Omnipresent Eye 
Patrick Wright
- Seize the Hour: When Nixon Met Mao by Margaret MacMillan Buy this book
It is a cold, clear morning, and the soldiers gathered at the airfield are singing ‘The Three Main Rules of Discipline’ as an American jet labelled ‘The Spirit of 76’ lands and taxis over to its appointed resting place. A hatch opens to reveal President Nixon. The former Red-baiter blinks before launching himself down the ramp slightly ahead of his wife, who is wearing a scarlet coat. China’s prime minister, Zhou Enlai, begins to clap as the Americans descend. After pausing to reciprocate, Nixon steps onto the tarmac and walks towards his welcoming host for the first of many carefully held handshakes.
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Patrick Wright’s Iron Curtain: From Stage to Cold War, will be published in October by Oxford. The sequel, which will appear next year, is concerned with Rex Warner, Barbara Castle, Stanley Spencer, Clement Attlee, A.J. Ayer and the other British delegates who visited China in 1954, the fifth anniversary of the proclamation of the People’s Republic.
Other articles by this contributor:
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