Please Don't Eat The Lotus Leaves

Wherever he goes, James Reston of the New York Times is something of a presence, even in Peking. Last week, recovered from his appendectomy and acupuncture (TIME, Aug. 9), Scotty Reston came up with the longest and so far the only one-to-one interview with Premier Chou En-lai since the start of Ping Pong diplomacy last April. The formal question-and-answer session lasted three hours, followed by a two-hour dinner in the Fukien Room of the Great Hall of the People. Reston's tone was hardly that of the ordinary newsman. By turns statesmanlike and philosophical, he adopted a semipresidential stance in seeking to reassure Chou that "we have now changed, and we want to see the

People's Republic seated [at the U.N.]."

Reston also tried to explain President Nixon to the Premier: "He is a Californian, and he looks to the Pacific in the way that we who live on the other side of the continent do not." Moreover, said Reston, "I think he is a romantic, and I think he is dead serious about China, where he sees a historic role." Replied Chou politely: "Thank you for providing me with this information."

No Concessions. On the main issues between China and the U.S., Chou was unyielding. He insisted that U.S. troops be withdrawn not only from Viet Nam and Taiwan, but from Japan, Thailand and the Philippines as well. ("This doesn't seem to me to be a realistic basis that any President could accept," Reston observed.) China would not mediate in Viet Nam, continued Chou, nor would it accept anything less than expulsion of Taiwan from the U.N. before "we go in." He professed to be perplexed over seeming differences in the Nixon pledge to seek U.N. entry for Peking and the statement by Secretary of State William Rogers that Taiwan would not be abandoned.

What surprised Reston most was Chou's deep anxiety over a revival of Japanese militarism that would threaten both Korea and Taiwan. "You are really worried about Japan, aren't you?" Reston asked. Chou was also concerned about the massing of Soviet military might on China's northern border, but added: "We Chinese are not afraid of atom bombs. We are prepared. The great majority of our big and medium cities now have underground tunnels." Chou claimed the Russians "want to lasso us" into a test-ban conference of nuclear powers only, while China hopes for a meeting of "all the countries of the world" for "complete prohibition" of nuclear weapons.

China-ization. Turning away from global matters, Chou En-lai was even more interesting. He showed considerable knowledge of the U.S. A friend had told him that the blacks were making progress, and he declared himself pleased. Chou also showed a gift for the facile parallel. The Americans started guerrilla warfare, he declared at one point. "George Washington started it." He likened Vietnamization to what he called "China-ization," U.S. support for Chiang Kai-shek in his resistance to Mao Tse-tung's revolution in the late 1940s. But Chou conceded that "America has its merits. It was composed of peoples of all nations and this gave it an advantage of the gradual accumulation of the wisdom of different countries."

"You did some work, your New York Times, by making public the secret Pentagon papers," Chou complimented Reston, who helpfully offered to print any unpublished Peking papers of the period. Sorry, said Chou, "we have no secret papers like that." Chou acknowledged that China's top leaders were "old men." But there is a combination of the old, the middle-aged and the young running all the instruments of government, he said. Had the revolutionary leaders kept personal records or journals? "No," Chou replied, "none of us kept a diary and none of us want to write our memoirs."

Come Again. Dinner was described by Reston as a "neverending stream," featuring such fare as sea slugs and quail eggs. Chou proposed a toast with a glass of the strong Chinese liquor mao-tai, but did not swallow a drop. At one point, Reston went after a decorative but tough leaf under his portion of ground pork and drew a polite reproof from his host: "Please don't eat the lotus leaves."

Dinner over, Reston and Chou resumed their interview until past midnight. Then, Reston reported, Chou "took us to the door, which could not have been more than a quarter of a mile away." There would be no chance to see Mao Tse-tung this time, said Chou. "The Chairman is preoccupied with other matters. But of course you can come with your President next time." Reston declined with thanks. "I'll worry about him from now till then and let you worry about him after he gets here."

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