Coverage

While Kissinger was busy dealing with policy, Haldeman was equally occupied with public relations work, and Nixon could not have wished for a better man for the job. A tireless, remarkably efficient advertising man with no political ambitions of his own, his only interest was the president's image - an image he approached no differently than the Sani-Flush and Walt Disney accounts he used to manage before joining the Nixon administration. Haldeman was a notorious spin-doctor, and his solution to every problem was craftily manipulated press coverage. The images flowed back to the United States, targeted for prime-time evening television: the handshakes, the glasses raised in toasts, the American flag flying in Beijing, Nixon with Mao, Nixon on the Great Wall, at the Forbidden City, and in the Great Hall of the People; Mrs. Nixon at a model farm, in a kitchen, a kindergarten, or factory.

It was presidential election year at home, and Haldeman wanted to make sure that Nixon shone as the great leader and statesman while the Democratic candidates beat one another up in the primaries. The American press corps joked about Nixon's primary being in Beijing. The stage management of the trip was superb, and obsessive in its attention to detail. The advance parties had checked out virtually every site Nixon would visit, paced out the steps he might take, and planned every camera angle.