‘Pakistan was key to 1971 breakthrough in US-Sino ties’

[Neo]

Thursday, February 01, 2007

‘Pakistan was key to 1971 breakthrough in US-Sino ties’

NEW YORK: Chinese distrust of Romania led the then US president, Richard Nixon, to use Pakistan as his diplomatic conduit to Mao Zedong, said Henry Kissinger on Wednesday.

Speaking at the Asia Society, Kissinger said poor communications between the US and China was a major obstacle in the run up to the historic 1971 Nixon visit to China. He said Washington began to realise the depth of the Sino-Soviet rift when the Soviet ambassador began coming to the White House “nearly ever day” to brief the Nixon administration about the clashes between Russian and Chinese troops on Ussuri river.

Kissinger, who was the national security adviser, said he called in Chinese expert and retired US diplomat Alan Whiting to explain the clashes.

Whiting noted that the clashes were happening near Russian supply depots, not the Chinese ones. “This meant the clashes were not being started by the Chinese,” said Kissinger.

Further evidence that Moscow was applying the squeeze on Beijing came when the Soviets began asking the US how they would react to “certain military redeployments on their part vis a vis China”.

At this point, the US saw a window to begin a rapprochement with China. “But finding ways to communicate with China proved more difficult than we imagined,” said Kissinger. “We first used a communist interlocutor in the form of Romania. The Chinese did not trust the Romanians.”

Beijing tried to send signals back to the Nixon administration through Mao’s friend and author of Red Star Over China, US journalist Edgar Snow. However, Snow was seen as a leftist by the administration and ignored.

Kissinger said that while lower-level State Department officials welcomed opening up to China, senior levels were hostile to the idea. A delegation of them went to Nixon and warned that such a China policy could trigger a Sino-Soviet war. “Finally,” said Kissinger, “we found a channel in Pakistan. After that we moved forward on setting up the trip.”

Winston Lord, the State Department official who assisted Kissinger, added that one reason Kissinger’s trip to China via Pakistan had been secret was that “we wanted to be sure Beijing was ready”. Until then, Sino-US talks had never gotten past the issue of Taiwan and “we told them through Pakistan that the agenda would go beyond Taiwan”. sana

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\01\story_1-2-2007_pg7_46

 

[MastanKhan]

Hi,

That is what my father told me in 1971 or thereabout, about Kissinger's trips to pakistan that he was being accomodated to fly to china.

But the U S of A history books say otherwise. At least the one that I read. When I started going to the school here in U S, I was shocked to read that the U S seeked the help of india to communicate with china.

Second misfortune that I read about was about the U 2 plane that the russians shot. The history book stated that the plane took off from turkey-----what a lie. It actually took off from the american air base in Peshawar.

I was talking to someone in 1990 about this issue-----he threw in a monkey wrench-----the americans say that the russians developed a higher altitude missile to take down the U 2. The guy stated that was a lie. There was a rumour that the russians had somehow sabotaged the altitude guage of that particular U 2. The guage showed a higher altitude even though the plane was actually flying at a lower altitude. So many twist in the U S / pakistani relationship.

 

[Adux]

I am sure that is wrong info Khan, cuz India had pretty bad relations with China at the point of time and was leaning towards SOviet Union which was against China.

Gary Powers Aircraft did take off from Turkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Gary_Powers

 

[Neo]

I am sure that is wrong info Khan, cuz India had pretty bad relations with China at the point of time and was leaning towards SOviet Union which was against China.

Correct, India didn't have close relationship with Washington nor with Beijing to pioneer such an historic event.
Pakistan was a more logic choice since it was a US ally and shared close ties with China.

Gary Powers Aircraft did take off from Turkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Gary_Powers

Wrong, wrong, worng! :wall:
Man, I've been saying this all along that Wikipedia is a huge load of shyt!
Never trust a source that can be amended publically.

Gary Powers did take off from Peshawar! Here's a report from a reliable and well respected source, The Encyclopedia Britannica and The Encyclopedia of American History:

Related Topics
Cold War

U-2 Affair

(1960) Confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. On May 1, 1960, the Soviet Union shot down a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane and called the flight an “aggressive act.” The U.S. denied Soviet claims that the pilot, F. Gary Powers, had stated that his mission was to collect Soviet intelligence data. Nikita Khrushchev declared that the Soviet Union would not take part in a scheduled summit conference with the U.S., Britain, and France unless the U.S. immediately stopped flights over Soviet territory, apologized, and punished those responsible. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower agreed only to the first stipulation, and the conference was adjourned. Powers was tried in the Soviet Union and sentenced to 10 years in prison; in 1962 he was exchanged for the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.

For more information on U-2 Affair, visit Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia of American History

Library > Reference > Encyclopedia of American History U-2 Incident

On 1 May 1960 a U-2 reconnaissance and research aircraft piloted by Francis Gary Powers, on a surveillance mission for the CIA, was shot down over the Soviet Union (over Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg) by a SAM-2 missile. The mission had originated in Peshawar, Pakistan, and aimed at capturing aerial pictures of military installations to monitor the progress of the Soviet missile programs. Upon entering Soviet air space Powers activated his antiradar scrambler, but the plane was spotted by Soviet military authorities. The Soviets shot the plane down; Powers surprisingly enough survived the crash unharmed but unconscious due to lack of oxygen. (Spy plane pilots were not expected to be captured alive if their mission could not be completed.) He was arrested by the KGB and admitted being a spy who had flown across the USSR to reach a military airfield in Norway while collecting intelligence information. On 5 May Premier Nikita Khrushchev denounced this act of U.S. aggression. The U.S. government and the CIA responded by denying that they had authorized the flight, but the Kremlin remained unconvinced. Powers was tried publicly (from 17 to 19 August) and sentenced to three years in prison and seven years in a labor camp. Finally, the United States admitted that the U-2 flights were supposed to prevent surprise attacks against American interests.

This incident disrupted the peace process between Washington and Moscow and ruined the Paris summit: the conference was adjourned on 17 May despite President Eisenhower's promise to stop the flights. On 19 February 1962 Powers was finally exchanged for Colonel Rudolph Ivanovich Abel, a Soviet spy.

http://www.answers.com/topic/u-2-crisis-of-1960

 

[Neo]

Gary Powers Aircraft did take off from Turkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Gary_Powers

Just to prove my point, here's another link from the very same Wikipedia.

On 1st May, 1960, a U.S. Lockheed U-2 Spyplane, piloted by Gary Powers, left Peshawar Airport intending to fly over the Soviet Union. His plane was shot down and he was captured and put on trial in the USSR. This triggered the U-2 Crisis of 1960.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshawar_International_Airport

 

[MastanKhan]

Hi,

Thanks Neo. At the same time the russians made a threat to nuke the bases which supported the U 2. The pakistani govt requested the americans to leave and they obliged leaving behind all kinds of equipment.

 

[Neo]

Hi,

Thanks Neo. At the same time the russians made a threat to nuke the bases which supported the U 2. The pakistani govt requested the americans to leave and they obliged leaving behind all kinds of equipment.

You're welcome!

I believe that CIA and USAF didn't leave anything behind except for the building.
Peshawar was basically a listening post equipped very sophisticated technology, no way they wanted us to have access to any of their toys.

Blain might have more accurate info on this.

 

[pilot_dude]

what u ppl r finding out now? old news.

 

[Xerxes]

U-2 plane did definitly took off from Pakistan ... I remember this from Wings on discover channel back in the 90s ... lol