The world hardly knew that President John F. Kennedy, when alive, studied Mao Zedong's “On Guerrilla Warfare,”and strongly encouraged his White House staff to do the same.
Also, just the privileged few witnessed that, when confronted with the China problem, Kennedy asked his wife Jackie to fix not one but two Bloody Marys for him. Yes, the young president didn't mind boozing a bit during his White House meetings.
Kennedy correctly understood that Mao was determined not to live in the Soviet shadow. Insightfully he considered “the guerrilla leader of the world” as a bigger threat to America in the long run.
Incidentally Kennedy had received intelligence warning him that Mao's China would soon become the fifth nuclear power after the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France. Indeed, Mao got the Bomb on October 16, 1964, in less than a year after the assassination of Kennedy.
In his inner circle Kennedy never hesitated to admit that he felt an urge to understand Mao. As a matter of fact, he spent a lot of presidential time trying to read Mao's mind. He was a serious president.
Until just before his untimely death, Kennedy had been strategizing to counter the Maoist movement in Asia and beyond.
On the one hand, Kennedy was ready to single-handedly destroy Mao's nuclear installations. On the other hand, he would offer Mao a “peaceful solution” even at Chiang Kai-shek's expense.
In the meantime, he was exploring a détente with either the Soviet Union or Mao's China so as to keep both in check.
Kennedy had practically outlined a China plan for the succeeding administrations. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, in a spectacular manner, took a leaf out of Kennedy's book. However, neither of them openly acknowledged their debt to Kennedy.
Author: renqiulan
(To me, a book is a pile of blank papers until I read it. )
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