On the Scene

Beijing

TWENTY years ago I landed at Peking airport in the Air Force 707 assigned to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. I had for decades been reporting on the extraordinary phenomenon that was the People’s Republic of China under Chairman Mao Tse-tung. But the Communists had consistently denied me entry. Nor would I have been there that October day in 1975 if Kissinger himself had not told the Chinese they could not dictate the composition of the press party that accompanied him.