Chapter 10: The Quasi-Alliance: Conversations with Mao
1 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
17–18, 1973, 11:30 p.m.–1:20 a.m.,” in David P. Nickles, ed.,
Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS),
1969–1976, vol. 18, China
1973–1976 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 2007), 124.
2 Ibid., 124–25.
3 Ibid., 381.
4 Ibid., 387–88.
5 George Kennan’s 1946 “Long Telegram” from Moscow
and his nominally anonymous 1947 Foreign
Affairs article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” argued
that the Soviet Union was driven by ideology to implacable
hostility to the United States and the West, and that Soviet-led
Communism would expand wherever not met by a resolute response.
Though Kennan posited that Soviet pressure could be “contained by
the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of
constantly shifting geographical and political points,” his theory
of containment was not primarily a military doctrine; it placed
significant weight on the use of diplomatic pressure and the power
of internal political and social reform in the non-Communist world
as a bulwark against Soviet expansion.
6 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, November
12, 1973, 5:40–8:25 p.m.,” FRUS 18,
385.
7 Ibid., 389.
8 The People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, then a
separate state aligned with Moscow.
9 “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for
National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon:
Washington, November 1971,” in Steven E. Phillips, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS),
1969–1976, vol. 17, China
1969–1972 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 2006), 548.
10 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, November
12, 1973, 5:40–8:25 p.m.,” FRUS 18,
391.
11 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
17–18, 1973, 11:30 p.m.–1:20 a.m.,” FRUS 18, 125.
12 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, November
12, 1973, 5:40–8:25 p.m.,” FRUS 18,
131. According to some accounts, Mao’s list of the countries in the
horizontal line included China. The word was not translated and did
not appear in the American transcript of the conversation. China’s
inclusion was at least implied by the presence of countries to
China’s east and west.
13 Kuisong Yang and Yafeng Xia, “Vacillating
Between Revolution and Détente: Mao’s Changing Psyche and Policy
Toward the United States, 1969–1976,” Diplomatic History 34, no. 2 (April 2010):
408.
14 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
17–18, 1973, 11:30 p.m.–1:20 a.m.,” FRUS 18, 134.
15 Ibid., 136.
16 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, October
21, 1975, 6:25–8:05 p.m.,” FRUS 18,
794.
17 Yang and Xia, “Vacillating Between Revolution
and Détente,” 413.
18 Ibid., 414.
19 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
15, 1973, 5:57–9:30 p.m.,” FRUS 18,
38.
20 Ibid., 32.
21 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
17–18, 1973, 11:30 p.m.–1:20 a.m.,” FRUS 18, 137.
22 See Chapter 13, “‘Touching the Tiger’s
Buttocks’: The Third Vietnam War,” and Henry Kissinger,
Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1982), 16–18, 339–67.
23 The Chinese analysis proved less accurate than
usual for the long term, since the Helsinki Accords, signed in
1975, are now generally recognized as having been a major element
in weakening Soviet control of Eastern Europe.