Image of Edgar Snow (right), American journalist, engaged in conversation with Chou En-Lai, Premier of Communist China.

io/Historical Note: Born in Missouri in 1905, Edgar Parks Snow (1905-1972) graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism and traveled to China in 1928 as a stowaway to report on revolution and change, which he did with idealism and personal fervor. Snow traveled to Mao Zedong's guerrilla redoubt in Yenan in 1936 Snow returned to the United States in 1941 and became a reporter for the Saturday Evening Post. He covered the Soviet Union, among other countries, during World War II. He revisited China in 1960 and reported on the state of that country after 11 years of Communist rule in The Other Side of the River: Red China Today (1962). Snow stood with Mao on the balcony of Tienanmen in 1970. Snow died on 15 February 1972, just four days before Richard Nixon left on his historic trip to China. Snow was famous for his book Red Star Over China. Snow's sympathetic and somewhat romantic introduction of the goals, history, and personalities of the Chinese Communist revolutionary army established Mao Zedong as a Chinese hero in the American press.