During the tumultuous upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, Mao Tse-tung's Little Red Book of Quotations from Chairman Mao became the Bible of Communist China. Now a letter has surfaced indicating that Chairman Mao himself had grave reservations about the cult of personality that engulfed him and his words in the mid-1960s.
Writing, probably from Hangchow, to his wife Chiang Ching on July 8, 1966, Mao said: "I have never believed that those booklets of mine possessed so much magic. Now, thanks to this babbling, the whole nation has been caught up in it. I expressed disagreement with my friend, but what...