nixon went, he invited the french who had been in china to see what we could learn from that and lonrho said it's a desperately poor country, the most important thing you can do is to do it plan had to get the economic aid but he didn't want economic aid and he didn't want china connected with the rest of the world. when nixon went there and they didn't have the telephonic equipment to protect us with washington in a way appropriate to the president. [inaudible] at any rate, we would have been amazed at the lack of progress that's taking place and couldn't take place until mao had died. >> host: in the late 1970's he revolutionized the chinese economy because he began reform through agriculture commissioner and agricultural reform that has been laid up a framework for what we see today. everything was ideology. i don't know whether it is black or gray as long as it catches mice. so anything that worked. and he liberated the energy of the chinese people. one has to remember that over the last 2,000 years, in 1800 or the last 2,000 years, china had the largest gross domestic product in th