294 { China’s Quest
Once the Warsaw talks resumed on February 20 and March 20, 1970, they
were, in Kissinger’s words, “a dialogue of the deaf.” At that level, both sides
were still trapped in the agenda and issues that had deadlocked the previous
134 sessions, and simply unable to raise the dialogue to the strategic level that
might uncover parallel interests. Nixon thus sought dispatch of a high-level
envoy, such as Kissinger, to China, ideally to open the way for a visit by him-
self. Thus in July 1970, Nixon during a round-the-world trip asked the presi-
dents of Pakistan and Romania, countries that were good friends with both
the United States and China, to convey to Beijing the message that he, Nixon,
sought a high-level exchange with China’s leaders. Parallel to this diplomacy,
Nixon made public statements about his desire to visit China, either while
president or afterwards.
The method Mao chose to respond to Nixon’s overtures—by inviting
the American journalist Edgar Snow to stand beside him atop Tiananmen
gate during the October 1, 1970, National Day celebrations in Beijing. Snow
had traveled to the communist base area in Shaanxi province in 1936 to
interview Mao. The resulting book, Red Star over China, gave a very posi-
tive view of China’s communist movement and had a significant impact
on Western and Chinese opinion about the CCP at a critical time in the
party’s long struggle for power.^15 Twice in the 1960s, Mao again invited
Snow to China in an attempt to influence foreign opinion through him.
In October 1970, Mao once again attempted to use Snow to send a message
to Chinese and foreign audiences, including, most pertinently, Richard
Nixon. The day after the 1970 National Day celebration, a photograph of
Mao and Snow side-by-side was broadcast to the world and was intended
as a display of Mao’s personal regard for America. Mao also granted Snow
an interview in which he made positive comments about America and the
American people, and indicated that Nixon was welcome to visit China
either as a president or as a private citizen.
US leaders once again missed Beijing’s signal. Mao’s move was too subtle
for the Americans to grasp. Snow was dismissed by administration officials
as a communist propagandist, and thus of little relevance to US relations
with China. Snow’s article conveying the contents of his interview with Mao
was published, and thus became available to US leaders, only after several
months’ delay, by which point its relevance had already been superseded by
other channels. Mao had assumed that Snow would immediately convey his
comments to US officials.^16 As Kissinger stresses, after twenty years of isola-
tion and extreme hostility that had become deeply embedded in domestic
constituencies, both Chinese and US leaders struggled to establish a reliable,
secure, and appropriately high-level mechanism to conduct a dialogue about
setting relations in a radically new direction.
Early in December 1970, more direct high-level communication began
when Zhou wrote by hand a letter to Kissinger that the Pakistani ambassador