Nixon underplayed the announcement beautifully. No big address from the White House, just a couple of minutes broadcasting live from an NBC Burbank television studio on a set decorated only with a podium. At 7:30 p.m. on July 15, he read an announcement that was simultaneously being made in Beijing. China had invited him to visit in 1972; he had accepted with pleasure.
“In anticipation of the inevitable speculation which will follow this announcement, I want to put our policy in the clearest possible context,” said the president. “Our action in seeking a new relationship with the People’s Republic of China”—he looked the camera in the eye—“will not be at the expense of our old friends.” As he said these last few words, he smiled slightly. He called his trip to China “a journey for peace.”1
Anchormen expressed slack-jawed astonishment. NBC’s John Chancellor called it “one of the most stunning developments in foreign affairs that anyone in my generation can remember.” Headlines were big and plentiful: “President Will Seek to Break Down 21-Year-Old Great Wall of Hostility”—New York Times; “Profound Impact on Foreign Affairs Expected”—Los Angeles Times. Democrats and Republicans alike applauded the initiative. NBC contacted the Beijing government and offered to build a television ground station to allow live broadcasts of Nixon in China via satellite.2
All public discussion about “old friends” centered on Taiwan. Improved relations between the United States and the People’s Republic jeopardized Taiwan’s relationship with America and its seat in the United Nations. Vietnam didn’t come up much in stories about Kissinger’s secret trip, except in a hopeful way: “Ford Sees Indochina Peace Talks Resulting from Visit.”3
The acclaim was as loud, widespread, and excited as Nixon anticipated, but he had to share it with Kissinger: “Groundwork Laid by Kissinger, Chou in Secret Meeting”—Washington Post; “Kissinger Visit Capped 2-Year Effort”—New York Times; “Kissinger Sure to Be a Legend: Already a Swinger”—Chicago Tribune. A new celebrity cult of Kissinger mushroomed up in the press coverage of foreign policy. The Establishment, demoralized and battered by the Left and the Right for failures at home and abroad, discovered in one of its own a new kind of idol, even a sex symbol of a sort. Time put a cartoon on its cover showing Nixon proudly standing on the prow of the ship of state … with Kissinger steering. A New York Times Magazine piece—“The Road to Peking, or, How Does This Kissinger Do It?”—found Kissinger as fascinating as Kissinger found Zhou. The opening anecdote had him “deep in conversation with this astonishingly beautiful girl, and the girl is looking at him transfixed.” That was apparently considered noteworthy. “They talk freely about Henry’s ‘swinging sex life’ in the articles about him,” wrote Bernard Law Collier, who decided to join rather than beat them, dishing on Kissinger’s dates with actresses (including Jill St. John, a bona fide Bond girl). On a serious note, the Times piece raised the question of whether Kissinger was a genius. It ran a lot of pictures of Kissinger with world leaders and movie stars. For Collier, however, Kissinger’s appeal was not merely sexual and intellectual; it was “his gift for cutting through the fog and the garbage around an issue,” “his incisive, uncluttered honesty.”4