Sarah Paine

Well, Mao doesn't like that.

He's got a cult of personality.

He doesn't want to do things like that.

And then Khrushchev is interested in peaceful coexistence with the West, or at least nominally, whereas Mao is in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, which is based on a virulently anti-Western foreign policy.

And then they're forever squabbling about who's aiding North Vietnam in the Vietnam War and who's going to get credit for it.

So all of that's going on.

Now, Khrushchev has his own gripes about the Chinese.

He looks around at the United States.

The United States has got basing all over the world.

Its allies allow the United States to have bases.

And China has hardly any Russian bases, these leftover concession areas, and China wants them back.

And Khrushchev can't understand this.

And then what he really can't understand are the two Taiwan Strait crises of 1954 and 1958, where Mao starts lobbying ordinance on nationalist islands that are very close to mainland shores.

And...

Khrushchev is apoplectic because Mao hasn't given him any advance warning.

And by the way, this sort of thing could trigger some of the security clauses of the Sino-Soviet friendship treaty with nuclear follow-on effects.

And while this is going on, Khrushchev wants to have a combined sub-fleet vase.

If we're going to take all these risks, we need to have subs in different places.

Mao says, no way.

And then Khrushchev is fed up and said, well, you're not going to get the plans for the atomic bomb.