Original subtitles

NARRATIONI 1966.

Mao Zedong, God in his own nation,

scourge of the United States,

and a symbol of revolution in the world.

[ Chanting ]

Six years later,

Mao embraced the enemy.

NARRATOR: At the Summit, face to face,

two leaders who direct the destiny

of one out of three persons on the earth.

The gate to friendly contact, says Zhou Enlai,

has finally been opened.

D ♪

p [ band plays 1 I“

NARRATION: 1949 -- revolution in China.

The People's Liberation Army were welcomed

as heroes in Beijing.

Led by Mao Zedong,

the communists had triumphed

in a civil war against the nationalists.

Soviet support had been unreliable.

The Chinese felt they'd managed it alone.

[woman speaking Chinese]

INTERPRETER: The Communist Party seemed wonderful.

It was democratic, it was egalitarian

it promised food for everyone.

And so, of course, the ideal of Communism

gradually entered my spirit.

NARRATION: The Americans were devastated to lose China,

their best friend in Asia.

MAN: Oh, we felt that they had betrayed

all of our high hopes

and our expectations of them.

We had become emotionally involved with them,

and then they had done this to us --

they'd gone off and become communists.

[speaking Chinese]

NARRATION: On October 1 ,

Mao Zedong told the crowd in Tiananmen Square

that a new China was born.

The country was in chaos,

exhausted after years of war.

Mao needed external help.

One of Mao's first acts was to visit Moscow,

to get military protection and economic aid.

He was met at the station

by Foreign Minister Molotov and most of the Politburo.

[speaking Chinese]

NARRATION: Mao then went to the Kremlin

to meet Stalin.

[ Man speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: Mao shook Stalin's hand for a long time.

A very long time.

Stalin came out to greet him quite slowly.

He knew how to play the role of statesman.

Stalin was a wonderful actor

and he didn't rush like Mao did.

[speaking Chinese]

He wasn't afraid of Stalin.

He wasn't particularly suspicious of him either.

The question was could they find common ground?

Mao had his own particular way of thinking,

Stalin had his way.

But Mao was in no great hurry.

NARRATION: Mao had to be patient.

He wanted to conclude a Sino-Soviet friendship treaty

without making too many concessions.

But Stalin, as wary of Mao

as Mao was of him,

was in no hurry either.

Mao's visit dragged on for two months.

He toured factories,

and was shown inspiring films about Russian leaders

such Tsar Peter the Great.

[speaking Russian ]

[speaking Russian ]

Mao wanted to see the sea.

He had never seen a real sea.

And Stalin said, of course, surely.

Outside Leningrad we have the Gulf of Finland.

That's like a sea.

Here's a train for you and a guide.

Go! Enjoy it!

NARRATION: In February 1950,

the Chinese and the Soviets signed a mutual defense treaty.

The treaty also guaranteed aid for China.

MAN: At that time there was the attitude everywhere

that Moscow and the Chinese communists

were tightly linked, hand in hand.

This was perceived by many to be part

of a worldwide conspiracy

and hence was, was somewhat frightening.

NARRATION: But to Mao,

China always came first.

[speaking Chinese]

Mao said, "A treaty can be signed

for 10, 20, or 50 years.

It doesn't matter.

But it must not tie our hands.

NARRATION: Mao gratefully accepted the help

of Soviet experts in rebuilding Chinese industry.

[ Man speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: We had come from the Soviet Union,

where the basis of the state economy

was the plan.

So we explained to our Chinese comrades

that the plan was the absolute basis

of everything.

The development of the country,

the economy,

and not only the economy,

but of other branches of knowledge.

NARRATION: China's rulers embarked on radical land reforms.

Land was taken from private owners

and handed to the peasants.

The former landowners were denounced

and humiliated.

[speaking Chinese]

[shouting applause]

NARRATION: A million lost their lives.

In June 1950, North Korea,

with Soviet and Chinese backing,

attacked South Korea.

REPORTER: The sudden attack by the North Koreans

dealt the slender forces below the 38th Parallel

a mortal blow.

The prompt arrival on the scene of US soldiers

gave Marshal Stalin and his cold-eyed strategists

a rude shock.

[explosions]

NARRATION: Forces under United Nations command

pushed the invaders back to the Chinese border.

China feared an attack on its own territory.

[Ge speaking Chinese]

The main enemy was America.

At that time all the propaganda was

directed against America.

The proletariat of the whole world

must unite to get rid of the capitalists.

America was a capitalist country

and so it had to be got rid of.

NARRATION: Under the banner,

"Help Korea, Down with US Imperialism,"

more than one million Chinese troops

would cross the border into Korea.

[explosions]

The Korean War lasted for three years

and cost more than half a million Chinese lives.

[ Explosions, gunfire]

In China, cinema audiences watched

films of bumper harvests

and new industrial records.

[ Narrator speaking Chinese ]

[Arkhipov speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: There was a song we used to sing at the time.

It was called "Moscow-Peking."

People sang it in Russia and in China.

It went,

"Russians and Chinese are brothers forever."

Comrade Stalin stressed to me,

"You, Arkhipov and your team should always remember that."

NARRATION: Steel production was a yardstick

of national virility.

The success of the first three-year plan

was celebrated.

But although exhilarating,

Soviet aid had to be paid for.

[speaking Chinese]

We Chinese were very enthusiastic

towards the Soviets.

They were our older brother, our best friend.

We expected them to give us a very warm welcome.

The first time we went to the Soviet Union,

they invited us to a big banquet.

We ate very well.

It was really good food.

But what we hadn't expected was that this

wasn't actually free of charge.

They asked for more than 9,000 rubles for it.

We were very shocked.

NARRATION: Stalin's death in 1953

had a deep impact in China.

Despite Mao's misgivings, he had respected

the Soviet leader's iron authority.

After a power struggle in the Kremlin,

Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the new Soviet leader.

He and his Politburo visited China

to maintain the alliance.

The size and power of the communist bloc

made the new American administration

increasingly anxious.

We can see that China is the basic cause

of all of our troubles in Asia.

If China had not gone communist,

we would not have had a war in Korea.

If China were not communist, there would be no war

in lndo-Oh in a.

There would be no war in Malaya.

Today there are approximately 540 million people

who can be counted on the side of the free nations.

There are 800 million on the communist side.

And there are 600 million others

who must be counted as non-committed.

NARRATION: America did everything to stop the spread of Communism.

To prevent China from attacking

the Chinese Nationalist stronghold of Formosa

or Taiwan,

the United States financed a military build-up

on the island.

NARRATOR: Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek,

along with his American advisers,

reviews free Chinese Nationalist forces

in an Independence Day parade.

More than a half-million soldiers, sailors,

airmen and marines

have as their ultimate aim and living goal

the return to China's mainland.

NARRATION: The Nationalist government was determined

to defend two small islands off the China coast,

Quemoy and Matsu.

MAN: From the point of view of the United States,

these tiny little islands close to the mainland

were of no significance as such.

On the other hand,

the Chinese Nationalists looked on them as symbols

as to what the United States would do in helping them.

Furthermore, Chiang Kai Shek had put

an enormous proportion of his army

on these little islands.

[ explosion ]

NARRATION: In September 1954,

the communists shelled the island of Quemoy.

Three months later,

Washington signed a mutual defense treaty

with Taiwan.

NARRATOR: Almost immediately, the major units

of the Seventh Fleet are shifted to Formosa

to augment the United States and Nationalist patrols

in the strait and along the mainland.

The action upholds the United States pledge

to meet the common danger, communism.

NARRATION: The American show of strength

failed to stop the Chinese communist challenge.

The allied nations possess together

plenty of power in the area.

The United States in particular

has sea and air forces now equipped

with new and powerful weapons of precision.

NARRATION: All-out war came closer.

America made nuclear threats.

Eisenhower never said he would use nuclear weapons,

but he would -- essentially,

he and Dulles essentially said,

"Nuclear weapons are available

and would be part of our arsenal,"

and essentially that implied

that if they were necessary in order to prevail,

they would be used.

NARRATOR: Regular target training

keeps every pilot in combat readiness

at all times.

NARRATION: Mao's provocation

and America's response concerned Khrushchev,

whose nuclear bombs guaranteed China's security.

Khrushchev told the Chinese that war with imperialism

was no longer inevitable.

At the 20th Soviet Party Congress

in February 1956,

in a secret session that was not filmed,

Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a criminal.

Mao took it as a threat

to his own style of leadership.

[speaking Chinese]

Mao's attitude was very clear.

He thought that criticism of Stalin

was inappropriate.

Stalin was an international statesman.

[speaking Russian ]

Mao Zedong said to him,

"Your decision isn't right.

Your speech isn't right."

Khrushchev begins his arguments --

"But Stalin is a member of the Communist Party

of the Soviet Union.

It's our right to deal with him

as we see fit.

It is the personality cult of Stalin.

That's why we've taken our decision."

Mao Zedong,

"It is true that he is a member of your party,

but he is also leader

of the world revolutionary movement.

We are the followers of Stalin.

How can you reduce the role of Stalin

to being only a member of the Soviet Communist Party

just like that?"

[gunfire]

NARRATION: In October 1956,

the Hungarians rose up against Soviet domination.

While Khrushchev hesitated,

Mao urged a violent crackdown.

For the 40th anniversay

of the Soviet Revolution,

Mao went to Moscow.

He used the occasion to put himself forward

as the new leader of world revolution.

[speaking Chinese]

NARRATION: But Soviet aid was undermining

Mao's aim for total independence.

The crunch came in 1958.

[speaking Chinese]

Khrushchev wanted to set up a long wave radio station

along the Chinese coast

to guide Soviet submarines.

He suggested setting up a joint naval fleet.

This was a clear sign

that the Soviets wanted to control China.

[speaking Chinese]

Mao's understanding was that the Soviet Union was

trying to control China

in the same way as it controlled countries

in Eastern Europe.

So he got angry with Khrushchev and said,

"If you want it,

I'll give you the whole coastline

and I'll go back to the mountains."

NARRATION: Mao still needed Soviet know-how.

He wanted to create

China's own nuclear industry.

[Arkhipov speaking Russian ]

These Chinese comrades then expressed a new wish.

They said they would very much like

to receive more aid from us

in order to build plants and facilities

for the production of the atomic bomb.

Such an agreement was signed.

[speaking Chinese]

Mao said that the atomic bomb was a paper tiger.

But he also knew

that whether a country had the atomic bomb or not

had a huge bearing on its position in the world

and on its international influence.

NARRATIONI In 1958,

Khrushchev visited China to renew Soviet support.

But Mao's nuclear demands had already strained relations

with the big brother.

[speaking Russian ]

Mao Zedong said,

"You are Communists and we are Communists.

Communists usually share.

Will you give us the atomic bomb or not?"

Khrushchev,

"And what do you want the atomic bomb for?

We have the atomic bomb

and we will stand up for China

just the same as we would for the Soviet Union."

"Yes," Mao said,

"It's true.

But we are not just some tinpot village.

China is a great country

and we want to have it."

Khrushchev,

"You don't need it." And so on.

Mao then says,

"So you don't want to give it to us then?"

[speaking Russian ]

Despite the fact that we tried

to slow down the help with nuclear weapons to China,

we had already given them the blueprints

and practically all the assistance necessary

for making the atomic bomb.

NARRATION: When Khrushchev next visited Beijing,

he'd just been President Eisenhower's guest

in the United States.

After a frigidly polite reception,

Khrushchev was accused of being ah American stooge.

Khrushchev protested that this was ho way

to talk to a communist leader.

[speaking Chinese]

Mao's foreign Minister, Marshal Chen Yi

was screaming at Khrushchev.

He said, "You're only a political leader,

but I'm a marshal and I'll say what I like."

This argument had a huge impact

on Sino-Soviet relations.

From here on, no common ground

could be found on major issues.

After that, they split up.

NARRATION: The struggler for pre-eminence in the communist world

was now out in the open.

[ Deluisin speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: Here were two despots,

each used to having his own way.

They couldn't cooperate.

In the Communist camp,

the question was always

Who was number one? Who was the tsar?

[ Mochulski speaking Russian ]

On one occasion during the 1959 trip

Khrushchev spoke disrespectfully

about Mao Zedong.

He said that Mao was an old boot

that ought to be thrown out.

[speaking Russian ]

They had to translate "old galosh"

and they translated it as "old boot."

But in Chinese it means both "old boot"

and "prostitute."

And when Kang Sheng heard those words,

he took it that the Great Leader

was being called an "old whore."

NARRATION: Soviet advisers would soon be

withdrawn from China.

Rivalry between the communist powers

was ideological as well as personal.

[ Man speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: ideological squabbles could get quite comical.

The Soviet side would say, "We are the Marxists!"

And then the Chinese would say,

"No, we are the Marxists!"

The Soviets would say, "We are Red!"

And the Chinese would say,

"We are even redder!"

It could appear funny

but the damage was really serious.

The party started issuing documents,

editorials,

attacking Soviet Revisionism.

So from then on,

along with other slogans,

we had to shout "Down with Soviet revisionism."

Later on,

it was "Down with Khrushchev."

NARRATIONI In 1958,

Mao had thought up a new policy --

the Great Leap Forward --

the grandiose plan to transform China

into a rich world power.

Land was taken over by the state.

The family unit was to disappear.

People were organized into huge communes.

A utopian world of plenty would come

from sheer force of will.

Mao's method was to be a more extreme version

of Stalin's brutal collectivization

of the 1930s.

[ Liu speaking Chinese]

INTERPRETER: The Great Leap Forward was a kind of recklessness.

Mao wanted to change the face of China

in the shortest time possible.

The slogan was, "Struggle hard for three years.

Change the face of China.

Catch up with Britain. Catch up with America."

It was completely unrealistic.

NARRATION: Because steel remained

a key symbol of national vitality,

the entire country reverted

to pre-industrial backyard furnaces.

People worked day and night to produce

massive amounts of useless metal.

[speaking Russian ]

The largest city in China is Shanghai.

Once I arrived there

at the height of the Great Leap Forward.

I went up to the roof of a tall house

and from there I could see all of Shanghai

was in flames.

In every courtyard they were smelting steel.

NARRATION: Crops were left to rot.

Scientific knowledge and all common sense

were ignored.

No one dared to tell the truth

for fear of arrest or worse.

[speaking Chinese]

The lies of the Great Leap Forward

were absolutely unbelievable.

Anybody who did not speak in falsehoods

was demoted or expelled from their jobs.

From the time of the Great Leap Forward

all Chinese people learned to tell lies.

NARRATION: The peasanfs food was taken from them by force

to make up bogus quotas.

It was one of the worst man-made disasters in history.

[speaking Chinese]

We had to eat the husks of coarse grain,

not even the grain itself.

We ate leaves off trees.

We all went down with hepatitis.

Many peasants died of starvation.

No one really knew how many.

NARRATION: Because of Mao's policy,

over 30 million people starved to death.

Hiding the catastrophe,

Mao still posed as the leader of world communism.

Blocked by Washington from the United Nations,

China became the champion of anti-American causes.

Third World leaders and Western intellectuals

flocked to Beijing.

In Moscow, Khrushchev was pursuing

peaceful coexistence with the West.

NARRATOR: The Kremlin is the setting of an historic event --

the signing of an atom test ban.

The big three representatives --

Dean Rusk, Andrei Gromyko and Lord Home

sign for the US, Russia, and Britain.

Most other nations of the world,

with the notable exception of France, Communist China,

and Cuba are to sign later.

Communist China had denounced the Soviets

for making the treaty, widening further the breach

between the two communist powers.

NARRATION: Mao reacted to the nuclear test ban treaty

with defiance.

LYNDON JOHNSON: The Chinese communist nuclear detonation

is a reflection of policies

which do not serve the cause of peace.

But there is no reason

to fear that it will lead

to immediate dangers of war.

The nations of the free world

will recognize its limited significance

and will persevere in their determination

to preserve their independence.

NARRATIONI In 1965,

US Marines were sent to South Vietnam.

President Johnson was determined to prevent

communist North Vietnam and its allies in the South

gaining power.

In China, the masses were mobilized

to support neighboring North Vietnam.

[ Shouting ]

The rulers in Hanoi are urged on by Peking.

This is a regime

which has destroyed freedom in Tibet,

which has attacked India,

and has been condemned by the United Nations

for aggression in Korea.

It is a nation

which is helping the forces of violence

in almost every continent.

The contest in Vietnam is part

of a wider pattern

of aggressive purposes.

NARRATION: A war between China and the United States

was once again a possibility.

Haunted by the failure of the Great Leap Forward,

Mao was fighting to maintain

his domination of China.

In 1966,

he launched the Great Cultural Revolution.

[ Liu speaking Chinese]

INTERPRETER: He failed to bring about an economic miracle.

So in 1966, he wanted a political miracle.

He not only wanted to get rid of his enemies,

he wanted to do something

that Stalin had been unable to do --

destroy government bureaucracy.

WU: The Mao personality cult

did not come to full blossoming

until the Cultural Revolution

when he became the so-called Four Greats --

the Great leader, Great Helmsman,

Great Supreme Commander, Great Teacher.

He has replaced Stalin

and Beijing had become world --

the center of world revolution.

NARRATION: Millions of young people were recruited

to be Mao's Red Guards.

[ Chanting ]

Their idealism was exploited to create mayhem,

and to destroy every vestige of the past.

NARRATOR: Chairman Mao says,

"Marxism consists of thousands of truths

but they all boil down to one phrase --

It's right to rebel.

The proletarian revolutionary rebels

hold high the great Red banner of Mao Zedohgs thought

through big character posters and great debates.

They argue things out, expose,

criticize and repudiate thoroughly

and launch fierce attacks

on all kinds of representatives of the bourgeoisie."

[ Man speaking Chinese]

INTERPRETER: The first action was to change the names of roads.

The name of the road outside the Soviet Embassy

was changed to Anti-Revisionism Road.

There were demonstrations outside the Soviet Embassy.

Most of the demonstrators were Red Guards.

[ Shouting ]

[ Mochulski speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: In the morning they would hang up dummies

of Brezhnev, Kosygin, and Podgorny.

When it began to get dark,

they took them down and started a huge bonfire

at the entrance of the Embassy --

and burned the dummies.

The Red Guards and the young people

gathered around the fire

and danced and yelled anti-Soviet slogans.

From midnight to 6:00 AM,

it was time for Chinese torture.

For 15 minutes they would stop

and we would start falling asleep,

exhausted by the noise.

Then they would begin yelling again

for 15 minutes.

Every 15 minutes they would start and stop --

all night.

Then at 6100 AM,

the noise would begin and continue all day.

NARRATIONI In 1969,

tension along the vast Soviet-Chinese border increased.

[ Narrator speaking Russian ]

NARRATION: There were frequent clashes.

The Ussuri River in Soviet East Asia

was the scene of many of them.

NARRATOR: China's brave fishermen are full of heroism

and bright wisdom.

They're not afraid of heaven or earth.

The filth of the Soviet Revisionists

causes them no fear.

[ Simchenkov speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: There were a lot of provocations

from the Chinese.

They crossed the border in huge numbers.

What could we do?

It wouldn't be nice to shoot them.

But how could we get rid of them?

It was a difficult question to solve

and so things got worse.

The Chinese were mostly to blame.

NARRATION: Images of aggressive Chinese at the border

fuel led Soviet fears of an invasion.

[ Deluisin speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: Siberia and the Far East were sparsely populated,

so what if the Chinese millions

began pouring in'?

Writers had warned before about the "yellow peril."

That the Chinese would come right through Russia

and conquer Europe.

[speaking Chinese]

The Soviet Union had a nuclear arsenal

and one million troops along the border

between the Soviet Union and China.

North of Beijing were flat plains

and if the Soviet Union were to attack China,

within a week they would be in Beijing

with their tanks.

NARRATION: A battle was fought over a tiny island

in the Ussuri River in March 1969.

Mutual hostility was escalating, dangerously.

Our CIA estimated the chances

of an iron bomb attack

by the Soviet Union on China

was one in three,

to show you how real that fear was.

And meanwhile, by 1969,

the Chinese were building, at a furious rate,

these great huge underground shelters

in their cities.

So there was a real fear of war

that was building up.

NARRATION: The vast network of shelters tunneled underground

was meant to withstand nuclear attack.

In Moscow, Soviet crowds demonstrated

outside the Chinese Embassy.

The Soviet Press hinted at

a possible nuclear war with China.

[speaking Russian ]

I don't think anyone in Moscow had serious plans

for a nuclear missile strike on China.

It would have been madness.

But there were people I met in diplomatic circles

who said to me it wouldn't be a bad thing

to hit the Chinese with a missile.

NARRATION: Soviet Premier Kosygin visited Beijing

in October 1969

to stop a potential war

and restore relations.

[speaking Chinese]

When Zhou Eniai met Kosygin at Beijing Airport,

he said to him,

"If you attack our nuclear installations

with atomic weapons,

that counts as war,

as an invasion of our territory.

China won't hesitate to respond.

NARRATION: Mao, fearful of Moscow's belligerence,

had already decided he wanted

better relations with America.

America's new President, Richard Nixon,

although a lifelong anti-communist,

came to a similar conclusion.

To limit Soviet power and end the Vietnam war,

he wanted to draw closer to China.

With his new National Security Adviser,

Henry Kissinger,

Nixon developed a foreign policy

which exploited the hostility between the communist giants.

It began to dawn on us

after we'd been in office for a while,

that there were genuine tensions

between Russia and China,

and that probably the Soviet Union was

the cause of the tensions and not China,

which was the opposite of the idea

with which we entered.

NARRATION: The first sign of a thaw from Beijing

came during a table tennis match.

In 1971, while playing in Japan,

the American team was suddenly invited to China.

I think it's a wonderful opportunity to go to China

because not very many people get there

and I feel it's a great opportunity to play

against the top players and be able to take

some of this knowledge home.

And I think it's also a step

in our political relations with China.

NARRATION: The team's home movies offered

the first glimpse of China for most Americans

for 20 years.

MAN: The scene was more disorienting

because you would see slogans,

signs every place,

"Long live the unity of the people of the world!"

"Down with US imperialists

and all their running dogs."

You would see these poster boards

that would kinda take the place of newspapers,

and there, you know,

you'd see a picture of President Nixon, for instance,

with a knife stuck into him --

a little pygmy Nixon,

and a Chinese giant, you know,

taking care of him and so forth, you know.

And so meanwhile, you know, everybody's smiling

and being nice to us and so on, right?

They've got this slogan,

"Friendship first, competition second."

And they very nicely, I think,

beat us six matches to five matches.

NARRATION: Ping-pong diplomacy led to an even greater breakthrough.

In July 1971,

Henry Kissinger went on a tour of Asia.

His most important mission was kept secret --

a visit to Beijing to prepare the way

for a rapprochement with China.

As the plane was getting close

to the Chinese border,

we were all aware of the fact

that no American official had been in China

since 1949 -- 22 years.

I decided I'd like to be first.

And so while Kissinger was sitting

in the back of the plane,

I went to the front of the plane,

so as the plane went over the Chinese border

I was the first American official into China

in 22 years.

Henry never forgave me for that,

elbowed me aside and got off the plane first.

I didn't put my foot down and say,

now I have just made history

and this will never be forgotten.

I thought who am I going to meet

and how am I gonna bring it to a conclusion?

Nixon was very secretive by nature.

Kissinger was a maneuverer,

an operator by nature.

They both greatly enjoyed

this kind of an operation.

President Nixon, who was very decisive

and very capable of making big decisions,

was not however capable of over-ruling subordinates

to their face,

and therefore he found it very, very painful --

in fact, he found it to all practical purposes

impossible to tell a bureaucracy,

"I disagree with you

and you will do it my way."

He'd rather set up a back channel.

I was going through back doors and back channels

and setting up for some kind of secret meeting

that would make certain kinds of secret arrangements,

that were done behind the state department's back,

behind the back of everybody,

and then be able to surprise the world

with his announcement.

That was great theater.

NARRATION: Nixon's trip to Beijing

changed the balance of the Cold War.

His Chinese triumph also stole the headlines

from the increasingly grim events in Vietnam.

[speaking Chinese]

At that time we felt very excited.

We thought that this was a very good thing,

because China's isolation from the rest of the world

had created many disasters.

I knew that Mao didn't have very long to live,

and I thought that he'd at last made a good decision.

I also believed that only Mao could

make that decision,

that whoever succeeded him wouldn't have

the courage to make such a decision.

NARRATOR: Premier Zhou Enlai moves forward to greet

the first American President to set foot

on Chinese soil.

[ light applause, chatter]

East meets West

as a handshake bridges 16,000 miles

and 22 years of hostility.

There are no welcoming speeches,

no formal ceremonies --

just a receiving line made up

of communist party officials

and the military band playing "The Star Spangled Banner."

NARRATION: Nixon, the lifelong anti-communist,

quoted Mao's own words.

NIXON: So many deeds cry out to be done

and always urgently.

The world rolls on.

Time passes.

10,000 years are too long.

Seize the day.

Seize the hour.

This is the hour.

This is the day.

NARRATOR: Peking newspapers which had played down the Nixon visit,

now give it front page coverage.

Dealers sell out, as readers follow day by day

the President's activities.

Today the President walks among priceless treasures

from China's golden age.

Among them, a pair of ear stoppers

used by the Emperor,

to keep from hearing criticism.

Give me a pair.

[ laughter ]

KISSINGER: I didn't put my foot down and say,

"Now I have just made history."

On the way back from Beijing,

I knew we had made history.