Time stood still for Henry Kissinger as the plane passed over the Himalayas on July 9, 1971. That’s how he recalled it ever after, and who would doubt him in that regard? No matter what happened to him after this day, he was now a major figure in American history and in the history of the world. A big limousine awaited him at an airport on the edge of Beijing. It whisked him through city streets, through Tiananmen Square, and into a walled-off, western part of Beijing—an enormous urban park—before depositing him in a stately Victorian guest house on a lake.1
At 4:30 p.m., Zhou Enlai arrived. Kissinger found him fascinating. He filled page after page of his memoirs with Zhou, his “piercing eyes,” his “gaunt, expressive face,” his “immaculately tailored” clothes, his “controlled tension, steely discipline, and self-control, as if he were a coiled spring.” The Chinese premier was “one of the two or three most impressive men I have ever met. Urbane, infinitely patient, extraordinarily intelligent, subtle, he moved through our discussions with an easy grace that penetrated to the essence of our new relationship.”2
Zhou did not waste time. As the two of them sat facing each other, Kissinger began reading a prepared statement from his briefing book: “Many visitors have come to this beautiful, and to us, mysterious land.” The premier put up one hand. China would not seem so mysterious, he said, once Kissinger got to know it. At that, the American stopped reading. He never looked at his briefing book again.3
When the conversation turned to Vietnam, Kissinger began dropping hints that a Communist victory would not be unacceptable: “First, we should have a ceasefire for all of Indochina in good faith. Secondly, there should then be a reasonable effort by all the forces in Indochina which exist to settle their differences among each other. Thirdly, we are not children, and history will not stop on the day a peace agreement is signed. If local forces develop again, and are not helped from forces outside, we are not likely to again come 10,000 miles. We are not proposing a treaty to stop history.” He outlined the specifics of Nixon’s proposal: American withdrawal, POWs, a ceasefire-in-place, and “respect for the Geneva Accords” of 1954. “We do not want the war to start again,” said Kissinger.4 He was diplomatically vague. Kissinger implied that American reintervention would be unlikely, but he didn’t rule it out.
Kissinger and Zhou had talked for hours. Zhou suggested dinner. As the Chinese served dishes staggering in their variety and generosity, Kissinger and his host enjoyed light conversation. Zhou’s personality, Kissinger would later write, was luminous. Their conversations were like none he had ever had with any other world leader. Longer. Deeper. Something about the Chinese premier’s face made Kissinger feel that Zhou understood him, without any need for translation.5
Kissinger revealed this much in his memoirs. What he did not tell his readers was how far he went after dinner, when Zhou suggested they continue their conversation.
Kissinger stopped playing coy on Vietnam, casting subtlety aside. “If the agreement breaks down, then it is quite possible that the people in Vietnam will fight it out,” he said. “If the government is as unpopular as you seem to think, then the quicker our forces are withdrawn, the quicker it will be overthrown. And if it is overthrown after we withdraw, we will not intervene.”
“But you have a prerequisite for that,” Zhou said, “that is, a ceasefire throughout Indochina.”
“For some period of time,” Kissinger said. “We can put on a time limit, say 18 months or some period.”6
Summaries of the “decent interval” exit strategy don’t get clearer than this. North Vietnam could take over the South without fear of American intervention, as long as it waited a year or two after Nixon withdrew the last of the troops.
And if Kissinger’s suspicions were correct, the Chinese had all this on tape. (The quotes here come from a transcript prepared for President Nixon by NSC aides who accompanied Kissinger on Polo I. It remained classified for the rest of the twentieth century.)7