On May 11, 1976, Tao Huanle and I were on duty at the swimming pool when Yu Yaju, one of the best and most experienced nurses on the medical team, rushed in. Mao was perspiring heavily and gasping for air, she told us. We ran to the Chairman's study. Zhang Yufeng stopped us. We insisted, suspecting that Mao had suffered a heart attack. We did not wait for permission to see him.

Mao was conscious but lethargic and made no objections as we began our work. We immediately performed an electrocardiogram and began emergency treatment. A single phone call to Zhongnanhai's Building H, where the medical team was housed, alerted other members of the team, who were there in moments. Mao had suffered a heart attack, a myocardial infarction—a small area of his heart muscle had died from insufficient oxygen. He was still experiencing ventricular extrasystol, or arrythmic heartbeat. Meng Jinyun and Li Lingshi, two women serving as nurses, told us that Mao's attack had begun shortly after his meeting with Laotian premier Kaysone Phoumvihan, while he was in the midst of an argument with Zhang Yufeng.

Hua Guofeng, Wang Hongwen, and Zhang Chunqiao had been notified immediately and rushed to the swimming pool while we were giving Mao emergency treatment. When the Chairman's condition stabilized, we briefed them. His condition was critical. The three politburo members agreed that Mao needed complete rest. The Foreign Ministry was to inform Chinese embassies throughout the world that Mao would no longer be receiving foreign visitors.

We were concerned that Mao's argument with Zhang Yufeng had precipitated the heart attack, so Hua Guofeng told her that the Chairman was very old and ill and urged her to be patient with him. Zhang Yufeng was irritated. Wang Hongwen stepped in to persuade her. “Xiao Zhang, please take good care of Chairman. We will be grateful to you,” he said.

Hua designated four politburo members—himself, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Wang Dongxing—to supervise the doctors, and we were told to inform Hua immediately in the event of emergency. Zhang Chunqiao suggested that the policy of sending Mao politburo documents be revised. Mao had continued to receive and review all politburo decisions despite his declining health, and his concurrence had been necessary for implementation. Hua Guofeng, Zhang Chunqiao, and Wang Hongwen agreed that henceforth the flow of documents would be slowed. The politburo would decide case by case whether to send its decisions to Mao. The Chairman needed rest. For the first time, Mao's control over the politburo was slipping. His power was declining. Jiang Qing's faction would dominate.

We were successful in stabilizing Mao immediately after his heart attack, but his condition continued to deteriorate. The arrythmia continued, and his urine output dropped to 500cc a day. The paralysis of his throat had progressed to the point that he was getting very little liquid and few nutrients. His attendants continued to feed him thick broths of chicken or beef but could get only small quantities down.

On May 15, the medical team held an urgent meeting with the politburo team in charge of our work. We pointed out that Mao was not getting sufficient liquid or nutrients, and his precarious condition demanded that we begin feeding him through a nasal tube.

Wang Hongwen wondered whether Mao was still receiving the glucose infusions. He was, but we could not administer sufficient quantities without overburdening his heart. Zhang Chunqiao argued that no one could force Mao to have the nasal tube put in. He would have to be persuaded, and Zhang Yufeng was the only one who could do this. Zhang Yufeng was called to the meeting. Hua Guofeng wanted her to listen to the doctors' assessment so she could talk to Mao.

Zhang Yufeng refused to come. She was too busy tending the Chairman, she said, and she was not a doctor. Attending the meeting would do her no good. The politburo members were at an impasse. Finally, Wang Hongwen said that he would talk to her.

At the end of the meeting, Hua Guofeng asked to see the nasal tube and had us explain how it worked. He thought that if the four politburo members in charge of Mao's health tested it on themselves, they could persuade the Chairman to use it. Hua, Wang Hongwen, Wang Dongxing, and Zhang Chunqiao agreed to return the next day. The doctors would insert the tube in each of them, and they could explain the procedure to Mao. Everyone in Group One agreed to test the nasal tube, too. Mao's personal staff could also try to persuade him.

Just after the meeting broke up, Wang Hongwen approached me. He had found a new medicine for Mao—ground pearls. He already had them—the best pearls that Shanghai could provide—and they had been ground. He wanted me to administer them to Mao.

I stalled. We had experimented on other patients to determine which cataract treatment would be best for Mao. I suggested we put together groups in Shanghai and Beijing and test the effects of ground pearls. Wang Dongxing chided me, accusing me of not trusting Wang Hongwen, a vice-chairman of the party. But I never carried out the experiments, and Mao never received the ground pearls.

Of the four politburo members who agreed to test the nasal tube, only Hua Guofeng actually did. The others—Wang Hongwen, Wang Dongxing, and Zhang Chunqiao—made excuses. Wang Dongxing had used a nasal tube during an earlier operation for ulcers. Wang Hongwen and Zhang Chunqiao were busy with meetings.

Hua Guofeng found the procedure a bit uncomfortable. He felt nauseated as the tube was inserted into the nostril and through his throat, but he felt no pain. He was prepared to describe the experience to Mao. Zhang Yufeng was the only member of Group One not to try. “I'm not sick,” she said, “so what good would it do to try Besides, even if I do try, Chairman may still not agree.”

Zhang Yufeng was right. Mao still did not agree. He refused to let us run any tests, but he let us take his pulse.

On the night of May 30, Mao suddenly began perspiring heavily again and lost consciousness. The doctors were called immediately, and as we were reviving him, we quickly inserted a nasal tube into his stomach. He regained consciousness immediately, before we had time to run an electrocardiogram, and he quickly yanked out the tube we had just put in. When one of the doctors tried to stop him, Mao shook his fist at him. He ordered the doctors out.

I stayed behind. We still did not know why he had fainted, though I suspected either hypoglycemia from lack of nutrients or another myocardial infarction. I wanted to do a blood test. He finally agreed to allow us to prick his ear to get a small drop of blood—not enough for a sophisticated test. We could only do a blood sugar count, which was low. The results told us little about his condition.

I insisted that he have an electrocardiogram. We needed to determine whether he had suffered another heart attack. After much persuasion, he allowed us to attach an electrode to his chest that we connected to a radio-controlled electrocardiograph in the reception area. Three heart specialists would take turns monitoring his heart from the reception area, prepared to intervene in an emergency.

Our battles over movies continued. I insisted that the movies, sometimes two a day, were not good for Mao's health, not only because he had to get out of bed to watch them but because some provided more excitement than I thought he needed—graphic rape scenes in films about the Japanese invasion, for instance. Others, like The Sound of Music and Love Story, were not objectionable, but I was still afraid that moving him around too much would put undue strain on his heart.

Zhang Yufeng wanted Mao to watch movies. Jiang Qing did not, though for reasons different from mine. She thought the light would hurt Mao's eyes and that the air would become foul. She asked her husband to stop watching them.

Wang Dongxing was in favor of movies, less because he thought they were good for Mao than because he was opposed to Jiang Qing. Wang gathered all the doctors together and asked us to write a report in favor of continuing them. The Chairman is sick, he argued, and needs some recreation. Is he not even allowed to watch movies?

When I reported that the doctors agreed that Mao should rest and that the movies were more excitement than his heart could bear, Wang Dongxing was annoyed. Wu Jie was worried that Wang and I were on the verge of blows. He warned me that we could not afford to offend Wang further. We needed his support to do our work. The doctors lost the argument. Mao and Zhang Yufeng continued watching movies.

Mao was restless. After lying in bed for a while, he would feel warm. His attendants would help him move to his sofa, but after sitting awhile, he would want to go back to bed. Jiang Qing suggested bringing in a second bed, so Mao could go back and forth between them. We brought in another bed. Mao was too weak to move by himself. Several people had to help him, and I was always worried that he might fall and break a bone.

On June 26, Mao was more restless and irritable than usual, continually moving back and forth between his two beds. I suspected that he was about to take another turn for the worse. That evening, Tao Huanle and I tried to encourage Zhang Yufeng to keep the Chairman quiet. His arrythmia persisted and his heart was severely short of blood. We were afraid of another myocardial infarction. Zhang Yufeng refused to listen, arguing that the Chairman was not behaving any differently than usual. “Nothing will happen,” she insisted. “I don't think it's that serious.”

At seven that evening, Mao took his sleeping pills and was lying in bed. But he was still restless. He moved first to his other bed and then to the sofa. Ten minutes later, he wanted to get back into bed. His heart was being monitored on a screen outside his room. Suddenly, the electrocardiograph registered another myocardial infarction.

Tao Huanle and I rushed in to begin emergency treatment, followed shortly thereafter by Hua Guofeng, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Wang Dongxing, and the entire medical team. This myocardial infarction was much more severe than the last, affecting a larger area of the heart. We worked until four o'clock the next morning, when Mao's blood pressure finally began to stabilize. We had inserted the feeding tube again, and this time Mao did not pull it out.

We upped the number of medical personnel on duty and worked out a schedule for shifts. Twenty-four nurses began working around the clock, with eight nurses on duty in three eight-hour shifts. The doctors also divided into three shifts, with five doctors per shift, including one to monitor the electrocardiograph. The four politburo members divided into two shifts. Hua Guofeng and Zhang Chunqiao took the day shift, from noon to midnight. Wang Hongwen and Wang Dongxing were on duty from midnight to noon. I supervised all the shifts and briefed the politburo members on Mao's condition the previous twelve hours at the beginning of each one.

Jiang Qing, still living at Diaoyutai, moved back into Zhongnanhai, staying at the Spring Lotus Chamber, which had been refurbished and modernized in 1974. She had no responsibility for supervising Mao's treatment and dropped in only occasionally to take a look at her husband.

Zhang Yaoci, at Zhang Yufeng's suggestion, wanted to place the nurses under her supervision while I supervised the doctors. The nurses worked most closely with Mao, and since Zhang Yufeng was always there too, she thought she was best able to supervise them. I insisted that the nurses had to follow the doctors' orders, without interference from Zhang. Zhang Yaoci decided not to press Zhang Yufeng's case.

Zhang Yaoci also wanted the doctors to take custody of Mao's medicine. But the regulations had always specified that doctors could only prescribe medicine and not administer it. As a matter of security, we were not allowed direct access to it, nor were we allowed to administer it. The nurses gave Mao his medicine. I insisted on sticking to the rules. If anything went wrong, who would be held responsible?

My relationship with Zhang Yaoci took a nosedive over this disagreement, and we had a heated argument. He accused me of disobeying the “organization”—him—and said it was only because of the Chairman that he bothered to put up with me at all. I pointed out that security regulations that had been in effect for decades prohibited me from following his orders. From then until Mao's death we often argued, and I suspected that when Mao was gone, he would find a way to retaliate.