122. Memorandum of Conversation, New York, April 18, 1972, 1-1:35 a.m.1 2
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
PARTICIPANTS:
- Ambassador Huang Hua, People’s Republic of China Mission to UN
- Peter W. Rodman, NSC Staff
- Miss Shih Yen-hua, Interpreter, PRC Mission to UN
DATE & TIME: Tuesday, April 18, 1972, 1:00-1:35 a.m.
PLACE:
PRC Mission to UN
New York City
Miss Shih apologized for the inconvenience of the hour, once when I arrived and a second time as I left, and the Ambassador did so as well upon greeting me. Neither offered any explanation and I did not ask.
Ambassador Huang Hua welcomed me cordially upstairs, and we sat down for the first of three cups of jasmine tea. Miss Shih promised me green tea next time. After an exchange of other pleasantries, the Ambassador said he had a message for me to deliver to Dr. Kissinger. He explained that it concerned an intrusion by a U.S. military aircraft over Hainan on April 16, that the details were in the note, and that besides the note he had no other message to convey. He handed over the note [attached] and I said I would deliver it to my Government.
He asked a few questions about the mechanics of my getting to New York, whether I had a place to stay, and how I would be getting back. All of this seemed a way of fishing around for when I would be conveying their message back to Washington. Therefore, when I indicated I would be returning in the morning. I also mentioned that I would nevertheless be able to convey the message to Dr. Kissinger immediately.
We then indulged in very friendly small talk for the remainder of the meeting, over the second and third cups of tea. The Ambassador hoped the tea wasn’t so strong that it prevented me from sleeping. I said that [Page 2] at that hour I probably would have no trouble getting to sleep. They laughed.
The Ambassador asked about my background, and then about the study of government and international relations at Harvard. He asked if I knew of any good books on world history in the postwar period. I said I was not aware of many, partly because not many scholars these days attempt so ambitious a project, but I mentioned Fontaine’s History of the Cold War (which I had not read) and explained who Fontaine was. He said he had heard of a book by Hart. I thought he was referring to Liddell-Hart’s History of the Second World War. The Ambassador said yes, that’s the one. I hadn’t read that one either, but I explained who Liddell-Hart was. The Ambassador mentioned Toynbee, and we talked about historians and philosophers I had studied under Dr. Kissinger (Thucydides, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Spengler, Toynbee, etc.) The Ambassador asked if I had read Lenin’s Imperialism - The Highest Stage of Capitalism I said yes. He said he had found it a “useful analysis” of historical development. I did not comment.
The Ambassador pointed out that the history of China is usually divided into the pre-modern and modern periods at around the 1850’s, because that was the beginning of the imperialist depredations. He said he realized that American history didn’t really have a pre-modern period.
Miss Shih then mentioned to the Ambassador that I was from Boston. The Ambassador said he had heard of the Boston Tea Party, and I explained the circumstances of that. It couldn’t have been Chinese tea that they threw overboard, I added, because Chinese tea is too good to throw out. The Ambassador laughed. Whether it was Chinese or Indian tea, he said, it was British imperialism they were protesting against. I said yes, but in any case Chinese tea was too good to dump overboard.
We finished a few more cups of it, chatted about the ping-pong team tour (I made the mistake of asking how the matches had come out) and its call on the President, and other great events. We shook hands, and I was escorted downstairs and to the door by Miss Shih.
[Page 3]- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 849, President’s File-China Trip, China Exchanges, March 1, 1972-June 24, 1972. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only. The meeting was held at the PRC Mission at the UN. Shih Yen-hua was also present. Brackets in the source text. Published from a copy that bears Rodman’s initials. Attached is the Chinese note, which bears the handwritten notation: “Amb. Huang handed to Rodman 4/18/72-1:00 AM↩
- NSC staff member Rodman and Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations Huang Hua discussed the historians and philosophers Rodman had studied while a student at Harvard University. The Chinese note, which constituted a protest, stated that a U.S. military aircraft had intruded into Chinese airspace and that the aircraft was “very obviously one of the U.S. planes that bombed Haiphong on the same day.”↩