The Secret Meeting
In Pakistand, the American Ambassador, Joseph Farland, received a mysterious message ordering him to meet Kissinger somewhere in California. He was to travel to a private airport and ask for a certain airplane. He was not to tell the State Department about his trip. An irritated Farland followed orders and found himself on a patio in Palm Springs with Kissinger. "'Henry, I've come halfway around this damn earth and I don't know why.' He said, 'I want you to put me into China.' I said, 'I don't think that's very funny, Henry.'"
Once Farland was persuaded that Kissinger was serious, the two men concocted a plan. Kissinger was due to take a tour of Asia, which he intended to make as boring as possible to shake off the press. His schedule would include a weekend in Pakistan, where the embassy would put out word that he had come down with a bug he had picked up in India. As a result, all his appointments would be cancelled and Kissinger, so everyone would be told, would retreat to the hill station of Murree to recuperate. While his airplane remained conspicuously parked on the runway, he would fly into China on a civilian plane provided by the government of Pakistan.
In Beijing, Chou En-lai set up a special high-level group and himself took personal charge of the preparations for Kissinger's visit. Under Mao's orders, he also called together a special meeting of the Politburo to prepare for the negotiations.
The Politburo sent its recommendations to Mao, who approved them. To prepare the Chinese people for the shock that a country that had been treated an its main enemy for twenty years was now becoming something else, Chou spoke to a meeting of party officials from around the country to outline the new policy. Mao also ordered that the transcript of a recent chat, in which he invited Nixon to come to China, to be released to the press.
On July 8, Kissinger reached Rawalpindi, in West Pakistan. He was suffering, so his aides said, from an attack of the Delhi belly. As Kissinger repeatedly complained about his stomach, Pakistani Prime Minister Yahya insisted that Kissinger must go with his aides to the hills, to Yahya's own bungalow, where the cool air would revive him. At 3:30 in the morning, Kissinger, disguised in a floppy hat and dark glasses, was whisked off through deserted streets to the airport in a small blue car driven by Pakistan's foreign minister. There, the Pakistan International Airlines plane waited, along with a party of Chinese officials. The plane took off into the darkness.