Man Of The Year: Little Man in a Big Hurry

An old revolutionary with scarcely a second to waste

Henry Kissinger has no recollection of ever calling Teng Hsiao-p'ing "a nasty little man," the celebrated epithet with which the former Secretary of State is often credited. As Kissinger told TIME last week, "He struck me as extremely able and tough. He had great skill in handling the bureaucratic mechanisms. When I met him [in 1975], Teng had not concentrated very much on foreign policy, but he learned fast. He's a man of no mean consequence."

Some other world leaders held different views. Nikita Khrushchev ignored...

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