I lectured on English Folksong under the auspices of the British Council in Beijing & Guangzhou Universities, based at the Beijing Languages & Cultures University [then the Beijing Language Institute] and Guilin Normal University, for 2 months in 1989; leaving just as the Tienenman Square demonstration was starting. As my taxi to the airport drove off-campus, I could here our Language Institute students starting their demonstration up-campus, prior to their marching in a body to Teinman Sq to join the main demo already forming there under the diretion of oppositionist Hu Yaoban. My wife, who was a fulltime lecturer at the time at the Institute [see her entry on Wikipedia, titled "Valerie Grosvenor Myer"] regularly visited her students in the Square while their occupation of it continued. She learned of the demonstration's destruction by the Chinese People's Army by my phoning her from home here near Cambridge, having heard it on the 10 o'clock BBC Radio 4 News, the time difference meaning that it was 8.00 the following morning in Beijing.

Do not doubt that Dick's account is the truth, Joe. My wife was there, caught up in it. She was lucky to escape on a US army transport taking US citizens to the airport, her next-room colleagues being Americans who took her under their wing. I did not know of her whereabouts for several days, which you will appreciate was a worrying time for me. Her account of what happened when she returned concurs with what Dick posted above. Believe me, his account has it right — & this is something I do know about.

≈M≈