History Book: Meeting Chairman Mao

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, February 13th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Fifty years ago this week, the American Secretary of State visited China for a historic meeting with Chairman Mao. And not long after that, Elvis won a Grammy for his version of a well-known hymn.

EICHER: But first, the 100th anniversary of an English explorer opening a famous tomb. WORLD’s Harrison Watters did the research, and here is Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER: Archeologist Howard Carter arrived in Egypt in 1907. He was there to supervise tomb excavations. In 1914 the Egyptian government granted him permission to begin searching for hidden tombs in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. The work went on for seven years without success. Carter’s benefactor Lord Carnarvon gave him an ultimatum: Find an intact tomb within one year, or come home for good.

While most of the tombs in the area had been looted long before, Carter believed that grave robbers had missed the tomb of a short-lived boy pharaoh named Tutankhamun. In November 1922, the expedition’s waterboy found the top of a staircase leading into the ground. When Carter investigated, he discovered a sealed tomb.

CLIP: Carter immediately sent a telegram to Lord Carnarvon, who was in England at the time, informing him that he had discovered an intact tomb.

After months of excavation, the burial chamber was ready to be opened. On February 16th, Carter entered the tomb’s antechamber and took his place in front of the door.

Here is Carter’s reflection of the moment from a Librivox recording of his book, The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen.

CARTER (read by AVAILLE): Before us laid a sealed door, and with its opening we were to blot out the centuries and stand in the presence of a king who reigned 3000 years ago. My own feelings as I mounted the platform were a strange mixture, and it was with a trembling hand that I struck the first blow.

After dismantling the door, Carter stood in a tomb full of treasures. At the center was the shrine that contained King Tut’s sarcophagus.

CARTER (read by AVAILLE): I think at the moment we did not even want to break the seal, for a feeling of intrusion had descended heavily upon us, with the opening of the doors.

After months of careful excavation, Carter removed the sarcophagus from its resting place, but not before his patron Lord Carnarvon died from an infected mosquito bite in April.

While many books and movies tell the story of the Pharaoh’s curse that supposedly killed thirteen people soon after opening the tomb, Carter lived another 16 years. He died from Hodgkin's Disease in 1939.

Next, the Secretary of State goes to China.

In the 1970s, Henry Kissinger believed that America’s biggest China problem was a lack of communication.

HENRY KISSINGER: When Nixon came into office there had been no significant communications between China and the United States For 25 years.

Audio from a Nixon Foundation video.

As President Nixon’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, Kissinger built a network of connections that led him to a secret meeting with Premier Zhou Enlai in 1971. Later that year, President Nixon made a surprising announcement.

RICHARD NIXON: Premier Zhou Enlai on behalf of the government of the People's Republic of China has extended an invitation to President Nixon to visit China at an appropriate date before May 1972. President Nixon has accepted the invitation with pleasure.

In the aftermath of Nixon’s visit, Kissinger returned to China in February, 1973, to discuss foreign policy, lines of communication, and trade between the two nations. Chairman Mao joked that the only thing China had in surplus was women.

But Mao was more seriously concerned that by pushing the Soviets to leave Europe, the U.S. might be encouraging Russia to attack his country. Kissinger promised that the U.S. would “never knowingly cooperate in an attack on China.” He explained that the U.S.’s goal would be to discourage a Soviet attack rather than defeat one.

Later that year, Kissinger’s work to establish normal working relations with China earned him a seat in Nixon’s Cabinet as Secretary of State, a post he held until 1977.

Today at 99, Kissinger remains a controversial figure—with a mixed foreign policy legacy. In a 2022 interview with The Economist, Kissinger expressed optimism that despite increased tensions between the US and China, the two nations can still coexist.

KISSINGER: I believe it's necessary. I also believe it's attainable. But I don't believe it's automatic, so we have to define the issues.

And we end today with the King of Rock-n-Roll earning a golden record status for a gospel album.

Between 1959 and 1962, the Recording Academy of the United States nominated Elvis Presley for a Grammy three times for nine different songs‚all Rock-n-roll hits. But in March 1968, it wasn’t “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” or “A Big Hunk O’ Love” that brought Elvis on stage to receive an award. Instead, it was Elvis’s gospel album, “How Great Thou Art.”

CLIP: “Oh Lord my God, when I, in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made…”

After its release, it hit #18 on Billboard charts, and on this week in February 1968, Elvis’s gospel album How Great Thou Art was proclaimed a gold record—passing $1 million in sales.

In March, it won a Grammy for sacred music, and seven years later, Elvis won another Grammy for his live performance of the song.

Jim Murray was a member of The Imperials, the vocal quartet singing with him on the album. Here he remembers how much the song meant to Elvis.

JIM MURRAY: I believe that he got more joy out of singing that song. And I think you can tell when you see the video and when you hear it, this was the soul of Elvis, when he sings that song.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book, I’m Paul Butler.

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