New round of Nixon papers show spy plane concerns not new

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (CNN) -- Newly declassified papers documenting negotiations ahead of President Nixon's 1972 visit to China show that Beijing concerns about U.S. spy planes skimming its borders are long-standing.

Rather than a collision, as occurred last weekend near Hainan island, the prime concern 30 years ago appeared to be a chance incursion by a reconnaissance plane into China's air space.

At a 1971 meeting at the Great Hall of the People in what was then called Peking, Chinese Prime Minister Chou En-lai told National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, "It would not be good with either side if such a thing occurs during your visit here."

Chou told Kissinger there were standing orders to shoot down "any military airplane that intrudes into China air space," and that Chinese radar had detected such planes "quite close" to the Chinese border.

The papers released Thursday for public viewing at the National Archives in a Maryland suburb of Washington chronicle a wide range of Nixon administration activities, including proposed China summit talks in October 1971.

Kissinger confirmed to Chou that a U.S. spy plane, probably the high-altitude SR-71, had come within 20 miles of Chinese territory.

"This was not a flight that was authorized from Washington," Kissinger told the Chinese prime minister, promising a "full review of the program when I return."

Kissinger then told the Chinese leader the United States had word Taiwan might try to disrupt the talks with a deliberate spy plane incursion against the mainland.

Kissinger said breakaway Chinese Nationalists were "considering flying an R-104 reconnaissance aircraft over the mainland in order to disrupt our policy and our talks. We are trying to stop it."

Chou's reaction was to downplay the threat. "It's the kind that comes to harass us sometimes. We can often distinguish between Chaing Kai-shek's planes and your planes," Chou is documented as saying through an interpreter.

Kissinger replied "None of our planes fly into the mainland."

President Nixon in February 1972 went on a seven-day visit to mainland China that included talks with Chou, communist Chairman Mao Tse-tung and other ranking officials in Beijing.

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