The Supporting Cast in Peking

Marshall Green, 56, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. The State Department's foremost Asia expert, Green would have been named Ambassador to Japan --a post with which he would like to cap his career--if his expertise had not been so badly needed for the Peking summit. He has a distinguished record of service in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong, where he headed the China-watching Consulate General, and in 1963 drafted a position paper for President Kennedy that recommended rapprochement with China.

Alfred Le S. Jenkins, 55, director of the State Department's Asian Communist Affairs section. Another gray-haired Asian hand, Jenkins first went to Peking with the Foreign Service in 1946; he remained in China until driven out by Mao Tse-tung's approaching armies in 1949. He later held sensitive positions in Hong Kong and Taipei. He speaks excellent Chinese. He met Chou En-lai at the 1954 Geneva Conference, and again last fall when he returned to Peking with Henry Kissinger.

John Holdridge, 47, senior staff member of the National Security Council. The White House's resident China expert, Holdridge is noted for his diligence, speaks Chinese very well and was recruited for both of Kissinger's Peking missions. Before his assignment to the White House, Holdridge held diplomatic posts in Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong, and headed the State Department's Asian intelligence section.

Winston Lord, 34, special assistant to Henry Kissinger. Lord is a brilliant theoretician and report writer, and a bright young Kissinger protege; despite his relative inexperience he accompanied Kissinger on both missions. Yale-educated, Lord served in the State Department and on the policy planning staff of the Office of International Security Affairs at the Pentagon before joining Kissinger's group in 1969.

Brigadier General Brent Scowcroft, U.S.A.F., 46, Military Assistant to the President. A graduate of West Point and the National War College, Scowcroft earned his Ph.D. in international relations from Columbia University. Former special assistant to the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he is the highest ranking U.S. military officer to visit mainland China in a quarter-century.

Charles W. Freeman Jr., 28, Interpreter. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and a career diplomat, Freeman served in Taiwan and is now attached to the State Department's China section as a translator and analyst. He has scored near perfect grades in Chinese language examinations and is probably the department's most fluent Chinese linguist.

Chi P'eng-fei, 62, Foreign Minister.

Chi is an old-guard military man who shifted to the foreign ministry in 1949, and under Chou's watchful eye has risen in the career ranks as an unassuming but skillful administrator. Reticent, nervous and a chain-smoker, he has little to do with policymaking and has no specialized knowledge in U.S. affairs. He was China's first ambassador to East Germany.

Yeh Chien-ying, 74, vice chairman of the party's Military Affairs Commission. Assumed to be Acting Defense Minister since the fall of Lin Piao. Yeh is a real power behind the throne because the continued blessing of the military may be crucial to the success of Chou's American initiatives. A representative to the U.S.-sponsored Nationalist-Communist peace negotiations in 1946-47, he was at Chou's side during the Kissinger visits and will be again during the Nixon summit. He is one of ten remaining full members of the Politburo.

Hsiung Hsiang-hui, Chou's Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Former charge d'affaires in London (1962-65), Hsiung is among Chou's ablest aides. Educated at Western Reserve University in Cleveland and a deputy representative to the U.N. last fall, he speaks excellent English and is ranked one of China's front-rank diplomats and one of its foremost U.S. specialists.

Chang Wen-chin, director of the foreign ministry's American, Western European and Australasian sections. Chang has served as Ambassador to Pakistan and as head of the ministry's Asian section. He accompanied Chou to the 1954 Geneva negotiations on Indochina. Moscow-educated, he is also fluent in English and has served as Chou's English-language interpreter. He is likely to head the ministry's new North American department.

Ch'iao Kuan-hua, 58, First Deputy Foreign Minister and Chinese Ambassador to the U.N. Erudite and skillful, Ch'iao is a career diplomat of prestige and power and perhaps Chou's closest associate in the ministry--he has accompanied him on all his foreign travels, including trips to Geneva in 1954 and 1962, and Bandung in 1955. Though listed by the Chinese as a participant in the Nixon talks, Ch'iao was still in New York--hosting a party for the city police--as of last week. He is a principal adviser on American affairs and speaks very good English.

T'ang Wen-sheng, Interpreter.

Nancy Tang, as she is known to her American friends, grew up and went to high school in New York City. Last year she served as Edgar Snow's interpreter during his visit to China, and was also a member of the Chinese delegation to the U.N.--along with her father, T'ang Ming-ch'ao, who served as deputy representative.

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