"1966." "Mao Tse-tung, God in his own nation, scourge of the United States and a symbol of revolution in the world." "Six years later, Mao embraced the enemy." ""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 Chou En-lai, has finally been opened."" "1949: revolution in China." "The People's Liberation Army were welcomed as heroes in Beijing." "Led by Mao Tse-tung, the communists had triumphed in a civil war against the Nationalists." "Soviet support had been unreliable;" "the Chinese felt they'd managed it alone." "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." "The Americans were devastated to lose China, their best friend in Asia." "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."" "On October 1st, Mao Tse-tung 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." "Mao then went to the Kremlin to meet Stalin." "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." "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." "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 as Czar Peter the Great." "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!" "In February 1950, the Chinese and the Soviets signed a mutual defense treaty." "The treaty also guaranteed aid for China." "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." "But to Mao, China always came first." "Mao said: 'A treaty can be signed for 10, 20 or 50 years." "It doesn't matter." "But it must not tie our hands." "Mao gratefully accepted the help of Soviet experts in rebuilding Chinese industry." "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."" "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." "A million lost their lives." "In June 1950, North Korea, with Soviet and Chinese backing, attacked South Korea." ""The sudden attack by the North Koreans dealt the slender forces below the 38th parallel a mortal blow." "he prompt arrival on the scene of U.S. soldiers gave Marshal Stalin and his cold-eyed strategists a rude shock."" "Forces under United Nations command pushed the invaders back to the Chinese border." "China feared an attack on its own territory." "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." "Under the banner, "Help Korea, Down With U.S. Imperialism,"" "more than one million Chinese troops would cross the border into Korea." "The Korean War lasted for three years and cost more than half a million Chinese lives." "In China, cinema audiences watched films of bumper harvests and new industrial records." "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.'" "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." "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." "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 Indochina, 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." "America did everything to stop the spread of communism." "To prevent China attacking the Chinese Nationalist stronghold of Formosa or Taiwan, the United States financed a military build-up on the island." ""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."" "The Nationalist government was determined to defend two small islands off the China coast, Quemoy and Matsu." "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." "In September 1954, the communists shelled the island of Quemoy." "Three months later, Washington signed a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan." ""Almost immediately, the major units of the 7th 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."" "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." "All-out war came closer." "America made nuclear threats." "Eisenhower never said he would use nuclear weapons, but he would... he essentially... he and Dulles essentially said, "Nuclear weapons are available, and... would be part ... part of our arsenal," and... essentially that implied that if they were necessary" "in order to prevail, they would be used."" ""Regular target training keeps every pilot in combat readiness at all times."" "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." "Mao's attitude was very clear." "He thought that criticism of Stalin was inappropriate." "Stalin was an international statesman." "Mao Tse-tung 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 Tse-tung:" "'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!" "'" "In October 1956 the Hungarians rose up against Soviet domination." "While Khrushchev hesitated, Mao urged a violent crackdown." "For the 40th anniversary of the Soviet revolution Mao went to Moscow." "He used the occasion to put himself forward as the new leader of world revolution." "But Soviet aid was undermining Mao's aim for total independence." "The crunch came in 1958." "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." "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.'" "Mao still needed Soviet knowhow." "He wanted to create China's own nuclear industry." "The 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." "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." "In 1958 Khrushchev visited China to renew Soviet support." "But Mao's nuclear demands had already strained relations with the big brother." "Mao Tse-tung 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?" "'" "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." "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 an American stooge." "Khrushchev protested that this was no way to talk to a communist leader." "Mao's foreign minister, Marshal Chen Yi, was screaming at Khrushchev." "He said: 'You're only a political leader, but I am 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." "The struggle for pre-eminence in the communist world was now out in the open." "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 czar?" "'" "On one occasion during the 1959 trip" "Khrushchev spoke disrespectfully about Mao Tse-tung." "He said that Mao was an old boot that ought to be thrown out." "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.'" "Soviet advisers would soon be withdrawn from China." "Rivalry between the communist powers was ideological as well as personal." "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.'" "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." "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." "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." "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." "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." "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." "The peasants' food was taken from them by force to make up bogus quotas." "It was one of the worst man-made disasters in history." "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." "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." ""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 U.S., 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 has denounced the Soviets for making the treaty, widening further the breach between the two communist powers."" "Mao reacted to the nuclear test ban treaty with defiance." ""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."" "In 1965, U.S. 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." ""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."" "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." "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." "The Mao personality cult did not, er... 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 has become world..." "the center of world revolution." "Millions of young people were recruited to be Mao's Red Guards." "Their idealism was exploited to create mayhem and to destroy every vestige of the past." ""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 Tse-tung's thought through big character boosters and great debates." "They argue things out, expose, criticize and repudiate thoroughly and launch fierce attacks on all kinds of representatives of the bourgeoisie."" "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." "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 a.m. 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 6 a.m. the noise would begin and continue all day." "In 1969, tension along the vast Soviet-Chinese border increased." "There were frequent clashes." "The Ussuri River in Soviet East Asia was the scene of many of them." ""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."" "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." "Images of aggressive Chinese at the border fueled Soviet fears of an invasion." "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." "The Soviet Union had a nuclear arsenal and 1 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." "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." "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." "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." "Soviet Premier Kosygin visited Beijing in October 1969 to stop a potential war and restore relations." "When Chou En-lai 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.'" "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." ""Doctor Henry Kissinger..."" "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." "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 take some of this knowledge home." "And I think it's also a step in our political relations with China." "The team's home movies offered the first glimpse of China to most Americans for 20 years." "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 the U.S. imperialists and all their running dogs!" "'" "You would see these... poster boards that would kind of 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." "Pingpong 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 going to bring it to a conclusion?" "'" "Nixon was very secretive by nature." "Kissinger was a maneuverer, an operatio... an operator by 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 overruling 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." "...of going through back doors and back channels and setting up for some kind of a 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." "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." "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, but whoever succeeded him wouldn't have the courage to make such a decision." "Premier Chou En-lai moves forward to greet the first American president to set foot on Chinese soil." "East meet 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.'" "Nixon, the lifelong anti-communist, quoted Mao's own words." ""So many deeds cry out to be done and always urgently." "The world rolls on." "Time passes." "Ten thousand years are too long." "Seize the day." "Seize the hour." "This is the hour." "This is the day."" ""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 of this!" "I didn't put my foot down and say, 'Now I have just made history.'" "On the way back from Beijing I knew that we had made history." "Subtitles by Juan Claudio Epsteyn"