An unlikely celebrity who drew fire from across the political spectrum, Henry Kissinger is widely recognized as one of the great American statesmen of the twentieth century.Â
It lasted only an hour, but the unscheduled meeting between Chairman Mao Tse-tung and Richard Nixon was the highlight of the president's February 1972 mission to China.Â
Premier Chou En-lai was Communist China's first and longest-serving leader. Chou won many admirers at home and abroad but he was not beyond using extreme methods to advance the Chinese Communist cause
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With the defeat of Japan by Allied troops in 1945, fighting between the Communists and Nationalists flared once more, and soon China was engulfed in a bloody, all-out civil war.Â
It took a virtual war between China and the Soviet Union for Washington to realize how deeply divided the Communist superpowers actually were -- and how that division might be played to America's advantage.
On April 10, nine players, four officials, and two spouses stepped across a bridge from Hong Kong to the Chinese mainland, ushering in an era of "Ping-Pong diplomacy."Â
