Zhou Enlai’s Talk with Le Duc Tho, Special Adviser at the Paris Talks, in Beijing

At 5:50 p.m. on July 12, 1972, when meeting at the Great Hall of the People with Le Duc Tho,

member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Vietnam and special adviser to the head of the Vietnamese government delegation to the Paris Conference on Vietnam [Foreign] Minister Xuan Thay, [Zhou Enlai] said, in 1945 Chairman Mao went to Chongqing to negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek. Before his departure, he asked the liberation areas to prepare for war and not to worry about his safety. At that time, many of our comrades in the liberation areas disapproved of Chairman Mao's trip because they were afraid that Chiang Kai-shek would imprison Chairman Mao. Stalin sent us a telegram, and Chairman Ho [Chi Minh] was aware of this matter. Stalin said that we must go to Chongqing to negotiate; otherwise the Chinese nation faced the danger of being destroyed. He was frightened by the two atomic bombs of the United States. The telegram was not signed with Stalin's name. In the end, both Chairman Mao and I went. Chairman Mao told me that we must be ready to be imprisoned and that imprisonment would give us time to read books. We cabled the liberation areas that if Chiang Kai-shek attacked you, you should resist him resolutely. While we were negotiating, our forces annihilated one division of Chiang Kai-shek's troops in North China. As a result, Chairman Mao returned to Yanan safely.