The Dragon & The Snake: An American Account Of The Turmoil In China, 1976 1977

236 Pages·1986·12.067 MB·English

by  Millicent Anne Gates

THE DRAGON AND THE SNAKE
Thomas S. and Anne Gates at the Great Wall
THE DRAGON
& THE SNAKE
An American Account of the
Turmoil in China 1976-1977
by Millicent Anne Gates
and E. Bruce Geelhoed
With a Foreword by Gerald R. Ford
UPP
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
Philadelphia • 1986
Permission is hereby acknowledged to reprint material from the following sources.
Michel Oksenburg and Sai-cheung Yeung, "Hua Kuo-fengs Pre-Cultural
Revolution Years, 1949-1960: The Making of a Political Generalist." China
Quarterly 69 (March 1977). Reprinted by permission of the United States
Information Agency.
Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and
Company.
Harrison Salisbury, China: A Century of Revolution. Reprinted by permission of
Henry Holt and Company.
Ross Terrill, The White-Boned Demon. Reprinted by permission of William
Morrow & Company, Inc.
Copyright © 1986 by the University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gates, Millicent Anne.
The dragon & the snake.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. China—Politics and government—2976-
I. Geelhoed, E. Bruce, 1948- . II. Title.
III. Title: Dragon and the snake.
DS779.26.G38 1986 951.05'7 86-19218
ISBN 0-8122-8036-9
To Thomas S. Gates III
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Contents
Foreword ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
INTRODUCTION "Everything Seemed to Happen in 1976 and 1977" 1
1 “Tell the President We’ll Go” 15
2 The Work of a China-Watcher 38
3 Coping with Calamity: The Tangshan Earthquake 66
4 “Mao’s Dead!” 94
5 The Purges of October 117
6 A New Environment 149
7 Waiting for Deng 170
8 Waiting for Carter 192
CONCLUSION Holding the Fort 209
Bibliography 215
Index 219
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Foreword
The Dragon and the Snake: An American Account of the Turmoil in China,
1976-1977 recounts the story of Thomas S. Gates's leadership of the United
States Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China during a crucial period
in recent Chinese-American relations. It is also an account of one aspect of
Tom Gates's distinguished career of service to America, in a post which
played an important part in the foreign policy of my administration.
I first met Tom Gates during the early years of World War II when
we were shipmates aboard the L/.S.S. Monterey (CVL 26) in the Pacific. The
relatively brief time which we served together in the Pacific was only the
prelude, however, to a friendship which grew and lasted between us for the
next four decades. We became especially close during the 1950s when I
served in the United States House of Representatives as a member of the
Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations of the House Committee on Ap-
propriations, and Tom Gates regularly testified before our committee in his
capacity as secretary of the navy, and then later as secretary of defense, in
the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower. As a result of our many expe-
riences together, I came to admire and greatly respect Tom as a man who
was totally dedicated to his country and who also possessed the high degree
of sound judgment so necessary to effective leadership in our nation's De-
partment of Defense.
In 1976, as president I faced the decision of appointing a successor to
George Bush as the chief of the United States Liaison Office in Peking and,
X Foreword
in surveying the list of possible candidates for this post, I immediately re-
membered my long friendship with Tom Gates. In my mind, Tom met every
qualification which I considered vital for the successful performance of this
responsibility. More importantly, Tom was a person of impeccable personal
and public integrity who epitomized honesty in everything that he said and
did. He proved to be an outstanding presidential envoy and a most worthy
representative for our country in China.
Seen now through the perspective of Anne Gates, Tom Gates's widow,
and Bruce Geelhoed, his research associate, The Dragon and the Snake ex-
plains the dynamics of being an American who was living and working in
China during a critical period in recent Chinese history. The book also re-
veals the great importance which those of us in the Ford administration at-
tached to the essential improvement of relations between the United States
and the People's Republic of China.
GERALD R. FORD