1. Diaries, Book 71, Hong Kong, July 31, 1970; Robert Mills to ES, July 20, 1970, RHP. Lois also received a Random House contract for a book on the Chinese theater (Robert Mills to Lois Snow, July 20, 1970, RHP).

2. Diaries, Book 71, Hong Kong, August 11, Canton, August 14-15, 1970.

3. Ibid., Beijing, August 16, 1970.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid., August 23 and 27, September 5, 1970.

6. Diaries, Book 72, Beijing, August 31-September 3, 1970.

7. Diaries, Book 73, Xi'an, Yan'an, Bao'an, September 20-26, 1970; Book 75, Bao'an, Xi'an, September 22 and 24, 1970; ES to Mary Heathcote, November 27, 1970, ESP in ESC.

8. Diaries, Book 73, October 1, 1970; Henry A. Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown), 698. Nixon floated a much blunter signal at that time in the course of a Time interview, Kissinger noted. "If there is anything I want to do before I die," Nixon remarked, "it is to go to China. If I don't, I want my children to" (699).

9. Diaries, Book 73, October 1, 1970.

10. Ibid., October 9, 1970.

11. Ibid., October 19, 1970; Lois Snow, Death with Dignity , 111.

12. Diaries, Book 82, November 8, December 7, 1970.

13. Ibid., November 19, 1970.

14. TLR , 150; ES to Mary Heathcote, August 30, 1970, ESP in ESC; Lois Snow to Dorothy and Howard, September 4, 1970, HSP in ESC; Diaries, Book 82, November 20, 1970.

15. TLR , 160.

16. ES to Mary Heathcote, August 30, 1970; TLR , 168; "Notes of Chairman Mao's Talk with Edgar Snow," December 18, 1970, 1-2, ESP in ESC.

17. This description of the Mao-Snow conversation is based on both the more formally transcribed notes cited in note 16 above, and on the informal draft notes of the talk, as recounted by Ed to Lois immediately after the interview ("Mao Tse-tung Interview," December 18, 1970, Beijing, ESP in Esc.)

18. "Notes of Mao's Talk," 19; ES, "A Conversation with Mao Tse-tung," Life ; April 30, 1971, 48; Yao Wei to ES, August 21, 1971, ESP in ESC. Yao Wei's interpretation is corroborated in the recent account by Mao's physician, Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao (New York: Random House, 1994), 120. ''Mao's interpreter that day," Li writes, "was a young woman without a classical education" who misunderstood and mistranslated Mao's allusion to a "lone monk."

19. "Notes of Mao's Talk," 25-28.

20. Ibid., 6-7, 12. Though Mao also evinced some skepticism as to whether Nixon would really come, the Red leader was dearly both prodding and expecting the president to make the trip. (This seems more evident in Snow's original recollections of the conversation, "Mao Tse-tung Interview," 5-6.)

21. Mao's remarks to Nixon cited (from CCP documentary sources) in He Di, "The Most Respected Enemy: Mao Zedong's Perception of the United States," CQ 137 (March 1994): 145.

22. Li, Private Life of Chairman Mao , 105.

23. "Mao Tse-tung Interview," 2; ''Notes on Mao's Talk," 31. "More and more people," Snow wrote Mao just weeks before his (Snow's) death "see how necessary, wise, and difficult have been these steps of your leadership which have brought China's revolutionary achievements into brilliant illumination of the world" (ES to Mao, December [no day], 1971, Beijing, Museum of the Chinese Revolution). Yet he could also record in his diary while in China the year before that "Mao is a mixture of Hollywood star and god" (Diaries, Book 73, September 7, 1970). Li Zhisui seems on shaky ground in reporting that in 1970 Mao thought Snow to be a CLA agent ( Private Life of Chairman Mao , 532). If accurate, it would appear more likely to have been an example of Mao's often eccentric and exaggerated rhetorical style— in this case, in connection with his use of Snow as an informal and indirect channel of communication with Washington. Li himself is quite wide of the mark in stating that Snow was ''a pariah in his own country" in 1970 (ibid.).

24. Lois Wheeler Snow, China on Stage (New York: Random House, 1972); Diaries, Book 82, December 21 and 22, 1970, January 15, 25, and 30, February 6 and 7, 1971.

25. Lois Snow, Death with Dignity , 26-31; ES to Senator George McGovern, March 8, 1971, ESP in ESC; Kissinger, White Home Tears , 698-718.

26. "Mao Tse-tung Interview," 12; ES to Mao, May 16, 1971, ES to Hsu Ching-wei (Chinese consul general, Geneva), April 26, 1971, ESP in ESC; ES, "A Conversation with Mao Tse-tung," 47; New York Times , February 20, 1972, Week in Review; Kissinger, White House Years , 703, 708-720; Secretary Rogers's statement, 720.

27. Kissinger, White House Tears, 745-746, 759 .

28. Lois Snow, Death with Dignity , 35-46; interview with Oliver Clubb, Syracuse, February 24, 1987; ES to Mao ("Dear Friend"), February 6, 1971, ES to Mary Heathcote, May 29, June 26, July 2, 1971, ES to John Simon (Random House), October 13, 1971, ESP in ESC.

29. ES to Owen Lattimore, May 29, 1970, ES to Senator George McGovern, March 8, 1971, ES to "Shag" (Harem), December 6, 1971, "Interview with Edgar Snow, 1971," ESP ha ESC; Lois Snow, Death with Dignity , 67; Lois Snow to Charles Hogan, March 13, 1972, Hogan files.

30. ES, "What China Wants from Nixon's Visit," Life , July 30, 1971, 22-26; also the final chapter in TLR , 179-188.

31. "What China Wants from Nixon's Visit," 26; TLR , 188.

32. Kissinger, White House Years , 750-751.

33. ES to Mao, July 30, 1969, ESP in ESC.

34. JTTB , 417; RCT , 6-7 (here Snow removed the qualifier "probably"); Beijing, November 1, 1989, report ( Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report: China [National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, Va.]); ES to Mao, May 10, 1963.

35. Lois Snow, Death with Dignity , 47-63; Lois Snow to "Shag," December 17, 1971, Beijing, foreign ministry files, Museum of the Chinese Revolution; Lois Snow to Dorothy and Howard, December 27, 1971, HSP in ESC; Ralph Graves ( Life ) to ES, July 22, September 17, 1971, ESP in ESC.

36. ES to John Simon, January 4, 1972, ESP in ESC; ES to Zhou Enlai ("Dear Friend"), January 19, 1972, foreign ministry files, Museum of the Chinese Revolution.

37. Lois Snow to "Shag," December 15 and 22, 1971, Ma Haide (Hatem) to Zhang Wenjin (ministry of foreign affairs), December 24, 1971, January 2, 1972, foreign ministry files, Museum of the Chinese Revolution; ES to Zhou, December (no day) 1971, and to Mao, December (no day) 1971, Museum of the Chinese Revolution; ES to Zhou, January 19, 1972, ESP in ESC. Hatem asked Zhang Wenjin to forward Lois Snow's letter to Mao and Zhou and suggested that Ed be invited to China for care in his final illness.

38. Lois Snow, Death with Dignity , 87-133; Lois Snow to Charles Hogan, March 13, 1972; Huang Hua, speech at tenth anniversary Snow memorial meeting, Beijing, February 15, 1982, Hugh Deane Papers, ESC; interview with Dr. Huang Huojun, Beijing, June 3, 1987; John Roots to Henry Kissinger, February 19, 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

39. Edgar Snow's will (October 1965), typed copy from Museum of the Chinese Revolution; Lois Wheeler Snow, "The Burial of Edgar Snow," New Republic , January 26, 1974, 9-11.

40. John S. Service, "Edgar Snow: Some Personal Reminiscences," CQ 50 (April-June 1972): 218; Mary Heathcote, talk at memorial meeting for Snow, New York, March 27, 1972, James Bertram to Lois, Sian, and Christopher Snow, February 20, 1972, ESP in ESC; ES to Howard, May 22, 1969.

41. Lois Snow to author, June 30, 1989; ES to Howard, July 15, 1968; David Shambaugh, Beautiful Imperialist (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); James C. Thomson, Jr., Peter W. Stanley, and John Curtis Perry, Sentimental Imperialists (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 293; Nicholas D. Kristof, "The Rise of China," Foreign Affairs 72 (November/December 1993): 73-74.

42. ES to Mr. Chen, January 4, 1964, ESP in ESC.

43. Diaries, Book 73, October 10, 1970.

44. JTTB , 423; RCT , 737-738; ES to James Bertram, April 5, 1959.

45. ES, "The Last Chapter'' (note fragment, undated), ESP in ESC.

46. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 1-4; Brian Urquhart, "Who Can Police the World?" New York Review of Books , May 12, 1994, 33.