Diplomats In Tunics

The Red Guards have failed so far to make good their boast to export the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the rest of the world. But some signs of Mao Tse-tung's new way of doing things have cropped up in Red China's embassies abroad. Soon after he unleashed his teen-age zealots in Peking, Mao dispatched an order to his diplomats: act in a proletarian way, do your own dishes, tend your own garden, wear simple clothing, be frugal.

Obeying orders, Chinese diplomats have put aside Western suits for Mao-type tunics. The wife of the ambassador to Morocco has just returned from Peking with the new look for diplomats' wives -- short bobbed hair and pantaloons. Embassy libraries have been stripped of non-Mao books. The Red Chinese embassy in Bern has put away such art treasures as the horse statuette from the Tang period, which once was proudly shown to Swiss visitors as a masterpiece of Chinese culture. In the trade exposition in Algiers, guests now are confronted with patriotic placards: "Long live the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. This Way Out." Embassy staffers in Cairo replaced statues of Venus and other classical figures with a huge photo of Mao.

Out of the Swim. Mao's orders have made the Chinese diplomats more standoffish than ever. When the Cultural Revolution was announced, China's new ambassador to Algeria, Tseng Tao, had just begun to relish swimming at Algiers' spacious El-Kettani Club, a meeting place for the country's elite. Now he is seldom seen outside his for bidding embassy. Actually, Peking's emissaries are so isolated that they have little to do. But there was a flurry of activity in the Moscow embassy last week. In the latest round in the Sino-Soviet controversy, the Kremlin announced that all remaining Red Chinese students --estimated at 65--must be out of the country by month's end.

Guests at last week's National Day receptions were struck by the difference from previous celebrations. Instead of the Scotch and gin of yesteryear, only Chinese rice wine was served at most places, though a few embassies offered a throat-searing liquor called Maw-tai.

The few diplomats abroad who converse with foreigners seem less than enthusiastic about the Cultural Revolution, privately blame the excesses of the Red Guards for bringing Peking a bad press throughout the world. Publicly they keep a discreet silence. After all, just by living abroad the diplomats have made themselves logical targets for the xenophobic Red Guards when--and if --they return home.

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