Why Nixon Is Relatively Good

Few Westerners are as familiar with China and its leaders as Author Edgar Snow (Red Star Over China). As a journalist, he has traveled in China since the 1930s and has had unequaled access to the thinking and policy shifts within the Chinese government, and his personal knowledge of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai dates from the rise of the Communist movement on the mainland. The first public indication of Mao's willingness to meet with President Nixon was contained in Snow's report in LIFE Magazine on his most recent visit to Peking last winter. In the current LIFE, Snow describes the shift in China's attitude toward the United States and outlines the characteristics of Chou En-lai--the leader who is likely to do the bulk of the negotiating with President Nixon during his planned visit next spring. Excerpts:

> Why were the Chinese responsive? Is it forgotten in Peking that Nixon built his early career on witch-hunting and climbed to the Senate and vice-presidency on the backs of "appeasers in the State Department" who sold China to Russia? The question about Nixon has been partly answered by Chairman Mao. He told me that Nixon, who represented the monopoly capitalists, should be welcomed simply because at present the problems between China and the U.S. would have to be solved with him. In the dialectical pattern of his thought, Mao has often said that good can come out of bad and that bad people can be made good--by experience and right teaching. Yes, he said to me, he preferred men like Nixon to social democrats and revisionists, those who professed to be one thing, but in power behaved quite otherwise.

The Chinese believe that the lesson of Viet Nam and no mere change of Presidents is what made it possible for Mao in 1970 to speak differently about Nixon. "Experience" had made Nixon relatively "good." Yes, Nixon could just get on a plane and come. It would not matter whether the talks would be successful. If he were willing to come, the Chairman would be willing to talk to him and it would be all right.

> Though China's press may carry only a few lines [about the announcement of Nixon's visit], the whole subject today is undoubtedly being cautiously discussed and explained down to the commune level. Only one thing may have surprised the Chinese: Mr. Kissinger's success in keeping his visit secret. Experience with American diplomats during World War II had convinced Chinese leaders that Americans could not keep secrets.

> China's leaders respect Kissinger. They know him through their own intelligence and through his writing. Discussing him with an old friend and close comrade-in-politics of Premier Chou one evening in Peking, I was struck by his frank delight at the prospect of crossing verbal swords with such a worthy adversary. "Kissinger?" he said. "There is a man who knows the language of both worlds--his own and ours. With him, it should be possible to talk."

> Kissinger is said to have spent 20 of his 49 hours in Peking talking to Premier Chou. That is nothing extraordinary. One of several interview-conversations I had with him lasted from the dinner table one evening until six the next morning. I was exhausted, he seemingly as fresh as ever. "I must let you get some sleep," I mumbled. He threw back his head and laughed. "I've already had my sleep. Now I'm going to work." His night's rest had been a cat nap before dinner.

> Chou's affable manner masks viscera of tough and supple alloys; he is a master of policy and implementation with an infinite capacity for detail. Chou quickly cuts to the heart of matters, drops the impractical, dissimulates when necessary and never gambles--without four aces. In talks I have had with China's two great men, it usually is Chou who meticulously answers the main questions and Mao who enlarges the broad and dialectical view. He is a builder, not a poet.

> Whatever the Chinese may think of Nixon's motives, he has earned their appreciation by the courtesy of coming to see them, thereby according prestige to Mao Tse-tung and amour-propre to the whole people. Vassal kings of the past brought tributes to Peking, but never before the head of the world's most powerful nation.

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