Comrade Chiang Ch'ing by Witke, Roxane - 1977

Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Little, Brown and Company, 1977. Orange cloth on boards. 549 pp. includes Terms, Personalities, Abbreviations, Chapter Notes and Index. Volume has very minimal bumps on top corners, light edgewear. Jacket has a light skip scratch on the front panel, some wear and rubbing. "Even before Mao-Tse-tung's final illness, rumors of his wife Chaing Ch'ing's candid revelations to a Western writer shook the power structure of the People's Republic. Then, barely six weeks after the Chairman's death, Chiang Ch'ing was arrested and branded an enemy of the Party and the state. Among the most serious charges brought against Mao's widow was her alleged betrayal of national secrets during a week-long private interview - some sixty hours in all - with Roxane Witke, an American scholar. Chaing Ch'ing is among the few women in Chinese history to have made a recognizable name. This book, is evidence of her attempt to record her past as she alone knows it, and to be remembered in the future for her beliefs and accomplishments. [At least in the West.] Shifting back and forth from the personal to the public, from candor to propriety and, from her own opinions to Mao's orthodoxy. Astonishing in its revelations of history and of self, unprecedented for its close-up view of the top power echelon in Peking, Comrade Chaing Ch'ing is rounded out by the author's commentary on Chaing Ch'ing's subsequent downfall." . First Edition: T04177. Hard Cover. Very Good/Good. Illus. by B/W Photographs.