On a chill, gray Monday morning, on February 21, 1972, I stood on the steps of the old Hongqiao Airport terminal. I had arrived in Shanghai twenty minutes in advance of President Nixon. I was on the backup plane, which arrived first, so I actually saw the arrival of Air Force One in Shanghai. I had studied Chinese in Taiwan, but this was, of course, my first encounter with the
On February 28, 50 years ago, on the night the Joint US-China Communiqué was issued, Nicholas Platt, one of the youngest diplomats in the US delegation who served as the special assistant to the then US secretary of state William Rogers, met President Nixon for the first and last time.