Famous folk can't resist a tasty sound bite

British wartime Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill was a master of the cute quote and Chinese President Xi Jinping must have won many hearts and minds at Davos when he quoted Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

The line comes from the opening paragraph of Dickens's 19th century classic, A Tale of Two Cities. Just about every British schoolboy of my generation knows that one.

Xi also pitched in with a remark, which resonates in Chinese and British culture - that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Churchill, of course, took over as leader of a nation fighting the fascism of Nazi Germany and his key quotes have gone into the history books.

He had nothing, he said, to offer the British people, except "blood, toil, tears and sweat," adding in his characteristic growl "we shall never surrender".

The Free French leader General Charles de Gaulle, who later became president, despaired of the antics of his fellow-countrymen - "how can you govern a country that has 246 different kinds of cheese."

Legendary Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was the master of the catchphrase - his coining of the agreement covering the return to Chinese sovereignty of Hong Kong as being "one country, two systems" was, and remains, a masterpiece.

Mao Zedong was the master of the one-line aphorism - off the top of my head I remember, "In waking a tiger use a long stick" and "Women hold up half the sky."

I guess the point here is that an experienced leader, no matter what his political persuasion, knows the power of a catchy quote.

Disgraced US president Richard Nixon, seeking to justify some of his more questionable decisions while in office, once memorably declared: "If the president does it, it is not illegal."

He lived to regret that remark after being forced to resign in disgrace in 1974 ahead of almost certain impeachment and dismissal from office, the only president to do so.

Of course, in this modern age of 24-hour news and digital information channels, the race is on for the sound bite that grabs attention.

Some 43 years after I first heard it, one quote by a US Air Force major still has me flummoxed.

It was December 1972 and the US was desperate to conclude a peace deal that would extract it from the morass of the Vietnam War - Peace With Honour, as Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger would call it.

The North Vietnamese, headed by Le Duc Tho, were digging their heels in and by mid-December they refused to set a date for further talks in Paris after South Vietnamese demands, in their view, made a deal impossible.

Nixon and Kissinger resorted to the old adage: "Bomb them to the conference table."

In an operation dubbed Linebacker II, huge US B-52 bombers blitzed targets in Hanoi and surrounding areas, killing more than 1,600 people and causing widespread damage to infrastructure.

At this point, let me introduce Major Jere Forbus, an amiable officer who handled press conferences, dubbed the Five o'Clock Follies, in a disused movie theatre in downtown Saigon.

Here's the thing - time zones and mid-20th century creaky communications meant the Saigon press crowd was baying for news of the bombing campaign, which had not been officially released by the Americans.

An exasperated New York correspondent stood up and said - I remember the question to this day: "Major, you know you're bombing, the North Vietnamese know you're bombing, so why won't you tell us?"

Came back the immortal quote from Forbus - "That's protection of information."

It is, of course, the supreme example of the spokesman's art of obfuscation.

Years later, I tracked down a retired Forbus to his home in Washington. I asked him what he had meant.

As genial as ever, he smiled, and said: "I had to tell you guys something. Have another beer."

I am still in the dark.

Chris Peterson is managing editor of China Daily European Bureau. Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com.