Warsaw talks

Cohen, Fdean Rusk, pp. 285-6. This analogy was used repeatedly during the Senate hearings on China in 1966, and even by Ambassador Cabot to his Chinese counterpart at the Warsaw talks. See Emb/Poland to DoS, Cabot-Wang Talks, 15 September 1965, FRUS 11)64—8, XXX, p. 204. 

In the event, however, the Chinese canceled the planned Warsaw talks and did not respond to any of the other gestures. ° This left Washington open to conservative charges of turning soft on the communists, and Rogers and Nixon were obliged to display caution in public and to try to... 

Two key State papers prepared in 1969 provide a good account of its representation and assessment of China during this period. The first was a discussion paper on the proposed February Warsaw talks prepared by the Asian Communist Affairs desk (ACA) for Nixon the second was a China policy study undertaken between February and August in response to NSSM 14, which was to be the first detailed statement of the Nixon administration s China policy. ... 

Paul Kreisberg, DoS discussion paper on Warsaw talks, 4 February 1969, Box 1973, CFPF(i967-9), RG59, NA, p. 3. Kreisberg was a China specialist who had been involved in the Warsaw talks since 1965. 

Proceeding from this familiar revisionist disconrse, however. State developed policy probes that signified notable departures from those of the 1960s. ACA recommended that at the renewed Warsaw talks, the United... 

This take on China policy reflects Nixon s approach in his 1967 Foreign Affairs article, discussed in the previous chapter. However, while Nixon emphasized the need for continued containment of China in the short run. State was more focused on constantly probing for evidence of changes in Beijing s attitude that would allow reconciliation. Kreisberg, discussion paper on Warsaw talks, p. 12,. 

In the event, Beijing called off the February 1969 talks two days beforehand, citing the defection of a Chinese diplomat to the United States, but State s intelligence sources concluded that the postponement was more the result of leadership disagreements and indecision at the highest levels in China.Thus, events seemed to bear out the revisionists conviction that divisions over Sino-American relations were developing within the Chinese leadership. Accordingly, State indicated to the Chinese that it remained ready at an early date to resume the Warsaw talks. 

DoS memcon, US-Communist China Warsaw Talks, 14 January 1969, NSA Doc. 37 Buchanan to Kissinger, Meeting, zo May 1969, Box i, Top Secret Files (TSF) (1969-74), RG59, NA DoS memcon, Soviet Attitude Toward US-Chicom Relations, 9 October 1969, NSA Doc. 80 Kissinger, White House Years, p. 173. In his memoir, Dobrynin comments that we were making a mistake from the start of displaying our anxiety over China to the new administration. Anatoly Dobrynin, In Confidence Moscow s Ambassador to America s Six Cold War Presidents (NewYork, 1995), p. zoz. 

Shoesmith to Green, Warsaw Talks Preserving US Options in Possible Future GRC-PRC Negotiation on Status of Taiwan, 20 January 1969, Box 2187, SNF( 1970-3), RG59,... 

Kissinger to RN, Guidance for Warsaw Talks, n.d.. Box 700, NSF, NPM. Yet Kissinger and Nixon would have to make this very commitment to Beijing in 1971, when they began serious discussions on the terms of rapprochement with the Chinese. 

At the same time, Zhou indicated Chinese interest in an honorable exit for the United States and wished Kissinger well in his negotiations in Paris. He also did not object to the way in which the U.S. side had, since the Warsaw talks in early 1970, linked the issues of troop withdrawals from Taiwan and the winding down of the Vietnam War. Furthermore, the two sides did agree that a continuation of the war would only benefit... 

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