China Boys
Series Editor: MARGERY BOICHEL THOMPSON
Since 1776, extraordinary men and women have represented the United States abroad under all sorts of circumstances. What they did and how and why they did it remain little known to their compatriots. In 1995 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) and Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired, Inc. (DACOR) created the Diplomats and Diplomacy book series to increase public knowledge and appreciation of the role of American diplomats in world history. The series seeks to demystify diplomacy through the stories of those who have conducted U.S. foreign relations, as they lived, influenced, and reported them. NICHOLAS PLATT’s China Boys, 38th in the series, fulfills these aims brilliantly.
OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES
HERMAN J. COHEN, Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent
CHARLES T. CROSS, Born a Foreigner: A Memoir of the American Presence in Asia
WILSON DIZARD JR, Inventing Public Diplomacy: The Story of the United States Information Agency
BRANDON GROVE, Behind Embassy Walls: The Life and Times of an American Diplomat
PARKER T. HART, Saudi Arabia and the United States: Birth of a Security Partnership
JOHN H. HOLDRIDGE, Crossing the Divide: An Insider’s Account of Normalization of U.S.-China Relations
CAMERON R. HUME, Mission to Algiers: Diplomacy by Engagement
DENNIS KUX, The United States and Pakistan, 1947–2000: Disenchanted Allies
JANE C. LOEFFLER, The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America’s Embassies
WILLIAM B. MILAM, Bangladesh and Pakistan: Flirting with Failure in Muslim South Asia
ROBERT H. MILLER, Vietnam and Beyond: A Diplomat’s Cold War Education
DAVID D. NEWSOM, Witness to a Changing World
RONALD E. NEUMANN, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan
HOWARD B. SCHAFFER, The Limits of Influence: America’s Role in Kashmir
ULRICH STRAUS, The Anguish of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II
JAMES STEPHENSON, Losing the Golden Hour: An Insider’s View of Iraq’s Reconstruction
NANCY BERNKOPF TUCKER, China Confidential: American Diplomats and Sino-American Relations, 1945–1996
China Boys
How U.S. Relations with the PRC Began and Grew
A Personal Memoir
NICHOLAS PLATT
An ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Book
Washington, DC
Copyright 2009 Nicholas Platt,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0358-8
The views expressed in this manuscript are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, official policy, or positions of the Government of the United States, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, or Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired, Inc.
New Academia Publishing/VELLUM Books, 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Control Number: 20109221730
ISBN 978-0-9844062-2-7 paperback (alk. paper)
To my marvelous, adventurous wife, Sheila, who rode with me the whole way
Sheila Maynard Platt, Hong Kong, 1965
From now on, you China Boys are going to have a lot more to do.
––Richard M. Nixon, Shanghai, February 28, 1972
Prologue
I spoke with Richard Nixon for the first and last time on February 28, 1972, the night the Shanghai Communiqué was signed.
I arrived early for the meeting at the official guesthouse. The president was sitting in a flowered silk dressing gown over an open-collar shirt and trousers, a long, fat cigar in one hand and a tall scotch and soda in the other. He looked drained but satisfied with what he had accomplished. What an extraordinary-looking man he was up close! Huge head, small body, duck feet, puffy cheeks, “about three walnuts apiece,” my notes indicated, and pendant jowls hanging down, the entire combination exuding authority.
Secretary of State William P. Rogers, my boss, came in. H. R. Haldemann was already there, hair close cropped, yellow legal pad and sharp pencils close to hand. Henry Kissinger was nowhere to be seen. Assistant Secretary Marshall Green and John Holdridge from Kissinger ’s staff arrived a bit later, and the discussion began. These men, the leading Asia experts in the U.S. government, were leaving on a tour of Asian capitals the next day to explain what Nixon had accomplished in China the past week.
The president did virtually all the talking. He shaped the individual approach our experts would take with each leader at every stop, based on his own knowledge and personal relationship with him. “Tell [Philippine President] Marcos I said . . . ” “Make sure [Korean President] Park understands . . . ” “[Japanese Prime Minister] Sato should bear in mind that . . . ” The president had a personal message for each.
Nixon predicted a generally favorable reaction from Asia’s leaders. Only Taiwan had reason for disappointment, he said. However, Chiang Kai-shek could be confident that we would maintain our security commitment. Our 9,000-man force stationed in Taiwan was not important in the grand scheme of things, especially when compared with
