don't remember reading about our flying U-2's over China or of our giving them to the Taiwan forces to do so, but there they were and considering how high they flew it was an interesting commentary on the state of the anti aircraft defenses of the P. R. C. After all Russia only got one of them.

Of course, we went to the Great Wall which was fas- cinating as it is to all tourists. But while it had rained in Beijing 2 days before, it had snowed up in the mountains north of the city where we went to the wall. And that wall had to be the coldest place I have ever been. I was wearing 2 pairs of pants, a pants suit top, a wind breaker, a sweater and a long trench coat with a liner, gloves, hood and a scarf across my nose and throat and still it was cold. I looked like a creature from Mars walking on the wall. We visited the famous Tien An Men Square which is a "really big square" as Sullivan might have said. The Great Hall of the People is a truly amazing place. It was said to have been built in 10 months to meet a dead- line for some big event but it is a large building not in height as it is probably only the equiv- alent of maybe 4 stories but in the size and number of rooms banquet halls, meeting rooms etc. Americans could no more build that size building in 10 months than they could swim the Atlantic. For those who still think of China as a rather primitive place with no modern talents etc. it would be an eye opener for them to visit the country. Not only modern loco- motive factories and auto fac- tories turning out trainloads of trucks-we saw one--gigantic buildings, the Peking subway, and we also saw a number of jet fighter planes at Lanchow airport which were Chinese made. They may not be the equal of the USSR or the USA yet, but they are not wasting any time catching up.

My opinions in summary. The country is big, beautiful and interesting. The people are bright, interested and very frien- dly. The stores have all manner of things in them but instead of 40 different brands of radios or TVs they have only a few varying largely in size or price. I bought a 3 battery flashlight (without batteris of course) for $2.50 US which would have cost $6-7 here i'm sure. Their Their hotels are not luxury places because they don't need them but they are adequate. Food is plentiful in hotels and apparentlu on the street as lots of it is sold right on the curbing having been raised in the small personal plots that all commune peasants get for their own use. Politically, I think socialism is the only kind of political system which could work in China at this point in history. Any idea of its re- truning to capitalism as we know it is not only extremely unlikely to happen but if it did I think it would degenerate in a few years to a band of local business leaders who would soon become modern war lords defe- nding their own little kingdom. The country is so big and so populous that only a system that unifies all the people for common purpose would be reasonable.

a

When I say unifies the people I am well aware that there are dissenters in China and that some of their methods

even in the past few years are re- pressive. But there are dissenters everywhere--we have plenty of them--certainly. And I did see evidences of the unification of purpose. Many of the young people that we talked to in universities and even those on the

street who would stop us to try

out

their english seemed to understand the needs of their country and be willing to do their part being sent to other places where their talents were needed etc. It is my personal

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opinion that China will in 25-50 years, be one of if not the leading nation of the world because they are showing an interest in borrowing the best from capitalism and socialism alike. The USSR is slowly going down the tubes because central- ized control of all aspects of national life is simply not working so their brank of socia- lism has many weak points. On the other hand, anyone willing to look at western capit- alism with an objective eye is forced to see that it is break- ing down too. It may take a long time to finish the job but the present economic posi- tion not only of this country but of European countries too is certainly no argument for the undying and eternal valid- ity of capitalism as a way for human life. On top of that with the declining availability of natural resorces especially petroleum and fresh clean pot- able water, the increase of pop- ulation beyond the food supply it should be clear that the human race will have to realize that cooperation and not competi- tion is the only way to survive. How that will come about I can't say and what form it will take I can't say indeed I don't know but I am sure it will have to occur sooner or later--assum- ing that we don't solve the whole problem with a nuclear exchange in the meantime. Well, I didn't mean to get philosophic, but one sees the impact of the cooperative and the competi- tive coming to a head in China. They are solving it by allowing cooperatives to sell at market prices (after they have supplied the quotas required by the central government) and to split any resulting profit among the members of the cooperative. This then becomes a kind of group capitalism and the init- iative to earn and the decision as to how to spend the groups profit is made by the group itself. This I think is the wave of the future. Well enough of