Beijing China
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Coordinates: 39°54′50″N 116°23′30″E
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Country
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China
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Settled
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473 BC
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Elevation
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43.5 m (143 ft.)
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Population (2009)
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22,000,000
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| President Nixon and his advisors on AF1 in route to China |
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| Chairman Mao and President Nixon |
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| The Nixon’s arrival in China Adventures in Key Card Changing While most of the WHCA teams were deployed on the China trip and since President Nixon was in China during my first week with WHCA, Tom Maier can say without any fear of contradiction, that he spent more time in the White House, and more specifically, the “Oval Office,” than he did that week. One of the first tasks that he “got” to do while at 13A was to check the Secure Telephones (they were using the apartment-refrigerator-sized KY-3s back then) in the Oval Office, the president’s EOB office and the office of the Military Aide. This was a real kick and something they always let the “newbies” do, although in a very-well-supervised way. There were always two people involved. We first had to check with the WHCA Duty Officer to find out whether the President was in or expected to be in either of his offices. If he was, the check on that phone was put off until later. However, the Duty Officer didn’t seem worried at all about intruding on the Military Aide. We would always knock before entering his office but Nixon’s Military Aide, Major General Brent Scowcroft, seemed more like your grandfather than a high-ranking General Officer who was on daily speaking terms with the President. If he was in the office, he would just smile and motion us on in. We quickly replaced the key cards, performed the phone check and left. In the evenings, we also had to replace the “key cards” in the KY-3 for the President’s Office. Although the phone itself sat on the President’s desk, the KY-3’s enclosure was in a small kitchenette (as I recall) located off the office. If the president was out of the office, we would enter directly through his secretary’s (i.e. Rosemary Woods of the 18-minute-tape-gap fame) office, pass through a corner of the President’s Office and then turn hard right into the kitchenette. But if the President was in his Office (which almost never happened at night) we had to enter the kitchenette through a hallway door. Although the exact sequence of events are foggy to him now, one night there was apparently some sort of miscommunication between us, the Duty Officer and the Secret Service. Because the President WAS in his office, we entered from the hallway, as we were supposed to do. Apparently, the noise we made alarmed one of the Secret Service agents in the Office because as he bent over to change the key cards…it was a tight squeeze as Tom recalls…the agent burst into the kitchenette from the Office side scaring the ever-loving’ crap out of us. Fortunately, there were no repercussions over the confrontation, but my heart was pounding for quite a while after that. Don Camel remembers the China Trip WHCA personnel always stayed in an approved "hotel" style building in Hangchou. (That was the proper spelling in that era, along with Peking instead of Beijing used today. All of the meals were served family style at round tables seating 8 people and there was a window for each meal. A small group of Supervisors would remain in work areas when the meal started, and once the first group was finished, the next group of people would go to the dining area witch was a screened in Porch. At the end of the hall the screens had been replaced with temporary vinyl or glass covering. It was VERY cold in the eating area. The last group of people would arrive, and they would scan all the other tables. Some serving platters were still piled high with something that you could not identify. Quick lesson, if the rest of the team left it there, don't even bother to taste it. We would point to completely empty serving dishes with just a hint of some kind of sauce and indicate we wanted more of that item. Still often a mystery, but we avoided tasting a lot of items that were non-starters. Of course, there was NO selection of anything "beef" since cows are sacred. We once had a dish that resembled "beef stew" in a very strange chartreuse sauce, and it was delicious. We ordered more and it was a big hit. We then asked, "What are we eating? Found out that I like "Muskrat"! Yak! Our hosts enjoyed watching our movies, and especially Steve McQueen in "Bullet" which must have been shown a dozen times during our visit. Not to let out any secrets, but team members, and the USSS to break the boredom, did often engage in a friendly game of low stakes poker. Some of these games would last for several hours and shift workers would replace empty seats. Second secret....there was Chinese beer available. I am not a beer drinker, but did like the local Orange soda that was kind of like a Stewarts Orange from the US. Everything was always served at room temperature. Sometimes it was the pantry porch, which was cold, and sometimes the room next to the hot water boiler in the machine room. I decided that I wanted some ice and with sign language, the house boy finally understood. He departed and was gone for so long, I forgot that the request for ice was even made. After over an hour, he came back out of breath, obviously been running in the cold outside in February, and had a bucket of ice. He scooped some in the glass and opened a bottle of Orange for me. Then he watched as I poured it over the ice. After I had let it cool off for a couple of minutes, I raised it to my mouth to take a drink. On my first drink, I almost choked and blew orange out my mouth and nose. Really a class act, but it seems the flavor was just like I remembered my Dad's minnow bucket. The ice had be procured at the fish market. Later we found out that this kid had ran almost the equivalent of 3 miles to get this ice. We chilled few bottles of both orange and beer in the remaining bucket, but certainly didn't pour anything else over the ice! On the next trip to China (Ford 1975) we had just finished bringing all the equipment into the hotel from airport on the first day there. We were relaxing in our room designated for the comm center. Being aware of possible hidden cameras and or bugs in the rooms, we were hot and thirsty so we went over to one of the light fixtures and said, "sure would be nice to have something to drink" and about 2 min's later, there was a knock on the door and there was a Chinese busboy with a tray of those Chinese Orange drinks. Coincidence?? Whatever, the drinks were appreciated. Just glad we didn't have any of the fish flavored ice that we had on the first trip in 72.. Laundry on overseas trips was always a problem but we had mixed results on the 1972 trips to China and then Russia. In China after a few days, we received instructions through the houseboy about laundry. No, problem, just place you items in a small bag in the closet and leave it at the foot of your bed. Don Cammel decided to test this service, and took about 3 pairs of underwear, some socks, and a couple of polo shirts and tried it out. The houseboy picked up the bag and took off down the hall on the dead run! It looked like he was stealing something! No worries, in about 3 hours, he reappeared with a mess hall tray being held high in the air, and on the tray were all my very clean, ironed underwear, socks, and shirts! Really the definition of pardon the pun, but a "Chinese Laundry". Don spread the word, and the entire team enjoyed the same results without and problems for the remaining 3 weeks of our stay and we can't say enough good about the service. Now let’s fast forward a couple months to our visit to Russia. Don was assigned to the team in Kiev. he once again was the "test" case for how the service in Kiev was going to work. The front desk seemed a little confused, but it was explained to place items in a pillowcase type bag, and drop it off at the front desk. No inventory was necessary, probably because they couldn't read English. he took a few items, mostly underwear, and some perma-pressed shirts, and maybe a pair of dockers type pants. He dropped them off at the front desk at about 0900, and the next morning at about 1030, the House Boy delivered the laundry, and it was once again, an excellent experience. He again spread the word at the joint Count Down meeting with 45 WHCA, 30 USSS, and 15 WH Staff, along with another 20 State Department people. So several people took bags to the front desk, and we quickly received a memo from the Embassy, saying that future drop offs should be in a Conference Room on the first floor. It also instructed that returned laundry would be delivered to a claim room on the top floor of the hotel, turned out to be a large banquet room. The next day, we looked out our WHCA Office window, and the bags of collected laundry was being dropped down a chute from about the 3rd floor, into a large dump truck! We soon started expecting the return of our laundry. After almost a week, they told us it would arrive the next morning. We went up to the banquet room, and there were rows of tables set up like a flea market. One table had 400 pair of every brand of underwear known to man, the next table 700 socks not matched to each other, and then of course another table with various under shirts, yellow arm pit stains, some with holes, some very new, many very old. Then our regular shirts, slacks, and everything else. It was obvious that someone had a new "red" sweatshirt and now there was one table of "pink" underwear. Each of us tried to walk through an identify our items. Very difficult without names or markings. Really a lot of J.C. Penney underwear. This massive pile of laundry remained huge for several days, many items no one wanted to claim in front of others. WHCA did not have any female members at that time, but the State Department and USSS might have had a couple women. They were not pleased about their various "cup sizes" being observed by all of us "dirty old men in training". Remember, they hauled this off in a dump truck, so it was a huge amount of clothing. The memos from the front desk to go claim your items continued to get frantic as we were closer to visit day. In the end, there was still enough laundry to fill 3 giant boxes like a truck load of toilet paper from Sam's Club. The WH Advance told them to just donate any unclaimed items to charity after we left. About 5 months later, the WHCA Vault received 3 large boxes shipped through the COMSEC courier service from the US Embassy Annex in Kiev. You guessed it, all the remaining unclaimed laundry from that visit! They once again asked people to come check it out and claim any missing items. After a few months, they were donated to the Salvation Army. Some team members were able to process claims for "lost items" and received a check for replacement. The paper drill was very long, depreciation schedule for used underwear is actually listed in a government document somewhere! President Nixon held many meetings with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai during the trip, which included visits to the Great Wall, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. |
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| The Nixon’s tour the Great Wall of China |
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| The Nixon’s tour the Great Wall of China
At the conclusion of President Nixon's trip, the United States and the PRC Governments issued the Shanghai Communiqué, a statement of their foreign policy views and a document that would remain the basis of Sino-American bilateral relations for many years. Kissinger stated that the U.S. also intended to pull all its forces out of the island of Taiwan. In the communique, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations.
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| Letter of Appreciation |
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| Certificate of Membership |
Destinations
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Dates
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Purpose
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Agana Guam
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February 20-21, 1972
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Rest stop in route to China
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February 21-28, 1972
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State visit; met with Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou En-Lai.
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| Agana the Capital of Guam |
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| B-52 departing Andersen AFB to Vietnam |
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| R-1051 SSB Receiver |
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| URT-23 1KW SSB Transmitter |
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| The WHCA Mini-switchboard |
The President, Mrs. Nixon, Dr. Kissinger, and a few Staff members arrived in Peking on February 21, 1972 to begin one of the most historic events in history. The President would spend seven days in China, during that period of time the WHCA installations on Guam would be the focal point for most of the communications to and from the President and his Staff.
Guam became the staging area for all equipment and personnel returning from China. Of course, the C-141 Crew was tired of running shuttles from the three trip locations in China to Guam, so on arrival the aircraft was grounded for repairs and for a new crew was assigned to fly us to HI.
The KBCCT flew directly to Guam from China by the most direct route. Some details are fuzzy, but they remembered the Exchange and Snack Bar were closed on their arrival at Anderson AFB, Maybe they were just tired and ready for a good old American Cheeseburger, however the only food available was a mobile "Hot Dog Cart" in front of the Exchange. and it was bought out in record time! Those were some nasty hot dogs, but they ate every one of them! When they left China, it was late in the day then when they arrived in Guam the C-141 when they arrived had to be unloaded and then reloaded on the plane that we had loaded with the equipment from the Guam stop. The long flight from China to Gaum plus the 2+ hour time shift gives you a long very day.
We had been on Guam for 35 days and were all anxious to get home, but the Military Customs Officers on Guam had other ideas they read the rules, and they were NOT going to allow anyone to enter the U.S. territory from the People's Republic of China. Since we were on Guam we were not required to go through customs however by sharing the plane with returning WHCA personnel we had to wait while the Customs Officers contacted the State Department in Washington DC.
The answer was to defer our customs clearance until we reached the U.S. instead of Guam. Finally, The plane was loaded, and we were ready to depart Guam for a couple of days of rest in Honolulu, Hi. We received clearance and departed Guam for Hickam AFB, once again we had a major problem with the C-141. All of the equipment that we loaded on the C-141was deck mounted and not as simple as moving a dozen pallets, so they wanted to fix the aircraft instead of unloading it. The Hickam AFB folks were like the people in Guam, checked the regulations and deferred the Customs clearance to mainland U.S.
We were all ready for some R&R after spending close to a month preparing and executing this very historical event. We stayed in Hawaii for almost three days at the Ala Moana Hotel on Waikiki beach in Honolulu both the El Toro CCT and the Homestead CCT again boarded the aircraft.
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| Ala Moana Hotel in Honolulu HI |
Both the El Toro CCT and the Homestead CCT personal were on the aircraft along with all of the communication equipment from both stops. We landed at El Toro MCAS, and it was very hot and with typical Marine logic, we had to stay on the hot aircraft for almost an hour. While the Customs Agents were discussing the process they needed to follow, the El Toro Team started un-strapping their portion of the equipment, and setting aside all of the PX purchased Sony and Pioneer stereo equipment of this era that they purchased in both Guam and Hawaii. Finally, the El Toro Customs said they would only clear the El Toro team members to remove their equipment and would be getting off the plane at El Toro, so, March 2, 1972 the San Clemente CCT returned to their home base at El Toro MCAS form Guam and the China trip was over.
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| EL Toro Marine Corp Air Station operations |
The rest of the personal and equipment were deferred to the next stop. There were both DC folks bound for Andrews Air Force Base (AAFB), and the Key Biscayne CCT headed to Homestead Air Force Base still on board and they were not allowed to deplane at El Toro.
Because there was a pending visit by the President to Key Biscayne there were helicopters ready to take some of the team members to Walkers Cay. These people basically hugged their families, got a new suitcase, and headed out for the weekend. Bottom line is the people from Key Biscayne never did clear customs, the Customs Agent from Fort Lauderdale called his guy and said, just let them in.
Little did I know that in three months I would be transferred to Key Biscayne and live on Homestead Air Force Base.
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