Chapter 444: Enjoying The Johnson Treatment Early
The predicament on the front lines obviously caught everyone off guard.
They thought it would be a devastating blow, unleashing an unprecedented offensive on North Vietnam with a drone swarm, but it ended up as a massive joke.
North Vietnam’s pre-prepared reporter team faithfully recorded the scene.
It spread widely around the globe.
This video clip, about the length of a GIF, had an overly powerful dissemination effect.
It could rival modern memes.
It’s like no matter when you turn on the television, as long as it’s a news program, the host will casually play this video clip and then talk about it at length.
Countries friendly with America naturally emphasize that most of them were drones, so the pilot casualties weren’t that horrific.
But for Eastern Europe countries, Afro-Asian-Latin American countries that already hate America, or countries like France that are inherently rebellious, they deliberately ignore that most were drones. They emphasize that North Vietnam achieved a stunning reversal, inflicting irreparable losses on America.
For a time, America’s morale hit an all-time low.
Anti-war voices rose high.
Cronkite’s report caused a national sensation.
Audience feedback poured in like an avalanche. Anti-war organizations cited his words to hold rallies, and Donkey Party congressmen called for an investigation into Air Force losses.
For the Nixon Administration, what they couldn’t accept was how feeble the drones were, with effects far below expectations.
Once they withdraw troops, can South Vietnam hold out even for a year?
Withdraw troops, and South Vietnam collapses like an avalanche. America is proven to have made a complete mistake in the Vietnam War.
This is what they cannot accept.
Therefore, the Nixon Administration tried to counterattack, on one hand claiming the media was exaggerating, and on the other seizing the moment to mobilize with America’s heavy losses as pathos, trying to stir up public hatred against North Vietnam and support for escalating the offensive.
Nixon wanted a ceasefire, but not a humiliating one.
He still had an election, his political life needed to continue, and Lyndon Johnson down below and challenger Fred in the party were still eyeing the White House throne.
If he withdrew regardless, abandoning America’s dignity and glory, who couldn’t do that?
Why elect you as President? Your “honorable retreat” from the 1968 election would become a sharp arrow shot at you in the 1972 election, and you couldn’t retaliate.
So at this moment, when the television image in the White House Oval Office kept repeating footage of airplanes crashing, Nixon’s desire to continue the war and teach those North Vietnam monkeys a lesson had never been stronger.
At the same time, he realized his team had to talk properly with China.
It couldn’t be delayed any longer.
“Henry, right now, immediately, you need to talk with China again. This time, you can tell them directly that we will withdraw, we will eventually withdraw from Annam.
We need a decent ending.
This time, you can be more blunt.”
Kissinger was silent for a moment before saying, “Mr. President, but what if the Chinese insist on talking with the professor?”
Nixon thought back to late 1968, when North Vietnam wanted to talk with Lin Ran, and ultimately Lin Ran negotiated a good result for America in Geneva, allowing them to peacefully withdraw from North Vietnam.
At the same time, he thought how the war was supposed to end in 1969 with a ceasefire agreement signed by the two countries, but damn V and Soviet people reignited the flames of war.
If you go talk with North Vietnam now, saying we want peace talks, a ceasefire, and to draw a North-South Vietnam boundary acceptable to both sides.
Even the professor couldn’t do it.
Nixon’s heart was filled with hatred for V and the Soviet Union; it was they who put him in such a predicament.
At the same time, he recalled the professor’s invincible record.
“Here’s the plan: you first go to Lion City for preliminary contact with China.
Didn’t the Chinese propose the professor go to Nice in France to talk with them?
Good, then let the professor go to Nice!
I’ll talk with George Pompidou.”
Nixon said.
After thinking for a moment, Nixon continued, “Also, Henry, when you do this preliminary contact with China, remember to tell them to settle this first.
That is, if we withdraw troops, then China’s air defense system in North Vietnam also needs to be dismantled simultaneously.
This is our bottom line; they cannot sell air defense equipment to North Vietnam.”
Nixon still wanted to make a final struggle for South Vietnam’s long-term existence after America’s withdrawal.
Kissinger’s impression of Lion City was average.
It was just a tiny place; the only commendable thing was its geographical position, where ships from East and West converged before continuing to their destinations.
Besides that, the climate was hot and humid, accommodations crude, mosquitoes abundant—not a comfortable choice at all.
But the problem was that only here met the conditions for secret negotiations.
In Hong Kong, without a good reason, going there would 100% be discovered by the English.
Before, it was for the Lin Ran Mathematics Center establishment; going again now, would it be to set up another Lin Ran Mathematics Center at Chinese University of Hong Kong?
Lion City was just too convenient.
On a sultry night in June, Kissinger quietly took off from Andrews Air Force Base in Washington.
His public itinerary was a Southeast Asia diplomatic visit, claiming to go to Thailand for an informal Southeast Asia Treaty Organization meeting.
This organization was established in 1954 to cooperate with Southeast Asian countries against G, and formally disbanded in 1977.
En route to Thailand, he made a brief stop in Lion City for rest and recuperation.
This was perfectly reasonable.
Kissinger’s plane was a low-key C-135 executive special plane, carrying only two trusted assistants: Winston Lord and an encrypted communication expert.
In the cabin, Kissinger looked exhausted; this was far more tiring than teaching at Harvard.
Of course, also far more interesting.
When the professor negotiated such favorable conditions for them in Geneva, Kissinger never imagined the war wouldn’t only fail to end but would escalate continuously over the next year.
Not only did the war’s intensity escalate, but its form did too, with increasing technological content.
This was a feeling impossible to experience in the classroom.
He muttered to himself, “If those Fulbright guys find out, we’re done.”
When the plane landed at Changi Airport, it was dawn.
Fog shrouded the airport perimeter; Lion City staff had already arranged everything.
Kissinger skipped the formal channel, using a diplomatic immunity side door to quickly slip into an unmarked black car.
The convoy headed straight to a private villa in the suburbs of Lion City, a low-key building nestled in a tropical garden.
This was where Kissinger remembered the mosquitoes being plentiful.
Outside the villa, special staff disguised as gardeners kept watch around.
Lion City had one good point: it kept the media silent; no reporters dared disturb VIP guests.
This made Kissinger appreciate it; at least in Hong Kong, the reporters were as annoying as those in London.
Here, reporters wouldn’t appear before him at all.
Inside the villa, Kissinger and his assistants waited under dim lights.
The communication expert set up an encrypted telegraph line directly to the White House, using the code word Polo for China.
A few hours later, a connecting plane quietly arrived.
Not a China flight, but a civil airliner from Pakistan International Airlines, as a buffer against tracking.
The Chinese representative arrived in Lion City under the alias John King.
Like Kissinger, he slipped into an unmarked black car.
Last time, there was no such treatment.
This was treatment determined by strength.
Everyone knew the monkeys could stab down the eagle because the pandas made them bamboo poles with sighting functions from behind.
Before, when you talked, we hosted out of courtesy to America.
It was just politeness toward China.
Now attitudes soared, regardless of whether you exported things to Southeast Asia.
When the Chinese negotiator appeared in the villa living room, Kissinger gave a tired smile: “Your Excellency, your gift to North Vietnam left a profound impression on us.
Your speed of progress is too fast; it won’t be long before the one we need to worry about isn’t the Soviet Union, but China.”
Kissinger’s words were just pleasantries to break the ice before negotiations; talks need ice-breaking too.
But little did he know they would prove prophetic.
The Chinese representative said calmly, “No, your military weapons are very advanced.
All kinds of weapons are far more advanced than ours.
GPS, that space weapon, impressed us deeply.
Mr. Consultant, haven’t you realized that all the weapons we provided to North Vietnam were based on defensive principles?
We temporarily can’t match America’s airplane technology, so we rely on air defense systems, missiles, and radar for defense.
Since we can’t attack, we shoot down your airplanes to keep the battlefield on the same level.”
The Chinese negotiator thought back to the war on the Korean Peninsula many years ago; if they had these equipment then, America, unable to gain absolute air superiority, certainly couldn’t have inflicted such heavy losses on them.
The negotiations lasted three days.
The two sides reached more consensus.
Before leaving, Kissinger said, “We agree in principle to the professor attending this year’s Mathematician Conference in Nice.”
Kissinger and the Chinese representative’s disguised trip should have been seamless, but the Soviet Union had long laid a dragnet.
Did the Soviet Union know about the thawing relations between China and America?
Of course.
They had a vague feeling from China only accepting US Dollars for business.
Including the China-America Mathematician Conference, America’s ping-pong team visiting China.
These were diplomatic signals.
Prelude to improved relations between the two sides.
Moscow had already caught the flavor.
Before, they could ignore it—not because they didn’t care, but because the Soviet Union thought China and America could never come together; the prelude could never become the main theme.
Who could have thought China-America friendship would become the main theme back then.
The two sides had irreconcilable contradictions.
America normalizing relations with China—how then to maintain its three allies Japan, Korea, and ROC?
But when China showed unprecedented potential and the Soviet Union decided to strive for China, they had to intervene.
Not intervening at first, but once they did, they were shocked: first Kissinger to Hong Kong, and the Soviets keenly interpreted from Chinese official reports that an important Chinese figure was absent from Yanjing those days.
Absent from Yanjing meant high likelihood in Hong Kong talking with Kissinger.
Combined with the late 1969 Geneva negotiations, where America’s team besides Lin Ran was Kissinger.
Thus, Moscow closely monitored Kissinger’s movements.
Trying to find any suspicious interactions between the two sides.
The first Lion City dialogue, Moscow was one step late.
They detected it but had no key evidence photos.
For the second Lion City dialogue, Moscow’s elite were ready at Changi Airport long before.
When the White House publicly announced National Security Advisor Kissinger was going to Thailand for an informal Southeast Asia Treaty Organization meeting, Andropov sensed the opportunity.
Merchants from Europe had long infiltrated the airport perimeter, equipped with long-lens cameras and radio equipment.
That day, Moscow’s Leica cameras captured two scenes.
One was Kissinger stepping off the plane, scanning around, then getting into the same black Mercedes.
The other was the Chinese representative getting into the black Mercedes.
The vehicles were the same one.
Key details in the photos were similar.
Same vehicle and airport background.
In the latter, Moscow’s photo even captured half of Kuan Yew’s face.
“This is no coincidence!” the Soviet elite muttered, holding the photos.
Their hearts mixed joy of mission accomplished with unease about the fate of the three countries.
At the Washington Post editor-in-chief’s office, massive reports emanated from here, influencing the nation.
Recently, their most important content was the Vietnam War, telling the public the true current situation, what was with so many airplanes falling, and what level Chinese technology had reached.
Bradley, as usual, sat at his desk looking at the reports written by the editors.
At this time, Jimmy Wicklin, no longer an intern but a formal employee, walked in, his face somewhat grim.
Bradley reacted reflexively: “V again?”
Jimmy nodded and handed over a brown envelope with no postmark, just scrawled handwriting: “V”.
The envelope was bulging, obviously stuffed with several photos.
KGB’s wicked sense of humor.
Or rather, this era’s anonymous tipsters’ wicked sense of humor.
Because there were too many Vs.
So you couldn’t tell which were real and which fake.
V didn’t even use any anti-counterfeit markers.
“What photos?” Bradley asked while opening it.
Jimmy had clearance to open it; that was his job.
Jimmy swallowed: “Sir, I don’t know.
The envelope was tossed in the outside mailbox, no sender.
Inside are several black-and-white photos, looking like something from a spy movie.
I glanced, but couldn’t figure out what it means at all.
Two men getting into a car? One Easterner, one Westerner?
Timestamps and such, I can’t judge what signal this represents.”
