Mao to Now

Crackdowns follow a pattern, I've learned: the tipping point tends to come several weeks into a crisis, after the government and the international press are both exhausted. The phone woke me up at 2 a.m. on June 3. There was trouble near the square. Thousands of raw young soldiers—unarmed—had come marching down Beijing's main drag, Changan Avenue, only to be blocked by alert protesters. I arrived to find a scene of fear and confusion. Bewildered troops milled around aimlessly. The crowd had roughed up some soldiers, and others were bruised and scratched from being pelted with shoes and trash. A few of the troops wept in frustration.

But most of the interaction was peaceful, even cordial. "Think it over, get some rest," one man urged, patting a soldier on the shoulder and forcing cigarettes on him. "You're too tired." Another soldier seemed to be baffled by such friendliness: "We were told there were bad people here—hooligans." "Do we look like bad people to you?" a civilian replied. "Can there be that many bad people in Beijing?" "Which way is east, anyway?" a confused soldier pleaded. Although carrying no weapons, they were weighed down with all kinds of bulky gear: canteens, bulging knapsacks, even camp stoves. One soldier's rucksack had fallen to the ground, spilling a worn pair of plastic slippers and a flashlight. People tried not to disturb it, until one curious woman peeked inside to check out the PLA's field rations. "Instant noodles," she reported. "How pitiful."

This was a regime with few claims to the people's loyalty, and it was losing face. In similar confrontations that same morning, thousands of PLA troops were prevented from entering the square. A military jeep plowed into the barricades, killing three civilians. More ominously, as in Rangoon, unconfirmed reports said protesters had seized AK-47s from troops. I kept getting phone calls from friends and sources about tear gas near the square, or violence farther west. "There's fighting near the Telegraph Building," said one. "It's moving in your direction." The NEWSWEEK bureau and the hotel where I was staying were about a mile east of Tiananmen, though earlier I had booked a room at the Beijing Hotel, on the edge of the square, just in case.

That evening, Changan Avenue was scary and dark as I walked toward Tiananmen. I heard desperate, disembodied shouts. Howling protesters were throwing Molotov cocktails. And there was gunfire. I knew from Manila that a bullet coming close enough to kill makes a sibilant, zinging sound before the thud of impact. There was zinging and thudding all around me. Just ahead, a ragged crimson stain spread across a man's white shirt. I reached for his arm to try to help, but three men appeared, frantically tossed him onto a three-wheeled cart and wheeled it away. An armored personnel carrier was on fire, with civilians beating the flaming vehicle with sticks and metal rods as if it were a living beast.

June 4, 5:30 a.m. Grim gray dawn. I scribbled notes on a Beijing Hotel notepad, trying to record the horrific scene. A convoy of about 50 military vehicles came roaring down Changan Avenue, smashing through barricades while civilians shouted. For some exhausted reason I tried to count the number precisely, ticking off sets of four vertical lines traversed by a slanted one as the tanks and APCs passed. The tanks rumbled over everything: tents, corpses, debris from the 33-foot "Goddess of Democracy" statue the students had erected days earlier. Eventually loudspeakers began booming. All civilians were to remain in their homes: "The rebellion has been suppressed." The sound quality was so bad I could barely make out the garbled words. At the square's north end I saw a row of troops on their bellies, pointing machine guns toward the Beijing Hotel. I was sure they would never fire into a crowd of civilians. Then they did. I had to dive for cover in a pedestrian underpass to keep from getting hit.

The protests had been crushed by the time I returned to the Beijing Hotel with my colleague Carroll Bogert to settle the room bill. The area had been cordoned off for several days, I reminded the clerk, so he shouldn't bill me for the days when the hotel was inaccessible "due to the situation in Tiananmen Square." The man behind the counter stared at me and asked stonily, "What situation in Tiananmen Square?" This was too much. I yelled at him in fatigue and disgust: "What do you mean! Haven't you seen all the killing? It was right outside your hotel window! Tell the truth, damn it!" The hotel's security men edged toward me. "There's been no killing," the clerk said. "Nobody died in the square." Carroll dragged me out of there.