In the June 28th issue of the New York Review of Books, Roderick MacFarquhar reviews Margaret MacMillan’s Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World:
She points out that in the aftermath both sides had their disappointments. Nixon and Kissinger “went too far, for example, in making assurances to China about withdrawing American forces from Taiwan, which they were not, in the end, able to keep.” As for the “China card”—the additional leverage that the new détente with China was supposed to give to the US—the Americans found that it did not lead to the North Vietnamese either ending the war or giving ground in the Paris peace talks. Nixon’s visit occurred, she argues, because both sides came to the conclusion at the same time that it was a promising idea. In the end it was the will of just four men to begin the week that changed history.