I did not grow up in the 1960s or ’70s, so the name John Ehrlichman didn’t strike a chord with me when I first picked up this book. The back-cover blurb from Clive Cussler, though, calls this book “a masterly combination of truth and fiction by a man who saw it firsthand,” so I knew this guy had been close to Nixon and the events of his visit to China in 1972, but I didn’t know how.

Turns out John Ehrlichman was Nixon’s Counsel and Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, and ultimately one of Nixon’s fall guys during Watergate. He served 18 months in prison and was disbarred for the felony, and Nixon refused to give him a pardon (though he apparently later regretted it).

I didn’t find all that out until after I finished the book, but that Ehrlichman held a strong bitterness against Nixon and his staff was definitely clear from a layman’s read of the novel! His initial description of Nixon’s physical ugliness in person made me chuckle, actually, and it only went down from there.

This novel is a fictional description of the events leading up to President Nixon’s journey to meet Zhou (Chou) Enlai in Peking (Beijing). It tracks the rise of a young lawyer in Nixon’s law firm named Matthew Thompson. Having been born to American missionaries in China, Matthew had a moderate interest in China, an interest that members of the Communist Party in Peking desire to take advantage of. When a former classmate of Matthew’s father connects with him in Hong Kong, there begins a relationship of information-sharing that allows Peking to influence Nixon and his administration unwittingly. Matt’s pursuits and actions in the best interest of both nations flirts with conspiracy and espionage, and his efforts to affect world peace put his whole life in jeopardy.

Although the novel contains a few chase scenes and gun battles, it’s mainly a political thriller and one I really enjoyed. Because it gives “insight into the intrigue between Peking and Washington D.C.” in the 1960s—especially their discussions about Taiwan and the non-negotiables that get tossed back and forth—it also suggests what might even be taking place now in our own time between Xi and Biden. Highly interesting!

Ehrlichman doesn’t gloss over the slow and plodding means of White House communications, from research to drafts to conferences and discussions and rewrites, things that ultimately become speeches or press releases. Matt’s in the middle of it all, and the process helps me understand some of the inner workings of international politics. In fact, what probably feels like a boring 523-page book to most people became for me the perfectly fascinating airplane read.

There’s a few F-bombs in The China Card and Matthew tries to balance relationships with his three intimate girlfriends throughout, but otherwise it’s a pretty innocuous tale. There’s a good chance I’ll try to find Ehrlichman’s other 2 novels, The Company and The Whole Truth, because I really did enjoy his writing style. It reminds me a bit of Lionel Davidson, especially his book The Sun Chemist which includes a lot of political intrigue and research with just a dash of active suspense.

©2022 E.T.