 31 IN-459, ibid. p.4. 32 ‘The three real priorities of the President – and it goes directly to control and secrecy – were Vietnam, Russia and for its own sake and because of the first two, China. All three lent themselves to secrecy and tight control.’ H. Sonnenfeldt in Daalder and Destler, op. cit., p.8. 33 Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Memcon, Y. Linkov, and J.H. Holdridge, Washington, DC: State Department, 13 June 1969. 34 A. Dobrynin, Memcon of the Ambassador of the USSR to the USA, A.F. Dobrynin with Kissinger, Aide to President Nixon, Washington, DC: USSR Embassy, 12 July 1969. 35 Ibid. 36 Telegram-129276 to Secretary of State, Nur Khan’s Meeting with Chou En-lai, Rawalpindi: US Embassy, 2 August 1969. 37 Ibid. In April 1965, Zhou Enlai asked Pakistan’s President, Ayub Khan, to advise Washington: ‘China would not provoke a war with the US; China means what it says; and China is prepared.’ Zhou Enlai waijiao wenxuan. Online. Available at http://www.Nara.gov/research/coldwar/jcpap.html (accessed

Notes

38 39 40

41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50

51 52 53

231

7 December 2000). The State Department, too, began proposing steps to improve relations with China. See M. Green, Memorandum for the Under Secretary: Next Steps in China Policy, Washington, DC: State Department, 6 October 1969. Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Memcon between Boris Davydov, Second Secretary of the Soviet Embassy, and William Steerman, Special Assistant for North Vietnam, INR/REA, Washington, DC: State Department, 18 August 1969. Ibid. State Department telegram-141208 to US embassies in London, Moscow, New Delhi, Paris and Tokyo, and US Consulate in Hong Kong, 21 August; telegram143440 to the US consulate in Hong Kong, 24 August; and telegram-143579 to the US mission at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, 25 August 1969. DCI, NIE.11/13-69, Washington, DC, warned Moscow might see an opportunity for destroying China’s nuclear arsenal. Kissinger recalled Whiting’s advice, ‘It was the Soviets who were the aggressors and not the Chinese. And then when we looked at how we had plotted it on the map a light went up in our mind, which – because they all happened close to Soviet railheads and far from Chinese railheads. And so we concluded that probably the Soviets were the aggressors. Once that was established in our mind we concluded that in a conflict between two communist giants the rules of equilibrium which Americans usually don’t recognize, but the rules of equilibrium required that we back the weaker against the stronger.’ Online. Available at http://www.rvv.com/peacemaker/china/visit/study/kissinger/ interview.htm (accessed 5 April 2001). A. Whiting, Sino–Soviet Hostilities and Implications for US Policy, Washington, DC: NSC, 16 August 1969, p.1. W. Hyland, Memorandum for Mr Kissinger: Sino–Soviet Contingencies, Washington, DC: NSC, 28 August 1969. W. Rogers, Memorandum for the President: The Possibility of a Soviet Strike Against Chinese Nuclear Facilities, S/S 13240, Washington, DC: State Department, 10 September 1969, p.4. H. Sonnenfeldt and J. Holdridge, Memorandum for Mr Kissinger: The US Role in Soviet Maneuvering Against Peking, Washington, DC: NSC, 12 September 1969. H. Kissinger, Memorandum for the President: The US Role in Soviet Maneuvering Against China, the White House, 29 September 1969. Ibid. Ibid. Nixon pursued ‘modifying our trade policy toward Peking, privately through NSDM17 and in his conversation with me on Air Force One late July, with Ambassador Stoessel September 9, and publicly through our relaxation of tourist purchases of Chinese goods on July 21’. Green, Next Steps in China Policy, op. cit. H. Saunders, Memcon between Agha Hilaly, Henry Kissinger, and Harold Saunders, on Friday, 19 December 1969, Washington, DC, NSC, 22 December 1969; H. Kissinger, Memorandum for the President: President Yahya and Communist China, the White House, 16 October 1969. Also, F. Aijazuddin, From a Head, Through a Head, To a Head: The Secret Channel Between the US and China through Pakistan, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2000. Saunders, op. cit. U. Johnson to D. Packard, Memorandum YR253, Washington, DC: State Department, 9 January 1970. The only exception would be when US aircraft or vessels approached or left Hong Kong. Ibid.

232

Notes

54 D. Packard to U. Johnson, Memo no. X-0310, Washington, DC: DoD, 20 January 1970. 55 R. Nixon, A New Strategy for Peace, Washington, DC, United States Government Printing Office (USGPO), 18 February 1970, pp.141–2. 56 Ibid. pp.140, 142. 57 Ibid. p.142. 58 Directorate of Intelligence, Signs of Life in Chinese Foreign Policy, Langley: CIA, 11 April 1970, p.8. 59 Le Duan told Mao, ‘In 1969 alone we have killed and wounded 610,000 enemies, among whom 230,000 were Americans.’ State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Mao Zedong and Le Duan, Beijing, the Great Hall of the People, 11 May 1970. Beijing worried about Hanoi’s dependence on Moscow for sophisticated arms China could not provide. Using US–PRC contacts to end the war, preventing deepening of Moscow–Hanoi ties, would serve both US and Chinese interests. W. Smyser, and H. Levin, in Daalder and Destler, China Policy and the NSC, College Park: CISSM, 4 November 1999, pp.8–9. 60 In 1968, Moscow provided aid worth 524m roubles, with 361m roubles as ‘a gift’. In 1969, planned aid was 525m roubles, 370m roubles only being delivered. In 1970, transfers fell to 316m roubles. State Committee on Economic Relations, ‘On the Economic and Technical Assistance to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’, Moscow, 29 July 1966, SCCD, f.5, op.58, d.263, 11.54–55; Soviet Embassy in the DRV, ‘Political Report for 1968’, SCCD, f.5, op.60, d.375, 1.48, Hanoi; Soviet Embassy in the DRV, ‘Political Report for 1969’, SCCD, f.5, op.61, d.459, 1.123, Hanoi; Soviet Embassy in the DRV, ‘Political Report for 1970’, SCCD, f.5, op.62, d.495, 1.104, Hanoi, cited in I. Gaiduk, The Vietnam War and Soviet American Relations, 1964–1973, Washington, DC: Cold War International History Project (CWIHP), 1999. 61 ‘People of the World, Unite and Defeat the US Aggressors and all their Running Dogs’, Peking Review, 23 May 1970. 62 State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Mao Zedong and Pham Van Dong, Beijing, 23 September 1970. 63 Ibid. 64 E. Zumwalt, Jr., testimony to Congress, 15 December 1975, in United States–Soviet Union–China: The Great Power Triangle, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Future Foreign Policy Research and Development of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Washington, DC: USGPO, 1976, p.84. 2 Gathering momentum 1 The White House, Memcon, Chou En-lai, Yeh Chien-ying, Huang Hua, Henry Kissinger, John Holdridge, Winston Lord, W. Richard Smyser, et al.; Peking, Great Hall of the People, 10 July 1971, pp.28–9. 2 H. Kissinger, Memorandum for the President: Contact with the Chinese, the White House, 12 September 1970. 3 The White House, Memcon, Dr Kissinger, Mr Sainteny, Paris, Mr Sainteny’s apartment, 27 September 1970. 4 The White House, Memcon: Meeting between the President and Pakistan President Yahya, the Oval Office, 25 October 1970. 5 Ibid. 6 H. Kissinger, Memorandum for the President: My Conversation with President Ceausescu – Tuesday, October 27, the White House, 31 October 1970. 7 W. Smyser, Memorandum for Henry Kissinger: Letter from Your Friend in Paris, the White House, 7 November 1970.

Notes

233

8 H. Kissinger, Memorandum for the President: Chinese Communist Initiative, the White House [not dated]. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. The reply was handed over to Ambassador Hilaly who was ‘summoned to the White House by Mr Kissinger’ on 16 December 1970. Agha Hilaly, Record of a Discussion with Mr Henry Kissinger on the White House [sic] on 16 December 1970, with the annotation, ‘delivered by Hilaly, 6:15, 27 April 71’. R. Kennedy, Memorandum of Record, the White House, 16 December 1970. Zhou told Yahya Khan, ‘We have had messages from the United States from different sources in the past but this is the first time that the proposal has come from a Head, through a Head, to a Head. The United States knows that Pakistan is a great friend of China and therefore we attach importance to the message.’ 11 W. Smyser, Memorandum for Henry Kissinger: Message from Sainteny, the White House, 18 January 1971. 12 H. Kissinger, Memorandum for the President: Conversation with Ambassador Bogdan, Map Room, 11 January 1971, the White House, 12 January 1971. 13 Ibid. 14 The White House, Memcon, Ambassador Cornelius Bogdan, Henry Kissinger, David Halperin, Map Room, 29 January 1971. 15 Key ones: holding ambassadorial talks in Warsaw in January and February, 1970; authorising the export of certain goods to China; permitting foreignflagged vessels to use US bunkering facilities on voyages to and from China; validating the passports of 270 Americans to visit China in 1970 – bringing the total to almost 1,000. R. Nixon, Building for Peace, Washington, DC: USGPO, 25 February 1971, p.109. 16 Nixon qualified neutrality – ‘At the same time, we cannot permit either Communist China or the USSR to dictate our policies and conduct toward the other.’ Ibid. pp.105, 107. 17 State Council of the PRC, Memcon of Zhou Enlai with Le Duan and Pham Van Dong, Hanoi, 7 March 1971. 18 American Society of Newspaper Editors, The President’s Remarks at a Question and Answer Session With a Panel of Six Editors and Reporters at the Society’s Annual Convention, Washington, DC, 16 April 1971. 19 Office of the Press Secretary, Statement by the President, the White House, 14 April 1971. 20 Director of Intelligence and Research, Communist China/US: Peking’s People’s Diplomacy, Washington, DC: State Department, 14 April 1971. The file copy carries the tick-marked inscription ‘Huang Hua’, suggesting Huang read the copy. 21 Statement by the President, 14 April 1971, op. cit. 22 H. Kissinger, Next Steps Toward the People’s Republic of China, NSSM124, the White House, 19 April 1971. 23 These ranged from permission for US-flagged vessels to call at Chinese ports and the reduction of close-in intelligence/reconnaissance flights over China, through establishing a Washington–Beijing ‘hotline’, to US willingness to regard Taiwan as part of China. 24 ‘Mao “wants to talk with Nixon” ’, Daily Telegraph, London, 28 April 1971; ‘Chairman Mao: Why I welcome Mr Nixon’, Sunday Times, London, 2 May 1971; ‘Why Mao is worried about China’, Sunday Times, London, 9 May 1971. 25 Message from the White House for Ambassador Huang Zhen, sent with covering letter – A. Haig, Jr., to V. Walters, American Embassy, Paris, France, APO New York 09777, the White House, 27 April 1971. 26 Message from Premier Chou En Lai dated 21 April 1971 (delivered to Mr Kissinger – 6:15 p.m., 27 April 1971), handed by Ambassador Agha Hilaly at the White House.

234

Notes

27 The White House, The President/Mr Kissinger, telephonic conversation (Telcon), 8.18 p.m., 27 April 1971. 28 Ibid. 29 The White House, Memcon; Alexander Haig, and Agha Hilaly, 5 May 1971. 30 Office of the Press Secretary, The President’s News Conference, the White House, 29 April 1971. 31 Ibid. 32 A. Haig, Memorandum for the President: China, the White House, 5 May 1971. 33 H. Kissinger, Memorandum for the President: Meeting with Ambassador Farland, 7 May 1971, the White House, 15 May 1971. 34 Ibid. 35 The message concluded, ‘It is proposed that the precise details of Dr Kissinger’s trip including location, duration of stay, communications and similar matters be discussed through the good offices of President Yahya Khan. For secrecy, it is essential that no other channel be used. It is also understood that this first meeting between Dr Kissinger and high officials of the People’s Republic of China be strictly secret.’ Emphasis in original. 36 Kissinger to Farland, Message for the Government of the PRC, via Special Channel, the White House, 20 May 1971. 37 Ibid. 38 Farland to Kissinger, Islamabad: US Embassy, 22 May 1971. 39 Summary of Zhou Enlai’s 29 May 1971 message to Richard Nixon; shown to Nixon on 31 May 1971. 40 Zhou Enlai to Nixon, 29 May 1971, handwritten text delivered to the White House by Agha Hilaly, 31 May 1971. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 The White House, Message for the Government of the PRC, handed to Agha Hilaly, 4 June 1971. 44 Ibid. 45 Hilaly to Kissinger, Washington, DC: Embassy of Pakistan, 19 June 1971. 46 W. Lord, Memorandum for Henry Kissinger: Your Meeting with Ambassador Hilaly, the White House, 21 June 1971. 47 Kissinger to Farland, the White House, 22 June 1971. 48 Kissinger to Farland via CIA Station Chief in Islamabad, response to Islamabad Embassy telegram-1011, the White House, not dated. Lord, Halperin, Saunders, Holdridge and Smyser rose to senior positions. Daalder and Destler, China Policy and the NSC, op. cit.; Daalder and Destler, The Nixon Administration NSC, op. cit. 49 The White House, Memorandum for the President’s files: Meeting between President, Dr Kissinger and General Haig, Oval Office, 1 July 1971. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 W. Lord in CNN, Cold War Perspectives Series, Episode 15: China. Online. Available at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/15/interviews/ lord.htm (accessed 12 April 2002). Kissinger’s account is more prosaic. Online. Available at http://www.rvv.com/peacemaker/china/20visit/20study. . ./ kissinger/20interview.htm (accessed 3 March 2002). 54 The White House, Memcon, Chou En-lai, Yeh Chien-ying, Huang Hua, Henry Kissinger, John Holdridge, Winston Lord, W. Richard Smyser, et al.; Peking, Chinese Government Guest House, 9 July 1971. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid.

Notes

235

57 Ibid. 58 Kissinger added, ‘Your interests and ours are very similar. Neither of us wants to see Japan heavily re-armed. The few bases we have there are purely defensive and enable them to postpone their own rearmament.’ Ibid. 59 The White House, Memcon, Chou En-lai, Yeh Chien-ying, Huang Hua, Henry Kissinger, et al.; Peking, Great Hall of the People, 10 July 1971, afternoon. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. Zhou emphasised establishing diplomatic relations, and the changes this demanded in America’s Taiwan policy. Kissinger said Nixon would confirm acceptance during talks with Mao. However, practical concerns would delay recognition to ‘the first two years of the President’s next term’. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 W. Lord, Memorandum for Henry Kissinger: MemCons of the Final Sessions with the Chinese, the White House, 12 August 1971, p.2. 67 The White House, Memcon, Chou En-lai, Yeh Chien-ying, Huang Hua, Henry Kissinger, et al.; Peking, Chinese Government Guest House, 10 July 1971, evening. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 The White House, Memcon, Yeh Chien-ying, (Second Session Only), Huang Hua, Henry Kissinger, et al.; Beijing, Chinese Government Guest House, 11 July 1971. 72 The draft announcement went through three versions before being agreed. 73 H. Kissinger to General Haig, SIT: 26, Islamabad: US Embassy, 11 July 1971. 74 H. Kissinger, Memorandum for the President: My Talks with Chou En-lai, the White House, 14 July 1971. 75 Kissinger enthused: ‘My two-day visit to Peking resulted in the most searching, sweeping and significant discussions I have ever had in government. I spent seventeen hours in meetings and informal conversation with Chou En-lai’. Ibid. 76 Ibid. Kissinger stressed his contribution: ‘We have laid the groundwork for you and Mao to turn a page in history.’ 77 Ibid. 78 The White House, Memorandum for the President’s Files: Briefing of the White House Staff on the July 15 Announcement of the President’s Trip to Peking, the President, Henry Kissinger, White House Staff, the Roosevelt Room, 19 July 1971. 79 Ibid. 3 A new beginning 1 The White House, Memcon, Huang Hua, Chen Chu, Henry Kissinger, George Bush, et al., New York City, East Side, 10 December 1971. 2 The White House, Memcon, Chairman Mao Tsetung, Prime Minister Chou En-lai, President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, et al.; Peking, Chairman Mao’s Residence, 21 February 1972, p.6. 3 The White House, Memcon, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Henry Kissinger, Winston Lord, et al.; Beijing, Zhungnanhai, Chairman Mao’s Residence, 17–18 February 1973. 4 The White House, Memcon, Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying, Qiao Guanhua, Henry

236

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16

17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Notes Kissinger, Winston Lord, et al.; Beijing, Great Hall of the People, 10 November 1973. The White House, Memcon, Premier Chou En-lai, President Nixon, et al.; Beijing, Great Hall of the People, 22 February 1972, p.3. Useful studies: J. Mann, About Face, New York: Knopf, 1999; P. Tyler, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China, New York: Public Affairs, 1999; and W. Burr (ed.), The Kissinger Transcripts, New York: The New Press, 1998. R. Nixon, The Emerging Structure of Peace, Washington, DC: USGPO, 9 February 1972, p.18. Ibid. p.35. Mann, op cit., pp.35–6, fn.27. Daalder and Destler, The Nixon Administration NSC, op. cit., pp.4, 7, 8, 14–17, 19, 26–8, 42, 45, 47, 50–2, 58. State Council of the PRC, Memcon, Zhou Enlai and Le Duan, Hanoi, 13 July 1971. Ibid. Beijing, not dated. W. Whitson, in United States–Soviet Union–China: The Great Power Triangle, op. cit., pp.194–5. R. Cline and W. McConaughy, in ibid. pp.213–14, 229. CIA, Security Conditions in China, Langley, 10 February 1972, pp.2–6; US intelligence reported the coup was triggered by policy differences – Lin advocated economic policies benefiting the military; Mao and Zhou stressed civilian development. Lin also opposed opening to the USA – Facts on File 1971, vol. XXXI, p.915; the Mongolian News Agency reported the crash of a PLAAF aircraft in a remote district, killing nine unidentified persons; Secretary Rogers told ANZUS Foreign Ministers in New York he was not sure what was happening in China but he hoped these events ‘do not signal any change in the possibility of President Nixon’s planned visit’. Facts on File 1971, ibid. p.774. J. Anderson’s column on 10 January cited CIA reports saying Beijing could initiate ‘some form of alert posture’ against India; the Soviet ambassador in Delhi assured his hosts that if China initiated hostilities, Moscow ‘would open a diversionary action’ and ‘will not allow the 7th Fleet to intervene’. Facts on File 1972, p.19. ‘Joint statement by the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee, and the State Council of the PRC’, Beijing, 4 January 1972; Facts on File 1972, ibid. p.10. Ali, op. cit., pp.8–13. In June 1971, The New York Times began publishing excerpts from classified DoD documents dubbed ‘the Pentagon Papers’. Leaked by former DoD analyst, Daniel Ellsberg, they revealed aspects of US strategic stance. Haig briefed Nixon on the disclosures on the day of the first publication. The White House, ‘Telephone Conversation with Alexander Haig’, 13 June 1971, the Nixon Tapes, Selected Conversations concerning the Pentagon Papers, pp.1–3. See fn.1. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Kissinger used the word ‘direction’; Huang Hua said Pakistan’s President would direct Bhutto, Beijing would advise. Kissinger corrected himself. Nixon, The Emerging Structure of Peace, op. cit., pp.28–9. Ibid. p.37. The White House, Memcon, Chairman Mao Tsetung, Prime Minister Chou En-lai, President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Winston Lord, et al., Peking, Chairman Mao’s Residence, 21 February 1972, p.5.

Notes 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42

43 44

45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52 53

237

Ibid. p.6. Ibid. p.8. Ibid. p.6. The White House, Memcon, the President, William Rogers, Henry Kissinger, Prime Minister Chou En-lai, Yeh Chien-ying, Li Hsien-nien, et al., Peking, Great Hall of the People, 21 February 1972, p.3. Ibid. pp.8–9. Ibid. p.9. The White House, Memcon, the President, Henry Kissinger, Prime Minister Chou En-lai, Ch’iao Kuan-hua, et al., Peking, Great Hall of the People, 22 February 1972, p.5. Ibid. p.6. Ibid. p.9. Nixon said, ‘I suggest that if the Prime Minister could designate, in addition to people on the civilian side, someone such as the Vice Chairman for Military Affairs, (note: Yeh Chien-ying, Vice Chairman of the Military Affairs Mission of the CCP) I believe it would be extremely interesting for him. The meeting place should be highly secret, however, if this could be arranged.’ Ibid. p.10. Ibid. pp.11, 13. Ibid. pp.17–18. Ibid. pp.22–3. Nixon inherited US combat strength in Indochina of 549,000. By 1 May 1971, it had fallen to 69,000. Facts on File 1972, op. cit., p.14. The White House, Memcon, 22 February 1972, op. cit., pp.24–5. Nixon said he respected Zhou’s views on Indochina ‘because this is simply an issue on which the only gainer in having the war continue is the Soviet Union. They want the US tied down’. Nixon pledged withdrawal ‘through the policy of Vietnamisation in a few months in any event’. p.25. Zhou said, ‘You have too much confidence in us. We don’t want to.’ Ibid. p.31. These being: (i) mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, (ii) mutual non-aggression, (iii) mutual non-interference in internal affairs, (iv) equality and mutual benefit, and (v) peaceful co-existence. The White House, Memcon, the President, Henry Kissinger, Prime Minister Chou En-lai, Ch’iao Kuan-hua, et al., Peking, the President’s Guest House, 23 February 1972, p.2. Ibid. pp.4–5. Nixon expressed support for Pakistan with ‘one doesn’t burn down a bridge which has proved useful’. Zhou said, ‘Yes, there’s a Chinese saying that to tear down a bridge after having crossed it is not good.’ Ibid. p.8. At this point Kissinger read out a telegram reporting Moscow had shipped 150 tanks and 100 APCs to India in November and December 1971, and other hardware in January 1972. Nixon said that, with economic aid from the USA, Pakistan would be able to buy arms from elsewhere. Ibid. p.9. Ibid. p.20. Ibid. p.21. Key sentences were expunged from the transcript. Ibid. p.22. Ibid. p.30. Nixon repeated Washington had no knowledge of the Sino–Soviet split in 1959. p.34. Ibid. pp.37–8. Ibid. p.39. While the two sides established strategic collaboration, the US team remained divided. Zhou mentioned Rogers’ comment to Chi Peng-fei that he wished to participate in framing the Joint Communiqué. Chi replied

238

54

55 56 57 58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65 66

67 68 69 70 71

Notes the Chinese side had delegated this task to Deputy Foreign Minister, Ch’iao Kuan-hua, to work with Kissinger. Nixon was embarrassed. The White House, Memcon, the President, Henry Kissinger, Prime Minister Chou En-lai, Ch’iao Kuan-hua, et al., Peking, Great Hall of the People, 24 February 1972, p.3. Nixon understood Taiwan was the ‘crucial issue’ in normalising US–PRC relations. His goal was ‘the withdrawal of our remaining forces, not just two-thirds, but all forces, including the remaining onethird. That is a goal which I can achieve’. He needed four years to do it, but could not say so publicly. pp.11–12. Ibid. pp.16–19. Ibid. p.26. Ibid. p.31. Ibid. The White House, Memcon, the President, Henry Kissinger, Prime Minister Chou En-lai, Ch’iao Kuan-hua, et al., Peking, the President’s Guest House, 25 February 1972, p.2. Ibid. p.3. Zhou worried, ‘The Soviet Union is engaged in major military maneuvers in this part of the world or in others, and from what Gromyko told Fukuda, within the next five years there will be greater conflict between China and the Soviet Union than there was at Chen Pao. Perhaps they want to do as they did in Bangladesh, and maybe they will try to create a Republic of Turkestan, or something.’ p.4. Ibid. p.6. Ibid. p.7. The White House, Memcon, President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Winston Lord, Prime Minister Chou En-lai, Ch’iao Kuan Hua, et al., Shanghai, the President’s Sitting Room, Ching Kiang Guest House, 28 February 1972, pp.3–4. Ibid. p.5. Ibid. Ibid. Zhou appreciated the need ‘to maintain agreements not only with the White House but also with the State Department and the Pentagon. But sometimes they may misfire, and this will give rise to speculation in the world. We can’t refrain from refuting these’. p.6. Ibid. p.6. The Shanghai Communiqué was the first of three key documents, followed by the ‘normalisation’ accord of 1978, and the 1982 agreement on Taiwanrelated issues. Daalder and Destler, The Nixon Administration NSC, op. cit., pp.4, 7–9, 15–17, 19, 26–8, 42, 45, 47, 50–2, 58; and China Policy and the NSC, op. cit., pp.4, 5, 8–15, 17, 18, 24–5, 27, 29. The White House, ‘Transcripts of Nixon’s Telephone Conversation with Alexander Haig’, 13 June 1971, 12:18, from the Nixon Tapes, Selected Conversations Concerning the Pentagon Papers, p.1. A CPC report dated 13 January 1972 claimed the coup plot was hatched after Lin and Mao exchanged harsh polemics after the second plenary of the 9th Central Committee on 23 August–6 September 1970. The plotters accused Mao of having ‘abused the confidence and status given him by the Chinese people’, moving China toward a ‘peaceful transition’. Lin and his cohorts ‘depended’ on Soviet ‘support’ as they plotted to capture Mao and force him to reverse key policies. The report identified Lin, Huang Yung-sheng, PLA Chief of General Staff, Wu Fa-hsien, Commander of the PLAAF, Li Tso-peng, PLAN Deputy Chief of Staff and Political Commissar, Chiu Hui-tso, Deputy Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Logistics, Yeh Chun, Director, Party Military Affairs Committee and Lin’s wife, and Lin Li-kuo, Deputy Director of PLAAF

Notes

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

86 87 88

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

97 98 99

239

Operations, and Lin’s son, as co-conspirators. The New York Times, 22 July 1972. In August, CPC mouthpiece Hongqi confirmed these allegations, accusing ‘social-imperialism’ of complicity in a plot to kill Mao. Yuri Zhukov, Pravda, 17 February 1972. Izvestia, 21 February 1972. Krasnaya Zvezda, 25 February 1972. Tass, 28 February 1972. Trud, 29 February 1972. Pravda, 21 March 1972. Ibid. Soviet analysis of the US posture on strategic arms limitations and ABM defences appears in KGB Centre, Memorandum no. 983-A, Moscow, 19 April 1971, pp.1–3. Ibid. p.2. DCI, Soviet Foreign Policies and the Outlook for Soviet–American Relations, Washington, DC, April 1972. Ibid. p.2. Ibid. pp.3–4. Ibid. p.7. DCI, Soviet Defence Policy 1962–72, Washington, DC, 28 April 1972, p.1. Ibid. pp.2–3. Soviet military focus was the ‘Expansion and improvement of strategic offensive and defensive forces to the point that the Soviets now regard themselves as having achieved rough strategic parity with the US. Continued maintenance of strong ground, air, and missile forces opposite NATO, but with increasing confidence that NATO does not pose an imminent military threat. Growing concern over the possibility of armed conflict with China, and a consequent strengthening of military forces along the border since the mid-sixties.’ p.2. Ibid. pp.12–13. State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Zhou Enlai and Nguyen Tien, Beijing, 12 April 1972. While Kissinger was in Beijing, several Congressmen came visiting. In July, Xinhua and Associated Press began exchanging news items and photographs. In August, the Chinese Foreign Ministry opened a department to deal with ‘US and Pacific Affairs’. The White House, Memcon, Henry Kissinger, Winston Lord, Huang Hua, Shi Yanhua, Interpreter, New York City, 4 August 1972. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Zhou Enlai, Xuan Thuy and Ly Ban, Beijing, 7 July 1972. State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Zhou Enlai and Le Duc Tho, Beijing, 12 July 1972. Ibid. State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Mao Zedong and Nguyen Thi Binh, Beijing, 29 December 1972. Mao excoriated the late Lin Biao: ‘During the Cultural Revolution, all under heaven was in disorder. A faction controlled power, and set fire and burned the British consulate. These bad guys belonged to the Lin Biao faction. Behind them was Lin Biao.’ State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Zhou Enlai and Truong Chinh, Beijing, 31 December 1972. State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Zhou Enlai and Le Duc Tho, Beijing, 3 January 1973. The White House, Memcon, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Henry Kissinger,

240

100 101 102 103 104 105 106

107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129

Notes Winston Lord, et al., Beijing, Zhungnanhai, Chairman Mao’s Residence, 17–18 February 1973. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Zhou Enlai and Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Beijing, 24 January 1973. State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Zhou Enlai and Pen Nouth, Beijing, 2 February 1973. The irony of radical communists supporting a prince against a republican coup, and Zhou Enlai discussing fairness with Kissinger, while realpolitiking with ‘imperialists’, was lost on the Chinese. The White House, Memcon, Zhou Enlai, Ji Pengfei, Henry Kissinger, Winston Lord, et al., Beijing, 17 February 1973. The White House, Memcon, Zhou Enlai, Ji Pengfei, Qiao Guan Hua, Henry Kissinger, Richard Kennedy, Winston Lord, et al., Beijing, Great Hall of the People, 18 February 1973. H. Kissinger, Memorandum for the President: My Trip to China, the White House, 2 March 1973, p.1. Ibid. pp.2–3. Ibid. pp.3–4. J. Lilley in Hearing of the Senate Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community, Washington, DC: USGPO, 19 January 1996, pp.4, 6. R. Nixon, Shaping a Durable Peace, Washington, DC: USGPO, 3 May 1973, pp.19–20. Ibid. pp.20–1. The White House, Memcon, Henry Kissinger, Winston Lord, Han Xu, et al., Map Room, 15 May 1973. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Zhou Enlai, Le Duan, Pham Van Dong and Le Thanh Nghi, Beijing, 5 June 1973. Ibid. State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying and Le Duan, Beijing, 5 June 1973. Ibid. State Council of the PRC, Memcon between Zhou Enlai, Le Duan, Pham Van Dong and Le Thanh Nghi, Beijing, 6 June 1973. DCI, Soviet Nuclear Doctrine, Special Report RP73-1, Washington, DC, June 1973. Ibid. p.3. Ibid. p.6. The New York Times, 26 June 1973. The White House, Memcon, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, Lawrence Eagleburger, Huang Zhen, et al., Western White House, Dr Kissinger’s Office, 6 July 1973. In a 26 June telegram, Bruce quoted Zhou as saying, ‘In the beginning, the US would maintain a position of non-involvement, but give military supplies to the USSR. Then, after waiting until China had dragged out the USSR for a period of time, the US would strike the Soviets from behind.’ Ibid.

Notes 130 131 132 133 134 135

136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149

241

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Zhou Enlai to the 10th CPC Congress, Beijing: CPC Central Committee, August 1973. State Department, Memcon, Henry Kissinger, Joseph Sisco, Winston Lord, Huang Zhen, Han Xu, et al., Washington, DC, PRC Liaison Office, 25 October 1973. Kissinger said, ‘We were not prepared to send a joint force with the Soviet Union because of the impression of a condominium, because our objectives were not the same as theirs, and because we did not want to establish the principle that Soviet combat forces could be transported over long distances into foreign countries.’ Ibid. Ibid. The White House, Memcon, Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying, Qiao Guanhua, Henry Kissinger, Winston Lord, et al., Beijing, Great Hall of the People, 10 November 1973. Ibid. The White House, Memcon, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Ji Pengfei, Henry Kissinger, David Bruce, Winston Lord, et al., Beijing, Chairman Mao’s residence, 12 November 1973. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. State Department, Memcon, Chou En-lai, Chi Peng-fei, Henry Kissinger, David Bruce, Winston Lord, et al., Peking, Guest House Villa-3, 13 November 1973, p.10. Ibid. pp.20–1. The White House, Memcon, Zhou Enlai, Ye Jiyanying, Chai Hongging, Henry Kissinger, David Bruce, Jonathan Howe, et al., Beijing, Great Hall of the People, 13 November 1973. Ibid. The White House, Memcon, Zhou Enlai, Henry Kissinger, Jonathan Howe, Peking, the Guest House, 14 November 1973. Nixon, Shaping a Durable Peace, op. cit., pp.21–2.

4 A hyperactive interregnum 1 G. Ford to Mao Zedong, ‘Flash message no.5176 2211727’, the White House, 9 August 1974. 2 The White House, Memcon, Deng Xiaoping, Henry Kissinger, et al., Beijing, Guest House no. 18, 27 November 1974. 3 United States–Soviet Union–China: The Great Power Triangle, op. cit., pp.1–303. 4 Secret studies ordered by Kissinger laid the bases for a de facto anti-Soviet US–PRC military alliance. See Chapter 3, fn.137. 5 B. Garrett, in The United States and the People’s Republic of China: Issues for the 1980s, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington, DC: USGPO, 26 August 1980, pp.96–108. The author is indebted to Dr Garrett for access to his Ph.D. thesis, The ‘China Card’ and Its Origins, Brandeis University, Department of Politics, 1983. 6 Garrett, 1980, ibid. p.99. 7 Ibid. p.100.

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8 M. Abramowitz in United States–Soviet Union–China: The Great Power Triangle, op. cit., p.185. 9 Ibid. p.183. 10 Ibid. p.184. 11 Ibid. pp.184–5. 12 Marxist historians cite three groups: the pro-Soviet comprador bourgeoisie led by Lin Biao, the pro-US comprador bourgeoisie headed by Zhou Enlai and Mao, and the national bourgeoisie headed by Deng Xiaoping. W. Bland, Class Struggles in China. Online. Available at http://www22.brinkster.com/ harikumar/china/historyofmaopt4.html (accessed 8 September 2001). 13 Neither Jiang Qing, nor her colleagues Wang Hongwen and Yao Wenyuan, received a cabinet post. 14 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, Chairman Mao Zedong’s Theory of the Division of the Three Worlds and the Strategy of Forming an Alliance Against an Opponent, Beijing, 2000. 15 Ibid. 16 Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, vol. 22, pp.26785, 27669. 17 Ibid. vol. 20, p.26786; and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, Chairman Mao Zedong’s Theory of the Division of the Three Worlds, op. cit. 18 DoD, Memcon, Leonard Unger, Roger Sullivan, James Schlesinger et al., ref. no. I-35094/74, Secretary Schlesinger’s Office, 3 April 1974, Washington, DC, 12 April 1974. 19 Ibid. 20 M. Halperin in United States–Soviet Union–China, op. cit., pp.33, 36. 21 Ibid. 22 State Department, Memcon, Deng Xiaoping, Qiao Guanhua, Huang Hua, Henry Kissinger, Joseph Sisco, Brent Scowcroft, Winston Lord, et al., New York City, Secretary’s Suite, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, 14 April 1974. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. The Chinese translated Deng’s ‘relatively quickly’ as ‘as soon as possible’. 26 Gleysteen to SecState, Conversation with CCK regarding Redeployments, telegram2778, TAIPEI: Amembassy, 1 May 1974, pp.1–2. 27 Ibid. pp.2–5. Chiang said the return of 20 F-5s would not fill the gap left by the USAF F-4s; Taiwan needed a high-level defence review. Gleysteen said the ‘Enhance Plus’ programme was reinforcing ROC forces. Taiwan would receive new F-5s in 1974; from 1975, Taiwanese-built F-5s would join the ROC forces. 28 JCS WASH DC to CINCPAC HONOLULU HI, signal no-2705, Washington, DC, 25 May 1974. 29 ‘Equivalence’ was an ambiguous concept. Its ambiguity lay in the asymmetries between US and Soviet nuclear/thermonuclear arsenals. The complexity of key variables, and their interaction, made meaningful comparison almost impossible. Static indices of destructive capacity included numbers of launchers and delivery vehicles, throw-weight/payload, warhead numbers, equivalent megatonnage, and accuracy measured in circular error probable [CEP] – affected by the dynamics of actual nuclear exchanges – shaped by which side struck first, which weapons hit which targets, how much warning either side had, reliability of weapon systems, effectiveness of defences, scope and timing of attacks, height of burst and weather conditions, performance of C3I systems, quality of training and personnel proficiency, and the cumulative impact of these on each other. See M. Bundy, ‘The Future of Strategic Deterrence’, Survival, November–December 1979, pp.269–70; T. Brown,

Notes

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31 32 33

34

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42 43 44 45

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‘Numbers Mysticism, Rationality and the Strategic Balance’, Orbis, Fall 1977, pp.479–98; P. Nitze, ‘Assuring Strategic Stability in an Era of Détente’, Foreign Affairs, January 1976; and ‘Deterring Our Deterrent’, Foreign Policy, Winter 1976–77; J. Lodal, ‘Assuring Strategic Stability: An Alternative View’, Foreign Affairs, April 1976; P. Grier, ‘In the Shadow of MAD’, Air Force, November 2001, vol. 84, no. 11; and R. Betts, Strategic Equivalence: What is it? How do we get it? Online. Available at http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil.airchronicles/ aureview/1981/nov-dec/betts.htm (accessed 16 April 2003). Secretaries of Defense Histories, James Schlesinger, 12th Secretary of Defense, Nixon and Ford Administrations, Washington, DC: DoD. Online. Available at http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/schlesinger.htm (accessed 17 June 2002). Ibid. J. Schlesinger, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: DoD, 4 March 1974, pp.1, 3, 45, 48–9, 91. Federation of American Scientists, Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Weapon Tests, signed at Moscow, 3 July 1974. Online. Available at http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/ttbt/text/ttbt1.htm (accessed 5 April 2001). Two decades later, Kissinger justified the shift of focus from Beijing to Moscow – ‘In the Nixon administration we were accused of being too permissive to Russia in the policy of détente. But the objective was the same as I avow here: to treat it as a great power, respectfully, recognizing its interests, but not deluding ourselves that this is a social-welfare challenge.’ Henry Kissinger, ‘After Victory’, keynote address: American Foreign Policy and the PostCold War Era, Washington, DC: Nixon Center, 2 March 1995. The People’s Daily, Beijing. Online. Available at http://english.peoplesdaily. com.cn/50years/chronicle/19990911B106.html (accessed 9 July 2002). A summary of events appears in Presidential Transition: The Torch is Passed. Online. Available at http://www.whitehousehistory.org/02learning/subs9/ frameb901c.html (accessed 19 March 2001). Kissinger, ‘After Victory’, op. cit. The White House, Memcon, Ch’iao Kuan-hua, Huang Hua, Henry Kissinger, Philip Habib, George Bush, Winston Lord, et al., New York City, Secretary’s Suite, Waldorf Tower, 2 October 1974. From the Situation Room, the White House, to US Liaison Office Peking for Ambassador Bruce from the Secretary, Top secret sensitive via Voyager channels WH42541, 09 Aug 74. Ibid. Ibid. Three days later, Ford told Congress, ‘To the People’s Republic of China, whose legendary hospitality I enjoyed, I pledge continuity in our commitment to the principles of the Shanghai Communiqué. The new relationship built on those principles has demonstrated that it serves serious and objective mutual interests and has become an enduring feature of the world scene.’ The White House, Memcon, 2 October 1974, op. cit. Ibid. Ibid. Working through Afghanistan, which challenged the validity of the Durand Line, claiming the Pashtun straddling it had the right to a ‘Pashtunistan’ independent of Pakistan, Moscow also gave limited support to Baloch separatists. S. Ali, The Fearful State, London: Zed Books, 1993, pp.118–61. The White House, Memcon, 2 October 1974, op. cit. Although Kissinger was meeting Ch’iao in his capacity as the Secretary of State, records were kept on

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52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

67 68 69 70 71

Notes White House stationery. Kissinger told George Bush, envoy-designate to Beijing, ‘You are learning more about international politics this evening than you ever did at the UN!’ Ibid. Ibid. The White House, US Security Assistance to the Republic of China, NSSM212, 8 October 1974. Ibid. The role is analysed in I. Daalder and I. Destler, The Role of the National Security Adviser, College Park: CISSM, 25 October 1999; and The Nixon Administration NSC, op. cit.; also, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, A Forum on the Role of the National Security Advisor, Washington, DC, 12 April 2001. The White House, Memcon, President Gerald Ford, Ambassador George Bush, Lt. General Brent Scowcroft, the Oval Office, 15 October 1974. The White House, Memcon, Leonid Brezhnev, Andrei Gromyko, Anatoly Dobrynin, Henry Kissinger, Walter Stoessel, Jr., Helmut Sonnenfeldt, et al., Moscow, Old Politburo Room, the Kremlin, 24 October 1974. Ibid. Dobrynin confirmed Kissinger’s popular rating was ‘Number one in history’. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. A. Barnett in United States–Soviet Union–China, op. cit., pp.16–17, 20. NSC, Minutes – NSC Meeting, the White House, Cabinet Room, 2 December 1974. G. Bush to the Secretary, telegram-91 to White House, ‘China’s Internal Scene on the Eve of Your Visit’, Peking, 18 November 1974. Deng’s comments in the plenary sessions were robust; his tone was milder in the private meetings – suggesting the plenaries were addressed to domestic audiences. The White House, Memcon, Deng Xiaoping, Qiao Guanhua, Huang Zhen, Henry Kissinger, George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Winston Lord, et al., Beijing, the Great Hall of the People [morning], 26 November 1974. The White House, Memcon, Deng Xiaoping, Henry Kissinger, et al., Beijing, the Great Hall of the People [evening], 26 November 1974. The White House, Memcon, Deng Xiaoping, Henry Kissinger, et al., Beijing, Guest House no. 18, 27 November 1974. Ibid. US documents on the anti-Soviet US–PRC ‘tacit alliance’ are archived in ‘People’s Republic of China’, State Department Records, Policy Planning Staff (Director’s Files), 1969–77, Record Group 59, National Archives, 14 August 1974. NSC, Minutes – NSC Meeting, the White House, Cabinet Room, 2 December 1974. Ibid. J. Schlesinger, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: DoD, 5 February 1975, pp. I-5, II-16-7. NSC, Minutes, 2 December 1974, op. cit. Ambassador John Dean’s telegram-2287 from Phnom Penh to the Secretary of State, 6 February 1975, noted his ‘profound disagreement’ with Kissinger’s rejection of Sihanouk’s pleas to negotiate with the USA before the Khmer Rouge became too powerful. However, Kissinger delighted Beijing by getting Ford to lift restrictions on arms sales to India and Pakistan. The White House, NSDM289, 24 March 1975.

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72 The White House, Memcon, the President, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, Brent Scowcroft, 14 April 1975. 73 G. Ford, A Time to Heal, New York: Harper & Row, 1979, pp.256–7. 74 Martin to Kissinger, US Embassy, Saigon-0757, 28 April 1975. 75 Ibid. Martin wrote, ‘They are simply not in that much of a hurry. The first concentration is going to be on formation of local administrations that can begin to get the countryside under control. After all this is accomplished – a year or more – they may begin to tighten the screws on the administration of Saigon . . . The withdrawal of our presence in an immediate or precipitate way would almost certainly finally pull out the rug.’ 76 Zhou Enlai, Report on the Work of the State Council to the Fourth NPC, Beijing, Great Hall of the People, 13 January 1975. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid. Zhou credited Mao with instructing the government to prepare this outline during the Third NPC. 80 The new constitution, shorter and simpler than the 1954 version, had only 30 articles compared to the latter’s 106. It replaced the ‘indestructible friendship with the great Union of Soviet Socialist republics’ with ‘unity with the socialist countries’. 81 Yang Chengwu, Wang Shangjung, Hu Wei and Ho Chingwen had all suffered under Lin. 82 Deng’s appointment, and that of Chung Chunchiao as the Director of the PLA’s General Political Department, were announced on 29 January; Deng assumed his new military posts on 5 January. The People’s Daily, Beijing. Online. Available at http://english.peoplesdaily.com.cn/dengxp/vol2/ text/b1010.html (accessed 8 May 2001). 83 Deng Xiaoping, The Army needs to be Consolidated, ‘Address to officers of regimental level and above’, Beijing: Headquarters of the General Staff of the PLA Army, 25 January 1975. 84 Deng Xiaoping, The Task of Consolidating the Army, ‘Speech at an enlarged meeting of the Military Commission’, Beijing: Central Committee of the CPC, 14 July 1975. 85 Deng repeatedly lamented the lack of ‘unity inside the army itself, between the army and the government, and between the army and the people’. Ibid. 86 NSC, Instructions Concerning Use of the Direct Communications Link Between Washington and Moscow, NSDM295, Washington, DC, 14 May 1975. 87 NSC, FRG Reactor Sale to the USSR, NSDM298, Washington, DC, 14 June 1975. 88 NSC, Minutes – NSC Meeting, the White House, 27 June 1975. 89 State Department, Memcon, China, Henry Kissinger, Philip Habib, Winston Lord, William Gleysteen, Jr., Richard Solomon, Jerry Bremer, Washington, DC, 6 July 1975. 90 The White House, Memcon, Andrei Gromyko, Anatoli Kovalev, Anatoli Dobrynin, Henry Kissinger, Walter Stoessel, Jr., Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Winston Lord, et al., Geneva, Soviet Mission, 10 July 1975. 91 W. Smyser, Memorandum for Secretary Kissinger: The Situation in Asia, 4761-X, Washington, DC: NSC, 15 July 1975. 92 M. Pillsbury, ‘US–Chinese Military Ties?’, Foreign Policy, no. 20, Fall 1975, pp.50–65. 93 Ibid. 94 Schlesinger said, ‘[Soviet] capabilities continue to grow. In our prices, the Soviets now devote more resources than the US in most of the significant categories of defense. In overall R&D, they outstrip us by 20 per cent; in

246

95 96 97

98 99

100

101 102 103 104 105 106 107

108 109

Notes General Purpose Forces by 20 per cent; in Procurement by 25 per cent; and in Strategic Nuclear Offensive Forces by 60 per cent.’ Secretary of Defense, Annual Defense Department Report, Washington, DC: DoD, 5 February 1975, p.I-5. DCI, Changing Soviet Perceptions of World Politics, Langley: CIA, 1 October 1975, p.4. Ibid. p.5. The report said, ‘Chief among (the storm clouds on Moscow’s international horizon) is China, whose “loss” greatly damaged the USSR’s image as the nucleus of an ever-increasing international political movement and whose deep-seated hostility threatens to outlive Mao.’ Ibid. The White House, Memcon, President Ford, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, the Oval Office, 17 October 1975. Kissinger replied: ‘We do not object to your public posture. We think it is essentially correct, and indeed it is even helpful. We do object when you direct it against us, when you accuse us of betraying our allies and endangering the security of the world by deliberately promoting war and standing on the sidelines, when in fact we are doing actual things to prevent a war and preserve the world equilibrium . . . We attach great significance to our relations. We are prepared to co-ordinate. We think you are serious, and we are equally serious. On that basis I think we can have a useful relationship.’ State Department, Memcon, Deng Xiaoping, Qiao Guanhua, Huang Zehn, Henry Kissinger, George Bush, Winston Lord, et al., Beijing, Great Hall of the People, 21 October 1975. State Department, Memcon, Chairman Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Qiao Guanhua, Huang Zhen, Henry Kissinger, George Bush, Winston Lord, et al., Beijing, Chairman Mao’s Residence, 21 October 1975. Kissinger said, ‘We are trying to contain Soviet expansionism, and this is why in strategy China has priority for us. But we don’t want to use China to jump to Moscow because that would be suicidal.’ Mao replied, ‘You’ve already jumped there, but you no longer need our shoulders.’ Kissinger replied it was ‘a tactical phase’. Ibid. Deng’s tough arguments on the draft communiqué suggesting he did not wish to issue one were privately described by Kissinger as ‘most annoying’ ‘insolence’. J. Lilley in Daalder and Destler, China Policy and the NSC, College Park: CISSM, 4 November 1999, p.15. The White House, Memcon, President Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, the Oval Office, 25 October 1975. The White House, Memcon, President Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, the Oval Office, 31 October 1975. M. Halperin, R. Pipes and A. Yarmolinsky in United States–Soviet Union–China, op. cit., pp.28–36. State Department, Memcon, Chairman Mao Tse Tung, Teng Hsiao-p’ing, Li Hscien-Nien, President Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, George Bush, et al., Peking, Chairman Mao’s Residence, 2 December 1975. Ibid. Mao said, ‘Now you peacefully coexist.’ Ford said the USA would meet any expansionist challenges. He sought Chinese support: ‘You put pressure from the East, and we will put pressure from the West.’ Mao agreed, ‘Yes. A gentleman’s agreement.’ Ford reassured Mao, ‘We are going to be firm and have the military capability to be firm. They understand it, and I think it is in the best interests of your country and our country if we are firm, which we intend to be.’ Mao was pleased. Ibid. Department of State, Memcon, Teng Hsiao-p’ing, Ch’iao Kuan-hua, Wang

Notes

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113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123

124

125 126 127 128 129

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Hai-jung, Huang Chen, Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, George Bush, et al., Peking, Guest House 18, 3 December 1975. The term ‘Finlandize’ was often used in Cold War discourse. It refers to the status of Finland – formally independent but in reality subservient to Soviet pressures and interests. Ibid. Ibid. The White House, Memcon, President Ford, Republican Congressional Leadership, Secretary of State Kissinger, Secretary of the Treasury Simon, Lt. General Brent Scowcroft, senior White House staff, Cabinet Room, 10 December 1975. Ibid. NSC, United States Policy Toward Angola, NSSM234, Washington, DC, 13 December 1975. NSC, Review of US Interests and Security Objectives in the Asia–Pacific Region – Military Base Negotiations with the Philippines, NSSM235, Washington, DC, 15 January 1976. Ford only met Mao once, acknowledging he was the man who ‘had the vision and imagination to open the doors so the United States and the People’s Republic of China could do things in a new era’. Keesing’s, vol. 22, p.28054. G. Ford, Report on the State of the Union, Washington, DC, 19 January 1976. D. Rumsfeld, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: DoD, 27 January 1976, pp.ii–iii. Ibid. p.8. Ibid. pp.8–9, 19. Rumsfeld stressed China’s limitations. US intelligence efforts, hitherto focused on the triangular balance of power, were being broadened. pp.58, 101, 170. R. Hewitt, J. Ashton, and J. Milligan, The Track Record in Strategic Estimating: An Evaluation of the SNIEs, 1966–1975, Washington, DC: DCI, 6 February 1976. Ibid. p.286. The White House, Memcon, President Ford, Thomas Gates, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, the Oval Office, 19 March 1976. Kissinger commented, ‘They are cold, pragmatic bastards. The President is right – we will have to move after the election.’ The Democratic manifesto said, without Chinese assurances that Taiwan would remain ‘free of military persuasion or domination’, normalisation of US–China relations might not be possible. Ford’s Republican platform said, ‘The United States government, while engaged in a normalization of relations with the PRC, will continue to support the freedom and independence of our friend and ally, the ROC, and its 16 million people.’ The Secretary of Defense, Memorandum for the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs: US Security Assistance to the Republic of China – NSSM212(c), Washington, DC: DoD, 12 April 1976. G. Ford, NSSM246, Washington, DC: NSC, 2 September 1976. The White House, US Policy Toward East–West Economic Relations, NSSM247 (Economic Policy Board Study Memorandum 1), 18 October 1976. State Department, Memcon: Developments in China, The Secretary, Philip Habib, Arthur Hummel, Jr., Winston Lord, William Gleysteen, Jr., et al., Washington, DC, 29 October 1976. NSC, ‘NSSM246 – US Defense Policy and Military Posture’, Minutes of NSC Meeting, the White House: Cabinet Room, 15 December 1976. Discussions led to one of Ford’s last acts in office. He wrote to the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the DCI, ‘To ensure the credibility and strength of our military

248

130 131

132 133

Notes deterrent across the full spectrum of potential conflict, our overriding aims must be to maintain – A strategic balance with the Soviet Union that guarantees the United States will never be in an inferior position.’ G. Ford, US Defense Policy and Military Posture, NSDM348, the White House, 20 January 1977. Department of State, Memcon, Huang Zhen, Qiah Dayong, Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, et al., Washington, DC, the Secretary’s Dining Room, 8 January 1977. Ibid. Huang Zhen reminded Kissinger, ‘We have also said many times that very frankly our experience in dealing with the Russians is, to sum up in two sentences: first, they will bully the weak and are afraid of the strong. And that their words are usually not trustworthy. That is why you should never be weak. If you are weak, soft, the Polar Bear wants to get you.’ G. Ford, Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress Reporting on the State of the Union, the White House, 12 January 1977. Ibid.

5 Consolidation amid fluidity 1 Carter’s instructions to Brzezinski, in Z. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, New York: Farrar Strauss, 1983, pp.206–7. 2 President Carter to the press, 26 June 1978, Public Papers of President Jimmy Carter, 1978, vol. I, Washington, DC: USGPO, 1979, p.1180. 3 The New York Council on Foreign Relations organised discussions on international issues, and published the quarterly Foreign Affairs. The Trilateral Commission brought together academics, officials and business leaders from the USA, Western Europe and Japan. Carter was a member of both. Brzezinski, the Commission’s first director, proved influential in the Carter Administration. 4 US opinion was divided on Cold War issues. A 1976 Gallup poll found 44 per cent felt the USA ‘should take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force, to prevent the spread of communism’; 43 per cent disagreed; 13 per cent had no views. 5 Helgerson, 1998, op. cit., ch. 5. Carter was briefed by the CIA and others: defence matters on 26 July, economic issues on 27 July, Bush’s CIA team briefed on 28 July. On 29 July, Kissinger made a presentation. 6 Associated Press, 28 July 1976. 7 R. Lehman, Memorandum for the Record: First Briefing of Governor Carter, Langley: CIA, 29 July 1976. 8 Lehman, Memorandum for the Record: Briefing of Governor Carter, 12 August 1976, Langley: CIA, 16 August 1976. 9 The Republican Party platform stated that improvement in US–China relations ‘cannot realistically proceed at a forced or incautious pace’ – a slippage from past pledges. 10 A. Dobrynin, Record of Conversation with A. Harriman, Washington, DC: Embassy of the USSR, 1 December 1976; CWIHP. 11 J. Carter, Letter to LI Brezhnev, the White House, 26 January 1977; CWIHP. 12 L. Brezhnev, Letter to James E. Carter, Moscow, 4 February 1977; CWIHP. 13 J. Carter, Letter to Leonid I. Brezhnev, the White House, 14 February 1977; CWIHP. 14 Ibid. Dobrynin noted Christopher could not comment on the letter, saying it had been ‘prepared in the White House by the President himself’. This suggests Brzezinski was managing this high-level correspondence. 15 Dobrynin was to say, ‘We do not try to impose our understanding of rights and

Notes

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21

22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34

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liberties of man on anybody, although much of what is going on under the conditions of another social system seems unacceptable to our people.’ CPSU Central Committee, About the instruction to the Soviet Ambassador in Washington for his conversation with Vance on the question of ‘human right’, Protocol no. 46 (P46/X), Moscow, 18 February 1977, CWIHP. L. Brezhnev, Letter to James E. Carter, Moscow, 25 February 1977; CWIHP. Ibid. Carter at the inaugural ‘Oksenberg Lecture’, Arrillaga Alumni Center, Stanford University, 6 May 2002. Jia-Rui Chong in Stanford Report, Stanford, 8 May 2002. See fn.14. On his contribution to US–Soviet policy, Brzezinski said, ‘What I contributed was . . . some stimulus to an earlier display of American tough-mindedness visà-vis the Soviets. If I hadn’t pushed I don’t think we would have done it. In many instances I think we would have acquiesced. It’s either a question of messages to Brezhnev or how we responded or how we reacted.’ Brzezinski, ‘Exit interview’ with Marie Allen, Washington, DC, 20 February 1981. Asked what role he played in Carter’s emphasis on human rights, Brzezinski said, ‘I played an important role in that. In fact, when I got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the President emphasized that. I felt very strongly that America had to be identified with an ideal. And, human rights is the essence of what America is about. And I feel very proud of my role in encouraging the President and others to make that a major plan.’ Ibid. M. Oksenberg to M. Vande Berg, in ‘Asia: No Longer a Monolith’, Pacific Rim Report, University of San Francisco, no. 14, April 2000. Holbrooke began the ‘East Asian informals’ every Monday, bringing together NSC Asia staff, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense–Pacific, and the CIA’s Deputy Director for Operations, centring China policy in his office. Oksenberg and Brzezinski used their access to Carter to shift the locus of China policy to the White House. M. Armacost in Daalder and Destler, 1999, op. cit., pp.11–12. In the Carter presidency, the group comprised William Gleysteen, Michel Oksenberg, Morton Abramowitz and Nicholas Platt. Ibid. p.13. Z. Brzezinski, Memorandum for the President, the White House, 7 February 1977, Carter Library and Museum, Atlanta. NSC, PRM24, the White House, 5 April 1977. ‘Talks Between A.A. Gromyko and Cyrus Vance’, Moscow, 28–30 March 1977; CWIHP. B. Weintraub in The New York Times, 24 June 1977. H. Smith in The New York Times, 8 July 1977. The study ‘Military Strategy and Force Posture Review’ found neither superpower would emerge victorious from a nuclear exchange. In conventional clashes, the situation varied from theatre to theatre. R. Burt in The New York Times, 6 January 1978. J. Lilley in Daalder and Destler, 1999, op cit., pp.13–14. State Department learnt of the stations’ existence only after Alexander Haig became Secretary in 1981. Keesing’s, vol. 23, p.28717. Deng Xiaoping, ‘The “Two Whatevers” do not accord with Marxism’, in Selected Works (1975–1982), Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1984, p.39. Hua Guofeng, ‘Report to 11th National Congress of CPC’, August 1977; Keesing’s, vol. 23, p.28720. Deng Xiaoping, The Army should attach Strategic Importance to Education and Training, ‘Speech at a Forum organised by the Military Commission’, Beijing: Central Committee of the CPC, 23 August 1977; and ‘Speech at a Plenary

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35 36

37 38

39

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50

51 52 53 54 55

Notes

Meeting of the Military Commission’, Beijing: Central Committee of the CPC, 28 December 1977. On 4 July, Vice Premier Li Xiannian told the visiting Admiral Elmo Zumwalt that Beijing wanted to normalise relations with Washington, but would not abandon its right to use force in Taiwan. H. Feldman, The Taiwan Relations Act – Past, and Perhaps Future, ‘Remarks on Taiwan National Security’, Taipei: Taiwan International Interchange Foundation, 7 November 1998; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, The Establishment of Sino–US Diplomatic Relations and Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the United States, Beijing, 2000. Feldman, Ibid. Z. Brzezinski, Memorandum for the President: China, the White House, 7 February 1977; ibid. 27 June 1977; ibid. 7 July 1977; ibid. 21 September 1977; ibid. 16 February 1978; ibid. February 1978 (not dated); ibid. 3 March 1978; and ibid. 4 May 1978; all at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum, Atlanta. M. Oksenberg, Memorandum for Mr Brzezinski, NSC, 28 July 1977; ibid. 12 October 1977; ibid. 22 October 1977; ibid. 2 November 1977; ibid. 2 February 1978; and ibid. 3 March 1978; all at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum, Atlanta. Z. Brzezinski, Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, the White House, 11 November 1977; Carter Presidential Library and Museum, Atlanta. H. Brown, Annual Report FY1979, Washington, DC: DoD, 2 February 1978, pp.3–4. Ibid. pp.17–18. Ibid. pp.23, 40. See fn.1. Carter to a group of editors and news directors, 19 May 1978, in Public Papers of President Jimmy Carter, 1978, vol. I, Washington, DC: USGPO, 1979, p.942. The New York Times, 23 May 1978. The Washington Post, 24 May 1978. The New York Times, 24 May 1978. Facts on File, 26 May 1978. Brzezinski told his hosts, ‘Our commitment to friendship with China is based on shared concerns and is derived from a longterm view. The US does not view its relationship with China as a tactical expedient. We recognize – and share – China’s resolve to resist the efforts of any nation which seeks to establish global or regional hegemony . . . Neither of us despatches international marauders who masquerade as non-aligned to advance big-power ambitions in Africa. Neither of us seeks to enforce political obedience of our neighbours through military force.’ Peking Review, vol. 21, no. 21, 26 May 1978, pp.4–6. Beijing noted, ‘By the time when Brzezinski visited China, the Carter Administration has made up its mind to establish diplomatic relations with China first and then to negotiate with the Soviet Union from a position of superiority with an attempt to check the momentum of Soviet expansion and to fortify the global strategic status of the United States’. Foreign Ministry of the PRC, The Establishment of Sino–US Diplomatic Relations, op. cit. Ibid. B. Garrett in G. Breslauer and P. Tetlock (eds), Learning in US and Soviet Foreign Policy, Boulder: Westview Press, 1991, pp.244–7. S. Roy in Daalder and Destler, China Policy and the NSC, op. cit., pp.14–15. Brzezinski to the press, Washington, DC, 28 May 1978, Facts on File, 6 June 1978. Peking Review, vol. 21, no. 29, 21 July 1978, pp.3–4.

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56 The Chinese account appears in Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, The Establishment of Sino–US Diplomatic Relations, op. cit. 57 Keesing’s, vol. 25, p.29537. To ensure a growing flow of US finance and technology to help build China’s economic strength and military-industrial capacity, the partners sponsored the United States–China Business Council. It helped US and Chinese firms – the latter state owned – to negotiate contracts, transact business, transfer technology, and arrange visits. Kissinger spoke at the 3 June 1974 meeting. Sessions were attended by officials, including from the NSC and the CIA. Online. Available at http://www.ford.utexas.edu/library/fafolder/ uschina2.htm (accessed 11 May 2002). 58 H. Brown, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: DoD, 25 January 1979, pp.36, 52. 59 ‘The Soviets . . . must deal with a civil sector that does not produce technology of use to the military sector to nearly the same extent as ours does. For that reason alone, the Soviets probably have to invest more defense resources than we do to achieve comparable military result. There is a significant probability that current Soviet economic problems will be aggravated in the years ahead.’ Ibid. p.37. 60 Ibid. pp.4, 74. 61 J. Galen, ‘US’ Toughest Message to the USSR’, Armed Forces Journal International, February 1979, pp.30–6. 62 Ibid. pp.30, 32. 63 The public events were reported in Newsweek, 12 February 1979. 64 Hui Wang, ‘US–China: Bonds and Tensions’, in Shuxun Chen and C. Wolf, Jr. (eds), China, The United States, and the Global Economy, Santa Monica: Rand, 2001, p.273. 65 Peking Review, vol. 21, no. 22, 2 June 1978, pp.14–16; no. 23, 9 June 1978, pp.13–19; no. 26, 30 June 1978, pp.19–21; no. 29, 21 July 1978, pp.5–8, 24–5; and no. 30, 28 July 1978, pp.26–9, 30–3. 66 Deng told Carter his objective was to teach Hanoi ‘an appropriate limited lesson’. He assured Carter the PLA would pull back swiftly, as it had done from India in 1962. He only sought ‘moral support’. Brzezinski, 1983, op. cit., pp.409–10. 67 President J. Carter, ‘Message to Congress Reporting on US International Scientific and Technological Programs’, Washington, DC, 27 February 1980, Public Papers of President Jimmy Carter 1980–1981, vol. I, Washington, DC: USGPO, 1981, p.407. 68 Carter, ‘Question and answer session with editors and news directors’, 26 January 1979, in ibid. 1979, vol. I, Washington, DC: USGPO, 1980, p.184. 69 ‘Pentagon study urges military aid to China’, The New York Times, 4 October 1979. 70 A US government report said, ‘In 1978, the USA reached tentative agreement with China to “set up, install, man, equip and service a series of SIGINT [signals intelligence] sites along that country’s border with the Soviet Union”. In April 1979, Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping indicated that these stations would have to be operated by China and that the data collected would have to be shared with China. Final agreement was reached in January 1980 to construct two stations, at Qitai and Korla in Xinjiang, and actual operations began in late 1980. The stations were constructed with equipment provided by the CIA’s Office of SIGINT Operations (OSO), whose personnel trained the Chinese technicians that operate the stations. CIA personnel periodically visit the stations to advise the Chinese operators and to service the equipment as required. Technicians from the 2nd Department have also been trained at a SIGINT training centre near San Francisco

252

71 72 73 74

Notes

under the agreement relating to the operation of these two stations. The equipment originally installed at Qitai and Korla was designed to intercept telemetry from Soviet missile tests and space launches conducted from Tyuratam near the Aral Sea and anti-ballistic missile and nuclear weapons tests in the Sary Shagan/Semipalatinsk area. However, it is likely that additional communications intelligence (COMINT) and ELINT [electronic intelligence] activities are now also undertaken at these stations.’ US Department of Commerce, ‘US–China relations’, Washington, DC, August 1995, released by court action no. 398CV716. Z. Khalilzad, A. Shulsky, D. Byman, R. Cliff, D. Orletsky, D. Shlapak and A. Tellis, The United States and a Rising China, Santa Monica: Rand, 1999, pp.25, 30–1, 35. K. Allen, G. Krumel and J. Polack, China’s Air Force Enters the 21st Century, Santa Monica: Rand, 1995, pp.89–92. G. Lardner, Jr. and J. Smith, ‘Intelligence ties endure despite US–China strain’, The Washington Post, 25 June 1989. See Chapter 7.

6 Building China’s national power 1 H. Brown, Secretary of Defense’s Report to the Congress, Washington, DC: USGPO, 29 January 1980, p.52. 2 C. Weinberger, Secretary of Defense’s Report to the President and Congress, Washington, DC: USGPO, 8 February 1982, pp.II–20–1. 3 R. Reagan to Zhao Ziyang on the tenth anniversary of the Shanghai Communiqué, the White House, 28 February 1982. 4 Deng Xiaoping, Speech at an Enlarged Meeting of the Military Commission, Beijing: CPC Central Committee, 4 June 1985. 5 Khalilzad, et al., 1999, op. cit., p.8; K. Allen, G. Krumel and J. Polack, 1995, op. cit., p.2. 6 Khalilzad, et al., ibid. pp.1–8. 7 M. Swaine and A. Tellis, Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy, Santa Monica: Rand, 2000, p.112. 8 Ibid. p.99. 9 ‘Teng Hsiao-p’ing Talks on “US–China Relations” ’, Inside China Mainland, Taipei, January 1979, p.1; A. Gregor, ‘The People’s Republic of China as a Western Security asset’, Air Power, July–August 1983. 10 Nieh Jung-chen (Nie Rongzhen), ‘Speech at the National Militia Conference – 4 August’, Beijing: Xinhua Domestic Service, 7 August 1978. 11 H. Jencks, ‘People’s War Under Modern Conditions’, The China Quarterly, no. 98, June 1984, pp.305–19; G. Biannic, ‘Interview with General A. Marty on his meeting with PLA Deputy Chief of Staff Wu Xiuquan’, Hong Kong: AFP, 3 May 1979. 12 P. Godwin, ‘Doctrinal Evolution in the Chinese PLA: 1978–1999’, in J. Mulvenon and A. Yang (eds), Seeking Truth From Facts: A Retrospective on Chinese Military Studies in the Post-Mao Era, Santa Monica: Rand, 2001, pp.92–5. 13 K. Allen and E. McVadon, China’s Foreign Military Relations, Washington, DC: Henry Stimson Center, October 1999, p.39. 14 Teng Lianfu and Jiang Fusheng (eds), Kongjun Zuozhan Yanjiu, Beijing: National Defence University, May 1990, p.147. 15 H. Harding, ‘The Domestic Politics of China’s Global Posture, 1973–1978’, in T. Fingar (ed.), China’s Quest for Independence, Boulder: Westview Press, 1980, pp.43–96. 16 E. Joffe, ‘Eight Points for Attention’, in Mulvenon and Yang (eds), op. cit.,

Notes

17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

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p.204; M. Swaine, The Role of the Chinese Military in National Security Policymaking, Santa Monica: Rand, 1998, pp. xii, 77. Godwin, op. cit., p.89. Keesing’s, vol. 30, p.30387. On this, Michael Pillsbury wrote, ‘I am still employed by the US Government and still have a security clearance, and have signed some lifetime agreements not to disclose any classified information I ever knew. Thus, there are strict legal boundaries about what I am allowed to provide to you . . . I am not optimistic that your topic can be addressed by you without access to or an interview with Henry Kissinger.’ Private correspondence, 9 January 2002. Kissinger turned down author’s interview requests. See fn.1. Ibid. Brown’s explanation is in Harold Brown, 14th Secretary of Defense, Carter Administration, Washington, DC: DoD. Online. Available at http://www. defenselink. mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/brown.htm (accessed 28 June 2002). Brown insisted countervailing strategy was not a ‘first-strike’ ploy. Ibid. R. Lehman in Helgerson, 1998, op. cit., ch. 5. Allen and McVadon, 1999, op. cit., p.6. Ibid. pp.8, 91. Also, Deng in ‘Use the intellectual resources of other countries and open wider to the outside world’, The People’s Daily, 8 July 1983. GAO, US and Euro Military Exports to China, Washington, DC, 16 June 1998. The PLA inducted some Western arms directly, mounting others on Chinese platforms. Others provided technology for improving local products. It ‘stripped bare’ and reverse-engineered yet others, with modifications producing indigenised versions. ACDA, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers (WMEAT) 1971–1980, Washington, DC, 1983, p.118. WMEAT 1986, 1987, p.144. WMEAT 1990, 1991, p.132. WMEAT 1991–1992, 1994, p.132. J. Corless, ‘Indigenous destroyer extends China’s reach’, Jane’s Navy International, 1 March 2000, vol. 105, issue 002; Khalilzad et al., 1999, op. cit., p.55. GAO, June 1998, op. cit. Allen and McVadon, 1999, op. cit., p.50. Ibid. p.21. Ibid. pp.21, 23, 48. A. Barzilai, ‘Israel’s 20-year Role in Chinese Military Modernization’, Ha’aretz, 5 February 1999. Allen and McVadon, op cit., p.25. D. Clarke, ‘Israel’s Unauthorised Arms Transfers’, Foreign Policy, 22 June 1995, pp.89–95. See above ACDA and GAO reports. ‘Beijing Quietly Trades with Israel’, The San Francisco Chronicle, 22 July 1985. Y. Shichor, ‘Mountains out of Molehills: Arms Transfers in Sino–Middle Eastern Relations’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, vol. 4, no. 3, Fall 2000. Ibid. Allen and McVadon, op cit., p.25; ‘US Suspects Israel of Illegally Reexporting US Technology to China’, Washington, DC, AFP, 13 March 1992; ‘US Pressing Israel to Explain Resale of US Weapons Overseas’, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 14 March 1992; T. Friedman, ‘US–Israeli Tensions Worsen’, Austin American-Statesman, 15 March 1992; ‘Israel: Case study for International Missile Trade and Nonproliferation Project’, in W. Potter and

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46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65 66

Notes H. Jencks (eds), The International Missile Bazaar, Boulder: Westview Press, 1993; T. Kennedy, ‘US Military Technology Sold by Israel to China Upsets Asian Power Balance’, Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs, January 1996, pp.12, 96; S. Rodan, ‘Fast Plane to China?’, The Jerusalem Post, 3 April 1997; D. Clarke, ‘Israel’s Economic Espionage in the United States’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 22 June 1998; D. Clarke, ‘Selling US Weapons to China’, Christian Science Monitor, 22 July 1998; D. Gur-arieh, ‘Israeli Defense Firms Face Obstacles in China’, Reuters, 6 September 1998; B. Gertz, ‘Israel Suspect in Data Transfer’, The Washington Times, 27 January 1999; ‘China – Defence Contractors World-wide Fill Gap Left by US’, Financial Times, 19 February 1999; S. Twing, ‘What the Cox Report Does and Does Not Say About Israeli Technology Transfer to China’, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1999, pp.49, 135; ‘China’s Secret Visit to Israel Military Industries’, Ha’aretz, 1 December 1999; A. Benn, ‘China Arms Deal at Root of Israel–US Dispute’, Ha’aretz, 2 April 2000; J. Lobe, ‘Israel Yields to US on Key China Deal’, Asia Times, 14 July 2000; J. Yackley, ‘US Security Assistance to Israel’, Foreign Policy in Focus, vol. 6, no. 23, June 2001. W. Boese, ‘Israel Halts Chinese Phalcon Deal’, Arms Control Today, September 2000. Y. Melman, ‘Israel Freezes Defence Exports to China, at Request of US’, Ha’aretz, 19 February 2003. WMEAT 1990, op. cit., p.132; and WMEAT 1991–1992, op. cit., p.132. Xu Xiangqian in Hongqi, Beijing, 1979, p.L17, in M. Burles and A. Shulsky, Patterns in China’s Use of Force, Santa Monica: Rand, 2000, p.50. Yang Dezhi circa 1985, quoted in ibid. p.51. A 1987 article in Jiefangjun Bao warned that the PLA’s technology lagged behind ‘world advanced levels’ and, unless the gap was closed, China could suffer ‘great losses in future wars’. Ibid. p.54. WMEAT 1985, 1985, p.132. WMEAT 1986, op. cit., p.144; WMEAT 1987, 1988, p.128; WMEAT 1988, 1989, p.112; WMEAT 1990, op. cit., p.132; and WMEAT 1991–1992, op. cit., p.132. H. Kenny, ‘Underlying Patterns of American Arms Sales to China’, in WMEAT 1986, op. cit., p.40. Ibid. pp.40–1. H. Kenny, The American Role in Vietnam and East Asia, New York: Praeger, 1984, p.144. Kenny in WMEAT 1986, op. cit., p.40. H. Brown, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: USGPO, 19 January 1981, p.36. Ibid. pp.84–5. CIA officials who briefed President-elect Reagan said: ‘The problem with Ronald Reagan was that his ideas were all fixed. He knew what he thought about everything – he was an old dog.’ D. Davis quoted in Helgerson, op. cit., ch. 6. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Feldman, The Taiwan Relations Act, op. cit. B. Garrett, ‘The Strategic Basis of Learning in US Policy Toward China, 1949–1988’, in G. Breslauer and P. Tetlock (eds), Learning in US and Soviet Foreign Policy, Boulder: Westview Press, 1991, p.245. G. Segal, Sino–Soviet Relations after Mao, Adelphi Papers 202, London: IISS, 1985, p.10.

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67 I Aleksandrov, Pravda, 27 June 1981. 68 DCI, The Development of Soviet Military Power, Washington, DC, April 1981, p.xiii. 69 Ibid. pp.xv–xvi. 70 Ibid. 71 The White House, Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, NSDD5, 8 July 1981, pp.2–3. 72 The USA revived the B-1 bomber programme, built a new Advanced Technology (‘stealth’) Bomber, deployed ALCMs with nuclear warheads on upgraded B-52 bombers, and built 100 MX ICBMs to be based at reconstructed Minuteman III or Titan II silos. In addition, ‘a vigorous research and development program will be conducted on ballistic missile defense systems’. The White House, Strategic Forces Modernization Program, NSDD12, 1 October 1981. 73 See fn.2. 74 Reagan challenged the basic assumption behind MAD that the superpowers’ civilian populaces lay open to each other’s attack and MAD was founded on this ‘unacceptable cost’. The White House, US Civil Defense Policy, NSDD26, 16 March 1982. 75 The White House, US National Security Strategy, NSDD32, 20 May 1982. 76 United States of America and the People’s Republic of China, Joint Communiqué between the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America, Washington and Beijing, 17 August 1982. 77 The White House, Nuclear Capable Missile Technology Transfer Policy, NSDD70, 30 November 1982, p.2. 78 The White House, US Relations With The USSR, NSDD75, 17 January 1983, p.1. 79 Ibid. p.7. Emphasis in original. 80 Ibid. p.8. Emphasis in original. 81 Ibid. p.5. 82 The White House, Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation with China, NSDD76, 18 January 1983. 83 WMEAT 1986, op. cit., p.39. 84 DoD, Casper Weinberger, 15th Secretary of Defense, Washington, DC. Online. Available at http://www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/ weinberger.htm (accessed 18 August 2002). 85 WMEAT 1986, op. cit., p.44. 86 GAO, Impact of China’s Military Modernization in the Pacific Region, Washington, DC, 6 June 1995, ch. 1:2. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid. 89 Weinberger, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: USGPO, 1 February 1983, pp.15–16. 90 Ibid. p.28. 91 Ibid. p.17. 92 Ibid. p.29. 93 Ibid. p.71. 94 The White House, Eliminating the Threat From Ballistic Missiles, NSDD85, 25 March 1983; Strategic Defense Initiative, NSDD119, 6 January 1984; Fact Sheet on The SDI, NSDD172, 1 June 1985; The SDI Program and US Interpretation of the ABM Treaty, NSDD192, 11 October 1985; and Consultations on the SDI Program, NSDD261, 18 February 1987. 95 The White House, Strategic Forces Modernization Program Changes, NSDD91, 19 April 1983, updating NSDD12, 1 October 1981.

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96 The White House, United States Security Strategy for the Near East and South Asia, NSDD99, 12 July 1983. 97 The White House, US Response to Soviet Destruction of KAL Airliner, NSDD102, 5 September 1983. Also, State Department, C. Hill to W. Clark, Implementation Strategy for NSDD on the US Response to the Soviet Destruction of the KAL Airliner, Washington, DC, 7 September 1983; State Department, Hill to Clark, Update on Implementation of NSDD102 on the KAL Incident, Washington, DC, 10 September 1983; State Department, Hill to Clark, Revision of Update on Implementation of NSDD102, Washington, DC, 14 September 1983; State Department, Hill to Clark, Strategy Update on NSDD102, Washington, DC, 20 September 1983; and, the White House, R. McFarlane, Memorandum for George Shultz: ICAO Meeting on the Final Report of the Shootdown of KAL Flight 007, 10 December 1983. 98 NSDD102, op. cit., p.4. 99 Hill to Clark, 7 September 1983, op. cit., p.5. 100 The White House, Visit to the United States of Premier Zhao Ziyang, NSDD120, 9 January 1984. 101 Ibid. pp.1–2. 102 Ibid. p.3. 103 Weinberger, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: USGPO, 1 February 1984, pp.40, 269. 104 The White House, The President’s Visit to the PRC, NSDD140, 21 April 1984, p.4. 105 DIA, Nuclear Weapons Systems in China, Washington, DC, 24 April 1984, p.2. 106 Ibid. pp.2–3; DIA, PRC Defense Production for Planning (DIPP), Section VI, Nuclear Implications, Washington, DC, April 1984. 107 Chai Wen-chung and Chen Yung-kang, ‘A Study of the Evolving PRC Naval Strategy’, Chung-Kuo Ta-Lu Yen-Chiu, 1 September 1997, pp.7–10, 13–20; cited in M. Barron, ‘China’s Strategic Modernization’, Parameters, Carlisle Barracks: Army War College, Winter 2001–02, pp.72–86. 108 ‘Security Assessment – China and Northeast Asia’, Jane’s Sentinel, Coulsdon: Jane’s, 1999, p.96. 109 Allen and McVadon, 1999, op. cit., p.48; D. Byman, China’s Arms Sales, Santa Monica: Rand, 1999, p.25. 110 The White House, President Ronald Reagan’s Remarks at a Signing Ceremony for Four United States–China Agreements, Beijing, 30 April 1984; President Ronald Reagan’s Toast at a Dinner Hosted by President Li Xiannian of China, Beijing, 26 April 1984; President Ronald Reagan’s Remarks on Departure From Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, Hawaii, 24 April 1984. 111 The White House, President Ronald Reagan’s Remarks at the Shanghai Foxboro Company, Ltd., Shanghai, China, 30 April 1984; President Ronald Reagan’s Toast at a Banquet Hosted by Mayor Wang Daohan, Shanghai, 30 April 1984; and Question and Answer Session with Reporters on the Trip to China, aboard Air Force One, 1 May 1984. 112 Reagan only hinted at these discussions when he said, ‘When I was in Beijing, I explained to the Chinese that our attempt to build up our defenses, after more than a decade of almost constant neglect, is an attempt to preserve the peace and preserve freedom in the world.’ The White House, President Ronald Reagan’s Remarks Upon Returning From China, Patty Athletic Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 1 May 1984. For collaboration in Afghanistan, see Chapter 7. 113 P. Leventhal, ‘What That Nuclear Pact With China Should Say’, The Washington Post, 2 May 1984; P. Clausen, ‘A Porous Nuclear Pact’, The New York Times, 5 October 1985; J. Herrington, in United States–PRC Nuclear Agreement,

Notes

114 115

116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125

126 127 128 129 130

131

132

257

Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, Washington, DC: United States Senate, 9 October 1985. B. Garrett in Breslauer and Tetlock (eds), op. cit., pp.240–1. Opinion in allied countries was critical of US ‘hardline’ position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, and Washington’s failure to address its growing deficits affecting inflation and interest rates across the OECD. The White House, Interview with Foreign Journalists, 31 May 1984; and Interview with Television Correspondents Representing Nations Attending the London Economic Summit, 31 May 1984. The White House, Instructions for the Shultz–Gromyko Meeting in Geneva, NSDD153, 1 January 1985, p.1. Ibid. pp.2–4. Reagan’s long-term goal: ‘A world free of nuclear arms is an ultimate objective to which we, the Soviet Union, and all other nations can agree.’ p.5. Weinberger, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: USGPO, 4 February 1985, p.15. Ibid. pp.31, 237. Ibid. pp.275–6. O. North, America: Make Up Your Mind, Washington, DC, Freedom Alliance, 15 May 2001. Gorbachev’s presidency is reviewed in A. Brown, The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. The White House, Meeting With Soviet Leader in Geneva, NSDD183, 8 August 1985, p.1. Ibid. p.2. On ‘Building a safer world’, Reagan’s ‘Basic Messages’ were: ‘We want countries to stop trying to expand their influence through armed intervention and subversion . . . We have the mandate and opportunity to reduce the danger of nuclear war by drastic cuts in nuclear arsenals . . . We must defend human rights everywhere, since countries which respect human rights are unlikely to unleash war . . . We must establish better communication between our societies, since misunderstandings make the world more dangerous . . . The meeting in Geneva marks a new phase in this process. Our efforts to reach these ambitious goals will continue.’ Ibid. Emphases in original. Ibid. p.3. The White House, Nuclear Testing Limitation, NSDD203, 23 December 1985. The White House, Allied Consultations on the US Response to General Secretary Gorbachev’s January 14, 1986, Arms Control Proposal, NSDD210, 4 February 1986. The White House, US Response to Gorbachev’s January Arms Control Proposals, NSDD214, 21 February 1986. Deng said, ‘After reunification with the motherland, the Taiwan special administrative region will assume a unique character and may practise a social system different from that of the mainland. It will enjoy independent judicial power, and there will be no need to go to Beijing for final adjudication. What is more, it may maintain its own army, provided it does not threaten the mainland.’ Deng Xiaoping to Professor W. Yang of Seton Hall University, New Jersey, The People’s Daily, 26 June 1983. He repeated this to a Georgetown University team. The People’s Daily, 22 February 1984. Deng linked goals set by the CPC’s 12th National Congress to quadruple China’s GDP in 1980–2000, and its benefits, to opening up. Speech on the 35th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, Beijing, 1 October 1984; and Speech at a forum of the Military Commission, Beijing: CPC Central Committee, 1 November 1984. J. Mulvenon and A. Yang (eds), A Retrospective on Chinese Military Studies in the Post-Mao Era, Santa Monica: Rand, 2001, pp.13–14.

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133 Ibid. p.96. 134 Details of China’s ballistic missile programme in the 1980s appear in Khalilzad et al., 1999, p.43. 135 See fn.4. 136 Wang Chenghan, ‘On Coordinating Development of National Defense and the Economy’, Hongqi, 1 September 1987; Jiao Wu and Xiao Hui, ‘Modern Limited War Calls for Reform of Traditional Military Principles’, Guofang Daxue Xuebao, no. 11, Beijing: National Defence University, 1 November 1987; M. Burles and A. Shulski, Patterns in China’s Use of Force, Santa Monica: Rand, 2000, pp.29–30, 48–9. 137 Jia Wenxian, et al., ‘Tentative Discussion of the Special Principles of a Future Chinese Limited War’, Guofang Daxue Xuebao, ibid. 138 DIA, Soviet Military Power, Washington, DC: USGPO, 1986, p.13. 139 Ibid. p.138. 140 ‘Deng Xiaoping Replies to the American TV Correspondent Mike Wallace’, The People’s Daily, 2 September 1986. 141 M. Swaine, The Role of the Chinese Military in National Security Policymaking, Santa Monica: Rand, 1998, p.50; Zhang Aiping, ‘Strengthen Modernization of the Army’, Renmin Ribao, 24 July 1987. 142 Weinberger, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: USGPO, 5 February 1986, pp.64–5, 263. 143 Ibid. p.277. 144 A Jiefangjun Bao article cited in Burles and Shulsky, op. cit., p.54. 145 The White House, Meetings with Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev, NSDD244, 3 October 1986. 146 The White House, Reagan–Gorbachev Preparatory Meeting, NSDD245, 7 October 1986. 147 The White House, Memcon, President Ronald Reagan, General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, et al., Reykjavik, Iceland, 11 October 1986 – Afternoon. 148 Ibid. 149 The White House, Memcon, President Ronald Reagan, General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, et al., Reykjavik, Iceland, 16 October 1986 – Morning. 150 Weinberger, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: USGPO, 12 January 1987, p.23. Emphasis in original. 151 Ibid. p.32. 152 Ibid. p.264. 153 Ibid. p.279. 154 ‘Congressional Presentation for Security Assistance Programs: FY1988’, Washington, DC, USGPO: 1987, pp.23, 273–4, in Mulvenon and Yang (eds), op. cit., p.162. 155 Ibid. p.146. 156 B. Garrett, Soviet Perceptions of China and Sino–American military ties, Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy), June 1981. 157 Khalilzad, et al., op. cit., p.43. 158 Ibid. p.53. 159 Carlucci told Congress there had been no substantive reduction in the ‘Soviet threat’. F. Carlucci, Report of the Secretary of Defense to the Congress, Washington, DC: USGPO, 18 February 1988, pp.23–4. 160 Carlucci explained PRC–Soviet military postures: ‘In responding to the imposing military power on its northern border, the PRC has embarked on a broad programme to upgrade its military forces. This effort, however, is viewed as secondary to China’s domestic economic development . . . Thus, despite continuing Chinese improvements, the Soviets will remain predominant in all areas of the conventional military balance. The Soviets also are

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continuing to maintain strategic nuclear superiority over the Chinese for the foreseeable future.’ Ibid. pp.34–5. 161 Ibid. p.84. 162 Byman and Cliff, 1999, op. cit., p.53. 163 DIA, Hostile Intelligence Threat, 5200.1-PH-2, Washington, DC: DoD, November 1988, pp.4, 6, 17. 7 The Afghan war 1 Z. Brzezinski, Memorandum for the President: Afghanistan, the White House, 26 December 1979. 2 L. Brezhnev at CPSU Central Committee Plenum, Moscow, 23 June 1980, CWIHP. 3 R. Reagan, Address on the 2nd Anniversary of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, the White House, 27 December 1981. 4 M. Gorbachev to the CPSU Central Committee Politburo, Moscow, 13 November 1986, CWIHP. 5 M. Bearden, in All Things Considered, Washington, DC: National Public Radio, 21 August 1998. 6 Federation of American Scientists, ‘CIA – Budget ’. Online. Available at http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/ciabud.htm (accessed 21 October 2002). 7 Twentieth Century Fund Task Force on Covert Action and American Democracy, The Need to Know, New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1992, p.40. 8 National Security Archives, Afghanistan: The Making of US Policy, Washington, DC: Chadwyck-Healey, 1998; many documents from National Security Archives and CWIHP publications are cited here. 9 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Iranian Support to the Afghan Resistance, Washington, DC, 11 July 1985, p.1. 10 A. Puzanov to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, About the Domestic Political Situation in the DRA, Kabul, 31 May 1978; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Record of Conversation, Puzanov and Taraki, Kabul, 18 June 1978; CPSU Central Committee Politburo, ‘Protocol no. 137’, Moscow, 7 January 1979. 11 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Record of Conversation, Puzanov and Taraki, Kabul, 18 July 1978; D. MacEachin, Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1999, fn.37. 12 Moscow was aware of China’s anger. See CPSU Politburo letter to Erich Honecker, Moscow, 13 October 1978. 13 A. Gromyko, at a Meeting of the CPSU Politburo, Re: Deterioration of Conditions in the DRA and Possible Responses from Our Side, Moscow, 17 March 1979. 14 CPSU Central Committee, Telephone Conversation between Alexei Kosygin and N. Taraki, Moscow, 18 March 1979. 15 Record of meeting of A. Gromyko, D. Ustinov, and B. Ponomarev with N. Taraki, Moscow, 20 March 1979, AK-786ss, CWIHP. 16 Secretary to Soviet Ambassador, About Providing Supplementary Military Assistance to the DRA, Point 159 of Protocol no. 152, Moscow: CPSU Central Committee, 24 May 1979. 17 Gromyko–Andropov–Ustinov–Ponomarev to CPSU Central Committee, On the Situation in Afghanistan, Politburo Resolution P156/XI, Moscow, 28 June 1979. 18 Records of Conversation between Ambassador Puzanov and N. Taraki, 10 July 1979; Ponomarev, Taraki and Amin, 19–20 July 1979; Puzanov and Amin, 21 July 1979; Lieutenant General Gorelov and Amin, 11 August 1979; and between General I. Pavlovskii and Amin, 25 August 1979; all in Kabul. C Ostermann (ed.), The Soviet Union and Afghanistan, 1979–1989, Washington, DC: CWIHP, 1999, pp.42–4.

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19 MacEachin, op. cit., p.14. 20 CPSU Central Committee, ‘Directive for Ambassador A. Puzanov’, Politburo Decision on Afghanistan, Moscow, 13 September 1979. 21 CPSU Central Committee, Politburo Decision: Protocol P168/5, Moscow, 15 September 1979. 22 CPSU Central Committee, Politburo Meeting – transcript, Moscow, 20 September 1979. 23 MacEachin, op. cit., p.17. 24 Ibid. fn.83, 84. 25 SAPMO (Berlin), Transcript of Brezhnev–Honecker Summit, DY30 JIV 2/201/1342, East Berlin, 4 October 1979; also, SAPMO (Berlin), Brezhnev to Honecker, JIV 2/202, A575, East Berlin, 1 October 1979. 26 Gromyko, et al., Report to CPSU Central Committee Politburo, Moscow, 29 October 1979. 27 Ustinov, On the Results of the Mission of the USSR Deputy Defence Minister I. Pavlovskii in the DRA, Report no. 318/3/00945 to the CPSU Central Committee, Moscow, 5 November 1979. 28 DIA, Weekly Intelligence Summary, Washington, DC, 26 October 1979; DCI, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Washington, DC, October 1980, p.22. 29 Yu. Andropov and N. Ogarkov, About the despatch of a special detachment to Afghanistan, no. 312/2/0073, Moscow, 4 December 1979; Politburo Protocol no. 176, Moscow, 6 December 1979. 30 Andropov to Brezhnev, On the Situation in ‘A’, in ‘Bulletin 4’, Washington, DC: CWIHP, Fall 1994, p.76. 31 Ibid. 32 The White House, Record of the Meeting of the SCC, 17 December 1979. 33 The State Department instructed its envoy in Moscow via telegram-32356 on 15 December to seek an explanation; he replied via Moscow Embassy telegram-27530 on 17 December. MacEachin, op. cit., fn.109. 34 For contrasting US and Soviet accounts, see DCI, Soviet Options in Afghanistan, Washington, DC, 28 September 1979, and The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, op. cit.; Andropov, et al., Regarding Events in Afghanistan during 27–28 December 1979, no. 2519-A, Moscow: CPSU Central Committee, 31 December 1979. 35 MacEachin, op. cit., fn.118. 36 DCI, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, op. cit., pp.38–9, 62. 37 Andropov, et al., Regarding Events in Afghanistan, op. cit.; General V. Varennikov, interview. Online. Available at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/ cold.war/episodes/20/interviews/varennikov/ (accessed 7 March 2002). 38 Brzezinski, Memorandum for the President: Afghanistan, the White House, 26 December 1979. 39 Ibid. 40 Brzezinski, Memorandum for the President: Afghanistan, the White House, 29 December 1979, noting that ‘Within three days of the invasion [of Czechoslovakia in 1968]’, the President and the Secretary of State made strong, public statements, the USA initiated a Security Council meeting, Washington suspended talks with Moscow on peaceful nuclear cooperation, and the US embassy in Moscow was ‘instructed to restrict all official and social contacts with Soviet officials’. 41 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, Main Contents of the Meeting of A. Gromyko with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DRA, S. Dost, Moscow, 4 January, 1980, no. P27-020/gs, recorded on 7 January 1980. 42 Federation of American Scientists, CIA – Budget, op. cit.; C. Doherty, ‘Wars of Proxy Losing Favour as Cold War Tensions End’, Congressional Quarterly

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46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

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Weekly, 25 August 1990, pp.2, 721–5; ‘Afghanistan’s Guerrillas: Congress Pushed the CIA’, The New York Times, 18 April 1988, p.A1; W. Pincus, ‘Panel to Probe Afghan Arms Fund’, The Washington Post, 13 January 1987, p.A8; B. Woodward, Veil – The Secret Wars of the CIA, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, p.372; P. Tyler and D. Ottaway, ‘Casey Enforces Reagan Doctrine With Reinvigorated Covert Action’, The Washington Post, 9 March 1986, pp.A1, A10; B. Woodward and C. Babcock, ‘US Covert Aid to Afghans on the Rise’, The Washington Post, 14 January 1985, p.1; P. Iyer, ‘Caravans on Moonless Nights’, Time, 11 June 1984, pp.38–40. DIA, Iranian Support to the Afghan Resistance, op. cit., p.1. Ibid. p.2. Named after their leaders, these were the Hekmatyar, Khalis, Rabbani, Sayaf, Nabi, Gailani and Mujaddadi groups. The first four saw the conflict as Jihad against atheists and foreign infidels. The others fought for Afghan independence. M. Yousaf and M. Adkin, The Bear Trap, London: Leo Cooper, 1992, p.83. Ibid. p.98. Washington armed 400,000 fighters in Afghanistan during the campaign and, in its last years, spent $1 billion annually. Dennis Cux, speaking at London: IISS, 14 November 2003. Yousaf and Adkin, op. cit., p.150. Ibid. p.93. M. Malik, Assessing China’s Tactical Gains and Strategic Losses post-September 11, Carlisle Barracks: US Army War College, October 2002, p.5. Ibid. p.11. Gromyko, et al., About further measures to provide for the national interests of the USSR in relation to the events in Afghanistan, Point 34, Protocol no. 181, Special File, Moscow: CPSU Central Committee, 27 January 1980. CPSU Central Committee draft Protocol no. 200, Instructions to Soviet Ambassadors in Berlin, Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Sofia, Ulan-Bator, Havana, Hanoi, Vientiane, no. St-200/4s, Moscow, 4 March 1980. Ibid. Gromyko, et al., Concerning our further policy on issues related to Afghanistan, IV of Protocol 191, Moscow: CPSU Central Committee, 7 April 1980. CPSU Central Committee, The issue of the situation in Afghanistan, transcript of Politburo meeting, Moscow, 17 January 1980. Castro’s efforts are recorded in Gromyko, et al., Report to the Politburo, Protocol no. 187, CPSU Central Committee, 10 March 1980; and Brezhnev’s letter to Castro via the Ambassador in Havana, attachment 1 to Clause 33 of Protocol no. 187. Gromyko, et al., ‘Report no. 391/gs to the Politburo’, Letter from CPSU Central Committee Politburo to the Ambassador in Kabul, attachment 1 to Point XVII of Protocol no. 195, Moscow, 6 May 1980. CPSU Central Committee, Carrying out additional measures to counter American–Chinese military cooperation, Politburo Directive to Soviet Ambassadors and Representatives, Protocol P217/57, Moscow, 2 October 1980. Ibid. Also, Brezhnev at CPSU Central Committee Plenum, Moscow: Sverdlovsk Hall, 23 June 1980. Carter, State of the Union, address to the Congress, the White House, January 1981. Ibid. A. Haig quoted in O. Bennett-Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm, London: Yale University Press, 2002, p.200. Reagan, address on 27 December 1981, op. cit. C. Baxter and C. Kennedy (eds), Pakistan 2000, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2000, p.157.

262

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65 M. Hussain, in Mullah Power in Pakistan, London: BBC4 TV documentary, 16 August 2003. 66 Federation of American Scientists, CIA – Budget, op. cit. 67 Bearden, op. cit. 68 Afghan Warrior, London: BBC4 TV documentary, 10 February 2003. 69 Bearden, op cit. 70 Ibid. 71 S. Harrison, ‘Afghanistan: Soviet Intervention, Afghan Resistance, and the American Role’, in M. Klare and P. Kornbluh (eds), Low Intensity Warfare, New York: Pantheon, 1989, p.200. 72 Bearden, op. cit.; A. Haq and General H. Gul in Afghan Warrior, op. cit. 73 A. Nayyar, ‘Madrasa Education’, in P. Hoodbhoy (ed.), Education and the State: Fifty Years of Pakistan, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1998, p.226. 74 P. Anderson, Just War in Religions: Islam in Pakistan, TAC0306583, Islamabad: BBC, 14 February 2003. 75 Bearden, op. cit. 76 Directorate of Research, The Economic Impact of the Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan, Washington, DC: DIA, May 1983, pp.1, 3. 77 M. Nawroz and L. Grau, ‘The Soviet War in Afghanistan’, Military Review, Fort Leavenworth, September/October 1995. 78 Directorate of Intelligence, The Costs of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan, Langley: CIA, February 1987, p.iii; Directorate of Intelligence, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Five Years After, Langley: CIA, May 1985. 79 CIA, February 1987, ibid. pp.iii–iv. 80 Ibid. pp.6–7. 81 Ibid. p.7. 82 Nawroz and Grau, op. cit. 83 CPSU Central Committee, Closed letter on Afghanistan to CPSU members, Moscow, 10 May 1988. A US source calculated annual Soviet costs in 1986 dollars at $20bn. Online. Available at http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki. phtml?TitleSoviet_invasion_of_Afghanistan (accessed 11 December 2002). 84 Nawroz and Grau, op. cit. By the end of July 1988, more than 13,300 Soviet soldiers had been killed, more than 35,000 seriously wounded, and 311 were missing. Major General K. Tsagalov to A. Borovik, Ogonyok, 30 July 1988. A Western report said the USSR had lost ‘around 13,800 troops, with a further 469,000 injured or taken ill’, ‘Iraq: A War Without Intelligence’, Jane’s Intelligence Digest, Coulsdon: Jane’s, 31 October 2003. 85 DIA, May 1983, op. cit., p.2. 86 Ibid. p.3. 87 Yousaf and Adkin, op. cit., pp.70–2. 88 L. Grau and A. Jalali, ‘The Campaign for the Caves’, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, vol. 14, no. 3, September 2001. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. 91 Bearden, op. cit. 92 CIA, May 1985, op. cit., p.7. 93 L. Grau, ‘Desert Ambush: Hard Lessons Learned the Hard Way’, The Red Thrust Star, July 1995, October 1995, and October 1996; Jalali and Grau, ‘Night Stalkers and Mean Streets: Afghan Urban Guerrillas’, Infantry, January–April 1999. 94 Yousaf and Adkin, op. cit., pp.189–206. 95 R. Helms in ‘Blowback’, CIA – Secret Warriors, Part III, Discovery TV series, 2003. 96 A. Chernayev, Notes from the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee

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Session, Moscow, 17 October 1985. Online. Available at http://www.gwu. edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/soviet.html (accessed 6 November 2002). Ibid. T. Sanderson, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, to the BBC, London, 13 August 2003. Gorbachev at a CPSU Politburo session, Moscow, 20 March 1986, CWIHP. See fn.4. Ibid. See fn.5.

8 The Soviet denouement 1 M. Wolf, Spionage Chef im geheimen Krieg: Erinnerungen, Dusseldorf and Munich: List Verlag, 2003, p.326. 2 CIA, The Development of Soviet Military Power, Langley, April, 1981, p.xiii. 3 KGB Centre to overseas residenturas, Permanent Operational Assignment to Uncover NATO Preparations for a Nuclear Missile Attack on the USSR, telegram373/PR/52, Moscow, 17 February 1983. 4 Directorate of Intelligence, The Soviet Weapons Industry, Langley: CIA, September 1986, p.iii. 5 In April 1980, S. Chervonenko stressed Moscow’s intention to ‘repel . . . the threat of counter-revolution or foreign intervention’ in Afghanistan. Washington saw this as Soviet desire globally to apply the Brezhnev doctrine. B. Fischer, A Cold War Conundrum, Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1997, fn.10. 6 The Administration’s decisions were shaped by the Secretary of Defense’s annual reports, NIEs/SNIEs from the DCI, and the DIA’s reports on ‘Soviet Military Power’. But reviews identified many intelligence errors. CIA, Intelligence Forecasts of Soviet Intercontinental Attack Forces: An Evaluation of the Record, Langley, April 1989, pp.iv–vi. 7 Fischer, op. cit., fns.44–6. 8 Wolf, op. cit. 9 NSC, US National Security Strategy, NSDD32, the White House, 20 May 1982, pp.2–3. 10 NSDD32 stressed the USSR’s enforced transformation. Ibid. pp.1–2. 11 CIA, April 1981, op. cit., p.xviii. 12 Soviet structural rigidities made things worse. Ibid. pp. xix–xx. 13 Soviet concerns over US policies in 1978–82, including the de facto alliance with China, appear in G. Arbatov and W. Oltmans, Cold War or Détente? London: Zed, 1983. 14 The Federation of American Scientists says CIA covert operations in Poland could approach those in Afghanistan. Online. Available at http://www.fas. org/irp/cia/ciabud.htm (accessed 21 October 2002). 15 F. Ikle, in Fischer, op. cit., fn.22. 16 General J. Chain, ibid. fn.23. 17 W. Schneider, ibid. fn.24. 18 Ibid. fn.25. 19 KGB Centre, Attachment 2, 17 February 1983, op. cit. 20 The White House, Eliminating the Threat From Ballistic Missiles, NSDD85, 25 March 1983. 21 See Chapter 6, fn.94. 22 ‘Replies of Yu Andropov to Questions from a Pravda Correspondent’, Pravda, 27 March 1983.

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23 Ibid. 24 N. Ogarkov in L. Gelb, ‘Who Won the Cold War?’ The New York Times, 20 August 1992. 25 See Chapter 6. 26 Izvestia, 16 October 1992. 27 German authorities discovered these minutes in East German army files after reunification. M. Lesch, ‘Wie die Phantasie der SED NATO-Divisionen zuhauf gebar’, Die Welt, 2 February 1992, p.3. 28 J. Goodby, ‘North Korea: In 2003, Look Back to 1984’, The International Herald Tribune, 29 January 2003. 29 Reagan, ‘Nuclear Strategy Toward the Soviet Union’, President’s address to the nation, the White House, 22 November 1982; ACDA, WMEAT 1971–1980, op. cit., p.4. 30 Ibid. 31 IISS, The Military Balance 1987–1988, London, 1987, p.29; J. Cooper, ‘The Military Expenditure of the USSR and the Russian Federation, 1987–97’, SIPRI Yearbook 1998, Appendix 6D, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, p.243. 32 The White House, Memcon, LI Brezhnev, Henry Kissinger, et al., the Kremlin, LI Brezhnev’s office, 25 March 1974. 33 Figures for 1979 and 1980 are from ACDA, WMEAT 1990, op. cit., p.81; figures for 1981–91 are from WMEAT 1991–1992, op. cit., p.81. 34 ‘Dangerous Partnership’, Kommunist, July 1980, cited in B. Garrett and B. Glaser, War and Peace, Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1984. 35 CPSU Central Committee Politburo (General Department, 1st Sector), Directive to all Soviet Ambassadors and Representative, Point 57, Protocol no. 217, Moscow, 2 October 1980. 36 CIA, Gorbachev’s Domestic Challenge, Langley, February 1987, p.3; Intelligence Forecasts of Soviet Intercontinental Attack Forces, op. cit., p.vii. 37 Data for the last two years of the Carter Administration is from ACDA, WMEAT 1971–1980, 1983, p.71. Data for 1984–91 is from WMEAT 1995, 1996, p.99. 38 C. Wilkinson, ‘Perestroika: The Role of the Defence Sector’, NATO Review, vol. 38, no. 1, February 1990, pp.20–5. 39 F. Holzman, ‘Politics and Guesswork, CIA and DIA Estimates of Soviet Military Spending’, International Security, Fall 1989, pp.101–31; J. Steiner, ‘A Reply to Frank Holzman’s “Politics and Guesswork, CIA and DIA Estimates of Soviet Military Spending” ’, International Security, Spring 1990. 40 CIA, September 1986, op. cit. 41 CIA, February 1987, op. cit., p.2. 42 CIA, Gorbachev Steers the USSR into the 1990s, Langley, July 1987, p.vi. 43 Ibid. pp.viii–ix. 44 The White House, Organizing for the Moscow Summit, NSDD304, 19 April 1988; Objectives at the Moscow Summit, NSDD305, 26 April 1988. 45 DCI, USSR: Withdrawal From Afghanistan, Washington, DC, March 1988, p.1. 46 DCI, Soviet Policy Toward Eastern Europe Under Gorbachev, Washington, DC, May 1988. 47 The White House, NSDD305, op. cit., pp.1–2. 48 The aim was ‘to gain greater access to and understanding of the Soviet defense establishment at all levels – policies, doctrines, programs, budgets and capabilities, as well as the outlook, abilities, and relationships of key personalities; to influence the Soviets to subject their military policy, programs, budget and activity to more openness and honest debate; to influence Soviet behaviour toward our security objectives, both by demonstrating the capability of our forces and by increasing Soviet understanding of our defense policies, doc-

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50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

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trines, programs, and budgets (taking appropriate security precautions); to reduce the possibility of incidents of dangerous military activity where our forces are operating in close proximity to each other in peacetime’, The White House, US–Soviet Defense and Military Relations, NSDD311, 28 July 1988. B. Fischer (ed.), At Cold War’s End, Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1999, ‘Preface’; G. Bush and B. Scowcroft, A World Transformed, New York: Random House, 1998, p.13; H. Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy, New York: GP Putnam, 1995, p.70. V. Drobkov, in Kommunist 6, Moscow, April 1989, p.125. DCI, Trends and Developments in Warsaw Pact Theater Forces and Doctrine Through the 1990s, Washington, DC, February 1989, pp.v, 2. Ibid. p.3. Ibid. Ibid. p.9. For contradictory intelligence advice, see, CIA, April 1989, op. cit., pp.iv, vi, vii; and DCI, Soviet Policy Toward the West, Washington, DC, April 1989, pp.v, 1, 6. DCI, April 1989, ibid. p.18. Public Papers of President George Bush, 1989, Book 1, Washington, DC: USGPO, 1990, pp.540–3. Fischer, 1999, op cit. US intelligence had asserted, ‘The Berlin Wall will stay, whatever tactical advantages Gorbachev might see in its removal.’ DCI, May 1988, op. cit., p.12. A selection: D. Volkogonov, Autopsy for Empire, New York: The Free Press, 1998; R. Strayer, Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? Armonk: ME Sharpe, 1998; M. Castells and E. Kiselyova, The Collapse of Soviet Communism, Berkeley: International and Area Studies, University of California, 1995; H. d’Encausse, The End of the Soviet Empire, New York: Basic Books, 1993; A. Nove, The Soviet System in Retrospect, New York: Herman Institute, Columbia University, 1993; M. Kort, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, New York: Franklin Watts, 1992; F. Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, New York: The Free Press, 1992; A. Dallin and G. Lapidus (eds), The Soviet System in Crisis, Boulder: Westview Press, 1991. R. Reuveny and A. Prakash, ‘The Afghanistan War and the Breakdown of the Soviet Union’, Review of International Studies, no. 25, London: British International Studies Association, 1999, pp.693–708. M. Dobbs, ‘Dramatic Politburo Meeting Led to End of War’, The Washington Post, 16 November 1992, p.A16. N. Kamrany and D. Killian, ‘Effects of Afghanistan War on Soviet Society and Policy’, International Journal of Social Economics, no. 19, 1992, p.129. Z. Medvedev, ‘One More Year of Perestroika’, International Affairs, August 1990, pp.76–7. B. Gromov in Sovetskaya Rossiya, 15 November 1989; translated in FBIS-SOV, 89–223, 21 November 1989, p.103. M. Gareyev, ‘The Afghan Problem’, International Affairs, March 1992, p.17. ‘Kak Zhiviotsya Ofitzeram’, Izvestiya, 10 October 1989. S. Wise, ‘A War Should Never Have Happened’, Radio Liberty Research, RL 226/88, 1 June 1988, pp.1–3. V. Rabiev, ‘V Klass...s Koranom?’, Kommunist Tadzhikistana, 31 January 1987, cited in Reuveny and Prakash, op cit., p.704. B. Nahaylo, ‘When Ivan Comes Marching Home’, The American Spectator, no. 20, 1987, p.15. Reuvney and Prakash, op cit.

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9 Epilogue 1 Ambassador Winston Lord suggested building closer relations between Bush and ‘older and younger generation of China’s leaders during political transition phase in China’. Lord to Secretary of State, and the White House, The President’s Visit to China, Beijing, 6 February 1989. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 CIA, China: Potential for Political Crisis, Langley, 9 February 1989, pp.3–5. 5 Lord to White House, US–PRC Military Relationship, Beijing, 10 February 1989, paras 2, 3 and 4. 6 Ibid. para 6. 7 Ibid. para 7. 8 ‘Key purpose is to consolidate your personal ties with China’s leaders, demonstrate strength of relationship, offset impression that Sino–Soviet rapprochement is at our expense.’ Secretary of State, Memorandum for the President: Your China Visit, Washington, DC: State Department, 16 February 1989, p.2. 9 Lord, telegram, Farewell and Hail, Beijing, 21 April 1989. 10 The White House, The President’s Toast at the Welcoming Banquet, Beijing, Great Hall of the People, 25 February 1989. 11 Lord to Secretary of State and the White House, President’s Banquet – Chinese Guest List, Beijing, 18 February 1989. 12 The White House, Review of National Defense Strategy, National Security Review 12, 3 March 1989, p.2. 13 Lord cautioned, ‘We have been implementing $800 million worth of defensive weapons sales and are exploring possible new items. We will need to continue measuring our tread in our military cooperation. It projects useful symbolism and enlists constituencies in the PLA which could play a key role in Beijing’s future orientation. But as China grows stronger, so will apprehensions among its Asian neighbors about its intentions and possibly our involvement.’ Farewell and Hail, op. cit. 14 Ibid. 15 US Embassy, telegram-28856626, Beijing, 24 April 1989. 16 CIA, Perspectives on Growing Social Tension in China, Langley, May 1989, pp.13–14. 17 Tokyo’s demands at the 1919 Paris Conference that former German interests in Shandong be handed to Japan triggered protests by Chinese students. The 4 May Movement remained a beacon to Chinese nationalists. 18 For a chronology of events, see State Department, Current Situation in China, Washington, DC: Bureau of Intelligence and Research, 9 June 1989; Lilley to Secretary of State, What Happened on the Night of June 3/4?, Beijing, 22 June 1989; and CIA, The Road to the Tiananmen Crackdown, Langley, September 1989. 19 Zhao’s opposition to the Yang–Li line, and his disclosure to Gorbachev that Deng took all important decisions based on a secret agreement revealed at the first plenum of the 13th CPC Congress in 1987, ‘finally alienated him from his mentor’. CIA, September 1989, op. cit., p.6. 20 The summit affected perceptions across the ‘strategic triangle’. The shift troubled those who saw US–PRC ties as critical to US neutralisation of Soviet threats. Congressional anxieties triggered a Senate-sponsored seminar on the day Gorbachev arrived in Beijing. Several participants saw Soviet–Chinese rapprochement positively – one described the new trend as ‘the Friendly Triangle’, urging Washington to join Moscow and Beijing. H. Ellison, Sino–Soviet Reconciliation and Soviet Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, US Senate, 15 May 1989, pp.25–32.

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21 The White House, Memcon: Meeting with Wan Li, Oval Office, Cabinet Room and Residence, 23 May 1989. 22 Lilley to State, telegram-26077108, Beijing, 21 May 1989. 23 Lilley to State, 89BEIJIN015388, Beijing, 3 June 1989; Sitrep no. 23, 3 June 1989; Secretary of State Baker, SITREP 1, Washington, DC, 3 June 1989; State Department, Secretary’s Morning Summary, Washington, DC, 4 June 1989; Lilley to State, 89BEIJIN015424, 4 June 1989; Lilley to State, 89BEIJIN015434, 4 June 1989; Secretary of State Baker, 89STATE176535, Washington, DC, 4 June 1989; Lilley to State, 89BEIJIN015506, 5 June 1989; State Department, Secretary’s Morning Summary, 5 June 1989; Secretary’s Morning Summary, 6 June 1989; Secretary’s Morning Summary, 7 June 1989. 24 Lilley to State, 89 BEIJIN015424, 4 June 1989. 25 Secretary’s Morning Summary, 6 June 1989, op. cit. 26 With Deng were President Yang, Premier Li, Defence Minister Qin Jiwei, security supremo Qiao Shi, NPC Chairman Wan Li, and several ‘elders’. Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili were absent. 27 Secretary of State to Beijing, 89STATE176535, Washington, DC, 4 June 1989. 28 CIA, China: Situation Report, Langley, 10 June 1989, pp.1–2. Deng’s address to PLA commanders on 9 June stressed the ‘fundamental’ threat: ‘What we face is not simply ordinary people who are unable to distinguish between right and wrong. We also face a rebellious clique and a large number of the dregs of society, who want to topple our country and overthrow our party. This is the essence of the problem . . . Their goal is to establish a totally Westerndependent bourgeois republic’. Deng Xiaoping to Martial Law Units, Beijing Domestic TV Service, 27 June 1989, FBIS, China, 27 June 1989, pp.8–10. 29 Secretary’s Morning Summary, 5 June 1989, op. cit. 30 Secretary’s Morning Summary, 21 June 1989. 31 The White House, Statement on the Chinese Government’s Suppression of Student Demonstrations, 3 June 1989. 32 The White House, The President’s News Conference, 5 June 1989. 33 Bush stressed US contribution to democratic tendencies – ‘Indeed, the budding of democracy which we have seen in recent weeks owes much to the relationship we have developed since 1972. And it’s important at this time to act in a way that will encourage the further development and deepening of the positive elements of that relationship and the process of democratization. It would be a tragedy for all if China were to pull back to its pre-1972 era of isolation and repression.’ Ibid. 34 Senators criticising Bush’s policy used this term during L. Eagleburger’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, DC, 7 February 1990. 35 The White House, The President’s News Conference, 8 June 1989. 36 A Gallup poll in March 1989 found 72 per cent of Americans had ‘very favorable’ or ‘mostly favorable’ impressions of China. In April, an ABC/Washington Post survey found 80 per cent with a ‘favorable’ impression. A mid-June poll by the LA Times found the figure at 16 per cent. A Gallup poll in August saw an increase to 31 per cent. An ABC/Washington Post poll in March 1990 recorded 39 per cent; ‘unfavorable’ impressions had risen to 58 per cent. 37 M. Fitzwater, Statement on United States Sanctions Against the Chinese Government, the White House, 20 June 1989. 38 G. Lardner and J. Smith, ‘Intelligence Ties Endure Despite US–China Strain’, The Washington Post, 25 June 1989, p.A1. 39 Lilley to Secretary of State, 89BEIJIN17436, Beijing, 27 June 1989. 40 State Department, Review of US–China relations, Washington, DC, Lot 96D234, Box. 3302, 29 June 1989; Eagleburger told the Senate on 7 February 1990, and the House the following day: ‘The serious Soviet threat to the PRC was, over

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44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51

52 53

54 55 56

57 58 59 60

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time, substantially reduced – in part because of the growing friendship between the US and the PRC. That same friendship provided running room for the US in its relationship with the USSR. As US–PRC relations developed, the Soviet Union tended to moderate its own stance with regard to the US. Improved US–PRC relations have tended to provide the PRC with greater flexibility in the Asian area . . . World peace and a stable international environment have been well served by what our two countries have accomplished together since President Nixon first visited the PRC.’ Eagleburger, ibid. Ibid. 7 February 1990. Lilley to Secretary of State, telegram-27610094, Beijing, 11 July 1989. On the same day, Bush received a paper from China specialist Alan Nichols recommending a robust initiative on Tibet. Scowcroft responded: ‘We have been disappointed with China’s quibbling over the Dalai Lama’s Salzburg proposals and the continued imposition of martial law in Tibet. We continue to draw a line, however, between urging dialogue and restoration of human rights in Tibet and intruding the US Government directly into internal Chinese affairs.’ Congressman Gilman to Eagleburger, Washington, DC, 8 February 1990. G. Hodnett, Gorbachev’s Domestic Gambles and Instability in the USSR, Langley: CIA, September 1989. p.vi. DCI, Warning of War in Europe, Washington, DC, September 1989. The White House, National Space Policy Directives and Executive Charter, NSPD1, 2 November 1989. DCI, The Soviet System in Crisis, Washington, DC, November 1989, p.iii. Ibid., pp.vii, 18. G. Bush in ‘The Wall Comes Down: Interview with President George Bush’, October 1997. Online. Available at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ coldwar/interviews/episode-23/bush1.html (accessed 3 December 2002). Bush’s ‘package’ is listed in the White House, Fact Sheet on the Meeting With Soviet Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev in Malta, 4 December 1989. The White House, Memcon, the President, Secretary of State Baker, Governor John Sununu, General Brent Scowcroft, President Gorbachev, Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, A Yakovlev, et al., aboard the Maxim Gorky, Malta, 2 December 1989. Ibid. The effect of the storm on the summit appears in ‘Interview with Rear Admiral J. Sigler’, 18 December 1997. Online. Available at http://www.gwu.edu/ ~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-24/sigler1.html (accessed 3 December 2002). D. Hoffman, ‘Bush and Gorbachev Hail New Cooperation’, The Washington Post, 4 December 1989. Eagleburger to the House, 8 February 1989, op. cit. Ibid. Eagleburger said the idea behind the two secret trips was to deliver messages directly from Bush to Deng, expressing horror and repugnance, encouraging Beijing to return to openness and reform. China had agreed to restore the Fulbright scholarship programme, accept Peace Corps volunteers and VOA correspondents, and prevent transfers of medium- and short-range ballistic missiles. Ibid. Eagleburger pointed to the lifting of martial law from Beijing, and the release of over 500 detainees. He admitted much more needed to be done. Ibid. Foreign Trade Division, US Trade Balance with China, Washington, DC: US Census Bureau, 2003. S. Coll, ‘US Muzzles Its Own Expert on China’s Nuclear Labs’, International Herald Tribune, 17 May 2001, p.1.

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Index

AAM 92, 143–4, 146 ABM 27, 59, 60, 88, 146, 156, 163, 194 Abramowitz, M. 81, 123, 129 Afghanistan 135–6, 139–40, 146, 156–8, 162, 165, 166–88, 190, 200–2, 205–7, 210–11, 214–15, 224–6 air–land battle 139 Aksai Chin 38 ALCM 122, 141 Ali, S. 12 Amin, H. 135–6, 168–72, 174 Andropov, Y. 169, 171, 178, 189–90, 193, 195, 197, 205 Angola 103–4, 110–11, 113, 166, 177, 190 Arafat, Y. 15–16 Armacost, M. 81 Baker, J. 202, 212–13, 218, 221 Bangladesh 45–6, 49–51, 53–4, 57, 90, 110 Barak, E. 146 Bartholomew, R. 81 Berlin 37–8, 204, 224 Bhutto, Z.A. 47, 51, 74, 167 Bogdan, C. 19–20 Brezhnev, L. 14, 46, 52, 58, 59–61, 68–72, 74–5, 85–6, 88, 93–4, 98, 120–4, 130–1, 133, 141, 158, 166, 169–71, 178, 190, 193, 195, 197, 204–5, 226 Brown, H. 123, 127–8, 131–3, 137, 139–41, 148, 151, 171–3, 190 Bruce, D. 24, 28, 36, 67, 71, 79, 89 Brzezinski, Z. 119, 121–4, 127–33, 135, 144, 151, 166, 168, 170–4, 179, 189–90 Bush, G. 1, 24, 93–4, 104, 109, 115–16, 120, 149, 188, 202–3, 207, 209–13, 216–25

Cambodia 12, 15, 17–18, 32, 50, 57, 65–6, 68, 70–2, 91, 95, 98–9, 104, 132–4, 157, 162, 165–6, 177, 207, 210–11, 214–15, 220, 226 Camp David 38, 50, 71, 77 Carlucci, F. 164 Carter, J. 81, 116–17, 119–33, 135, 140–1, 149, 166–9, 172–4, 179, 188–91 Casey, W. 149–50, 176, 186 Ceausescu, N. 18–20, 204 Chai Zemin 130–1 Chaklala 28–30 Chen Pao 53 Chen Yi 6–7 Chiang Chingkuo 84, 86 Chi’ao Kuanhua 53, 55 China card 3, 9, 25, 43, 93, 128 Chi Pengfei 48, 55 Christopher, W. 121–2, 130, 171, 173 CIA 3–4, 13–14, 17, 22, 28, 46, 58, 63, 65–7, 77, 81, 88, 106–7, 109, 120, 123–5, 133–4, 148–9, 166–8, 170–7, 179–84, 187–93, 197–8, 200, 202, 211, 213, 218, 221–2 CINCPAC 13, 86 Cline, R. 21 Clinton, W. 1–2, 146, 227 CMC 102–3, 160, 211, 217 Colby, W. 4, 63, 109 Cold War 2–3, 12, 16, 45, 90–1, 100, 128, 135, 179, 188, 201, 203–4, 209, 215, 223, 225, 227 containment 7, 14, 57, 106, 154, 156, 162, 168, 203 Cordovez, D. 187 CPC 5–6, 8, 15, 21, 30, 36, 38, 44–5, 73, 83, 88, 101–2, 114, 126, 150, 160, 209, 214–15

Index CPSU 57, 167, 169, 170, 177, 185–6, 198, 200, 204–5, 215, 222 CSCE 93–4, 97, 104, 107 Cuba 22, 76, 103, 113, 127, 173, 190, 224 Cultural Revolution 6, 8, 14, 23, 30, 35, 83, 89, 102, 138 Cyprus 90 Czechoslovakia 4–5, 8, 14, 52, 90, 173, 202, 204 Damansky 5 Daoud, M. 135, 167 Davydov, B. 9–11 DCI 4, 63, 70, 92, 109, 120, 149, 170, 176, 202, 218 De Gaulle, C. 49 Deng Xiaoping 80, 83–6, 89, 94–8, 101–3, 105, 107–14, 125–7, 129–34, 137–9, 142, 144, 150, 159–60, 162, 207, 209–13, 215–20, 225 détente 41, 57–8, 60, 62, 85, 88, 92–4, 96, 98–100, 103–7, 111, 115–16, 130, 132, 178–9, 197 deterrence 26, 42, 57, 61, 70, 86–8, 99, 128, 137, 140, 151, 154, 157, 162, 194, 222 DIA 156, 165, 190, 197 Diego Garcia 77, 110 Dobrynin, A. 8, 14, 57, 59, 69, 71, 74, 120–2, 131 DoD 13, 63, 81, 88, 93, 98, 115, 123, 140, 151, 153–4, 158, 162–4, 194 Eagleburger, L. 4, 219–20, 225–7 Egypt 73–4, 85–6, 110–11, 145, 167, 173, 175, 177, 181, 188 Eisenberg, S. 144 EP-3 1, 2, 227 Ethiopia 128–9, 190 FNLA 104, 113 Ford, G. 73, 80–1, 89, 91–4, 96–101, 103–13, 115–18, 120, 127 France 18, 32, 66, 106, 112, 134, 141–4, 162, 167, 173 Gandhi, I. 51, 114 Gang of Four 83–4, 88–9, 95, 101, 105, 113–17, 125 Geng Biao 148 Ginzburg, A. 121–2 glasnost 198, 202, 204, 206 GLCM 141, 190

273

Gorbachev, M. 158–9, 162–4, 166, 185–7, 198–205, 207–10, 212–16, 218, 221–5 Green, M. 12, 55 Gromyko, A. 8, 14, 53, 72, 94, 99, 105, 124, 131, 158, 169, 174 GRU 169–70, 193 Haig, A. 23, 25, 29, 40, 45, 149–51, 153, 157, 180 Halperin, M. 28 Hanoi 6, 15, 18–21, 29, 31–2, 35, 39, 44, 50, 53, 57, 60–2, 64–5, 69–70, 95, 100–2, 132, 134–5, 162, 210 Han Xu 3, 68, 72 Haq, Z. 167, 174–5 Harriman, A. 120–1 hegemony 1, 20, 53–4, 59, 61, 64, 68, 71, 83, 91, 95, 107, 117, 129, 134, 136–7, 160, 168, 179 Hekmatyar, G. 167, 175, 183–4, 186 Helsinki 105, 107, 121 Hilaly A. 12, 19, 23–8 Hindukush 27, 183 Ho Chi Minh 7, 65 Holbrooke, R. 123, 127, 130 Honecker, E. 170 Hua Guofeng 113–17, 125–6, 131, 137, 150 Huang Hua 30, 37–8, 42, 46–7, 51, 55, 61, 64, 67, 73–4, 105, 129 Huang Zhen 17, 19, 23, 39, 58, 71–2, 74, 79, 89, 115–18, 123–4 Huntington, S. 124, 129 Hu Qili 215 Hu Yaobang 150, 211, 214 Hyland, W. 10–11 ICBM 82, 87–8, 94, 99, 141, 148, 151, 160, 163–4 India 30, 34, 36, 38–40, 45–53, 55, 66–7, 73, 76, 90–1, 97, 110–11, 134, 167, 174, 177 Indochina 7, 15, 17–18, 20, 24, 31–5, 43, 49–50, 53, 56, 62–3, 65, 70, 75, 83, 99–103, 113, 178, 190 INF 159, 162, 164, 198 INR 22 Iran 12, 46, 63–4, 76, 86, 91, 125, 134–6, 139, 145, 149, 153, 167–70, 174–5, 178, 211 IRBM 82, 141, 160–2, 164, 190 ISI 167, 174–7, 183–7 Islamabad 9, 22, 24–8, 40, 45, 51, 86, 111, 167–8, 172, 174–7

274

Index

Israel 4, 15–16, 54, 73–4, 85, 96–7, 107, 110–11, 117, 128, 134, 144–6, 164, 175 Japan 2–3, 26, 29, 32–6, 39, 40, 43, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55–7, 63–4, 66, 73, 75, 77, 83–6, 91, 96–8, 106, 108, 110–11, 113, 115, 132, 137, 141, 156, 160, 193, 210, 212, 220 JCS 1, 72, 86, 88, 120, 153, 171 Jiang Qing 65, 83, 88–9, 114–15 Jihad 181 Jordan 15–16, 46, 54 Kabul 136, 140, 167–72, 176, 178, 182–4, 186, 224 Kampuchea 156 Karmal, B. 135–6, 168, 171–2, 178, 186–7 Kaunda, K. 104 KGB 169, 171, 189, 193, 196 Khan, N. 9 Khan, Y. 9, 12, 18–20, 23–9, 36, 39, 46, 51 Khmer Rouge 72, 132, 134, 210, 220 Khrushchev, N. 38, 50, 52, 77 Kissinger, H. 3–5, 8–15, 17–20, 22–40, 42–53, 55–9, 61–9, 71–81, 84–6, 88–101, 103–12, 115–18, 123, 127, 130, 139, 166, 197, 220, 225 KL007 154–5, 196 KMT 2–3, 159 Korea 3, 29, 32–4, 39–40, 47–8, 50, 51, 53, 62, 91, 156, 196, 210–11, 226; North 22, 141, 154; South 33, 84, 98, 120, 141 Korla 125, 149, 218 Kosovo 2 Kosygin, A. 7, 76, 169 Ladakh 38 Laird, M. 29, 36, 39 Lebanon 16, 120 Le Duan 21, 44, 70 Le Duc Tho 31, 62, 70 Lend–Lease 3, 33 Lilley, J. 67, 81, 124, 213, 216, 220 Lin Biao 15, 19–20, 37, 44–5, 56–7, 70–1, 73, 83–4, 102–3 Li Peng 212, 215–16 Lon Nol 15, 32, 35, 65–6, 70, 72, 95, 97 Lop Nor 45 Lord, W. 28, 53, 75, 81, 105, 209–14

McFarlane, R. 94 Malta 105, 221, 223, 225 Mao Zedong 2–3, 5–7, 10–11, 15, 18–20, 22–3, 27, 30–1, 35–7, 39–40, 42–5, 47–8, 55–7, 62–8, 70, 73, 76–7, 80, 82–6, 88–9, 94–6, 102, 105–6, 108–14, 116–18, 125–6, 144 Massoud, A.S. 183–4, 186 materiel 2, 74, 82, 85, 107, 128, 133–4, 143, 145, 153, 165, 176 MBFR 69 MFN 78, 94, 140 Middle East 8, 15, 34, 54, 66, 70, 74–7, 85, 93–5, 97, 110–12, 120–2, 124, 127, 130–1, 144–6, 149, 154, 210 MIRV 88, 94, 98, 141, 156 Mondale, W. 128, 133, 140, 171 MPLA 104, 110, 113 MRBM 164 Mujahideen 167, 169, 172–7, 181, 183–7, 206, 224 Najibullah, M. 187, 224 NATO 29, 44, 55, 57, 60, 69, 90, 96–8, 105–6, 110, 113, 117, 127, 140–1, 145, 150, 158, 190, 193–4, 196, 199–200, 207, 221 Nehru, J. 38, 45, 51 Nie Rongzhen 6, 138 Nixon, R. 3–5, 7–14, 17–40, 42–74, 76, 80–1, 86–9, 92–4, 104, 113, 116, 120, 130, 220, 225 NSC 4, 9–11, 17, 22–3, 28–9, 44, 56–7, 74–5, 81, 92, 94, 98, 101, 104–5, 117, 122–5, 127, 153, 158, 172, 194, 211, 219 Odom, W. 123–4 OECD 58 Oksenberg, M. 123–4, 127, 130, 133 Pakistan 5, 9, 12–14, 16–20, 22, 25–8, 30, 34, 39–40, 45–7, 49, 51–4, 64, 66, 76, 86, 90–1, 110–11, 135–6, 166–70, 173–8, 180–1, 183–5, 212; East 9, 30, 34, 39, 51 Paris 15, 17–19, 23–4, 28, 31, 39, 46, 53, 55, 58, 61–3, 65, 68–9 PDPA 135–6, 167–8, 187 Peace Pearl 148, 153, 220 Pham Van Dong 15, 21, 70 Phnom Penh 32, 71, 134 Pillsbury, M. 81, 106, 132 PLA 2, 6, 13, 21, 30, 32, 44–5, 56–7,

Index 81–2, 88–9, 94, 102–3, 105, 115, 117, 124, 129, 126, 134–5, 138–44, 146–8, 150, 153, 156, 160–2, 164, 176, 211, 216–17, 225 PLAAF 44, 82, 142, 144, 147, 153 PLAN 44, 81–2, 84, 129, 142–4, 147, 153, 156–7, 164 PLO 15–16 Poland 149, 192, 202, 204 Polar Bear 95, 97–8, 118, 129, 160, 210 Powell, C. 1 Press, F. 130 Project Chestnut 108, 125, 133, 139 Psyops 192, 195 Puzanov, A.M. 170 Qiao Guanhua 74, 86, 90–1, 96, 105–7 Qitai 125, 148, 218 Rabbani, B. 167, 183–4 Rawalpindi 18–19, 28, 74, 175–6 Reagan, R. 81, 137, 145, 149–59, 162–3, 166–7, 179–80, 187–8, 191–7, 200–1, 211, 213, 222–3 realpolitik 43, 47, 56, 121 Reykjavik 162–3 Roberto, H. 104 ROC 29, 39, 44, 60, 86, 91–2, 105, 127, 149 Rockefeller, N. 24, 117 Rogers, W. 8, 10–11, 22, 25, 43, 48, 55, 57, 60, 71, 73 Romania 9, 14, 18–19, 22, 97 Rumsfeld, D. 105, 109, 115–17 RYAN 189, 193, 196 SAC 62, 87 Saigon 28, 32, 50, 99–101 Sainteny, J. 17, 19, 23 Salang 172, 183–4, 186 SALT 17, 27, 36, 39, 53, 57, 59–60, 69, 94, 96, 98, 109, 115, 120–3, 125, 130–2, 140–1, 173, 179, 194 SAM 92, 142–4, 177, 185–7, 199 Saudi 46, 111, 145, 167, 173, 175–6, 181, 188, 212 Savimbi, J. 104 Schlesinger, J. 63, 75, 81, 84–8, 93, 96, 98–9, 104–9, 115–16, 122–3, 130, 133, 139, 140 Scowcroft, B. 107–9, 113, 116, 166, 202, 209, 213, 218–20, 225 SDI 157–9, 163, 194–5, 222 Shanghai Communiqué 55–6, 58, 60, 103, 107, 116, 124, 128, 137

275

Shelton, H. 1 Shevardnadze, E. 158, 201, 205, 212, 221 Shultz, G. 157–8 Sihanouk, N. 15, 65–6, 72, 95, 97, 134, 210 SLBM 94, 98–9, 141, 151, 164, 193, 195 Snow, E. 22 Solomon, R. 81, 124 Somalia 111, 128, 165–6, 177 South Africa 110, 112–13, 120, 145 South Asia 30, 34, 36, 45, 48, 50, 52, 57, 59, 66, 90, 97, 110, 140, 154, 210, 212 Steerman, W. 9, 11 superpower 26, 33, 36, 42–3, 49–50, 52–3, 56, 59, 61, 68, 71–2, 77, 83–4, 88, 90, 93, 101, 104, 106–7, 111, 119, 122, 124, 141, 158–60, 162, 164, 190, 197, 201, 203 Taiwan 1–3, 5, 9, 12–14, 19–20, 22–5, 29–31, 33–5, 37, 39–40, 44, 47–50, 53, 60, 71, 73, 75–6, 84, 86–7, 89, 91–5, 97, 103–5, 107, 112, 116–17, 120, 124–5, 127–9, 131–2, 149, 150, 152, 155–6, 159, 211, 216 Taraki, N.M. 135–6, 168–70 Tiananmen Square 1, 114, 125, 147, 207, 214–17, 220, 225, 227 Tokyo 21–2, 29, 32–4, 36, 39, 47, 51, 53, 64, 75, 77–8, 85, 96, 98, 110 Turner, S. 149, 170–1 UN 21, 24–5, 29, 35, 39, 44–6, 51, 55, 58, 71, 74, 81, 85, 90, 121, 155, 174, 187, 198, 201, 205, 210, 213 UNITA 104, 113 Ustinov, D. 169, 178 Vance, C. 112, 117–24, 127–31, 140 Vietnam 8, 14–15, 17, 21, 24, 29, 32–5, 41, 44, 47, 49–50, 55–7, 60, 62, 65–6, 68–70, 87, 91, 100, 102, 113, 117, 132–5, 154, 162, 207, 210, 215; North 15, 18, 20, 22, 32, 50, 53, 56, 62, 70, 80, 100–1; South 29, 32, 60, 70, 84, 86, 98, 100, 102 Vladivostok 77, 93–4, 96, 98–9, 107, 162 Walters, V. 17, 23, 39, 46 Wan Li 216 Warsaw 4–5, 7–9, 12–15, 19, 30, 105, 132, 143, 196, 200–2, 204, 207, 216, 221

276

Index

Weinberger, C. 137, 153–4, 156–8, 162–4 White House 4, 8, 12, 19, 22–3, 25–7, 36, 39–40, 45, 60, 68, 70, 73, 75, 88, 105, 116, 121–3, 127, 130–1, 135, 155, 193, 199–200, 213, 216 Whiting, A. 10 Woodcock, L. 129–30 Xinjiang 6, 8, 10, 38, 45, 60, 125, 133–4, 148, 176–7 Xiong Xianghui 6 Xu Xiangqian 6, 147 Yang Dezhi 147

Yang Shangkun 209, 211, 215 Ye Jianying 6, 30, 37–8, 75, 79, 102, 159 Yugoslavia 90, 97, 110–11 Zaire 104, 110–11, 113, 127 Zambia 104, 110–11, 113 Zavidovo 68–9, 72 Zhang Aiping 162 Zhao Ziyang 137, 155–6, 209, 211–12, 215–17 Zhen Bao 5, 37 Zhou Enlai 6–7, 9, 12, 14, 17–40, 42–57, 60–2, 64–7, 69–71, 73–5, 77–89, 92, 96, 101–2, 105, 113–15, 117, 130, 144

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