Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (Hardcover)

by Margaret MacMillan (Author)
Key Phrases: mao nixon, mrs nixon, United States, Soviet Union, State Department (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to Beijing to open relations with Communist China was both a Cold War milestone and compelling political theater. Diplomatic historian MacMillan, author of the acclaimed Paris 1919, gives a lively account of the pomp and protocol surrounding the trip: the awkward banquets, the toasts to peace and friendship (punctuated by occasional anti-imperialist lectures), the Great Wall pilgrimages, the proletarian operas (Nixon attended The Red Detachment of Women, in which peasants and revolutionaries battle landlords). MacMillan's even better on the behind-the-scenes negotiations, as the two sides wrangle over every word of the climactic Shanghai communiqué. More than Nixon and the cloistered Mao, the central figures are Henry Kissinger and Chinese premier Chou En-Lai, tasked with finding common ground and finessing differences with subtle verbiage and winks and nods. The author fills in the background with colorful, incisive biographical sketches and a lucid history of Sino-American relations. The encounter seems to have had little impact on the issues discussed during the trip—the Vietnam war, the fate of Taiwan, relations with the Soviets. Still, MacMillan argues, it opened the door to today's necessary relationship between the two Pacific powers, and she turns a potentially dry diplomatic story into a fascinating study in high-wire diplomacy, full of intrigue and drama. Photos. (Feb. 20)
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From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Orville Schell

What did President Richard M. Nixon, National Security Adviser Henry A. Kissinger and Chinese leader Mao Zedong really discuss during their unprecedented February 1972 meeting in Beijing? With surprising frequency, Mao turned the conversation to the subject of women.

Kissinger "doesn't look like a secret agent," said Nixon, a world-class anti-communist, to the enigmatic chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. "He is the only man in captivity who could go to Paris 12 times and Peking once and no one knew it, except possibly a couple of pretty girls."

"They didn't know it," Kissinger grinned. "I used it as a cover."

"In Paris?" Mao asked.

"Anyone who uses pretty girls as a cover must be the greatest diplomat of all time," Nixon bragged.

But the object of Nixon, Kissinger and Mao's meeting was hardly so frivolous. Since Kissinger, that most unlikely secret agent, took his furtive journey in 1971 to reestablish ties between the two erstwhile Cold War rivals, scores of books have been written on how he and Nixon boldly catalyzed a new relationship between two implacable ideological foes into a largely constructive conversation that rattled the Soviet Union and continues to this day. But few have done as well at giving us a "you are there" feel for the historic talks -- sometimes somber, sometimes comic -- as Margaret MacMillan, the bestselling author of Paris 1919, who has now applied her impressive powers of research and storytelling to this iconic episode in U.S. diplomatic history. If the power-balancing, realist school of Republican foreign policy so often derided by so many had a finest hour, this was surely it.

Nixon and Kissinger's overture forever changed the Cold War by reconfiguring the communist bloc and bringing Washington and Beijing together to balance Moscow. In a 1967 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Nixon presciently observed that "Taking the long view, we simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations, there to nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates and threaten its neighbors." But no one did more to incarnate that forbidden idea as policy than his unlikely partner, the professorial apostle of realpolitik, Henry Kissinger. The process that Nixon set in motion -- the former Red-baiter breaking the taboo on talks with the massive communist power -- led to one of those rare times in history when daring leadership actually did redirect the course of events for the better. Nixon and Mao's negotiations substantially lessened the chance that the United States and China would go to war; by "playing the China card," Nixon goaded the Soviet Union into yielding on SALT I, the 1972 nuclear arms control treaty, and signaled to the North Vietnamese that China might not prove as devoted to the cause of "national liberation" in Indochina as they might have hoped.

Kissinger has often been criticized as a latter-day Machiavellian who gave short shrift to morality or such values as democracy, human rights or loyalty to old allies such as Taiwan. His objective "was to purge our foreign policy of all sentimentality," MacMillan writes. In this aspiration, Kissinger agreed with Lord Palmerston, the statesman who proclaimed of Britain in the 19th century, "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual."

So only a realist could go to China. A more sentimental or moralistic diplomat might well have been thrown off course by the thought of dealing with a Leninist dictatorship that had afflicted its people with almost every imaginable indignity in the name of Marxist revolution. For Kissinger, however, power was power, and it begged to be dealt with. And looking back on this seminal Sino-U.S. interaction, it is undeniable that this audacious, if seemingly unprincipled, move was in the best interests of the United States and the world.

What makes Nixon and Mao such a good read is not only that MacMillan, who has availed herself of some valuable new interviews, narrates the history beautifully; it is also that her story is peopled by so many larger-than-life figures. She has a dramatis personae with monumental strengths and insecurities, titanic egos, oceans of vanity and some mammoth tragic flaws to boot -- all acting out their dramas on a grand tableau of world power.

Although Kissinger worked actively with Nixon, he was not close to him and at times disparaged the president. "He would have been a great, great man had somebody loved him," Kissinger once famously quipped. For his part, Nixon called the notoriously thin-skinned Kissinger "a genius" but added that there were times when "you have to pet Henry and treat him like a child."

When it came to Zhou Enlai, China's premier, Kissinger was always admiring, sometimes fawning. "He moved gracefully and with dignity," Kissinger said of their first meeting, "filling a room not by his physical dominance (as did Mao or de Gaulle) but by his air of controlled tension, steely discipline, and self-control, as if he were a coiled spring." Indeed, in reading through the transcripts of the negotiations, Kissinger repeatedly evinces a weakness for such flattery. At one point, he tried to curry favor with Zhou by telling him that he was deeply moved "by the idealism and spiritual qualities of yourself and your colleagues." The communist premier coolly rejoined, "I suggest that we have a quick lunch."

The Americans' reverence was not always returned by the Chinese. Zhou derisively suggested that Nixon had all too "eagerly" sought out his invitation to Beijing, not unlike a hooker who would "dress up elaborately and present herself at the door." And Mao dismissed Kissinger as "just a funny little man . . . shuddering all over with nerves every time he comes to see me."

Such detail is beguiling, of course. But what makes reading MacMillan all the more worthwhile is our current, moralistic penchant for refusing to talk to countries such as Cuba, Syria and Iran. Nixon and Mao reminds us that sometimes the national interest is best served by maintaining relations with adversaries -- even dictatorships we consider utterly repellent. Indeed, in 1971-72, during the Cold War, it is hard to imagine a country that was in worse political odor in America than "Red China," which many U.S. officials deemed too besmirched to be seated at the negotiating table. And yet Kissinger and Nixon's ministrations brought two hostile nations into a completely new relationship. Many Western evangelists had hoped that the overture would immediately change communist China, which it did not; but it did indeed change the world.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Random House; First Edition. reviewers materials laid in edition (February 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140006127X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400061273
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #135,843 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It was a 'Nixon-Goes-To-China' moment, February 16, 2007

By	Seth Faison (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I found this book a pleasure to read, since it deals with some fascinating history. Nixon's trip to China in 1972 was an iconic event. A brilliant diplomatic stroke, it melted decades of deep freeze between two of the world's great powers and realigned the geopolitical triangle with the Soviet Union. It was a savvy political move too, clinching Nixon's image at home as a foreign policy virtuoso and helping ensure his reelection later that year, despite his inability to solve the quagmire in Vietnam. Nixon's trip to China was one of those rare political coups that seemed utterly impossible beforehand and unavoidably logical afterward.

Yet more than anything, it was terrific theater. To see Nixon, that beady-eyed communist-hater, toasting the Mao suits in the Great Hall of the People, climbing the Great Wall and meeting Mao Tse-tung himself in the Communist Party's inner sanctum -- it was mesmerizing. No one cared that the visit was largely symbolic and light on content. It was great symbolism at play.

The scene was unforgettable: China, though still embroiled in a violent paroxysm called the Cultural Revolution, appeared serene and enchanting to American viewers. A gaggle of U.S. reporters followed Nixon to scenic spots and his meetingw with China's happy workers and smiling schoolchildren. The cast of characters was top-notch: Nixon, Mao, Henry Kissinger and Premier Chou En-lai, each with his own individual brand of psychosis, paranoia and dastardly political skill. The intermingling of these four, in a complex diplomatic mating dance that could easily have gone wrong, is a historian's dream.

It's no wonder that the trip inspired an entire Western opera and a permanent place in our lexicon, as in "It was a Nixon-goes-to-China moment." What is a wonder is that it has taken until now for a general history to be written about this diplomatic milestone.

In "Nixon and Mao," Margaret MacMillan draws together the colorful strands of the drama, with all its inherent chanciness and tension. MacMillan is strong on diplomacy but weak on Chinese politics. The structure of her book, with a timeline that bounces around, is not optimal. Yet she's a fine writer, and she delivers an illuminating account.

MacMillan's previous book, "Paris 1919," is a history of the intricate negotiations involved in the peace treaty negotiations after World War I. She crafted a richly satisfying narrative that conveyed the far-reaching effects of those negotiations while giving a full flavor of its primary players, including Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau.

In "Nixon and Mao," MacMillan opens with the flight to Beijing. Nixon was anxious; he knew he was taking a big risk. If the trip failed, he could be blamed for making a colossal blunder. The draft diplomatic agreement between the two countries was still far from complete, and there was no guarantee it would be signed by the end of the trip. There was no commitment by the Chinese that Nixon would even meet Mao, who was said to be having difficulty getting out of bed or leaving his chamber.

Nixon had studied hard, as he always did, knowing that true diplomatic success would require a subtle understanding of the politics of the leaders he was meeting. He practiced using chopsticks so he wouldn't look silly at banquets. His advance team worked hard as well, to get the best camera angles for the U.S. media. MacMillan also shows us how Nixon was concerned with petty problems, like keeping his secretary of state, William Rogers, out of major meetings with Mao and Chou. Nixon worked better with Kissinger, who shared his love of stealth.

In fact, MacMillan shows us that Nixon and Kissinger insisted on secrecy at every step of planning for the visit. On Kissinger's previous trip to Beijing to lay the groundwork for the rapprochement, Mao and Chou -- no slouches in clandestine matters -- were baffled by American demands to keep all quiet. Nixon and Kissinger claimed that the right wing in Washington would sabotage their plans. Relying on interviews, research and newly available documents, MacMillan persuasively challenges this view: Nixon and Kissinger, she suggests, were just addicted to secrecy.

Mao was much like Nixon in his paranoia, his inability to make friends and his brilliant interpretation of history and politics. For Mao, deciding to open relations with the United States marked a sharp turn from his fanatical leftism and his ultra-isolationist foreign policy. MacMillan stumbles here. She sees Mao as a patriot, concerned with the good of his nation, when what he really cared about was the good of Mao. For decades, he missed few opportunities to destroy his country.

Mao drove foreign policy to meet the imperatives of his own domestic politics; in 1972, that meant restraining leftists in his midst. As chairman of the Communist Party, Mao was like a mob boss, appearing to be totally in charge but perpetually at work to keep his captains off-balance, lest one challenge him. It was precisely that fear that generated Mao's feud with his No. 2, Lin Biao, whose mysterious death offers a haunting backdrop to the time period when Nixon's trip was being planned.

Vietnam became a fascinating sideshow to the trip; leaders in Hanoi turned apoplectic at the sight of their main enemy shaking hands with their supposed patron in the north. In the months afterward, Mao was impatient with Hanoi and tossed its leaders a simple suggestion: Sign a peace treaty, regroup until after most Americans have left and then roll in. "That is, in effect, what happened," MacMillan observes.

It was Taiwan that presented the toughest impediment to a joint agreement on Nixon's visit. Kissinger labored to come up with language that would satisfy China's insistence that American support eventual reunification and still allow for a U.S. demand for peaceful change. It was treacherous diplomatic territory, and only on the final day of the visit did both sides agree to what became known as the Shanghai Communiqué.

In 1972, few could imagine that Taiwan would today be a thriving democracy, that China would enjoy one of the biggest economic expansions in world history, that the Soviet threat would be a distant memory, that Vietnam would be welcoming American investors. MacMillan does not do justice to all those historical dynamics, or fully explain just how Nixon's trip changed the world. Yet those dynamics, in varying ways and degrees, all grew from seeds planted the day Nixon's foot landed on Chinese soil.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Week That Changed the World, March 27, 2007

By	Izaak VanGaalen (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Margaret MacMillan, a University of Toronto historian, is well-known for having written "Paris 1919," which explored some crucial moments following the First World War. Now she has produced another first-rate work of an event that changed the course of history. She is apparently a follower of the "great men" school of history which attaches central importance to the agency of a few key players. The dramatis personae of Paris 1919 as well as those of Beijing 1972 all had a strong vision of what they wanted the future to look like and all had the requisite egos to pursue those visions. What these events set in motion, however, was unforseen by most parties. In Beijing 1972, it was as Nixon said, "a week that changed the world," but in ways that he never imagined.

MacMillan's account focuses not only on Nixon and Mao, but also on Kissinger and Zhou Enlai. These two arch-realists worked behind the scenes to negotiate the terms of this new diplomatic understanding that later became the Shanghai Communique.

Memories of "ping pong diplomacy" and "playing the China card" are distant but Macmillan does an excellent job of resurrecting this period. She delves deeply into what motivated Nixon, a life-long anticommunist and red-baiter, to open diplomatic relations with China. It was a time when the US was mired in an unwinnable war in Vietnam, as well as dealing with race riots and antiwar protests at home; Nixon was looking for a dramatic gesture. A trip to China was an extremely risky political undertaking whose success was by no means guaranteed.

Mao was also desparately in need of a win; not only was China's economy in shambles due to his mismanagement, the country was also on the brink of war with the Soviet Union. MacMillan does not give a flattering portrait of Mao. He had turned a country with great potential into an isolated, impoverished, and paranoid state.

Looking back and applying the logic of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, the Sino-American diplomatic reconciliation seems like a natural step insofar as both were enemies of the Soviet Union. At the time, however, it was still unthinkable by many and due to its highly sensitive nature, many allies were kept out of the loop. It essentially reshuffled the Great Power relations that eventually led to the demise of the Soviet Union and the rise of China as a superpower.

The new Sino-American friendliness certainly startled the Vietnamese, who were a Chinese client state of sorts. It also went a long way in silencing some of Nixon's critics at home and helped him get reelected that same year. The Europeans and the State Department complained loudly for not being kept informed.

What is interesting about this book is the new light it sheds on why Nixon and Kissinger were so secretive. The backroom negotiations that Kissinger had with Zhou Enlai already acknowledged that the US would eventually pull troops out of Vietnam in return for China getting the Vietnamese to sign a peace treaty. It was a classic exercise of moral unclarity for which realists are famous would have outraged the right-wing back home. In fact, William F Buckley, who was one of the entourage, but not involved in negotiations, was already disgusted by the friendliness that Nixon was showing toward Mao at the official gatherings.

And speaking of unforseen consequences, Nixon told Kissinger not to spend too much time negotiating trade issues, since it represented such an insignificant part of their respective economies - and at the time it did. But who would have predicted that this meeting would lead to a $250 billion annual trade deficit 25 years later? It was definitely a week that changed the world.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing book about a historic event, July 8, 2007

By	Eric Hobart (Gastonia, NC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Margaret MacMillan, previously known for her book on the Paris peace negotations ending the first world war, has given us an interesting look at Nixon's historic trip to China in 1972.

The trip was only a week in duration, and hardly seems worthy of an entire manuscript unless the historian is able to provide a comprehensive analysis of the ramifications of Nixon's visit. MacMillan, however, does not provide us with this evaluation.

She writes a rich story, filled with wonderful images and colorful characters, but fails to fully analyze the significance of Nixon's journey. Her book provides us with a nice portrait of Mao Tse-Tung, the Chinese leader whom Nixon met with (only once) during his journey to China, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's national security advisor, and Chou En-Lai, Kissinger's primary contact in Beijing.

MacMillan's details about the trip are amazing, and certainly indicative of strong research abilities - she profiles Nixon in such a way that his paranoia and self doubt are on full display (see chapters 1 and 2 for a nice discussion on how nervous Nixon was as he prepared for the meetings). She also throws in lively quips to remind us just how human the participants were (giving us an image of Nixon parading around his hotel room in his undergarments, or a request made by Nixon for the phone number of ladies in a black book - not for himself, but for Kissinger). This is the highlight of her writing, and she does a fantastic job of giving us the details that allow us to remember the participants as people rather than just politicians.

Overall, however, the book is incomplete - it just does not explain why the meetings changed the world in enough depth to justify the title ("Nixon and Mao: The Week that changed the world"). I recommend the book to anyone looking for a biographical evaluation of the participants in these historic talks, but if one is seeking a profound scholarly analysis of the topic, this is not the right book to read.