The Madison Avenue Maoists

It was not exactly the smoothest of arrivals. When the Air France 707 bearing the Chinese delegation to the United Nations came to a halt at John F. Kennedy Airport last week, no one could find a key to the door of the loading platform, and the door had to be taken off its hinges before Peking's men could disembark. Then the loudspeaker system went on the blink just as Deputy Foreign Minister Chiao Kuan-hua uttered the first words of his arrival speech. Chiao manfully went ahead anyway, and the words were duly recorded for television: "The people of the United States are a great people, and there exists a profound friendship between the peoples of China and the United States."

The ten-man delegation was clearly intent on following the cautious line laid down by Premier Chou En-lai for Peking's first representatives at the U.N. in 21 years. Quoting an old Chinese proverb. "Be careful when facing a problem," Chou declared in an interview: "We do not have too much knowledge about the U.N., and are not too conversant with the new situation that has risen in the U.N. We must be very cautious. This does not mean, however, that we do not have self-confidence. It means that we must not be indiscreet and haphazard."

The thought was faithfully repeated by Chief Delegate Chiao when he paid his first official call on Indonesia's Adam Malik, President of the General Assembly. Chiao said that his relatively small mission, unfamiliar with the world organization, might at first be less active than many members of the U.N. expected. Nonetheless, the Chinese will receive considerable press exposure this week--when Chiao becomes the first diplomat to visit ailing Secretary-General U Thant, who is hospitalized with an ulcer, then when he delivers his first speech in the General Assembly.

Chiao may well have something to say in a scheduled debate on a Soviet proposal for a worldwide nuclear-disarmament conference. The Security Council may also take up the smoldering conflict between India and Pakistan, and China may be hard put to explain its support of the Pakistan government to the Third World countries that support India and the Mukti Bahini rebels of East Pakistan. Another thorny issue to be debated is the security provided for U.N. delegates by the U.S. The Soviets have been so harassed by the extremist Jewish Defense League that they have threatened to leave New York and to try to take the U.N. with them. So far the Chinese have not been similarly bothered; pro-Mao demonstrators outnumbered the opposition 3 to 1 at the airport, and the anti-Maoists were kept out of sight.

Precise 15DEG/. The Chinese delegation, accompanied by two newsmen and 40 clerks, assistants, typists and chefs, moved into Manhattan in style. They rented chauffeur-driven Cadillacs to get around town (at $12 an hour) and took over the entire 72-room 14th floor of the Roosevelt Hotel--except for one room occupied for 25 years by an elderly widow who refused to move out. The midtown pad cost the People's Republic at least $2,160 per night. The hotel responded nimbly to every request from the Chinese. Color television sets and hot plates were added to every room, a Chinese chef was hired, extra-large teacups were bought and the red flag of China was hoisted beside the Stars and Stripes hanging in front of the hotel at Madison Avenue and 45th Street.

Everywhere the Chinese appeared there was a horde of paparazzi-like newsmen. Reporters peered over the delegates' shoulders as they breakfasted on omelets and lunched on breast of chicken. They even checked the luncheon tips with waitresses (a precise 15%). After paying their first breakfast tab with a $100 bill, the Chinese began signing for everything. Through it all, the delegates managed resigned smiles and noncommittal answers. One mission member, noting the crowd of newsmen, said to TIME'S Mandarin-speaking David Aikman: "You can't avoid them, can you?"

The U.S. delegation faced an unusual diplomatic situation: how to deal with the Chinese when there are no diplomatic relations between Washington and Peking. "We shall be proper, polite, courteous," said U.S. Ambassador George Bush. "We will be discreet, fair and available." Both sides, in fact, tacitly look upon the U.N. delegation as China's unofficial embassy to the U.S. As one qualifiedly friendly gesture, the U.S. applied to the Chinese the same travel regulations that govern the movements of the Soviets. Delegates from other Communist countries that have no diplomatic relations with Washington, such as Cuba, Albania and Mongolia, must apply for special permission to travel more than 25 miles from Manhattan's Columbus Circle; the Soviets, and now the Chinese, merely have to notify the State Department 48 hours in advance that they intend to take such a trip.

To the distress of the U.S. mission, which considers it a matter of course for a country to include intelligence operatives among its diplomats, the FBI leaked word that Kao Liang, leader of the Chinese advance party, was a well-known Peking agent. Kao (whose name is pronounced Gow) was reported to have been booted out of India, Mauritius and Burundi for fomenting subversion while working for the New China News Agency. The charge may well be true, and at least one U.S. diplomat abroad affirms, "We know he is a spook," though the same accusation was equally applicable to every Chinese diplomat in Africa during the 1960s, when Peking's men were aiding insurgents everywhere.

Grave Concern. The Chinese and U.S. delegations may well clash head-on rather earlier than expected, and on an issue in which the Americans will be on difficult diplomatic ground. Last week the U.S. House of Representatives, following an earlier move by the Senate, passed the military procurement bill with an amendment that removes the President's authority to ban the import of chrome from the breakaway British colony of Rhodesia. Such imports would directly violate a 1966 Security Council resolution--supported by the U.S.--that imposed economic sanctions against the Salisbury regime. Last week the U.N. Committee for Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories overwhelmingly (93 to 2, with 12 abstentions) passed a draft resolution expressing "grave concern" over the congressional move and reminding the U.S. of its pledge. The U.S. would certainly not be alone in buying Rhodesian chrome. The Soviets, while professing to obey the sanction, in fact import chrome from Rhodesia themselves and resell it to the U.S. at a markup. Now, however, the issue gives the Chinese an early opportunity to cast both the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the role of villains, while presenting themselves as the champions of the black African nations that they hope to lead in the General Assembly.

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