The only condition China met was the last one. Chinese aid to Vietnam continued throughout the early 1970s. Mao waited six months after Kissinger’s departure to free CIA officer Richard Fecteau. But he kept Fecteau’s comrade, John Downey, the last incarcerated American, in custody until March 12, 1973, after Nixon had left China. The twenty-one years Downey was imprisoned made him the longest-serving prisoner of war in US history.
