Mao: The Unknown Story

The Cultural Revolution was made possible by a horse-trade between Mao and Marshal Lin Biao. (Left) Lin alongside Mao (wearing Red Guard armband) on Tiananmen Gate, 1966. (Note Mao’s black teeth, which he rarely brushed. He did not have a bath or a shower throughout his twenty-seven-year reign.) Eventually, Mao and Lin fell out; (below) on May Day 1971 a sulking Lin (in cap, right) defied protocol and turned up on Tiananmen for only one minute, refusing to talk to Mao, or Cambodia’s Prince Sihanouk (next to Mao) or Princess Monique (next to Lin).(photo illustration 61)

Lin Biao’s son, “Tiger” (right), is the only person known to have planned to assassinate Mao. In September 1971, Lin, his wife (center) and Tiger fled China by plane and crashed to their deaths in Mongolia, after Lin’s brainwashed daughter, Dodo (left), informed on them.(photo illustration 62)

Wooing Cuba’s Che Guevara in 1960; Guevara was cut off when he came to be seen as too much of a competitor.(photo illustration 64)

Flirting with the Philippines’ first lady Imelda Marcos, 1974.(photo illustration 65)

Congratulating the Khmer Rouge in 1975, for bringing about a slave society in one fell swoop: Pol Pot (center); Foreign Minister Ieng Sary (right).(photo illustration 66)

Premier Chou En-lai was the charming face of Mao’s tyranny. Mao used his services while blackmailing him for nearly half a century. In February 1972 Chou had a comfortable armchair (top) when U.S. president Nixon came calling. From left: Chou, Nancy Tang, Mao, Nixon, Kissinger, Winston Lord. By December 1973, Mao had banished Chou to a humiliating hard chair when meeting the Nepalese king (middle). At this time, Mao was withholding permission for Chou to have treatment for cancer, thus ensuring that Chou died before he did.(photo illustration 67)

(Far left) In 1974, the newly rehabilitated Deng Xiao-ping (shortest, in front) formed an alliance with Marshal Ye Jianying (second from left) and Chou En-Lai (far right) against the Gang of Four, three of whose members are here: Mme Mao (in scarf), Wang Hong-wen (behind Deng) and Yao Wen-yuan (far left).(photo illustration 70)

(Left) Mme Mao being restrained at her trial after Mao’s death. To her prosecutors, she said: “I was Chairman Mao’s dog. Whoever Chairman Mao asked me to bite, I bit.” She committed suicide in 1991.(photo illustration 72)

In his last years, Mao increasingly identified with fallen leaders, especially disgraced U.S. ex-president Nixon, whom he flew to China for a private farewell in February 1976.(photo illustration 73)

The last photograph of Mao was with Pakistan’s premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, 27 May 1976. Mao died on 9 September 1976. His twenty-seven-year rule brought death to well over seventy million Chinese.(photo illustration 74)