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On July 17, 1976, Hua Guofeng called the medical team to a politburo meeting being held in the reception room in the old swimming pool. Three weeks had passed since Mao's second myocardial infarction, and his condition had stabilized. But his life was still in danger. His lung infections continued; his kidney function was poor; and he was still at risk for another heart attack. We presented a detailed report to the politburo, and I emphasized the precariousness of Mao's condition.
When we finished our report, Jiang Qing wanted to know why, if Mao had already suffered two myocardial infarctions, he might still have another one. She accused us again of exaggerating the gravity of Mao's condition in order to escape responsibility for our inability to treat him. She insisted that Mao just had a case of bronchitis, that his lungs had been good, and that he had never before had kidney problems. “You make everything sound so awful,” she said. “I think you have not been properly reformed. In bourgeois society, doctors are the masters and nurses the servants. That is why Chairman says we should accept only a third of what doctors say.”
The medical team was stunned. The nurses lowered their heads in embarrassment.
Hua Guofeng defended us, pointing out that the doctors were working very hard, doing their best to carry out their duties. He, Wang Dongxing, Wang Hongwen, and Zhang Chunqiao had been on duty, in shifts, around the clock supervising our work. He understood what we were doing and was pleased that three weeks had passed without further medical emergency. He wanted us to work doubly hard, to prepare for all possible emergencies and be ready to treat whatever new problem might arise. “We don't understand medicine,” he said, “so we have to ask you to provide Chairman with the best possible medical care. The party center is grateful to you.”
We were thankful for Hua's support, but everyone on the medical team was concerned about Jiang Qing's accusations. By saying we had not yet been reformed and were behaving like doctors in bourgeois society, she was implying that we were counterrevolutionary, for which we could pay a heavy price. Our medical explanations meant nothing to her. The case of Stalin's doctors weighed heavily on all our minds.
After the meeting, during Wang Dongxing's shift, I spoke to him about our concerns. He, too, was worried. “Jiang Qing is becoming increasingly arrogant,” he said. “She's always criticizing someone during politburo meetings.” Earlier in the month, at a State Council planning meeting, she had attacked Hua Guofeng. Hua himself was having a hard time with Jiang Qing. Wang Dongxing wondered what I thought about getting rid of her now, while Mao was sick.
I was cautious. Mao was ill, but he was still alive and very alert. His mind was clear. He was blind in his left eye, but he saw well with the right one. Nothing of importance could be kept from him, and it was impossible to get rid of Jiang Qing without his consent. He would never agree to the purge of his wife. “You have to wait until he dies,” I told Wang.
“It will be very difficult after Chairman's death,” Wang said.
“Not necessarily,” I replied.
Wang told me that he and Hua Guofeng had already talked about arresting Jiang Qing. Hua was not certain they would be able to seize her and was afraid that if she escaped, her enemies would be in serious trouble. Wang Dongxing said he had told Hua that he would go to the ends of the earth to get rid of Jiang Qing.
Wang Hongwen came in as our conversation was ending. I briefed him on the Chairman's condition and went to look in on Mao.
In the next few days, Mao's condition improved somewhat. His heart regained some strength, and the medicines and nutrients he was receiving through the tube in his stomach were having some effect.
On the night of July 27–28, I had stayed in the swimming pool area for several hours after giving my usual briefing when Wang Dongxing and Wang Hongwen began their midnight shift. I returned to my room in Building H sometime before three o'clock in the morning. I ordinarily slept in my cubbyhole off the old swimming pool, but the ordeal with Mao was exhausting me, and I could sleep better in Building H.
I was just drifting off to sleep when I was jolted awake by a violent shaking. The whole building was trembling. Outside my window, the sky was a brilliant red. It was an earthquake. The other doctors and nurses were running into the courtyard outside and were calling me to join them. But I was too tired. I stayed in bed. Then my telephone rang. Wang Dongxing was yelling at me from the other end of the line. “Hurry! This is a huge earthquake. Why aren't you here yet?”
I rounded up the medical staff and we ran to Mao's study.
Yu Yaju, Li Lingshi, Meng Jinyun, and Zhang Yufeng had been with Mao when the earthquake struck. His bed had been dangerously shaken, the whole building had trembled, and the rattling of the tin roof over the old swimming pool had been fearsomely loud. Some of the boards covering the swimming pool had been pried loose. Mao was awake and alert, and after wondering aloud what was happening, he knew that an earthquake had struck. Wang Dongxing and Wang Hongwen were conferring. Mao had to be moved, and they were trying to decide on the safest place. Wang Hongwen suggested the Gong Garden villa in western Beijing, built for Mao under Zhou Enlai's instructions in early 1972. But Mao never liked Gong Garden and had refused to stay there. Wang Dongxing suggested Building 202, constructed in 1974 and meant to be earthquake-proof. The building was just south of the swimming pool and connected to it by a corridor. When I told Mao we thought he should move to the safer Building 202, he agreed. We immediately wheeled him on his hospital bed through the corridor to the new building, and the medical staff moved all the equipment. Mao's new room was much larger, and it accommodated our medical equipment easily. The work of the medical team was easier there.
In the midst of a heavy rainfall the evening after the first earthquake, a second one struck. But Building 202 was so well constructed we barely felt it.
Mao's condition had stabilized, but he was still critically ill. The medical team was working around the clock. In the aftermath of the earthquake, Zhang Yufeng started the movies again. Mao was too ill to watch, but Wang Hongwen had imported a new projector and a wide-screen television from Hong Kong. They claimed they were screening the movies—often two a day—for Mao, for when he was well enough to watch. Zhang Yaoci would often join Zhang Yufeng and the entire staff of Group One, and they were sometimes not around when we needed them. When Jiang Qing stopped by to look in on her husband, they would quickly hide the equipment. To the medical team, it seemed that Mao's staff was relaxing and having fun while we were working ourselves to exhaustion. The behavior of Group One was bad for the medical team's morale, and I raised the issue with Wang Dongxing. Wang was not concerned. “They watch movies. You doctors treat your patient. You don't interfere with each other. What's wrong with that?” But the movie watching did interfere with our work. One time they took away the extension cord on Mao's feeding tube so they could plug in their equipment. When I complained to Zhang Yaoci, he said that while the medical team had lots to do, the staff of Group One did not. He was going to have a bell installed so we could call when we needed them.
Jiang Qing was another source of interference. She was still pushing the campaign against Deng Xiaoping and would sometimes bring us documents about it. She wanted the doctors on duty to rewrite the documents in characters large enough for the Chairman to read. When I protested that the doctors were consumed by their work with Mao, she pointed out that the Chairman's condition was stable. “Let him read some documents to make him feel better,” she said. Hua Guofeng and Wang Dongxing tried to persuade her not to bring more documents, but she refused to listen.
Jiang Qing was afraid she might be suffering from some of Mao's diseases. She wanted his medical team to conduct a series of examinations on her. I pleaded on behalf of the exhausted and overburdened doctors, but Wang Dongxing and Zhang Yaoci supported her request, so the doctors ran a series of tests. She was perfectly healthy. Wang Dongxing thought Jiang's request was a ploy. She would want her own team of doctors after Mao's death and was using the examinations to decide whom she liked best.
On August 28, before she left for an inspection tour that included a visit to her favorite Dazhai brigade, Jiang Qing asked me to appoint two doctors from Mao's medical team to accompany her, claiming that there were so many doctors around the Chairman that surely a couple would not be missed. She relented only after I protested that each doctor had a specific assignment and our ability to treat the Chairman would be affected if anyone left.
Mao was becoming fretful again. He could breathe only while lying on his left side, and the tremors in his hands and feet were continuous and pronounced. His arrythmia grew more severe. We changed his medication and his condition improved somewhat, but his health was still precarious.
At five o'clock in the afternoon of September 2, Mao suffered another myocardial infarction, far more severe than the previous two and affecting a much larger area of his heart. His body was giving out. We began emergency treatment immediately. X rays indicated that his lung infection had worsened, and his urine output dropped to less than 300cc a day.
Mao was awake and alert throughout the crisis and asked several times whether he was in danger. His condition continued to fluctuate and his life hung in the balance, but I assured him we were confident he would recover. I had to reassure him. No one wanted to tell the Chairman that he could die at any moment.
Three days later, on September 5, Mao's condition was still critical, and Hua Guofeng called Jiang Qing back from her trip. She spent only a few moments in Building 202 before returning to her own residence in the Spring Lotus Chamber. She was tired, she said, and she did not ask how her husband was doing. The doctors could not understand her callousness. Wang Dongxing found it quite understandable. Mao was the last obstacle to Jiang Qing's absolute power. She was waiting for him to die.
On the afternoon of September 7, Mao took a turn for the worse. His death, we all knew, was imminent. Jiang Qing came to Building 202 when she learned the news. Mao had just fallen asleep and needed the rest, but she insisted on rubbing his back and moving his limbs, and she sprinkled powder on his body. We protested that the Chairman should not be moved and that the dust from the powder was not good for his lungs, but she instructed the nurses on duty to follow her example later. Then she met with the medical team, shaking hands with each of us in turn and repeating to everyone, “You should be happy now.” Her behavior was so bizarre that only later did I realize she must have meant that we should be happy because Mao would soon be dead and she would be in power.
She returned that evening, looking for a document she had brought to Mao earlier. We were so busy treating the Chairman that no one offered to help, and she flared up, saying that someone had stolen the papers.
The next morning, September 8, she came again. She wanted us to change Mao's sleeping position, claiming that he had been lying too long on his left side. The doctor on duty objected, knowing that he could breathe only on his left side, but she had him moved nonetheless. Mao's breathing stopped, and his face turned blue. Jiang Qing left the room while we put him on a respirator and performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The Chairman revived, and Hua Guofeng urged Jiang Qing not to interfere further with the doctors' work.
But there was no longer anything we could do. At ten minutes past midnight on September 9, 1976, Mao's heart stopped beating and the electrocardiograph went flat. The Chairman was dead.