Skeptics

But there were skeptics in the Delegation who dismissed the numerous discussions as boring repetition of the 'official party-line"—that whatever our Chinese hosts told us couldn't really depart much from that line, and that we had no independent means of judging the truth or falsity of their statement. However, during the time I spent away from the Delegation with two families in Kwangchow, my conversations with these people reinforced most of what had been said in the earlier discussions prior to Kwangchow. To me it was significant that those conversations were conducted very informally and without requiring an interpreter, so that I was hearing these people's views and their answers to my questions directly.

in the course of my conversations with the two families in Kwangchow, they exposed their criticisms and views of the Gang of Four Prior to Kwangchow vigorous attacks and criticisms of the Gang of Four had dominated most of the discussions at all the various institutions we had visited.